Jordan Cox and Alan Lin Proudly Present: This Guy...

I love you because your butt is kind of high

I love you when you're in pain

Curly-cues of translucency spot your legs
I want to prick—
At them

Oh! The noises you make...

I will open palm you like a penguin ninja

Your adorable angry eyes make me want to throw up daisies and puppies

I will vomit them onto delightful duck calenders

You're so nice Your heart is bigger than your dick

And your dick
If your feet are any indication
Is probably larger than a small cactus

Probably sharper than a small cactus too (I've seen those holes in your shorts)

Your shorts which I will breathe through like pure oxygen

Oh! I'll suck your shorts!

Like the Ring Pop I intend to give you someday

If you weren't so white and gay I'd make sweet 'n sour love to you

I'd baste your loins in barbecue sauce and eat white-meat chicken nuggets with both hands

Gobble Gobble
Like Thanksgiving dinner I'll turducken your body

Uh - huh... Pumpkin... Nugget

And pumpkin spice and everything nice
Ah - ha! High - five! High - five!

You laugh and dance and command primal joy!
Tall number two, what'd I do without you

brian and john

Bless you o lords of the words for making the mundane daneMany smithonians attempt to create you yet only few succeedBless those fewWith their magical prowess they are able to carry any able-bodied soul anywhereDragging us from our seats into their magical mythical worldThrough abuseThrough ecstasyThrough painThrough joyThrough the sheer beauty and brillianceTo the unnerving sightsThey have me for now and foreverFor their touch is that of Midas: It turns all to goldFor the words on the page shimmer in the right lightThe words are priceless Words are pricelessHearing the spoken words caress the earsSoothing the body with the calming rhythm And pacified locationsSmithonians who can turn a gentle leaf into a ten page extravaganzaWho take every wrinkle on any surface and turning it to beautyAn artist of words

Partner poem finale

A Celebration With a Working Class Crew.

I need to get out of here because i'm delirious
Oh ya well don't forget 15/20, and 35 to 45 on Deliveries
It's...It's...It's... Lavender and Vanilla.
This place smells like the inside of my dog's ass hole.
You need to get this Done before Travis Leaves.
You need to get this Done before Travis Leaves.
You need to get this Done Before Travis Leaves.
My dog is going to get sucked up by the Tornado. I wish that dog would Die.
I'm miss Hoopston and lost 2olbs. I used to do bulimia for 12 years
She acts like its a drug, maybe you should get her cream out of the bathroom.
My mother ruined my life...and she is such a druggie.Hi loves i'm a delivery driver tonight, is that a mess-up...damn you're lucky.
Sometimes I close my eyes and hope that someday I'll wake up somewhere else.
There is this giant-sized headache looming over the right side of my head, where a puss-filled zit won't pop...Hey...uh...Veronica...I got your bubble bath going.
Hey, why not someday you and me go and kick it?
I feel like everyone takes a giant poop on my chest...you are the bitch of the place.
Smells like you guys are burning the pizza, can you explain the two taxes?
I want a large pizza with sausage, double sausage, pepperoni, ham, bacon, ground beef and beef steak...OH, and a small diet pepsi.
Yeah, well I want a large pain-in-the-ass punch from the sweat off that oven guy who burns his skin off, reaching for your large-ass heart attack pie.
This place is listed under temple of doom in my phone.
This place is listed under life ruiner in my phone.
Hell is okay, when you have a friend to share it with.

Something We Can All Agree On

Two noons after an earthquake shook
her cats and the neurotic man with whom
she slept, she questioned: "We have been
offered ev'ry reason to believe
that we are completely fucked, yes?"

With mouth filled with mint chocolate
chip ice cream, he answered: " 'Fucked'
implies consent, and I, for one,
have no recollection offering
Life my permission to penetrate
my unsuspecting cavities with its un-
sympathetic sexual appendages,
however," pausing to swallow what was
in his mouth, "When sodomized by
Life, hire a lawyer and take its ass
to court and make money! At least
that is what I have read about those
who can not proficiently coffee
cups."

Meanwhile, ants had reached the summit
of Mount Cold Stone and had begun to set
up camp, feasting on the remnants of our
dairy desserts. This sight led them
to the conclusion that ants, like themselves
have the most grand of tastes in ice cream.

--by Amanda Hammer and Zach Chillman

Late Poem, Cantos Parody

Finnish him! said Martti Ahtisaari
I point my finger at you You weighed more
in Zangband
an existence pissociated in 16X16 tiles

Cathect the dots
of other words it alterity gaijin

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”

O Fiossfallaich the giant swung you a great black chain
was revenge sweet
though you were unnecessary

Street urchins recoil when the
naked neutered antlered
thing comes.
cast all hopes in 20 assorted items
And no more than a score will be at hand.
Time stands and awaits reaction.

Danger in every curiosity
ma così spera
Newspapers know say what
presidents popes imams
shemps curlies moes

The jestry bore-ders the end

If I Were an M & M, Would You Eat Me?

‘Fucked’ implies consent, consent that I didn’t offer

as my unsuspecting cavities have been penetrated by

life’s unsympathetic appendages,

but it’s like they say, “When sodomized by life,

file a class-action lawsuit and take their asses to court!”

or something like that.

Despite the unwanted sexual experience

and the differences we may have in how ‘fuck’ is defined,

ants and I will get along just fine because of our affection

for mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Question: are there different flavor of ‘chips’ like those

that are chocolate? I would like some cherry chips.

Regardless, I went to a candy store once that sold candy covered ants,

and I went to the clerk and asked if he knew what sort of

ants they were. He didn’t understand the question.

Which of the 12,000 species of the Formicidae family

were encrusted by sugary coating?

“What does it matter? They’re ants.”

They’re ants, funny, because we’re just people.

There are thousands of different types of those

and that seems to cause a big stink in some places.

So why can’t we look at people the same

way the less than friendly clerk

looks at candy covered ants?

Why can’t we all be just people?

Like M & Ms,

different epidermal outsides,

a bunch of person in the middle.

Draft for Partner Poem

The perfumed smell of rain declares the end of the day
And I pack up my tools and leave it to tend to the flowers
It becomes sucked into dry dusty earth and makes it moist
But it is cleansing, and cleans everything it touches
Nourishes the droopy sun soaked grass, trees, and flowers
Cools off the blistering sand
Rain, the often-unwelcomed enemy that we cannot live without

May Swenson

Admiration

There is every reason to believe that we are fucked.

An earthquake shook my cats and the

Neurotic man lying next to me.

I say it is tornado season not earthquake season

And the wind took my second scoop of ice cream

And threw it on the ground.

My creamy happiness landed in an anthill.

I cursed at mother nature and she sent her

Cronies to clean up the mess.

Of all the insects, ants like mint chocolate chip

The best.

Or perhaps I’m just searching, guessing

At my place in the order of things, insects, earthquakes.

Because I don’t have it figured out or I do and then

Mother nature shakes my cats in Illinois and then

I don’t again.

But this day when I sometimes step on bugs

Because I am not superior just larger

Admire the living specks of chocolate chip ants

In the milky green

And just admire.

partner poem

my partner for the poem is rachael.

We were thinking about celebrating the end of the school year and everything that that brings. So celebrating summber but also realizing that means we have to work, celebrating the weather but maybe not being able to enjoy it, celebrating the end of one chapter and beginning another, the scary decisions that we have to make when we are done with school, etc.

We are planning on doing this by alternating lines but we don't have anything to post yet.

Deep spidery roots wrap around a fiery core
And cradle its warmth.
The roots travel underneath pattering feet.
The feet unaware of the living oxygen tanks
Beneath them
The ones that do not explode unless triggered
Or swallowed by immense dying stars.
The roots creep to the top and tickle the
Backward moving pattering feet.
The roots grow out of their blossoming mother
And stretch and stretch towards their grands.
They will bend back towards their mother
And weep, and weep and grow.
Vainy, chameleoned fingers shade
The pattering feet walking faster now.
The outstretched fingers embrace other lovers
And shade their mothers belly before the storm.

