Poetry and Corpses

Well, I think today is the last day of April, which should mean that the rain stops! (Even though we all want rain on that Thursday during Tulip Time) Hooray for warm weather except for when it's too warm and unbearable because you can't do anything except hope that a freak downpour will occur! Anyway, I saw an ad that said "Offer valid only from April 1st - 31st" and I think it's sad that whoever made that ad didn't know how many days were in April. I personally use the "knuckle trick" when I need to remember how many days are in a month, but my mom always tried to teach me a rhyme that I never seem to remember. (If you don't know they knuckle trick, I'm very sorry because even one-handed people can remember how many days are in a certain month) Sorry, back to poetry.

     Poem-A-Day was an interesting idea. After all, who doesn't want to get a random poem in their mail? I like the idea, but I also felt like it wasn't quite right for me. Sometimes the poems just seemed sort of uninteresting to me, so sometimes I didn't really want to read it, or when I did, I didn't feel like a better person, or think it was the best poem ever, or have ideas about how to write my own poems. Poetry is a really great way to express an emotion, but I think it's hard to appreciate charged up emotions without a voice or some sort of story. It's even harder to appreciate it when it is a story, and it starts out making sense, but then the whole idea suddenly changes. Like the exquisite corpse poem. If I were to give that to someone to read, without telling them that it had 16 poets rather then one, they would think that it was really bizarre. Unfortunately, I sometimes feel like I was just handed a poem like that because it follows no course. So as much as the poet might have done a fine job of writing, it's sometimes a little too much to ask another person to understand.
     I don't think I have any new favorite poets. Usually whenever I think that I might like other poems by a poet, I find out that I don't really like the other poems nearly as much. I have read a lot by Theodore Roethke, although Poets.org doesn't have many of his poems. I also came across a villanelle he wrote called The Waking, and two on the Poetry Foundation's website that I like, called "Long Live the Weeds" and A Wheeze for Whystan. I was reading a very long and detailed biography about him, and the poor man did not seem very happy, although he wrote some cheerful poems. Evidently he would have breakdowns and never seemed to fit in well. Poor Theodore. Anyway, he is probably the only new poet I discovered that I really liked a lot of poems by. I also like some of Emily Dickinson's poems. Looking at my notebook, I have only one poem from each poet, because there are really so few available to add. I have about thirty poems by different poets in my notebook, so I don't think I'll list of them. There are a lot of poems that I would call favorites, probably at least half of my notebook. After memorizing it, it's sort of hard not to like When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be, and sometimes I do say it to myself without thinking about it. I also really like two from the packet, most likely because I had to go through and write little notes on it. I think I mentioned The House on the Hill, which is a villanelle, if I remember correctly. I also read a poem today called Arbolé Arbolé . . . by Federico García Lorca because I saw it on the homepage. I don't have too many from the Poem-A-Day, although I think there are some. (I'm not entirely sure which came from it and which didn't).
     I do plan on continuing to make an effort to read poetry, although it will probably be the Shel Silverstein book of poetry by my bed. As long as I'm working of the poems I'm writing, I'll still be reading poetry. An final poem to end poetry month:

One Flower

By Jack Kerouac

One flower
   on the cliffside
Nodding at the canyon

Poetry: Earth Week

 Yes, all this week has been Earth Week! (That's the way I look at it) Unfortunately, I have no Earth poems to share with you, simply because I didn't find one I really liked. I have been reading poems on the Poetry Foundation website that are the certain poems we are supposed to write this week. (Pantoum, Villanelle, etc.) and I found I do like those a lot. At first, it was really frustrating to write the pantoum and villanelle poems (the others are still in progress) and I didn't really want to do them. I spent a really long time on both of them (which is sort of annoying because I still have other things I should finish), but I am still pretty pleased with how they turned out. It was actually really fun to try and fit the structure, and to find rhymes for a whole poem with only two words to rhyme with. The pantoum was also a fun challenge, because there were very specific limits with structure, but at the same time no limits on what it was about. I had to take one line and keep rephrasing it and rephrasing it because otherwise it sounded sort of weird as the next line. I think I'll definitely need to change a few things with them, but I'm not sure exactly what yet.

     Anyway, I was getting to a point, which was that writing these poems has given me a better appreciation for the other poems that are in that form. I was reading a double sestina and I had to wonder who really had the patience to write one. (One 39 line poem is more than enough for me) Most of the new poems that I found that I do like are in that structure. The House on the Hill by Edwin Arlington Robinson, which is a villanelle poem, is sort of sad, but I also like it. (If you read about the poet, it says something about how he was the poet of unhappiness or something like that) I added that to my notebook, and realize that I also had the poem One Art in my notebook which I may or may not have mentioned before. (It's also a villanelle) How could you not like villanelles? Even the name is neat. (It reminds me of a female villain, wait, that would be villianette) I like how the meaning of the line (usually) changes with every time that it's used, and how a clever line at the beginning can make a really good ending.

