Sunday, January 30, 2011

Free Write 1, Week 3

My attempt at the catalog.

Base by Ben McClain

Ryan wears fitted hats, pressed bills. Covering his clumps of twisted hair,
like tarp does hay during a winter draft.
He never ties his shoes, Or ritually cleans.
But he doesn’t disappoint during the big times,
like paying the warden His due.

Calvin rarely matches.
His room is cluttered with relics of our affairs with the ‘civilians’ around us,
Little Things like shopping carts and stop sighs and bottles and bottles of
Courage.
He forgets, the time, the day and sometimes the seasons change,
But he never forgets the important,
Like encouragement and the Courage.

Austin(the girl) has never cleaned a dish.
She bitterly protests the presents of our Gas
And constantly blows out the pilot light making pungent noodles.
But she listens when I complain
And understands my way.

I live with the underground and
It’s a suit that fits my weary bones as I sleep in peace,
on a foundation of pressed loyalty.

Sign inventory 1, Week 3

Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose
Oh my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
Oh my luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

My Inventory:
-Written in traditional Scottish dialect
-Four, Four line ballad stanzas
-lyrical charged
-Author muses a sence of time loss, in addition to seasonal change
-Author creates a feeling of perfection and unblemished love in the line.'Newly sprung in June'
-Repetition, Red, my, dear, luve, I
-Life and death/ passage of time diffrence in the first two and last two stanzas
-Rich contrast between lush spring and dry seas
- musical tone and meter

calisthenic 1, Week 3

Author note- All the source materiel for this work comes from the Post Secret books(people send post cards of there secrets to this guy and he publishes them) because I thought that would be a fun idea. I didn't think the work would have such an intense tone, but I did enjoy taking the words of simple, ordinary people and turning them into something else. Enjoy.

Secrets by Ben McClain

I fear feeling sadness
so waiting
nude at the dull, fog stained window
I allow her image to slip through my fingers.
"..need to stop" written on the glass canvas.
My insides scoffed:
but you won't.
I change my hair instead and wish I were still innocent.
She never gave me a chance and in one sitting,
I came to terms with my accursed mediocrity.

Improv 1, Week 3

Carson McCullers by Charles Bukowski

she died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
on a deck chair
on an ocean
steamer.

all her books of
terrified loneliness

all her books about
the cruelty
of loveless love

were all that was left
of her

as the strolling vacationer
discovered her body

notified the captain

and she was quickly dispatched
to somewhere else
on the ship

as everything
continued just
as
she had written it


Hemingway by Benjamin McClain
Stoic hero
Silver-fox warrior of joie de vive
Lived war and bulls and drink.
Only a legend could take you,
Crushed under your ice berg, with the scatter cannon
wrapped in battered paws.
Unaccompanied, Lost with Henry and Jake .
Farewell Tenente,
I’ll bury your grace in the effort of my safari.

Junkyard Quote 3 and 4, Week 3

"Where am I gonna find another girl who hates all the same things I do?" - Paul Rudd in Role Models


"You are what you love, not what loves you" -Adaptation

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 3

"I had a lover's quarrel with the world" - Frost

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 3

" If your losing your soul and you know it, then you still got a soul left to lose." -Bukowski

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Response 2, Week 2 . Dorinda

The quote from Mom was fantastic. The metaphor for life that this quote entails has greatly struck a cord with me and the views I've held towards our society. It seems as though in a modern world your 'sole' is always a commodity up for trade and that is a tragic thought/reality. It also invokes our current economical crisis, people became to greedy and traded in something you cannot buy back. Like Bernie and AIG and the like. People buy 'things' they can't afford and get themselves in trouble, which also relates to the quote provided by Dad, which i also like. Well done.

Response 1, Week 2 . Sydney's junkyard quotes

My favorite is the quote from Jarhead, which is a great film, "We look to the north, we wait for them- we labor in wait." This quote reminds me of all the times when my patience has failed me, when your struggling while doing nothing, like waiting for the bus or an answer to a life changing question. The Harry Potter quote is also very much applicable to life, the way we all hold back sometimes for fear of others knowing what we truly are, the anxiety that accompanies this unwillingness to show our true colors. I fear that I've played this game a lot with the people in my life, hiding behind sarcasm and wit to avoid a connection with someone, to avoid a feeling I don't want to feel.

Junkyard Quote 4, Week 2

"Why must it feel so wrong when I try and do right?" Kid Cudi

Junkyard Quote 3, Week 2

"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for"-Hemingway

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 2

"You can never tear a page from the story of your life, but you can throw the whole book in the fire" -George Sand

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 2

"Facebook is for the week" -me

Free Write 1, Week 2

In Defense of Rap by Benjamin McClain
Vulgar, Tasteless, propagating violence
against women, men, civilization, sanity.
street vernacular; hustle hard, do dirt, push weight, get on your grind,
sell white for green; put green on black for the win.
Fuck that bitch in her feline area, leave responsibilities in
The Dumpster daycare.
Smoke blunts, L's and J's. Find your Forty ounces
to freedom

Neoclassical. A throwback to warrior kings, mortal gods
Wine, Women and Wealth remains the tragic Charge.
Nero gives the thumps-up, let them live
Alas, always remember,
when in the Watts district, do as the Romans do.