Let/For Resubmission...

Gabe ~ please reevaluate this Let/For Poem...Thanks! Let us rejoice in the religion that has torn this world asunder For the truth that it preaches contradicts thoughts of seekers. Let nymphos rejoice in the insatiable lust of their libidos For in ignorance they dwell as hippopotamuses betwixt silken sheets Let us rejoice in the process of hope For it is all that can sate a lonely soul Let the Pagans rejoice in the splendor of the Old Ways For Mother Nature is ever-present, hearkening them to dance Let us rejoice in the beauty of trees For our breath is dependent upon boughs and leaves Let SINNERS everywhere rejoice—fornicators and hypocrites, For there is no Hell except for that which they create themselves Let us rejoice in the transfixing lure of the fire For its burning and festering transcends the embers Let the Eye of Ra rejoice in its unfaltering gaze For it is always aware, ever-protectant of its beholder Let us rejoice in the pointlessness of time For its existence is tragically flawed, devoid of true meaning Let wanderers rejoice in the unpredictability of tomorrow For happiness moves with the winds of their sorrows Let us rejoice in the power of words For without them expression would be feigned Let poets rejoice in the release of all feeling For through poetry the seer possesses a sight of another world.

My portion of the partner stickomythia...

Damn you Bastards! You ignorant usurpers of the wild— Destructive deforestators! Rapers of Mother Earth’s loving, prosperous cunt! Fuck you! You Oxygen thieves of the carbon monoxide breed! O beautiful trees are these, rustling in the softest breeze. Glad am I for Mother Earth, This shelter through which we build the world. An alcove of trees, such divine beauty The way they breathe, exhaling life and support for us all. Backbones of sustenance, not to be taken for granted. The roots run deeper than the eye can see Their gorgeous feet hugging the soil, —Semetricality to the boughs and leaves Outstretched, offering an eternal embrace to those who would celebrate their ent-like splendor.

Partner poem snip it

A Celebration With a Working Class Crew.

I need to get out of here because i'm delirious
Oh ya well don't forget 15/20, and 35 to 45 on Deliveries
It's...It's...It... Lavender and Vanilla.
This place smells like the inside of my dog's ass hole.
You need to get this Done before Travis Leaves.
You need to get this Done before Travis Leaves.
You need to get this Done Before Travis Leaves.
My dog is going to get sucked up by the Tornado.
I wish that dog would Die.
I'm miss Hoopston and lost 2olbs
I used to do bulimia for 12 years
She acts like its a drug, maybe you should get her cream out of the bathroom.
My mother ruined my life
...and she is such a druggie.
Hi loves i'm a delivery driver tonight
is that a mess-up...damn you're lucky

Paper Stuff

The poet I'm focusing on is Ai. She's a very "cut the bullshit" type writer who uses the dramatic monologue. Rather than focus on a certain event or action at the beginning of her writing, she builds a character. Writing in the first person about some pretty horrible stuff is a skill I'm glad I don't have. She says that she has to actually put herself into the shoes of her characters and imagine how they would act and react to the actions going on in the world around them. While she only used fictional characters at the beginning of her career, she began to take on high profile people, such as John F. Kennedy, James Dean, Jimmy Hofa, and others. In order to dive into the minds of these individuals, she said that she usually does extensive research by reading biographies about them.
For my paper, I'd like to write an extended dramatic monologue. I'd like to use a character modeled after myself as the speaker. And, I'm going to revisit some of the darkest characters that Ai has written about, as well as visit with her recreations of the more famous ones and some people that she hasn't yet written about. I'm talking about some of the scourge of the earth. Should be a lot of fun writing this, and I plan on including footnotes that will detail where the characters of Ai's creation can be found, as well as some stylistic notes.

Well, I forgot...

Okay, so I forgot the post yesterday. So, in lieu of that...while I agree with everyone that personal crap has no place in the class, I do think it has a place here. Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother's death. Yeah, I know: boo-hoo, we all go through it, at least we should, the inverse of the scenario is too hard to wrap your head around from their p.o.v. ANYWAY, so I'm secure enough with myself and the situation to apparently use it as an excuse here for not posting yesterday, and, though this is ostensibly b.s. to some, I've got the goods to back it up. The link below goes to my sister's scrapbooking blog (yes, scrapbooking, wanna fight about it?)...she posted something I wrote for eng. 284 last year a week after mom passed...B. Kinsella probably had to peer-review it. It's prose; so I apologize for my loquaciousness. So...it's an investment in time, and a little too precious, but it's my tribute and a snapshot of a tough week in someone's life (*mine). If you hit the link, scroll down to her April 12th post...and try not to get caught up in the insane world of scrapbooking, I hear most of those people have debilitating cocaine addictions.

http://www.gingergrace.typepad.com/

Female Poet, Male Critics, What the F?!

Diane Wakoski is often put into the same category of women poets including Plath, Sexton, and Rich to name a few; pretty big names all of whom I have heard of except for Wakoski until reading her work for this class. Why have I not heard of her until now? What makes her less noted? Her poetry is labeled dismal, emotional, hateful, unmeaningfull, rambling, lacking cohesiveness, angry, blameful. She is often praised for her “contemporary” feminist views, like women haven’t been thinking and going through what she went through since the beginning of time. And then she is criticized for her raw emotion. Some have said she doesn’t feel she embodies any kind of connective spirit amongst women going against my idea that even though she had some traumatic events that I have never encountered she is fully connected with other women even with other people and how we all suffer. She gave up two children for adoption in the 50’s when premarital sex was a travesty, her father abandoned her and her mother at a young age, she has been married four times, many of her male companions cheated on her, she was shy even though she liked to show off her smarts throughout her jr. high and high school career, and she spent many years living financially off of others to pursue her poetry. Ok, I don’t relate to any of that but still I feel connected to her. Diane includes many of the people from her personal history in her work including a creepy connection with her beloved Uncle Elmer and George Washington whom Diane uses to embody fathers, political leaders, and sexual partners. She has one ongoing poem entitled Greed which is divided by numbers. Part 14 was trashed by the New York Times. Growing old has finally given Diane something worth complaining about. So many critics I have read in reference books are men who more times than not give little credit to Diane’s subject matter and style. Many claim that when she expresses situations from her personal history, which is basically all of what she writes, she rambles on and the poetic value drops. Some women say the same thing, that she gives a bad impression of women as weak and unable to cope with the stresses of their lives. Writing is coping and she did a hell of a lot of it. She is well published. Why had I not heard of her?

Alice Walker ~ Blurbs...

