I was originally going to reflect upon a latter section of Maps to Anywhere, however no matter how hard I tried, I found my brain working back towards a particular section that we had discussed the week before. The larger section is titled The Wind Did It, which is an essay detailing the interactions that Cooper has with his father, but what really stuck with me was one of the final set of paragraphs, where Cooper illustrates a scene of him returning to his father's home while his father is not present, and the only word that I have to describe it is surreal. Just absolutely and utterly surreal. It doesn't seem like it's actually happening, but as if it is some dream of sorts that we're experiencing with Cooper, but this might be able to be attributed to his style; Cooper writes in a very dreamlike manner, with a great deal of commas, short phrases, and appropriately specific details, it makes it too much to take in for the reader as they try to visualize the moment. An example of this is on page 63, where Cooper has entered the house and is gazing upon the plethora of various objects laid about the house, such as "coupons [his father] never use - Scotchguard, Lime Away, Lady Clairol - torn from the Sunday Times. A yellowed brochure for a Mixmaster... a flyer for a missing child. A note that simply says See you soon, signed, Rose - like the flower." All of these elements add up to a sense of mystery as the reader is left to pick up the many pieces Cooper leaves for us to digest.
Perhaps the most interesting moment in this section is that at one point, Cooper himself seems to be stupefied by the sheer amount of detail, "as fragments combine and cohere", he begins to lose himself, and his sentences become more and more abstract and seamless, until he hears "the wind scour the house" which breaks his concentration. After reflecting for a moment, I remember the title of the section, being The Wind Did It. In fact, the header for this particular section under that chapter is also titled The Wind Did It. But, what did the wind do? I found myself without answer until this moment. The wind blew him out of his fragment-laden fervor, bringing him back to reality. But if nonfiction is supposed to be realistic, where was that place that Cooper was before? And can we truly personify the wind as doing something as magical and mystical as that? It's like Impressionistic art brought into word. But that's not something that could be nonfiction.
Again and again, this genre continues to flabbergast me.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Reader Response 4/2/2015 - Maps to Anywhere
I feel like these creative nonfiction essays that we are reading for class are too complex to simply be looked at objectively. I'm still astounded that such truth can be hidden within works that are supposedly nonfiction. I suppose that there exists truth in many forms, this is just the genre that I am most unfamiliar with, despite my literary experience; I've only dealt with creative essays a few times before in my entire life, with the previous being Running in the Family, and that was a work that we only read through and didn't focus too much upon. (It's also classified as a fictionalized memoir, which doesn't help much.) In that work, it seemed to blend such dreamlike elements that it was incredibly difficult to determine what was real and what was not. Blending magical realism alongside the elements inspired by the truth offers an interesting perspective, but it's still fictionalized, nonetheless. Unfortunately, this is the closest that I have gotten to creative essays.
The same holds true for a great number of works within Maps to Anywhere, as the nonfiction works often blend elements that seem unrealistic or magical, akin to magical realism, but are simply different perspectives or takes on the observation or account of something which, due to the natural gaps in the retelling, allows false elements to sneak in and the author is allowed to manipulate them as they will. A prime example of this exists in "The Heralds" in the first section. It may be possible that the narrator never saw a "stream of black birds soaring over the city", but this is not where the doubt comes in. The doubt enters the scenario when Cooper states that they were "endless" and "like winged pieces of letters, like a moving sign in Times Square, heraldic and quick and colossal". If the stream of black birds were truly endless, then there must be some infinite source of black birds, which is impossible, but this can be written off as an exaggeration. The usage of the similes comparing the stream of birds to the letters and the Times Square sign are literary tools and imply some degree of falsity, however because they are joined with the word "like" in the form of similes, it can be also written off. However, if they were written as metaphors, without the usage of the term "like", I still feel that they would hold true despite their literary falsity.
This is one thing that I have great trouble with when it comes to creative essays; the only rule that exists is that the meaning behind the words, not the words themselves, must be true, but that begs the question of what is true and what is not. Could this blog post be considered creative nonfiction? It's possible, because I feel as if what I'm writing here is true, but someone else might not know that and be confused about it. Even though this is a genre that should be very simple to understand, for me it is the exact opposite. The wordplay that exists in this genre is something that spices up the individual writings and, personally, adds to the confusion, but it's something that I will eventually overcome, given the time.
