Response 1, Week 2

To Queenie's free write "First day Freshman":

I can't fully describe how much I enjoyed reading this piece. It's not entirely a Nonsense poem, but it's not exactly Futurist or even Dadaist. I think the closest genre to which one can file this poem is under the Surrealist banner (or one of its many derivatives). It's as if you took Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," and everything ee cummings, Pablo Neruda, and Kurt Schwitters ever wrote.

I think these could help you, given the structure of this piece:

1. Pablo Neruda, "Sonnet LXVI (I do not love you)"
2. ee cummings, "i love you much(most beautiful darling"
3. T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
4. Gertrude Stein, "If I Told Him"
5. Patti Smith, "Perfect Moon"
6. John Ashbery, "Glazunoviana"
7. Leonard Cohen, "Tower of Song"
8. Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
9. Richard Huelsenbeck, "To Ludwig the cocotte"
10. Yevegny Yevtushenko, "I Would Like"

With the experimental direction you are taking with this piece, those ten poems are must-reads. All of them are insanely important in some manner. Also, if you haven't before, then look up the Beatles song "I Am the Walrus" or David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs." These songs, too, may spark more inspiration.

"Philosophers pondered on the purple-ness of God" is my favorite line. Noam Chomsky would call this nonsensical language, but I experienced something quite different and probably not intended--when I read it for the first time, I thought to myself, "Hm...how purple is God?" For a moment, I became part of the nonsense--I the reader gave the line a small measure of reality. That is, of course, a powerful notion--the writer and speaker don't do the work; the reader does. The reader gives life--even to the apparent nonsense

Improv/Imitation 1, Week 2

[Note:  In the original piece at the bottom, I attempt to imitate/play off (primarily) the syntaxes and tones of BOTH Ashbery and Meitner]

John Ashbery's "Glazunoviana":

The man with the red hat
And the polar bear, is he here too?
The window giving on shade,
Is that here too?
And all the little helps,
My initials in the sky,
The hay of an arctic summer night?

The bear
Drops dead in sight of the window.
Lovely tribes have just moved to the north.
In the flickering evening the martins grow denser.
Rivers of wings surround us and vast tribulation.

from Erika Meitner's "Electric Girls":

Translucent letters scatter across the sky
in an air show for tourists:  ladies' night
with two-dollar drafts down the beach--
a gluttonous ad for the stutter of summer lust
or a general message from the deities?
Maybe Mithra the god of light, tied
to the sun; maybe Hathor, the Egyptian
protector of everything feminine.

[...]

Newscasters first reported the girls were abducted,
but escaped unhurt.  Papers nationwide printed
their names until authorities discovered they were raped
and their identities were immediately erased,
changed to "two teenage girls" or "the victims."

In the nineteenth centry, girls in whose presence
certain phenomena occurred--the movement of objects
without contact, or at a brush from a petticoat:
a compass needle's tremor, the agitation of a cold wind--
were called Electric Girls, could distinguish
between the poles of a magnet at a touch.

[...]

Still a commission appointed by the Academy of Sciences
observed nothing but violent movements of her chair,
probably caused, they decided, by muscular force--
a testament to her strength, these stories

like the skywriter's letters, forgotten,
abstracting into loops and dots around the sun.



"A Decade in the Life"

How could anyone ever possibly forget--
the black, suffocating smoke that choked three thousand ghosts-to-be?
the fire that rose from the pits of Hell to consume the corporate dreamers?
the man who tumbled towards the earth like an Olympic gymnast to an asphalt mat?
the baby boys and baby girls who were oblivious to reality (our reality) itself (whatever that means)?
the blood-curdling wails pixilated and displayed in two dimensions?
the fanatic who gagged Optimism with merely two thumbs, an index finger, and a pinky?
the trepidation and horror shoved down Democracy's throat?
the fingers that will continue to gag the idiot-savants for the rest of their lives?
the rain that gathered in a colorful pond, then flooded the desert?
the mommies and daddies who left their baby monitors next to the bed and crib?
the survival instinct that clicked just before the sky fell upon the American dream?
the cold spirituality that carved itself into a postmodern Pieta?
the flight attendants who briefly became spies--like a blind, confused James Bond?
the insurance salesman who preached to the robins and blue jays, Oh God! Oh...!?
the heroism that invaded like the common cold, and cured with the fire of a mile?
the daredevils who grabbed their souls instead of their parachutes?
the infant and senior who entangled like electrons (momentum, then position)?
the metal coffins that burned one morning and disappeared that night?
the cinque--in action, of course--that lost an arm to unwanted amputation?
the phantom limbs that haunt annually, always before Halloween?
the works of dark romanticism one can only find in mental etches and the id?
the liar who wanted to finish a paperback novel after the call to duty?
the failed Hamlet who chose to be to prevent the children from hysterics and exposure?
-- trick question: a single, swollen heart can't.