-Amazing poet, author, woman whose writing has changed my life -Plethora of earth-based poetry that has the potential to speak to everyone in some way -5 books of poetry, four of which were published in a book entitled Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990. -If she was willing to give this book the subtitle of "Earthling Poems," then she too must view the vast majority of her poems as earth-based. -This book of "Earthling Poems" has sixteen new poems that did not appear in her previous works and these poems take on serious issues like racism, hatred, and issues of gender. -"Eagle Rock" (pg. 180) seems to apply to her Cherokee roots -Her poems seem to coincide with various aspects of her life that were impacted by culture/society -"Expect Nothing" (pg. 191) is one of her more cynical, but realistic poems ~ reflects personal views on life -Alice Walker is a prolific writer who lets her heart speak out through her words -Poems at the end of "Earthling Poems" seem like a stepping stone to her sixth and most recent book of poetry Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth -The vast majority of her poetry comes off as genuine and personal, but with a broader implication -Her third book of poetry Good Night Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning, emphasizes familial ties and personal heritage. Acceptance of death. -Versatile poetry that has various effects on different people and makes them feel that there is something eluding them beyond the mist of her poetry, just within their grasp. -The progression of her poems seems to follow a logical progression with the course of her life, but can also be representative of some of the different stages that readers have undergone/will undergo in their lives. -Her poetry seems accessible to a wide audience, because although a plethora of her poems are earth-based or are based upon her personal philosophy and love for life, they still contain common themes. -"Remember?" (pg. 318) is the second poem in her fourth book of poetry Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful, and it seems to summarize the theme of this entire book of poetry: HOPE for the human race. -"I am the woman: Dark / repaired, healed / Listening to you. / I would give / to the human race / only hope. / I am the woman / offering two flowers / whose roots / are twin / Justice and Hope / Let us begin" (pg. 318) ~ profound lines of poetry. -Is she trying to qualify herself as a 'whole' person before making the claims and assertions she does in this book of poetry? -Her first book of poetry, Once, is full of despairing poems that essentially saved Walker's life after her abortion. -One of the only books of poetry where she experiments with indentation on the page. Highly personal poems. -Progression of poems over time = KEY!! -Alice Walker’s interview with Jean Ross = good to show her opinion of her own growth as a poet -Poetry = Walker’s Passion! -Contemporary poems relate to world outside of herself—reclaim ancient global connections…Cherokee roots (Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful) -In Revolutionary Petunias she touches upon relationship dynamics within the black community. -Book of self-discovery as well! -Some declare Walker to be a “womanist,” but I disagree as I think it is used derogatorily and any semblance of feminism in her writing is out of a genuine concern for the equality of women. -Thadious Davis’s criticisms could be a good source to argue against. -Walker’s poetry provides a clear depiction of her love for nature, her inner harmony, and her oneness with the universe. Looking at the title of her most recent book is a clear indication of where she stands right now—Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth. -Trust is a crucial element in many of her poems, especially the more contemporary ones. -Highly meditative poems that encourage deep reflection among readers. -“These Mornings of Rain” (pg. 319) ~ “…meditation / has made me one / with the pine tree / outside my door…” ~ example of her personal oneness with the earth coming out through poetry. -Walker’s inner peace truly prevails in her later poems -Her poems have inspired me to be less critical, to accept what cannot be changed, and to try and live in peace and harmony with others and nature.

Paper post

Paper on Lorna Dee Cervantes
Thesis about the poem:Poem for the Young White Man Who asked me how I, an intelligent, well-read person could believe in the war between races.
The thesis about the way Cervantes, as poet, has many voices within the poem, one of being minority in both sex and race, but then also having a voice separate from the minority, having the voice of a poet.
The paper also delves into analysing the reasoning behind this specific poem being the one in Anthologies.
Also sections on the way the poem is connected to another poem in the book Emplumada.
How this book of poetry relates to her other books, the way her poetry has changed
The style of that specific poem compared to other poems in the book.

EvFL Brainstorm

This essay is about suicide.

Or rather a study of a metaphysical suicide. Given that I do not intend on talking about how a person comes to that decision or various aspects of suicide within literature, I have a different idea in mind. I do not mean the physical act of killing oneself, but rather the choice and the actions of the author in how she ended her phrases, her poem, her presence, in her poem “ThistledownFlight”. There are six different versions of this unpublished poem available and it is important to look at each one to help determine the author's views on death through the choice of her words, her stanzas, her endings, the finale of the poem, a study of a metaphysical suicide within a poem.

What is

metaphysical suicide? -

the understanding beyond the death?

The markings of the reason behind the actions? -

or the physical act which a person molds their world, signfying their death, literal or figurative.

Suicidal pregancies cast aside in the decaying orchids

poppies really, thats what they are

open your heart with a surgical knife, shiva

I evoke your name

mother leave me alone

she write

and

write -

why the dashes

hash

marks! -

if the dash marks matter, like all does, then why the dash? Cutting physically and emotionally away the superflious fluids around the jello, leave the fruit? Orchids don't have fruid do they? Vanilla is a orchid. But thats not a fruit, tis a spice/flavoring. So where is the spice and flavoringof this poem...

is it like italian... all you see is what you get

and all you need?

the

long

and

winding -

road -

dark -

light-

I

am

a walrus

why beatles -

mother

mary-

meta-

suicide is

alone-

written much, found nothing

only desire

death

blight

birth -

no period

only

exclamation -

dash

dash -

away

no articles

I picture this all in the garden where jesus prayed to god before he died, the speaker praying to ghingha, whomever this deity may be, and the speaker is EvFL... maybe in the end that is all there is to this, a pray for the end to come, seems so sad... I feel sadden by her turmoil...

garden

eden -

temptation

nowisdom -

her

words

not mine

mother no wept

in her form

lacking adjectives

lacking articles

lacking filler

just words

just meaning

but what meaning

“why her soul in my flesh”

mother

where

you

mother

shiva is a god, who is ghingha?

Beacon = lighthoues on a island

orchids = poppies? = death?

Quake anew...

whose words

wheres the speaker

wheres the author

ALL CAPS

editor's choice

or hers?

Type written,

garden eden

blight birth

thistledownflight

who can

be

held

responsible -

dash

away -

BPK. get to know her.

BRIGIT PEGEEN KELLY.
More people should know who she is.

How do her books of poetry work as a whole?
Are they meant to work as a whole?
1st and 3rd book have striking similarities dealing with ideas of death and rebirth, general succession.
Most of her poems deal with very specific reoccurring themes and images- dead does (dead animals in general), skepticism of religion, life, life after death.
I am not surprised by these topics but I am overwhelmed by their presence in all of her poetry- why do these poems tackle the subject of rebirth so directly?
So many of the poems deal with statues, children, and more than anything birds.
What is the bird? There is a bird (often a crow) in most every poem.
Kelly grew up in the Midwest so I understand that crows are EVERYWHERE.
What does a crow mean to her?
I find it hard to explain Kelly's poetry- it is strikingly different from other poetry I have read and all the more compelling to read.
How is she able to have such an innocent and childish (not childish like immature, childish like an imaginative, all wondering view of the world) voice?
Why does Kelly only have 3 books of poetry?
Her writing seems like it could go on forever, almost as though she must force herself to finish her poems and go on to the next one- when will there be a 4th book? Will it entwine with past books?
Am I missing a bigger picture?
Aside from questions about the author and her words, I am pretty concerned about my own opinions and how they will create a distinctive paper. With so little research to be found on my author (much research is about the same thing and says the same thing in different ways, it’s strange….) how will I crank out 14 coherent pages that don’t bore my reader?
I emailed her and she hasn’t emailed me back which is just a bummer. Aside from being a bummer I think her comments would really give the boost I need to keep writing.
My idea development has led me in so many directions I have found it hard to focus on one topic without trickling into another. I guess what I’m most worried about aside from what I have said above, is sucking it bad on this paper- I feel like I have an intimate relationship with her few but powerful books and, being bad at papers as it is, I would hate to muck up an essay about an author I’ve come to respect very much.

Alta - you're kind of really freaking awesome

penus envy, they call it
think how handy to have a thing
that poked out; you could just shove
it in any body, whang whang & come,
wouldn’t have to give a shit.
you know you’d come!
wouldn’t have to love that person,
trust that person.
whang, whang & come.
if you couldn’t get relief for free,
pay a little $, whang whang & come.
you wouldn’t have to keep, or abort,
wouldn’t have to care about the kid.
wouldn’t fear sexual violation.
penus envy, they call it.
the man is sick in his heart.
that’s what I call it.

I find it curious that this type of intensity, a type of intensity that just burns off the page
I also wonder why penus and not penis
And Urban Dictionary defines penus as, “The abbreviated term for gay male intercourse (Penis+Anus= Penus), when the male genitalia penetrates into the anal sphincter, massaging the male prostate gland.” Interesting, yes, relevant, maybe, naturally this definition was created well after Alta’s poem Penus Envy would have first appeared

And now Alta is writing sporadic articles the for the Berkeley Daily Planet in California about girl’s basketball

So I wonder what happened, or maybe nothing at all.