The same holds true for a great number of works within Maps to Anywhere, as the nonfiction works often blend elements that seem unrealistic or magical, akin to magical realism, but are simply different perspectives or takes on the observation or account of something which, due to the natural gaps in the retelling, allows false elements to sneak in and the author is allowed to manipulate them as they will. A prime example of this exists in "The Heralds" in the first section. It may be possible that the narrator never saw a "stream of black birds soaring over the city", but this is not where the doubt comes in. The doubt enters the scenario when Cooper states that they were "endless" and "like winged pieces of letters, like a moving sign in Times Square, heraldic and quick and colossal". If the stream of black birds were truly endless, then there must be some infinite source of black birds, which is impossible, but this can be written off as an exaggeration. The usage of the similes comparing the stream of birds to the letters and the Times Square sign are literary tools and imply some degree of falsity, however because they are joined with the word "like" in the form of similes, it can be also written off. However, if they were written as metaphors, without the usage of the term "like", I still feel that they would hold true despite their literary falsity.
This is one thing that I have great trouble with when it comes to creative essays; the only rule that exists is that the meaning behind the words, not the words themselves, must be true, but that begs the question of what is true and what is not. Could this blog post be considered creative nonfiction? It's possible, because I feel as if what I'm writing here is true, but someone else might not know that and be confused about it. Even though this is a genre that should be very simple to understand, for me it is the exact opposite. The wordplay that exists in this genre is something that spices up the individual writings and, personally, adds to the confusion, but it's something that I will eventually overcome, given the time.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Reader Response 3/26/2015 - Three Voices
Creative non-fiction writings are one of the most confusing genres that I can think of. Not only is what they are about true, but they tend to be observational and reflective, like a still life painting put into words. Metaphor is the closest that the author can get to lying to their reader without having their story be classified as fiction, but then again the closest that the reader can get to disproving the genre of the work is through fact checking. But only a few people know whether or not such seemingly small events happen, nor can they do any form of fact checking because, usually, the author's account of the event in the work is the only reference that exists! All in all, creative non-fiction is such a ubiquitous genre that I even find myself struggling with it.
Therefore, when it came to choosing a piece that I would reflect upon for this, it was difficult for me to select one that I understood on more than the surface level. The piece that I settled on was "Three Voices" by Bhanu Kappil. In this work, the author depicts what seems to be a typical home setting with the narrator, most likely being herself, relaxing and attempting to enjoy her day, however she "cannot shake the lump of coal out of [her] body", which alludes to her having some large foreign object disturbing her greatly.
The part that confuses me the most is the end of the first part, part I. In this work, sections are split up by Roman numerals. The first section is more of a descriptive part, the second has a bit more motion and narration, while the third part is more reflective and introspective. What confuses me about the first parts ending is the usage of the statement about Kappil not being a rational human being, but rather she's writing "about the substances of an animal and female life; magic, pain, the cracked nails of four feet, and the days like this one" and where she states that "there is something hard between my lungs. It is the size of a blood orange from northern California." It's not the metaphor that confuses me, nor is it the specific usage of a blood orange from northern California, but rather that there is a large lump in between her lungs, which I feel is talking about her heart. I just don't understand why she would compare it to a blood orange and not explicitly state it's her heart. I understand that she can describe it however she wants to, as it the nature of creative writing, but if this is truly non-fiction, how can such a false description be used?
I feel as if this non-fiction unit is going to give me a large amount of trouble, and it's not because of the artistic elements used or anything like that, but rather that it's such a weird genre, I don't know how to classify it. Did those events even happen? Does it even matter?
Now I'm just hurting my head.
Therefore, when it came to choosing a piece that I would reflect upon for this, it was difficult for me to select one that I understood on more than the surface level. The piece that I settled on was "Three Voices" by Bhanu Kappil. In this work, the author depicts what seems to be a typical home setting with the narrator, most likely being herself, relaxing and attempting to enjoy her day, however she "cannot shake the lump of coal out of [her] body", which alludes to her having some large foreign object disturbing her greatly.