Free Entry 1, Week 2

To avoid confusion, note:  This was originally posted (ACCIDENTALLY) last Friday to the bottom of last week's free entry post.  Realizing this mistake, I am posting it again.

"God is Love"
if god is love, then what the hell are you?
you stole the trinket around my neck
but left me with a rash of prophetic cruelty
and the hind-sight of Schrodinger's cat

if god is love, then what the hell are you?
i gave you the most valuable item i own
but you greedily consumed it
before i could even ask, are you sure?

if god is love, then what the hell are you?
you were a self-conscious jackhammer
and i should have finished the job myself
at least i know where to touch

if god is love, then what the hell are you?
nearly eight inches passed between you
before you even thought of the first guy you fucked
i'm sorry dear but practice does not make perfect

if god is love, then what the hell are you?
please do not wake my home phone
i'm busy at the moment
finishing the job that you could barely start

Sign Inventory 1, Week 2

Erika Meitner's "Electric Girls"

Translucent letters scatter across the sky
in an air show for tourists:  ladies' night
with two-dollar drafts down the beach--
a gluttonous ad for the stutter of summer lust
or a general message from the deities?
Maybe Mithra the god of light, tied
to the sun; maybe Hathor, the Egyptian
protector of everything feminine.

-- alliteration and assonance ("two-dollar drafts down" and "stutter of summer lust")
-- allusions to the Zoroastrianist figure Mithra and the Egyptian god Hathor

This is missing girl season.  Two more disappear
at gunpoint from cars in Quartz Hill, boyfriends left intact,
bound with duct tape, still parked in lover's lane.
After Amber Alerts flash on every California freeway,
the girls are found by sheriffs' deputies, who shoot
Roy Dean Ratliff on a desolate stretch of road
where he had driven to kill and bury them.

-- first sentence of the stanza changes the tone of the poem
-- "Roy Dean Ratliff" interrupts the stanza's smooth flow

Newscasters first reported the girls were abducted,
but escaped unhurt.  Papers nationwide printed
their names until authorities discovered they were raped
and their identities were immediately erased,
changed to "two teenage girls" or "the victims."

-- first stanza written with verbs in past-tense
-- "until" marks the stanza's turn
-- juxtaposition created between the speaker's use of the word "girls" and the details "two teenage girls" and "the victims"

In the nineteenth century, girls in whose presence
certain phenomena occurred--the movement of objects
without contact, or at a brush from a petticoat:
a compass needle's tremor, the agitation of a cold wind--
were called Electric Girls, could distinguish
between the poles of a magnet at a touch.

-- date specified, unlike the previous stanza, in which the speaker uses past tense but specifies no date
-- the "petticoat" and "cold wind" are set up as the blamed subjects, while "objects" and "compass" are set up as the victimized subjects
-- stanza disrupted and broken into two parts:  before "the movement" and after "cold wind"
-- the middle section is grammatically incorrect (specifically, a comma splice following "contact," a colon following "petticoat," and a second comma splice after "tremor")

The most famous was a Normandy peasant, Angelique Cottin.
Taken to Paris, she was placed under the observation
of doctors and others who testified to her authenticity.
Still a commission appointed by the Academy of Sciences
observed nothing but violent movements of her chair,
probably caused, they decided, by muscular force--
a testament to her strength, these stories

-- first female the speaker identifies by birth name, while the collective is called "Electric Girls"
-- "doctors" and "others" (and "the Academy of Sciences") call back to memory "two teenage girls" and "the victims" (and the "Electric Girls")
-- "nothing" and "probably" are vague, ambiguous details; also, "testament" and "stories"

like the skywriter's letters, forgotten,
abstracting into loops and dots around the sun.

-- the word "forgotten" is vague and ambiguous; also, it's juxtaposed against the word "abstracting," adding further confusion

Calisthenic 1, Week 2

From Tuesday's class (9/6):

There are those who say I grow young with age, like a zombie with Martin Landau's brain and Benjamin Button's genes. 

There are those who say I'm already trapped in a pitiful, vacant, wooden lot, forgotten by the annals of polished history and coffee-stained Bibles. 

But nothing will ever send a premature jolt along my circuits and wires more than the static and sparks between wet-dreams and electric fantasies.

Junkyard Quotes 1-8, Week 2

1.  "...like a grandfather clock on its deathbed." (from an old writing journal)
2.  "...sounds like an IBM default after a 33-year nicotine addiction." (me on Nico's voice)
3.  "How many ways can you read the Bible?" (Dr. Tietjen)
4.  "...ding an sich." (Dr. Snaith)
5.  "...ghost of the cliche." (Dr. Davidson)
6.  "Life is made in China." (Dr. Tietjen)
7.  "I ordered a Kindle to read all the trashy romance novels I was too afraid to buy." (Felicia Day)
8.  "you can't say 'fuck' in radio free america" (Patti Smith)