Born 1942
Moved to California
Two marriages
Two divorces
Started a commune for women leaving abusive relationships

Started Shameless Hussy Press from her house
Published Remember Our Fire – a collection of the only female poetry she could get her hands on

“I opened Pandora’s box. There were lots of things that women had never talked about. I just started writing about them.” – Alta

“She doesn’t say more—or less—than she means. Her poems drop into your mind like stones and set up vibrations.” – Marge Piercy

Alta worked the printing press with a woman who was unaware of the safety issues. Her was too long and got caught in the press.

Not even the poets featured in the first printing of Remember Our Fire were willing to show up. They wrote Alta off, expressed very differing views on feminism.

“To say there was a supportive women’s writing community in 1969 is not
quite accurate.” – Alta

I have a list of interviews with Alta, taken in 2000 and 2001. She’s very calm, grateful, pleasant and in no way like the voice her poems express. So was that voice just a voice? Was it her? Has she cooled over the years or is she just reserved in interviews?

“For the next one I found thirty poems, because women had started writing.” – Alta

Reti:
She was very important to me by the time I came out in the late 1970s.
Alta:
That’s nice to hear. I’m proud of that.

The more I read of her and from her and about her the more I like her. She seems not just caught up in the moment. She wasn’t throwing stones because it was what everyone else was doing. In fact, not many women, from what I can tell, were throwing many stones at all at this time. But she speaks with no hatred or anger. She speaks honestly but intelligently, considerately. Like she really, really cared. She speaks like someone who was really passionate about something at one point in time that they had to stand up and shout. And now others have come to stand up and shout and maybe she’s taken a bit of a backseat. But would they be shouting if she hadn’t shouted first? She speaks like she really believes what she believed. Like it was important to her. Not for the shock value, not for the pure sake of rebellion, but for the sake of what was right.

“Well I was dodging the bullets, getting kicked out of everything, getting death threats and getting kicked out of groups. I was kicked out of women’s groups. I started a halfway house for women and they kicked me out. I said you can’t kick me out. I started this thing! I kick you out! I came home one day and my phone had been disconnected. I went in the fridge to get food and they’d stuck pennies in my mayonnaise. I was trying to
raise kids in that house.” – Alta

[in response to the above statement] “I never liked that house. They put all the kids in one room.” – Lorelei Gerrey (Alta’s daughter)

Not only do I respect her greatly as a poet. But through the course of reading the interviews I have of her, I respect her even more as a person.

Thursday Blog

Who is Jayne Cortez?
How is she personified through her poetry?
Why did she write what she wrote…why did she write how she wrote
Where did her rebellion poetry start
Jazz is easy listening music-as is Reggae, blues and R&B
Jazz seems to be coffee shop music and bookstore music
Jazz flows, seamlessly
Her poetry flows
Who was she and why was she
Why did she write
Did her poetry have purpose beyond words
Was she trying to change the world?
Why do the critics like her
Why do the critics not like her
Does this poetry involve me
Is the poetry emotional to the reader
Is there a flow of poetry in between the poems do they
Why did she form her books the way she did
Why is she included in different anthologies
What do these anthologies add to her poetry
What does her poetry add to these anthologies
How do critics respond to her rebellion poetry
Who played a role in her life
Does her poetry reflect her life
Does her poetry reflect a bigger idea of the world in the whole

Paper Brainstorm

Themes, lines, ideas for paper, etc.

Mitsuye Yamada is an Asian American Poet
Japanese Internment camp
her and her family were placed there
looking at different voices in her poetry, her mother, her father, her grandmother
"Broken" english vs perfect standard english in her poems
Questioning cultural norms
refuting traditional values of proper behavior (modesty)
not letting history get smoothly evaded or erased
the power of silence
struggle to identify oneself
imprisonment vs relocation, government language
connections to other oppressed minorities
visible as sexually exotic objects, invisible as subjects
establishing personal and national history
sharing experiences
generational differences and not understanding culture
mislead american public, dominant culture language
parents never talked to their kids about their problems
spoke up and made change

I love being Italian. I wish everyone in my family was, on both sides, going back forever. It's not that I don't like the other parts (the Welsh and ?? parts), it's just that I like the Italian ones best. And then Rose Romano wrote some poems about my favorite things.
Italian grandmothers and all their nuttiness.
They always try to feed you even when say you just ate.
I love that she included all the stereotypes that are true.
It makes them more powerful then the ones that are not.
She talks about those too, but they mean so much less to me next to the things I love about myself and my family.
Poems about food and spaghetti sauce as therapy and saints and the secret saved parts of the ends of Italian bread.
I have to be honest, I thought only my mother did that for me because her mother did it for her. I like that there are tons of Italian kids who think the same thing. I like it better that we are all getting it.
I know I should probably write about her profound effect and commentary on being a lesbian Italian-American, about the interracial racism of Northern Italians vs. Southern Italians and Sicilians, and about the racism Italians have suffered for years for not being dark-skinned enough to be a minority, or white enough to be white
but I really just want to write about grandmas and Italian soul food.
Rachael Jones

From First Impressions to a Relationship

First impressions rarely have to deal with the first physical encounter one has with an individual, but can come in the form of stories that have been told by a mutual friend.

Anthologies are like those stories, brief glimpses of what an author offers their audience, but is still a framework that the editor places around them.


This framework is often used to appeal to those that are interested in that specific framework.

First impression of Mary Jo Salter: empathetic towards those that had experienced major catastrophes, ie Hiroshima and Chernobyl.

This directed my research towards understanding how accurately this framework that had been placed around her was.

Salter's work isn't necessarily bleak, but to describe her as a poet who regularly explores the beauty in the world would also be inaccurate.

Capable of drawing the mortality out of any situation, such as reading on a porch on a summer afternoon.

It is rare that her more optimistic poetry makes its way into anthologies, but when it does it generally deals with motherhood.

Her collections of poetry explore a great deal more positive issues, but on the whole she continuously explores mortality, loss, the commonalities in all people, and issues of different sorts of injustice.

Though her work in poetry is hardly comical, the articles that she has written for magazines and the interviews she has offered provide a completely different picture of the person. Her writing displays an excellent sense of humor that one wouldn't believe that she had if they were to have only experienced her anthologized poetry.

While I was kind of hoping that the first impression I gained in regards to Salter's poetry would be disproved, I found that the framework is relatively accurate with some deviations in her collections.

Amy Lowell

"No one should make a living by writing," says Amy Lowell, an elitist Bostonian of overwhelming financial security.

Some referred to Amy Lowell as the "Hippopoetess" because of a glandular problem that caused her to be as wide as she was tall.
Her early poetry is very traditional compared to her work after she embraced Imagism, much to Pound's dismay.
Many people in her day thought her strange because she
-smoked cigars
-slept in until 3 pm
-and had liaisons with women

Well renowned during her life, but quickly forgotten once dead.

Polyphonic Prose
Is something she knows

Pound abandoned Imagism soon after she started tampering with it.

Ideas for Anne Sexton paper

What made Anne Sexton start writing?

I believe that the key to understanding Anne Sexton’s poetry is by looking at her life. Her poetry changed as her life changed and that is very evident in her first book, “To Bedlam and Part Way Back.”

“Your business is watching my words. But I admit nothing”

writing about the issues that most writers would stay away from

Her first book was triggered by a nervous breakdown which is why she was seeing her doctors which I mentioned before. Sexton also said, “I wish my poems were gay sometimes. I am tired of my gloom and death” (Anne Sexton 51).

After reading that Anne Sexton had various visions throughout her life I believe it supported my ideas to why her poetry is so mysterious.

One thing I found interesting about this book is that Anne arranged the poems in chronological order because she said it might interest her readers.

The language and wording all pointed towards death until I got half way through the poem when Sexton wrote, “But you, my doctor, my enthusiast, were better than Christ; you promised me another world to tell me who I was” (Live or Die). The poem drastically changed in its mood and tone, and switched to a poem about wanting to live.

I also loved how the poems were not typical love poems, but I could see the touch that Sexton put on the poems.