The part that confuses me the most is the end of the first part, part I. In this work, sections are split up by Roman numerals. The first section is more of a descriptive part, the second has a bit more motion and narration, while the third part is more reflective and introspective. What confuses me about the first parts ending is the usage of the statement about Kappil not being a rational human being, but rather she's writing "about the substances of an animal and female life; magic, pain, the cracked nails of four feet, and the days like this one" and where she states that "there is something hard between my lungs. It is the size of a blood orange from northern California." It's not the metaphor that confuses me, nor is it the specific usage of a blood orange from northern California, but rather that there is a large lump in between her lungs, which I feel is talking about her heart. I just don't understand why she would compare it to a blood orange and not explicitly state it's her heart. I understand that she can describe it however she wants to, as it the nature of creative writing, but if this is truly non-fiction, how can such a false description be used?
I feel as if this non-fiction unit is going to give me a large amount of trouble, and it's not because of the artistic elements used or anything like that, but rather that it's such a weird genre, I don't know how to classify it. Did those events even happen? Does it even matter?
Now I'm just hurting my head.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Reader Response 3/19/2015 - Somatic Poetry Exercises
I feel horrible that I was unable to attend the Bathhouse event yesterday, however I will instead host my own sort of "Bathhouse" in the form of me reflecting upon CAConrad's "Somatic Poetry Exercises" and, while I will unfortunately not attempt any in this blog post, let it be known that I have selected one that I will execute when I am not bogged down with an abundance of real world responsibilities, such as schoolwork, housework, and actual work. I would love to prioritize my art ahead of such mundane activities like cleaning my room, making sandwiches, and doing paperwork, but I cannot pay my bills with words. Well technically I use words to make the money which I use to pay my bills, but this isn't a time to be introspective about that, not yet at least.
CAConrad wrote an interesting series of poetry prompts, however I feel as if they could be used as prompts for any genre or form of writing, or even paintings or drawings. They are written not only as prompts but as almost a series of poems themselves, as they are incredibly lyrical and expressive, bursting with emotion and artistic compassion, validating nearly every artistic choice that a follower of the prompt might make. Probably the most profound and strange of these is in prompt #6, where CAConrad states that when meditating upon one's genitals during the sunset, if the urge to masturbate arises, then it is fine.
CAConrad's compassion is present in nearly every prompt, however there is also something else that is present in nearly every prompt, and that is the avoidance of other people. They suggest that when faced with the possible potential for human interaction, that the best course of action is to avoid them, pass them a note saying you're busy, or if all else fails to directly tell them that you are a busy weirdo and for them to leave you alone. At first I was mildly offended at this off-putting of human interaction, as not only many fantastic inspirations can come from human contact, but the manner in which CAConrad goes about some of these avoidances of other humans is somewhat pretentious, which is best illustrated best when CAConrad tells us to "forget about them, it's not your fault you're more interesting than they are." However, I think this is more of artistic perspective bias, as I propose that CAConrad wrote many of their best writings in solitude, but I also believe that it is related to the act of solitary meditation.
I mentioned earlier that I would be attempting one of these prompts when time allowed, which would be at the latest before my 20th birthday. Part of me wants to execute the Banana Word Machine Prompt, and another part of me wanted to do something simple such as the bookstore prompt, but I have decided that I will execute the prompt of reflecting upon the body parts during 9 different sunsets. While it is somewhat of a time commitment, it doesn't imply that they must all be consecutive, which means if I had to work at night once, it would be ok. CAConrad would understand. The reason why I chose this prompt is for two reasons. One is that it is incredibly reminiscent of chakra meditation, but rather than focusing on the 7 different chakras, which are all located in the lower torso ranging to the crown of the head, it focuses on entire body sections, including arms and legs. The second reason why I plan to execute this prompt is how it translates into the final work. After obtaining all 9 feverish writings, I am to combine then by having the first word of the first writing be word #1, then the first word of the second writing be word #2, so on and so forth until it is a mess of words but perfectly dispersed and proportioned into one solid piece. Of course the pieces will be of different length so the end will be more focused on the longer ones, but that's ok. Then I am to sort through the beautiful mayhem of words and filter and delete and edit and shape until I feel content with the work. It seems like a lot of work, but the hardest part will be the writing each night, not the filtering.