Calisthenic 1, Week 2

Abstract words used to create concrete meaning.

love- changing her tire in the rain.
hope- the feeling i get right before a text is given to me
fear- taking a test i don't know the answers to.
anxiety- relentless foot-taping
proud- straight back, chest out
success- the first sip of a cold beer
honor- a vikings beard
blue- Otis Redding
failure- American politics
society- facebook
rejection- the small envelope from the big school.
cosmic- the space between me and her
school- hurry-up and wait
God- my baby brothers smile
confidence- walking with you head up.

improv 1, Week 2

A Martian Sends A Postcard Home by Craig Raine
Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings --

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside --
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves --
in colour, with their eyelids shut.


Benjamin McClain; Destructive Creatures

Destructive creatures
They waste,
form when the lone crimson eye rises to when it blinks.
And they exile there waste to vast lands,
Forming mountains of nothing.
They waste much of their local currency
On shiny things, everything illuminates when held.
All the while they let others of the same race
Die with nothing to hold.
They waste time most of all
In front of large screens,
they love to watch how others spend their time,
doing nothing themselves, but watching.
Strange creatures, connected to everything,
Yet responsible for nothing.

Response 2, Week 1 . Elizabeth

Elizabeth,
I really enjoyed your imagery in this work. It made me feel as though I was in the dusty attic of someone's brain. Weather it was intentional or not the attic image stuck with me and gave me many a food for thought for my next work. I also just generally like your word choice,"dreaming of empty things" and "reading all these words and not being any closer to the point" I loved both those lines dearly. I also felt that the entire poem was a thought scrolling across someones head and I really enjoyed the style of that. Well done!

Response 1, Week 1 . Kris

Kris I really enjoyed this poem because of the repetition you use. I’ve always been told that, in literature, repetition equals importance and I believe that you drove the point home. I also enjoyed the subject matter used, the mixing and musing of poetic images like dancing and love and beauty, coupled with the repetition. Some light but hopefully helpful criticism that I have would include: I feel like the poem would great improve if you included some synonyms for your word choices, I think that substituting other words when you place love and beauty in the verse would create a more robust work.

Junkyard Quote 4, Week 1

"What will we do with our poets when everything in the world has been compaired to everything else." Billy Collins making a statement about poetry.

Junkyard Quote 3, Week 1

"Its no longer my job to throw you a self-confidence parade." This was said to me by an old friend when I was being a downer, I just like how she phrased the comment and I was instandly better after she said it.

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 1

"She isn't pretty enough to be this big of a bitch." I love the statement this quote makes, what have we devolved to and to answer a question you may have, yes, a pretty girl did say this to me once. Ha

Calisthenic 1, Week 1

This is the last Calisthenic found at the end of part one in the Writing Poetry book. I take an ordinary object and write different things about it, then jam it in a provided template. I found that this to be very helpful in approaching objects in new and different ways, unlocking a hidden language that relates to said object. Here is my finished poem about notebooks.

Notes for No One by Benjamin McClain
Weathered, but sturdy. Keeper
of whispered words.
Once, I used to write the truth in it, but that's no fun.
If we could, we'd live in the fantasy I've created. The world
doesn't stop for anyone, but memories may be rewound
through the tired and yellow pages.

Free Write 1, Week 1

The first day of class there was a discussion on the use of an enjabment in Hecht's poem, I didn't really know what it was so i wanted to use it in a verse in order to be comfortable with enjabments in the future.

Alone in the Bar by Benjamin McClain
The Smoke is lingering,
elbow to elbow we ash and drink expensive cheep beer.
The girl with the sun-bleached skin begins
her song.
"I don't wanna be,
a stupid girl, no i can not be,
a stupid girl."
I can't take my eyes off her voice.
penetrating, poised,  perfect
she sits as we stand, applauding
her sorrow.

I hit the enjambment pretty hard in this little poem, I enjoy how the device creates tension and anticipation in the verse.  

Improv 1, Week 1

The End of the Weekend by Anthony Hecht.
           "A long magnesium shaft
Of moonlight from the dormer cuts a path
Among the shatter skeletons of mice.
A great black presence beats its wings in wrath.
Above the boneyard burn its golden eyes.
some small greay fur is pulsing in its grip."

My improv, focusing on the imagry and alliteration used in above poem.

   Particles of the planet,
suspended in a Ray of it's sun.
everything is dirty and dusty and decaying.
bones crunch under my black boots and I wonder,
do you think mice want second chances
two.
                               -B. McClain

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 1

"I mean, who looks at HPV and goes that looks legit."  The reason I chose this quote is because it's so startling and I want to use it in some fashion to shake-up the reader.