I found these to be reminiscent of Sexton’s work because she is not afraid to bring chilling words to a fairy tale that a person would expect to be for a child.

I can hear the narrative voice in all of the poems but as I was reading them I was not thinking this was an Anne Sexton poem, but merely a poem about Cinderella, and for some reason that seemed to bother me.

I also liked the subtle reference to her father when she said, “and to the drowning man you were likewise kind”, probably pertaining to her father being an alcoholic all her life, which is a familiar topic with Anne.

Anne Sexton called her poem “O Ye Tongues”, “my last prayer”, and the reason I picked this poem from the others was because she used the same structure that Christopher Smart used in “Jubilate Agno.” In each psalm, as Sexton called them, she used “Let” and “For”.

Hilda Doolittle research paper super brainstorm thing

H.D.'s Helen in Egypt is kinda like a gentle kick to Homer's balls. A different take on the same story told over and over again. Similar to a left-handed right-hand layup in basketball. Different and yet, gets you two points.
H.D. spent most of her life in threesomes. It must've been super fun for her daughter.
Girl-power to the max.
Nature, Modernism, Feminism, Imagism, and Greek myths... quite the set of specialties.
Helen in Egypt (not Troy) responds to everything about the ancient epic penis driven texts.
How did Helen get to Egypt? Can you say Euripides and Homer? How did H.D. get to Helen in Egypt? Can you say Freud and Pound?
Poetry of such power, what is Helen in Egypt really saying?
American expatriate in Europe, bisexual, poet: Hilda Doolittle.
War, Death, Love, Vagina: Helen in Egypt.

Knocking on My Muse's Door

Adrienne Rich has been one of the most influential authors of the mid to late twentieth century

Adrienne Rich has been one of the most influential Lesbian Feminist authors of our time

Adrienne Rich has been one of the most influential and activists of the nineteen sixties and beyond

Adrienne Rich has been a mother, a wife, a socio political poet, an activist, a lesbian, and a feminist

Rich's poetry and prose are not only radical, they are representations of our society

Rich's poetry also reflects upon her own life and how it has changed

Rich's poetry gives a voice to the poet, the mother, the outcast, the down-trodden, etcetera

So fricken excited about writing about Adrienne Rich (YA!)

Ideas Rambling Regarding Judy Grahn

How does her being a lesbian narrow down her audience? Does it?

Can I not enjoy her poetry or apply it to my own life because I'm straight?

Do homosexual writers and journalists review her work different than those who are not?

What do they focus on that straight folks don't?
lifestyle?
privacy?

Do they focus more on things of a private matter than those who are straight? For example, straight people may skip the fact that she is a lesbian at all and simply focus on what she is writing and what she may be speaking of. Those who are homosexual tend to focus on the fact that she is a lesbian so that they can use her as an idol almost.

Does this make the reviews less personal?

Does anyone consider the line, "I wanted to write something about women so that I could read about women." or "This is for all common women."

Not all common women are lesbian.

Yes, she was a huge lesbian activist, but I doubt, highly that she just wanted lesbian readers.

Does that make me sound anti-homo sexual?

How can you recognize someone's lifestyle over their work?
I understand the connection but how can you let that fall lower on the importance list??

For example, how can Jamie Lynn Spears play a disney character for small children when she is pregnant, unmarried and like 15? So from now on can she only play characters who are in thier teens and pregnant? Can Ellen Degenerous only play lesbian characters? Was Heath Ledger really gay?

Taboo= less acceptance, harder work.

How the hell do I write this paper without offending anyone? When I'm trying to say there should be a seperation.....? help.

Whitman Homage

Petition of Protection -- some theorists argue time doesn't even exist.

Use Your Wit, Man...

To Walt,
As I sat and read your words that are, somehow, at the same time my words and the words of the world, I found myself filled with an uplifting feeling of lovingkindness that I have not, up to this point in my life, felt before. Your words have stuck with me, and I mean to keep them, as if you were at my side, endlessly whispering them into my ear so that I may never forget. Do you find it strange that I wish to wear you like a headphone, not the one that goes into my ear, but around it, which is much more intimate?
I stumbled across you in a book of verse, and saw other wonderful writers adorn the pages.
Then I saw Pound's work and was pissed off.
Flipping back to you, I let your words flow over me, and soon the weight was taken from me. But bearing it for so long had wearied me, so I set you down. You told me you wanted to stay by me, so I let you, your voice ebbing into my ear.
With you on my ear and in my head, I lay myself down to sleep. But I found no rest that night. Whilst dreaming, your words soon found your body, and your body found me. We breathed each other in a swirl of words. Yours, mine, and those that I could not distinguish as either.
Just as the breathing reached a pointed climax, you announced that daybreak would soon be arriving. But I reminded you that college students today never wake with the sun, and are more apt to rise with the mysterious moon. You let out a bellowing laugh that shook our beings and embraced me. I recall reaching for your beard before everything became a blur and went dark.
Walt, I'm not sure what you did to me, but I'm suspecting foul play. I may have let my inhibitions scatter with the winds, but your words were intoxicating and I was once told that you may still be a virgin, and on top of that, you may have been gay. I told myself I wouldn't hold that against you, but using drugs and alcohol to take advantage of someone isn't socially acceptable in this era. I hope we can move past this and resume being friends someday soon.
Clenchingly,
Kyle Simkins

Pound -- In My Head, This Is On Time

Shadey Lady

For I am me, not entirely what you see

Painted, polished, put on for the world.

And I love myself for it and for it I despise.

I am honest in my vane, through which my blood flows,

Pulses, pushes, permits this bodily existence.

And what is there without the body?

How am I to know?

For the body is all I can see and therefore accept,

And therefore discover, and therefore desire.

And I love myself for it and for it I despise.

Warm skin with cold shiver, a gust presses

Hard against my back.

He presses hard against my back, fingertips

Like cotton pressing soft against my back.

We tumble with the tumbleweeds, rolling

Round the desolate expanse of the sheets.

And I love myself for it and for it I despise.

For the expanse stretches far beyond

The four corners where I lie.

The same sun that bathes my breast

Feeds the tender tulip, guides the wandering goose.

The greatest orb imaginable,

Giver of life, direction, and pleasure.

I believe in you sun and in you I question.

Such radiance offered freely,

To every man, woman, and child.

Departing long enough, inviting obsession,

For beneath the golden splendor I feel your affection.

My need for you sun grows as you diminish,

And many days without you darkens my spirit.

I believe in you sun and in you I question.

How could you leave me when I love you so?

How could you allow my lust to overgrow?

With you such pleasure, without you such despair,

I am under your heat spell.

Warm sun reigns my existence but it will not rule me,

Blinded by the light without you I can not see.

I believe in you sun and in you no question.

Milton -- Late? yes. Great? YES!

Dante's Inferno -- Better a C than Never

poem

Dark soil and tall sky
Majestic fish perch in the tree tops

Light sand and deep sea
Schools of birds wave as banners

Here I lie on forest floor
Crawling through mud with my mind
It still sounds foreign for
Me?

Oh wind, thou cruelest bitch
I can hardly perceive,
And still you will not leave.
Even the meadowlark who sits on that tree
Will protest my presence with its calls.

O, Spring has come, suddenly. Like
mongols sweeping the hills.
And every parcel the hoofed beasts
trod
Comes to life, thickets and grassèd sod.

Half a million years of toil.
Hoover Dam, you survivor. You sole survivor
ten thousand hence.
Hence the end.
Is that all there is to say?
It is of no concern anyway.
It has no impact as far as the eye can see.

Poetry is such a buzzkill.
But not always. There are poems
for all sorts of things.
Peace, laughter, disturbance.
But right at this moment, no thanks.
No thank you poetry,
I don't know if we can ever be more than just friends.

Dear Whitman, I enjoy your writing.