Overall, despite the fact that they took me some warming up to, CAConrad's "Somatic Poetry Exercises" not only are incredibly poetic themselves, but are potentially the inspiration to cause a chain reaction of inspired and inspiring poems. You just have to first get past the taboo!
CAConrad wrote an interesting series of poetry prompts, however I feel as if they could be used as prompts for any genre or form of writing, or even paintings or drawings. They are written not only as prompts but as almost a series of poems themselves, as they are incredibly lyrical and expressive, bursting with emotion and artistic compassion, validating nearly every artistic choice that a follower of the prompt might make. Probably the most profound and strange of these is in prompt #6, where CAConrad states that when meditating upon one's genitals during the sunset, if the urge to masturbate arises, then it is fine.
CAConrad's compassion is present in nearly every prompt, however there is also something else that is present in nearly every prompt, and that is the avoidance of other people. They suggest that when faced with the possible potential for human interaction, that the best course of action is to avoid them, pass them a note saying you're busy, or if all else fails to directly tell them that you are a busy weirdo and for them to leave you alone. At first I was mildly offended at this off-putting of human interaction, as not only many fantastic inspirations can come from human contact, but the manner in which CAConrad goes about some of these avoidances of other humans is somewhat pretentious, which is best illustrated best when CAConrad tells us to "forget about them, it's not your fault you're more interesting than they are." However, I think this is more of artistic perspective bias, as I propose that CAConrad wrote many of their best writings in solitude, but I also believe that it is related to the act of solitary meditation.
I mentioned earlier that I would be attempting one of these prompts when time allowed, which would be at the latest before my 20th birthday. Part of me wants to execute the Banana Word Machine Prompt, and another part of me wanted to do something simple such as the bookstore prompt, but I have decided that I will execute the prompt of reflecting upon the body parts during 9 different sunsets. While it is somewhat of a time commitment, it doesn't imply that they must all be consecutive, which means if I had to work at night once, it would be ok. CAConrad would understand. The reason why I chose this prompt is for two reasons. One is that it is incredibly reminiscent of chakra meditation, but rather than focusing on the 7 different chakras, which are all located in the lower torso ranging to the crown of the head, it focuses on entire body sections, including arms and legs. The second reason why I plan to execute this prompt is how it translates into the final work. After obtaining all 9 feverish writings, I am to combine then by having the first word of the first writing be word #1, then the first word of the second writing be word #2, so on and so forth until it is a mess of words but perfectly dispersed and proportioned into one solid piece. Of course the pieces will be of different length so the end will be more focused on the longer ones, but that's ok. Then I am to sort through the beautiful mayhem of words and filter and delete and edit and shape until I feel content with the work. It seems like a lot of work, but the hardest part will be the writing each night, not the filtering.
Overall, despite the fact that they took me some warming up to, CAConrad's "Somatic Poetry Exercises" not only are incredibly poetic themselves, but are potentially the inspiration to cause a chain reaction of inspired and inspiring poems. You just have to first get past the taboo!
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Reader Response 2/19/2015 - Survivors
To be brutally honest, I'm not that much of a fan of short stories. While I love the idea that they're so short and usually skimping on the details which forces the reader to involve themselves by filling in the gaps themselves, their lack of general length and often poetry-esque denseness makes them incredibly tiring to read. It's like attempting to understand an entire story yet condensed into a few sentences, and very few short stories can truly balance their shortened length, and I believe that Kim Addonizio's Survivors is one of these few.
In this short story, it details what seems to be a 3rd person view of a gay couple's situation who are dying of HIV or potentially AIDS. It isn't directly stated that they have a disease, however the usage of the grim implication that they "were down to their last few T cells" attempts to circumnavigate some of the harshness of the reality that they were most likely going to die. I really enjoy the 2nd part of the sentence, being that they were "arguing over who was going to die first", and not in some cutesy lover's quarrel but rather the opposite, however tinges of their romantic feelings seem to come through in the phrasing of it. Rather they are a parody of a lover's quarrel or actual genuine concern for each other despite the acceptance of their mutual deaths, I'm not sure.