     I also found a poem this week that I like called My House is the Red Earth by Joy Harjo. I'm honestly not quite sure why I like it so much, but I do. I also read a poem called Eating Poetry, which was a little strange. I don't think I really liked it, but I thought I should still mention it. I also read a poem called September Elegies which is a sad pantoum about four boys who committed suicide because of bullying, which, although is not my very favorite or anything, I thought used the structure of a pantoum very effectively. I know this poem is out of season...

An Autumn Greeting

"Come," said the Wind to the Leaves one day.

"Come over the meadow and we will play.

Put on your dresses of red and gold.

For summer is gone and the days grow cold."

Poetry This Week

What sort of poetry have I been reading this week? I looked at quite a few over this week, I can't say I can specifically remember all of them, but I'll try to recall a few that I added to my notebook. The first, obvious ones, are the one in the packet. I actually really liked these, although my least favorite is probably Flash Cards. I guess I thought it was sort of strange, and it sounded like she was almost being forced to be good at math. I also thought that the first line made it sound as if she were bragging about herself: "...I was the whiz kid...", although it didn't necessarily follow through with the rest of the poem. I did find an interesting recording of the author reading it, which made me like it a little better, but I wasn't really sure how they author meant for me to feel at the end. It doesn't sound like a happy poem, but it doesn't seem very sad when she reads it, either. But I also don't want to emphasize the bad things (I can be fairly critical) because I did like it, particularly when listening to her read it.

      While looking for a poem to carry in my pocket (I remembered), I found the poem A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes which is actually a children's book, but it made me smile. It's very short and compares everything to a pocket, like a vase, and a bowl, and a chicken coop. I almost brought it with me on Thursday, but instead I brought Spellbound by Emily Brontë, which I really like, and I wrote out The Purple Cow for my friend who is, strangely enough, very fond of both cows and the color purple. I did tell a few people about Poem-in-Your-Pocket day on Wednesday while we were sitting on a hill, waiting for a bus which evidently forgot to take us to our soccer game, but they all forgot. I also read a poem this week called The Tree, which I also liked. He starts by saying "I am four monkeys," and then tells what each monkey is doing, and then ends with "How many monkeys are you?" I thought that was an interesting way to talk about yourself, each monkey shows a different part of his personality. The last one that I like is a few poems from a book, I Am! Say the Lamb. It has all these short poems about different objects/animals. (The Donkey, The Ceiling, The Chair, The Hippo, The Lizard) The poet is the same one that wrote My Papa's Waltz, Theodore Roethke.

About the Bloath
By Shel Silverstein

In the undergrowth

There dwells the Bloath

Who feeds upon poets and tea.

Luckily I know this about him,

While he knows almost nothing of me.