She gazes through brown, no green eyes
I saw Venus in one eye and Neptune in the other eye.
The waves crash in her ears and shells trickle out and glistening viles of sand.
The wheat bends 300 miles away and 4,000 miles away and just up the road.
The ripple from a Michigan stone turns into laying bodies and ripens our fruit.

Balancing a chin on a palm, the fruit swells and the breeze runs by and excites the surface I share.
If the public was private, and the private was private, we would share our privates without gasps.
The primitive woman waited all night to see our dance but there were too many eyes, too many eyes not using their ears, or their tongues.
The man throws a stick to his best friend and waits for a loyal return.
The beautiful, long, silky dog tramples the edges of the legged and the ever-bathing world.
The runner takes strides so long and so lost in his high, he runs by without noticing a dog on the edge of creation.
As one walks, as we all walk, and I wait, as we all wait, for our man to move into the next frame.

I am a woman, and he is a man, and we share a pulling force.
Woman and Man. Is there a difference? Are you the difference?

I am happy, I am not ashamed, I am your body as you are mine, and he is ours, and she is ours.
I am young, and you are young, and each day our bodies decay, and each day every body decays, and each day every body dies, and each day every body lives and breathes.
And I am happy that every part of me lives and breathes.
And because I am of two and you are of two and we are all of two, we all have multiple souls, and our multiple souls nap and sway and rejoice until we all arrive.

And I turn back and look at you, and you look at me, and we entwine.
I see a crescent moon settle on her face and she adds aroma to the wind and laughs.

I twist that way, you are there, you twist this way, I am there, and our skin dances and jumps, and it is good.
You are one beating heart, one of a number not yet imagined. And I am a beating heart, and she and he, and that is good.
You are not a top hat, not yet décor of parental love. You are perfect, formed perfect with all your perfect qualities. And I am perfect, and he is perfect, and she is prefect, and that is good.

Lay and watch the clouds! O the first screen to ask for an audience and we watch.
And I close my eyes and see the world all upturned.
The core scorches our delicate earthly blanket, but leaves no grafts.
The volcanoes and trees erupt towards the sea where we sit by and watch.
The sea expands out of a leaky hole in the center of the universe. The universe I have not yet disturbed. Have you? Will you?
The world is upside down, but we keep a collective beat, and we carry on.

I descend towards my lover’s warmth and she colors me and moves me and moves into me.
I come and I come and I go, with a tight and loving grip on every strand of the world.

I could and would not stop if I wanted, If I should, I would not want even if I should, who would want to stop?
Who would stop the spinning?

We lay over manmade robes and I use my most loving touch, as others use a prod.
I slide into her space and time and she takes me in, takes my neck and takes my waist and hips.
Can I feel more beauty than this? Can I feel my body separate from hers? Can he feel his body separate from his? Can we all detach from a soul we have boarded?

No, I will stay for now, and you stay, and we all will stay together.
And the world will turn, and the hearts will beat, and all will rest, and the rest we wait to see.

Homage

My son and I
rolled down the humps
of the field
flattening dandelion walls and
painting ourselves streaks of green
I plucked a hair from it's back
it yelped
Sandwiched between thumbs
I kissed it and made music
My son beamed, show me
we laughed and played our greatest hit
What is the grass
I smiled and handed him the book
Oh, well what are the clouds
They are the balloon animals of God
Or perhaps
They are the hats for imagination
Or maybe
They are tear filled sponges
Or angelic pillow forts
Well that one's a bunny
Where are you guys
You are going to miss
Life
The game had already started
What is the score
It doesn't matter
everyone is a winner
says the loser
no one can win if nobody loses
says the winner
nobody wins
chimed death
Embrace those you love and
those you have never met
Live life to the fullest
that's how you win

I have been fit

I have been fit for the universe, and fit and tried for my voice, and fit for my lovers, all.

I have been molded by the decadent wet breezes, by your decedent father (but not your decadent father), by the decayed and still decaying breath of the leaves in the topsoil.

I have been carved, carefully, intimately, by waters and aphids and knotted wooden fingers, in and out, so that I wax like pale dunes but feel as does solidifying tempered sap... how glorious does my skin feel! How marvelous it looks under flickering street lamps!

I am nature's best; for all of us, every one, has taken the push of the wind, the height of the tree, the beauty of the lower flowers, the low of thunder, and cocooned, all, into one beating, breathing being; we have in us the best of nature's ebbs, and leave her flows be to blossom and reach.

Do you doubt me? For I tell you, intently, that I know best; for every earthen whisper has been laid in us, and I have ravished them, temporally, every one.

I have been welcomed, been eyed, been Aye’d, and welcomed again, and encouraged to taste a platonic fruit with a more evocative juice… I have tasted it most, not all, but most, and confidently say the world tastes like we... you are the world, then, and I know it, and love you both as one.

And to you, friend, I whisper, close your eyes! Listen! And can you? The Mexican chicos on the corner have made music out of silver boxes, and add their pennies and tar-shoes to the sound, and do not whisper, but say louder, "Baila!" and while you feign deafness, your sit bones allude you and have discovered how to seduce your spine. In it, I say and see beauty, and dance with your consenting parts, and make it of the world.

And of spines? Who among us does not wish to be a savior? I ask you, for I saw you slice the spines from your books last summer, all of them. Each one you pulled, pulled as though it were an Olympian column made entirely of orange peel, and deigned to set the pages free, as your auds, like minted honey under your warm tongue, sssaid to me that the words of your world needed a flamenco, too. How you cried when they did not move! When they did not dance with you! While you slept, I then pulled out the sheets and spread them about your floor, so that your sleep might calm knowing the pages could breathe, as you intended. Your minted honey tongue was reward enough for me, and for the floor pages.

World! Reveal more, so that I may revel more! I have been temporaried by things not of you, my world! If I say I have not seen, nor heard, nor felt all your splendor, then, to you, I say that that it is only because you have yet to churn the soil round and pull up from your underbelly what more is to be seen, or heard, or felt.

I am the oldest atheist. Who could wish for more than what this world has set out on their back porch? Who could want deeper truth than what the steaming tree branches spell out against the anesthetized night sky? Who could ask what we are of who has seen a mother give birth, or a single blade of grass surface, gasping, among its sisters?

Which of us is not afraid to die? And which of us, who spent each day only watching the months run after one another with shoes untied and flies unzipped (only to return more boastful than ever, hand in hand with one another in their turn), would dare fear what we see? No, rather, we would laugh, and heartily, too! For what, if anything, is not beautiful that this world has given us? If death comes to all, then surely, the world has ordained it, and if my voluptuous mother creator has said so, then I will take off my shoes, unzip my pants, and chase death with the younger months struggling to keep up, and will surely return from it in the third cycle, breathless, ready for one more race.

The world is not my bed… though, in truth, I see everywhere places and cause to lie… and lie, I do... with you, for you are my mind's changeling... and though I have not seen you before, the flint in my teeth will not spark with surprise upon your arrival, for I have known this face, known this roughness, known the softness of your bottom lip and the resolute firmness of the top, and have willed you into being and will will you into my world bed.... and say, luminously, that these notches read more fittingly on a full sycamore post than a whittled balsam stick...
The ebb and flow of your lungs have taught your hips as much. To bear hips, with bare hips, and then over points of contention, contentedly, and up, and up, to lips of leaves, reaching over and up to mark one more notch, I say, world, Brava! You've done us well.

Have I oversweetened existence? Oh. Well, then, so I've done. Nothing left to do but throw more existence into the pot, to balance it all out, I s'pose. I leave that to you. I still have to shower and meet up with the kids down the block.

An Homage to sisterhood

My heart thwarts out to you, my hope.
Eight long and joyous years--four of them spent apart-- in which we have used the word "friend" to describe our relationship; but the word "friend" doesn't work for us anymore. "Family" does.