Speaking of sentences, something that sticks out to me is the fact that in this short story, there are only 3 entire sentences, the first one being 21 words, the second one being a whole 98 words, and the final sentence being a whopping 152 words, all with the occasional comma or semicolon or dash to separate clauses. The usage of increasingly long sentences is most likely relative to the jumble of thoughts that an individual is having when confronted with such a situation; one thing leads to the next without ever finishing and eventually it just keeps going and going until it's too much for one person to handle. And deciding whether or not you would die and let your lover suffer alone or to let your lover die and have to watch as they perished, that counts as one of those situations. I don't even think that I could solve it, if I was ever confronted with it. Either way, someone is going to be hurting and in a great deal of emotional pain while the other one suffers through a great deal of physical pain.
At the very end of the short story, it changes perspective to 1st person as the narrator decides that he wishes his lover to die before him, and initially I thought that was a very selfish thing to do, however after reflecting, I just think that the narrator is weak emotionally. His lover is stronger than him; he was the one that survived beatings from his father who "had tried to beat his son's sexual orientation out of him with a belt on several occasions during adolescence". (This by the way makes me incredibly upset, and while I was lucky enough to not be physically beaten during my younger years for my sexuality, I still felt a great deal of the emotional belt across my back as I realized the majority of my family did not accept who I was, and still am today.) The amount of detail that is put in the earlier and middle sections of the story are the indirectly stated emotional trauma that the survivor would have to go through. He doesn't want to take care of the parrot because it would be a constant reminder of his lover. He didn't want to survive his lover because he couldn't handle it emotionally, which in a way still seems quite selfish to me, and the narrator even directly states that after his lover's family pushed him to put away all his things and free the parrot, "he would be completely alone then", but it's not my relationship. I would rather, if my lover wished to die first, I would spare him the immense emotional trauma of living on in the world, but at the same time, death is permanent and people's emotional wounds can heal after time, so he could also live if he wanted to. AGGGHHH, Maybe just having a lover in general isn't a good idea for me ahahaha.
Another important detail that I want to discuss is the parrot that the two lovers share. At first, I thought it was just naught but a caged bird, however it is brought up again towards the end where the narrator describes a hypothetical situation postmortem of himself where his lover would free the bird after putting away all the paintings and knickknacks. The parrot would "join the wild ones he'd heart of, that nested in the palm trees on Delores Street, a whole flock of bright tropical birts apparently thriving in spite of the chilly Bay Area weather" and it's the mention of the chilly weather that ticked me off to the parrot being something more than a simple bird but a metaphor. Parrots can survive colder weather as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit, however most domestic birds cannot. The parrot is not a single bird but a member of the LGBTQ+ community, flying to other members of the LGBTQ+ community that, despite the cold weather/harsh conditions that they live in, they still thrive.
I mildly think it's ironic that the queer kid in the class (there might be more and probably are but I'm the only one I know of so aye) reflects upon the short story all about a queer relationship, but whatever. I appreciate it for more than it's queerness but rather the moral dilemma that exists when faced with death as well as the quiet moments of their relationship that shine through at times. Overall, a grim yet beautifully written short story.
In this short story, it details what seems to be a 3rd person view of a gay couple's situation who are dying of HIV or potentially AIDS. It isn't directly stated that they have a disease, however the usage of the grim implication that they "were down to their last few T cells" attempts to circumnavigate some of the harshness of the reality that they were most likely going to die. I really enjoy the 2nd part of the sentence, being that they were "arguing over who was going to die first", and not in some cutesy lover's quarrel but rather the opposite, however tinges of their romantic feelings seem to come through in the phrasing of it. Rather they are a parody of a lover's quarrel or actual genuine concern for each other despite the acceptance of their mutual deaths, I'm not sure.