Reading and Snow

Hello to all three of my loyal followers...Just kidding I don't have any. My tendency to ramble seems to have lost even the best of readers. If you've read this far, good for you. You can now decided it's safe enough to skip to the bottom and make a comment on something you saw while skimming through. Now that my lament is over I can go on to other things like...snow. Before I start on my reading and the poems, I would like to mention something. Although I spent a good chunk of time here in Holland, we did take a little road trip all the way to New York. There is a college there that my sister is considering going to in a little town called Ithaca. There are a few things you need to know about Ithaca: a) Odysseus does not seem to live there b) It way out in the middle of nowhere c) It is very very hilly, and driving up and down roads there can be just a little bit scary. Although the weather was really quite nice, I was just a little bit alarmed to see snow between Erie, PA and Ithaca (I don't know exactly where but along the highway) Whoever decided to build Erie was a genius because there is not a whole lot of places to stay withing quite a few miles around. Strangely enough, Erie is farther away from Lake Erie than a whole lot of other cities, but that's okay. Anyway, most of my reading was in the car or sort of before that. I don't seem to get carsick, only once when I was really little, we do have motion sickness bands, but I don't use them. My mom decided to stop by the library and bring me some books...one of these days I will learn to return them before I read them. Just kidding! I got a Muse magazine (I don't know if any of you know about it or not) which had some interesting articles about whaling and digging up and burying artifacts. I think it's geared toward slightly younger readers, but there's not a whole lot to do in a car when your GPS tells you the next turn you will make is in 175 miles. (Oh, I wish I was exaggerating) We did see a really long train just sitting parallel to the highway. We are thinking has approximately 200 cars (I started counting after I realized it was really long).
           Anyway, after I read that I read a book called The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh (Well, I had already read half of it before leaving) and that was pretty good. It's about a little boy who lives in an abbey (Crowfield) next to Foxtwist woods where he finds a hobgoblin (who is later named Brother Walter) caught in a nasty trap that should not be there. The boy (William) manages to get the hob out and takes him back to the abbey to get help from Brother Snail, who is the only kind/understanding person there. But then all these mysterious things start happening that are really unrelated to finding the hob, but William starts to get really freaked out because there are white crows and misty ghost people and creepy old ladies standing around corners and shadows that should not be there. Then he hears about an angel that supposedly died after being shot with an arrow and is buried somewhere around there. (He unravels the information much slower, from different sources) The hob tells him a little about it (he calls it a nangel, after hearing "an angel") and Brother Snail (or the snail brother) shows him a feather from the angel for proof. There is also a mysterious man and his servant who come to the abbey and they seem unusually interested in William and the angel. (Don't want to give too much away) By the end I had noticed a few things: a) It was unusually difficult to tell whether a person was supposed to be good or evil at first, and for some even later b) The hob was probably the best part of the story because of the way he spoke and the things he did c) There should definitely be a sequel because it was not really resolved and d) The cover was really terrible because very little seemed to connect with the story. There are these weird monsters perched in trees on the cover, black with glowing red eyes, and even at the end of every chapter, and yet I still really don't know what they are. I think they represent the presence of the Dark King, and are always in the forest watching, but at the same time they really aren't mentioned. The other thing is that there is a cat/fox thing on the cover. There is some mention of a fox, but I really messed with me because I think it was supposed to be the hobgoblin. All hobgoblins look (to me) like Dobby, but with fur and a tail. This made it really weird because I never imagined it like a fox. (Sorry that was quite long)
     Other reading, earlier this week, was a book called Fever Crumb. I did like this book, but not quite as much as I thought I would. (It looks like there might be more...not sure) The fun started with the cover. There is a picture of the girl, Fever, looking somewhat serious and somewhat menacing in a reddish hood. Now the day my mom got the book, I was wearing a red sweatshirt. Pull the hood up, tuck the hair back, give your most serious glare, and there you have a Fever Crumb. (Sort of scary) I really liked the world she lived in (Future London) and how things worked there. Fever is the only female engineer who lives with the order of Engineers, who are orderly, logical, reasonable, rational people. Everyone else is irrational to them (They believe feelings should not be shown) Fever is sent to work with Kit Solent, She struggles to stay rational in a world where everything is totally irrational. Anyway, when she first gets there, she gets lost and the crowd sees her eyes are two different colors and her head is shaved so they think she's a Scriven, which leads to a bad reputation for the rest of the book. Scriven were a modified race, supposed to be superior to others, and so they ruled for a while until the population shrunk and was overrun. No one can tell though, because Scriven have cheetah sort of spots and had more teeth, along with other differences, none of which she has. It was also very rare for a Scriven baby to be born, for whatever reason. But still they suspect her to be Scriven, even though she thinks not. (I think this is a good time to mention that she has been raised by Dr. Crumb, who reassures her she was found only with a tag that said "Her name is Fever", so she cannot be entirely sure, but still thinks it highly irrational) So she works with Kit on a secret project, and starts to get these strange memories that are not hers. One of my favorite things is that she struggles so much with little kids. She thinks they are all must be slightly crazy to be so irrational, and talking to them is such a challenge for her. Kit's kids are really quite confused by her (The girl carries around a stuffed dog she calls Noodle Poodle) and think she must be sort of dumb because she never knows what to say to them. In the end, I was sort of dissatisfied, but there are more books, so that's reassuring. I felt like very little was resolved, especially since all these nomadic people come in at the end, and sometimes was a little confused by the weird technology they had, but I still thought it was a good book. I think science fiction always throws me off a little bit, because I think there's a clear image in the author's mind of how the world works, and it never quite gets all the way across to me. (Sorry, this one was long, too)
     Finally, poetry reading! I like getting random poems, so I never have to choose, but I really haven't liked many of the poems that well. Most of them I thought were great poems, but I just didn't feel appreciative of the writing, I guess. Sometimes I was sort of confused about what they were trying to get across, and sometimes I felt like I just couldn't follow. I think we all get the same poems, or similar ones, and there was the one about the fish that she caught and let go, and that was all right. She catches it, thinks it's ugly, then sees the hooks in the jaw/lip and lets it go? The first time I read it, I thought it was sort of weird, and the second time I liked it a little better, but there's something about it I just don't like, and I don't know what it is. Then there was the one called  Exact, and as much as I liked it, I just feel like I shouldn't be reading it because I have no idea what he's talking about. I think that goes for a lot of the poems, I feel like I should understand something from it, but I don't and as much as I try to see what the poet saw, I can't. I will not tell you all of the poems in my notebook, and I was disappointed because I couldn't find some, but I guess that means there are different ones to find. I added only two from the Poem-A-Day, and then some extras. Let's see, there's one called April by James Schuyler, We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks (which is a definite favorite, if you have never read it) and One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. I find it very tough to find poems that I really like, but that's okay. I have also been attempting to memorize a sonnet. Originally I really wanted to do the Poe poem about silence, but all I remember are: 'There is a two-fold silence' and 'There are some qualities'. I tried quite hard but it simply would not stick. Now I am doing "When I have fears that I may cease to be" by John Keats (which I have also added to my favorite poems). I am trying quite hard and as of now have almost exactly half memorized. I started reciting it in the car and my sister was a little alarmed. (She thought I was making it all up as I went along and was not sure where it came from) So now I am done and have some writing and memorizing to do! Happy Spring Break!