I have six sisters, two by blood, four by rapport whom I love and adore
Six sisters who I would take a bullet for suck out the poison on any wretched bite
Six sisters who I would travel to the ends of the earth to hug to care to kick the ass of the bastard who broke their heart or plot revenge on anyone who would hurt them

Four sisters I have who would do for me as I would for them
Four sisters who define loyalty heart soul beauty greatness everything we dream of
Four sisters who greet me with a kiss/without swords or arms

Four sisters with their own individual talents:

Adriana with her artful hand that can outdo photoshop who walks in beauty with her hair up
Adri with her wild wit her bold humour her kind caring ways who used to be silent and seemed in a daze
Dri dri with her silent wit and numerous talents, whom I envy b/c she is good at EVERYTHING
My Aya Aya, my moldy Ass, with her heart that wraps around you after weeks of separation
And pinches my cheeks as if I were five
Will make millions via Manga via her right hand

Elizabeth, Lizzie pie, Lizard Boo, or Tori as we often say
is the most loved of all with her sweet and charming ways
She greets friends and new acquaintances with childish excitement, a hug, and a kiss
and welcomes welcomes all into her house, her heart, her soul.
She is the only human with a heart of solid gold and a soul that is deeper than the darkest abyss
She will feed the hungry and clothe the naked and home those without a home
And when you leave her, she always bids you well: safety, more hugs, and sometimes food
And that doesn't even scratch the surface to how AMAZING she really is

My Angie, my Jan-gee who always talks about porn-- but never looks-- loves in Latina
Like my Liz always hugs always listens always lovesunconditionally
Stays honest about herself her life others and more
Makes the best Tamales and Tacos el Pastor one could ever eat-- Jalisco style-- droooool
Listens when your heart breaks in two because of a boy or because of life's own heartbreaks
who will then take you into her car to sing QUEEN to sing JOURNEY and best of all BIG BALLS
Will get you tanked on the weekend and then continue to excel
Will one day be one of the greatest scientists ever known to humankind
And best of all, I get to say that she is my kinship, she is mine ASTOUNDING

My Courtenay, my Kori, my faraway heart my paradox
full of piss, vinegar, praise, and the same filthy mind as me-- SHE IS A CARBON COPY
Challenges life as she sees fit-- and don't challenge her five feet-- she'll kick you ass and make you regret it later
While something to be loved, she is something to be feared but also someone to love greatly
The most caring the lost loyal with the naughtiest sense of humour you could ever see
An obsession with all things witchcraft all things love all things tantra all things Japanese; NIGHTWISH AND SAKE AND TAROT GALORE
Beauty packed down into five feet and one inch; Intelligence packed into beauty; devotion packed into her own image, her own mischeiviousity.

But to know how we love, one must understand how the five of us love; one must become us.

Two sisters I have by blood, two sisters who feel more distant than friends
Two sisters who, despite emotional distance, will defend their blood with all their vigor (as will I)

Four sisters I have thanks to that fucking school
Four sisters I have for life, four sisters who will always stay true
Four maids of honor I have-- it'll be a bitch to decide when one day I become a bride
Six sisters I have foreverandever; Six degrees of hope for this world:

- One an artist
- One a poet/author
- One a scientist
- One an accountant
- One a psychologist
- One a nurse

Six degrees of hope bound by caring blood and love.

Sonic's Rendezvous

When I hear a live recording from a great band from 1978 that was never very popular but always brought the juice…an artifact of distribution…fossilized access…my ears only a stop along an infinite highway of auditory receptions…the shivers of primitive neurology in a tsunami…counting points along a topography stretching in either direction…the knowing doled out in discrete apportionments like a secret handshake…carried on the waves like particles…converging…the aside about the guitar that drops out during the bridge…it’s like you’re talking to me with feathered hair, man…or with a spacesuit on…waiting on the promontory of an arena with a Chesterfield…fuzz-fearful, and holding…but tomorrow, for you, the Betamax; digital-ized now, dig-it-al-ized…for the future…and they come too…stranger to me than your butterfly collar…lookin all eighteenth century, sportin gigantic craniums and missing their pinky fingers…but not that drum-fill…not that wah-solo on eleven…no, not even the singer’s cranked-out moan…even though they don’t know what crank was…and we party like it’s 2089, 1723, 545 B.C…and we talk about starting a band…and we write songs that kick ass and stick to your eardrums like cotton candy in July…July: do we still have that then?…and we’ll leave it for you…dig-it-al-ized…we share a joint and the guy without a pinky has a seizure…then feathered hair has one…then I get all shaky…the shivers of primitive neurology in a tsunami…and we remain…by the box…ear to ear…until the encore.

Poem of Amy Holbrook, an American

“Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
Well I have...for the April rain has, and the mica on the side of a rock has."

This morning I watch the day break,
Gray but not bleak to me, for I have seen other sunrises…at daybreak we stand alone and silent,
Watching the world, tremendous, and knowing our place is in it.
I am alone, and by extension, I am not alone.

Last night I awoke to sounds all around me, in the middle of the night,
an acoustic guitar, a girl’s voice, sirens in the distance, the laughing of people outside my window,
They did not trouble me…I knocked on no doors.

These are the sounds of Life, and I am happy for them,
just as I am happy for my 6:21 silence…I stand at my window.
Out in that night, you were awake.

For I am your guardian this morning…as you sleep I contemplate.
I think not of you, but for you, as you have done for me.
I am off and running, but I will wait for you.

Wind! Rain! Still I am uncertain,
I am certain as I am uncertain…an answer will come to me in time.
I hold a book up to shield my face.
I walk past buildings. The campus is as a ghost town.
The sun has arisen, but light has not emerged.
I walk, thinking.

A war is raging on my shoulders, angel and devil,
Shouting above the whistle of the swift wind. Another shout.
My own voice...I throw them both aside.
For I am not the poet of good, nor the poet of evil. I am neither.
I speak for myself, as for you. The mostly okay.

In buildings, the heartbroken sleep fitfully. They will awaken soon, hungry,
though breakfast does not open until ten. Fret not, my compatriots,
for I have been among you and will be among you. I take my place.
We pass our nights the same. I watch days break for you.

Whitman Homage

I am a girl, delighted with the simple joys of the flirtatious text
I am a woman, calculating the cost of the message- in my emotional bank, as well as amongst this months mass of monies owed
I am a collector of dollars of the consumer, the customer.
I am the customer.

I am a student, impressed at times by my own insights. Depressed as they lack luster in comparison to my classmates.
I am a classmate, my class mate, a red hot aura of frustration and elation, exhaustion and awareness.
Perceptions of the other rarely leave from for extenuating circumstances.
But circumstances always extenuate.
Maybe she has a reason for selecting such a horrendous hair color.
Could be that she likes it.
But the point is, the point is is that its her hair to color, her images to create, her persona to make for the rest of the world’s viewing pleasure. Or displeasure.
Whatever.
The freedom of choice and the freedom of will inspire and instill in our hearts a desire to BE.
Be you be me be yourself be ourselves be a bitch be a tease be a goddess on her knees. Be Meredith Brooks.

Gone are the days when my voice didn’t count because I am female, I am not white, I am underclass, I am uneducated.
Gone are the nights where it was not safe to walk alone, walk solo home.
Or so we tell ourselves.
Our fairy tales are no longer of Cinderella’s and Belle’s, of mermaids and faeries.
Our fairytales now are tales (lies) about crime, lies about equality, lies about safety, lies about lies.
When faced with the truth our American eyes grow wide and our American brows arch in alarm.
We react with denial, with a sharp rebuttal, because we couldn’t possibly live with ourselves if we lived in a country that did that.
But we do.
Acceptance creeps across us without our notice, like maple syrup across pancakes, until we’re engulfed, engrossed, and covered. Suffocated and stuck by the truth.
The truth that we should cut back on the latter half of apple pie and increase our intake of the former a little.
The truth that the obesity problem is a problem, our problem, and laying blame about why I’m fat doesn’t make me not fat.
The truth that 4000 pairs of boots is a lot to carry around. And they’ll be at ISU. Remember who they used to belong to. And you know what else is a lot to carry around? The baggage left behind by the former boot owners, before they died in a war they did not ask for.
The truth that truth is entirely subjective.
There is no objective truth. (Your welcome, Nietzsche)
There is no absolute truth (Sorry religion)

There is only a you and a me and an us and a they.
And we can’t be defeated by them. We must band together against the ever changing attacker- them!
We have chosen to be who we are, what we are. And so we have chosen to scare ourselves shitless.
And that is a good thing. Because one of them just ran off with the last roll of Charmin.

