Responses 1-2, Week 1

To Dawn's Calisthenics:

I honestly cannot accurately describe how much I absolutely love what you've done with Addonizio's piece.  Alone, her piece is strong and bold, and it would be so easy to fall under the weight of expectation as it relates to her.  You, though, have managed to avoid that.  Your piece isn't consumed by the waves of Addonizio's legacy; you make it your own.  Your postmodern take is self-evident.  Line 5 just blew me away.  You took her concrete image and quite literally liquified it.  "1 fl oz" and "bottled" has such pro-feminist potential.  An item made to target women that is, much like oppressed feminity, kept small and confined.  I also enjoyed the allusions to Exon and McDonalds, which further draws the piece into a postmodern consciousness.  The "skin glittering" and "old Exon" with "day-old pies" seems to suggest a rupture of one's identity due to the rampant consumerist ideology under which society buries itself.  Then, when you consider the twilight woods brand and the desire to have it and the fact that it causes the glittering adds to the power of your postmodern critique of inauthentic identity.

I do keep in mind, however, that this may not have been your intention at all.  But isn't it kinda funny how many interpretations can be drawn by many different individuals?  Quite fascinating.


To Dee's "Home":

I just have to say that I never thought the word "yum" could ever be employed as brilliantly as it is in this piece.  That one three-lettered word separates the former half--the recipe--and the latter half.  I keep reading it back to myself aloud, testing to see how it would sound without the word "yum."  It really makes all the difference.  It is simple, quick, and easy; but you've employed it in such a way that it--and it alone--allows the piece to flow neatly without sounding choppy or disproportionate. 

My favorite is line 11:  "...a child later named jazz."  Two things strike me immediately:  one, jazz isn't capitalized; and two, the delay between "child" and "named."  By not capitalizing "jazz," it begs a series of questions related to identity and personification.  If "jazz" was a person, then it would mean that the "child" was named some time after birth.  It makes me wonder, "Exactly what is this thing called humanity, and what holds it together--culture? music? practices? food?"

This is just simply beyond brilliant, and I'm so glad that I finally read through it.  Keep editing and polishing, and this will surely become a beloved piece by many.  Bloody brilliant.

Calisthenic 1, Week 1

"Introduction to Poetry"

I. 
a semblance
and an instance of discourse
a succession of loose sentences
and the spaces we own

II.
ringo did not conquer brenda
but in the end as you know
the puppet becomes a real boy

as far as i can tell
the large room was full of people
but we hardly noticed that
ghalib was dead

III.
lenin is in warsaw
so relocate the distinction
even while calling in various places
for a return to polarity

IV.
the spaces we own, the
spaces we own, the spaces
we own, the spaces we
own, the spaces we own
oh, the spaces we own

Sign Inventory 1 AND Improv/Imitation 1, Week 1

Given its length, I will only focus on the first page of Allen Ginsburg's "Howl."  The following is the excerpt with which I shall imitate and annotate:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
      madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
     looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
     connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
     ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
     up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
     cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
     contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
     saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
     ment roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
     hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
     among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
     publishing obscene odes on the windows of the
     skull,

SIGN INVENTORY

Line 1:  the descriptive, ironical phrase "the best minds" suggests an inversion of values, whereas the avant-garde artists are placed in a superior position in relation to their Modernist critics.

Line 2:  the words "madness," "starving," and "hysterical" places the blame for their degeneration on something (though we don't know what exactly) outside of themselves; they have been driven to this state

Line 3:  the word "dragging" has a Sisyphus-like quality to it; a drug addict who becomes addicted and wants to get clean has to figuratively "drag" themselves against their own consciousness to the next hit.

Lines 5-6:  the words "angelheaded" and "heavenly" carry pleasant, almost tranquil-like connotations, which the reader then relates back to "the best minds"; this garners sympathy for those individuals who are angelic-like but tortured by a force outside themselves

Line 8:  the first instance of the word "who" at the beginning of a line suggests a turn in the poem's lyricalism; for the rest of the poem, the word "who" comes to serve as a place marker for the reader to take a breath; each line after should be read in one elongated breath

Lines 12-14:  the Islamic references contradict the common Western conception of religion, which is almost always related to Christianity; the word "angels" triggers the image most Westerners have only to turn them on their heads with "Mohammadean"

Lines 15-17:  the phrases "radiant cool eyes" and "scholars of war" clash with one another, presenting a relationship that is almost contradictory to expectations; the "radiant cool eyes" seemingly has no worries, while the "scholars of war" spend their entire careers knee-deep in war history

Line 18:  "for crazy" is nonsensical; it is an adjective, yet here it is used as a noun

Line 19-20:  alliteration is employed when we read "obscene odes on," which gels well with the word "skull"; both "obscene" and "skull" are striking words that each compliments the other

IMPROV/IMITATION

I saw the only admirable figures of my time
     rupture themselves with thick tongues of lead
the rebellious saints that mold their parts askew
     from last night's leftovers and paradoxes
the cloned turnips murdering and raping their hopes
     and desires--whatever that means means
who operate fleshy laboratories and sqwat, thrust,
     shit, cake, shit, into another pile of shit
who lasers and barbs that shit in an anxious bundle of
     time & by and by & dancing flames
who pixelated a parasitic masterpiece of human anatomy
     that eats Lincolns, Washingtons, and Jeffersons
     and shits in a hot-pink coin purse without
     consideration--whatever that means means
who danced and flamed and dogged and filmed
     and extinguished self and own respectively
     for a winter of failured cigarette ash
who prop their worth up like mannequins on stilts
     like Bruce, Kenny, Cherilyn, and Miss Shores
who spread butter, green ink, & red white blue,
     pride--whatever that means means
who lamia's lamia bakes bread to rise rise risen
     and gorge for you and gorge on you and
     gorge on pleasure with no teeth or water
who had a mouth like sandpaper that rashed dicks
     though consuming the infinite future of humankind--
     whatever that means,

Free Entry 1, Week 1

"Red, Red"

Dear Diary,
This shall be the final time
I ever reference you by name or trait.

He understands love, he says,
but it is the kind shared between a failed poet
and his forgettable words,
like a stage mother who tortures her daughter,
a beauty queen--
a stage mother who tortures a poor child
with the cheers of pedophiles
and the promise of chocolate candies
then cries on national television,
cries through the static on channel five,
We just want our baby home.
Is there anything more barbaric?

Despite the embarrassment I suffer
from your mere existence,
which paints my face red, red--
much like a marble floor stained
from the juice of cherries murdered
between the toes of madmen
and saints--red, red,
(despite the embarrassment,)
I do not cry for you through static,
though I am the one
who gives you meaning and purpose.
It is not murder, I contend,
but I am forced to make a choice,
like a woman drowned in unwanted placenta,
like a woman who must make a decision
between facing assassins and
freeing herself from the bonds of maternity
or having herself ripped apart
and duplicated (though only partially).
Is there anything more horrific?

He insists upon disclosure, creativity,
and sophistication;
therefore, I see no alternative.
You and I must remain anonymous to the other;
we cannot become aquaintances.
Please do not blame yourself
or cry through the static on channel five.
It isn't you; it was never you.

Dear Diary,
It's me.
It will always
be me.