Homage to Whitman

I sit my weary ass on this sit-in-spin of a chair, whirling around like the drunkard's mouth on the bottle. I LOVE YOU DRUNKARD! You are who you are; as naked as the day you were born; inhibitions thrown to the wind, but trampled by the scorners.

I think we should all be drunk; drunk on life, and the love that we are all capable of giving.

I have love for the little hussy in the corner, making available her whole being for a one night adornment. I have love for the middle-aged man, trying to regain his youth with the help of the sips from his little Red Bull beverage. I love these beautiful beings because there is something in them that lives in me, and thus lives in one another.

As for those scorners, of which i've been, come off your high horses and sit on your ass as I do. The air is scarce down here, and the mind can better judge. Too much of anything can cloud judgement. If we all sit on our asses, we can better see the way we share so much of this world. We share breath, hormones, thoughts , and life.

Why should we scorn the little whorey girls, the tight-lipped virgins, the casanovas, and the FREAKS? We are all FREAKS, who tread on a thin line around one another, thinking no one can understand that inner freak, that closet rowdy, that silent sheep, but the truth of the matter is that we bloom when allowing another in our wierd little lives. It can cut us down to that tiny little thread we tread on, but can shoot us into that exasperating air.

In the end we land on our asses, not our feet, for we are not cats, we are humans. so give that person you scorn the love you would want for yourself. See how light your thoughts are, and how heavy your heart becomes, balancing the negative and the positive that within us exist. I LOVE MYSELF, BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!

Grassy Leaves of Grass

Enamored am I of the profundity of these lines, the ease with which they flow

Freely, gladly, unobtrusively from the loins of a seasoned, weathered heart.

O that I could idly loafe and leap through the licentious hoops of life

while languidly licking the tip of the phallic lollipop that lingers and leers

in the depths of my oversexed libido, my thrust-thirsty flower of the white oleander type—

Pure pale perverse little pussy with a milky-white exterior concealing the poison contained within.

I behold the soupy swamp—the pussy willows wafting and waltzing around its murky edges

Playfully beckoning the beastly bachelor’s buttons to rise and fall with the wind’s expectations.

Lying in the Earthly meadow endlessly, lazily counting the leaves of grass descended from

the weeping willow that has its roots in the labyrinthian maze of my otherworldly brain,

I ponder the cycle of life—birth, death, rebirth—and its perpetual movement, its endlessness.

Awe overcomes me in my solitude as a space for the afterlife between death and rebirth appears

before my very eyes—expressive eyes that reveal the complexity of matters of the heart and soul.

The interrelatedness of earth, air, fire, water, animal, human, and spirit—

everything possessing an element of the divine within the intimate conglomerate of nature.

A subtle influence likened to the eternal ebb and flow of the moon-pulled tide

criss-crosses, curls, and ties everything together—a pristine package tautly fastened with an invisible bow,

which over time, has come to be known as the all-encompassing Oversoul.

The soul of all souls—mine, his, hers, and yours. We all come together in this planetary orb

working, soul-searching to find a deeper meaning for our purpose in this unpredictable world—

I have yet to procure an answer after ceaseless reflection and my mind grows flummoxed.

Seeking relief, I allow my thoughts to stray to my lover, latently fantasizing about his tongue betwixt my lips

Stifling a sexy smile, I speak with the bees who willingly trace his handsome face for me out of pollen

Those lovely locks of dew-smelling hair falling gingerly over those honest shimmering eyes.

I dream of his fingers dancing the expanse of my naked body, tracing my beauty marks like stars in the sky

His tender voice whispering, “Worry not my love, for invincible we are, this moment shall forever be ours.”

It is his very existence that gives me hope.

Hope that I can find it within me to love unconditionally both myself and all else in nature,

that I too may soar above material nonsense and realize the magnificence of my own Earthly being—

that we may find the strength to exterminate the constraints placed upon us by the throes of oppressive society!

Let us transcend the bonds that hold us captive within our rubbish-ridden minds and instead

act as sponges soaking, internalizing the innate unity, the wholeness of humanity and nature.

We must take the hands of one another in search of truth, willingly traversing paths unknown,

traveling into new realms of thought where life is ever-changing with the capriciousness of Mother Nature.

Treading the waters of the opaque ocean, I have hopes of the liquid pervading my pores,

quenching an insatiable bodily thirst that keeps me parched even in a month of monsoons.

But I tread to no avail, tiring and wishing for a ship to set sail and transport me to a blesséd place

A sacred temple of Mother Earth hidden deep within the forest amongst a gathering of Dryads

Whispering whimsically of the Old ways, their fragile voices lost in the bellowing whipping wind.

O that I could recount the gorgeous trees I see forming an alcove, an umbrella of leaves:

Catalpa, Honeylocust, Elder, Willow, Maple, Ash, Beech, Sweetgum, Sycamore, Sumac—

A plethora indeed. I marvel at the selflessness, the radiance of these intricate, life-sustaining trees.

Westward ho! The birds migrate in a conglomerate V fixating on a retreat most divine and sweet

But my mouth, it makes a perfect O when preparing for the entry of a much-anticipated fleshy pole

and when undulating in waves of intense sensual pleasure, my back often resembles a lowercase letter...n.

Mortality with a capital M does not frighten me nor phase me in the least, for I am well aware that this

is to be my Earthly destiny. Death has betaken me many a time before, but unalarmed I stand

for ’tis simply a part of the life cycle, which has a tendency to repeat itself time and again—

a fact of life to be embraced, for it defies logic to fear and deny what is only a matter of time and besides,

rest assured that at least you will finally learn whether the grass is indeed greener on the other side of the dirt.

It's finally here again! Soon to be departed

I celebrate the weekend
And all the graciousness of its being
For everyone’s weekend which parallels mine down to the very atom

I slave and sacrifice myself over five days
I live and breathe papers, books, education and Spanish for the time being
I sleep when I can and catch my breath even less
This I still love for it is what I do
I wouldn’t have my weeks be any different for where they will lead will be great
And yet I trudge on as the leaders beat us to a pulp and watch us squirm and cry
Only to be saved by the sweet release of Friday and keeping us fully aware that hell begins three days later.

A class I was forced into and took much more than I cared too, soon it will be over
A poem much longer than I cared to read, passion soon erupts
Oral Tradition learned from paper and ink, thankfully ended
Literature of a foreign people becoming viable
Learning the art of learning and teaching, keeping the kids in mind
Making peace with grammar rules, to continue the power of teaching
A sigh of relief in the blissful afternoon air of Friday
A joyful conversation with friends that could last for days
Hanging out with good people opposed to spending money
Spending money and still hanging out with good people
The bartender recovering from our last visit still knowing our names
The bus driver ever jolly always up for a conversation
The bed, ever welcoming

The Sunday spent working in the back of the house
The air filled with the sweet perfume of Whoppers and Chicken and fries and salt
Even Sunday I celebrate for the people I work with
The fulltime employee looking forward to the next Friday
The three girls who make a slow morning go even quicker
The two hour long break in which nothing gets done
The night crew making sure everyone is busy at all time
I pleasantly make the meal that has been asked for, the meat for those who want and willingly pay the price
The shop will turn no one away nor leave anyone dissatisfied
This is the drop of the frozen patty
The wary hands covered in plastic and thoroughly washed
This is the drop of the burger onto wonderful bread and the addition of garments

I celebrate the weekend in every being of its fiber
But the days don’t stop changing and Monday will eventually come again
So next Friday at the bar I will again meet you.