Speaking of sentences, something that sticks out to me is the fact that in this short story, there are only 3 entire sentences, the first one being 21 words, the second one being a whole 98 words, and the final sentence being a whopping 152 words, all with the occasional comma or semicolon or dash to separate clauses. The usage of increasingly long sentences is most likely relative to the jumble of thoughts that an individual is having when confronted with such a situation; one thing leads to the next without ever finishing and eventually it just keeps going and going until it's too much for one person to handle. And deciding whether or not you would die and let your lover suffer alone or to let your lover die and have to watch as they perished, that counts as one of those situations. I don't even think that I could solve it, if I was ever confronted with it. Either way, someone is going to be hurting and in a great deal of emotional pain while the other one suffers through a great deal of physical pain.
At the very end of the short story, it changes perspective to 1st person as the narrator decides that he wishes his lover to die before him, and initially I thought that was a very selfish thing to do, however after reflecting, I just think that the narrator is weak emotionally. His lover is stronger than him; he was the one that survived beatings from his father who "had tried to beat his son's sexual orientation out of him with a belt on several occasions during adolescence". (This by the way makes me incredibly upset, and while I was lucky enough to not be physically beaten during my younger years for my sexuality, I still felt a great deal of the emotional belt across my back as I realized the majority of my family did not accept who I was, and still am today.) The amount of detail that is put in the earlier and middle sections of the story are the indirectly stated emotional trauma that the survivor would have to go through. He doesn't want to take care of the parrot because it would be a constant reminder of his lover. He didn't want to survive his lover because he couldn't handle it emotionally, which in a way still seems quite selfish to me, and the narrator even directly states that after his lover's family pushed him to put away all his things and free the parrot, "he would be completely alone then", but it's not my relationship. I would rather, if my lover wished to die first, I would spare him the immense emotional trauma of living on in the world, but at the same time, death is permanent and people's emotional wounds can heal after time, so he could also live if he wanted to. AGGGHHH, Maybe just having a lover in general isn't a good idea for me ahahaha.
Another important detail that I want to discuss is the parrot that the two lovers share. At first, I thought it was just naught but a caged bird, however it is brought up again towards the end where the narrator describes a hypothetical situation postmortem of himself where his lover would free the bird after putting away all the paintings and knickknacks. The parrot would "join the wild ones he'd heart of, that nested in the palm trees on Delores Street, a whole flock of bright tropical birts apparently thriving in spite of the chilly Bay Area weather" and it's the mention of the chilly weather that ticked me off to the parrot being something more than a simple bird but a metaphor. Parrots can survive colder weather as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit, however most domestic birds cannot. The parrot is not a single bird but a member of the LGBTQ+ community, flying to other members of the LGBTQ+ community that, despite the cold weather/harsh conditions that they live in, they still thrive.
I mildly think it's ironic that the queer kid in the class (there might be more and probably are but I'm the only one I know of so aye) reflects upon the short story all about a queer relationship, but whatever. I appreciate it for more than it's queerness but rather the moral dilemma that exists when faced with death as well as the quiet moments of their relationship that shine through at times. Overall, a grim yet beautifully written short story.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Reader Response 2/12/2015 - Writing Down The Bones
I was actually surprised that I ended up rereading portions of Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones," considering that the first time I read it, I actually did end up just reading through the entire thing by accident. I have no problem reflecting further upon it, because it really is a wonderful collection of short works, however this time I would like to reflect upon just one short section rather than, what I did last time, multiple sections. I want to do this in order to offer a deeper look into a certain chapter rather than try and juggle multiple sections to obtain some communal and cohesive meaning. The section that I am going to be investigating today is one that has been resonating with my heart lately during these cold and lonely winter months, being "Use Loneliness".
I suffer from what is known as SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, meaning that during the late Fall and Winter months, I have depressive feelings and thoughts. At first, I always thought they were just the Winter blues, however after investigating the disorder and the fact that every Winter, I always get the same feelings, I concluded that I have SAD. Normally it's a feeling of loneliness that resonates through the colder months, making me feel absolutely disconnected from those around me, even those who during the warmer months I surround myself with intimately. Goldberg mentions this in the chapter, when she states that she "felt that [she] was the only person in the world who ever felt [loneliness]". That's typical of depressive feelings, as they leave us emotionally disconnected from the world around us, and just how she told her mentor Roshi that she would get interested in her loneliness and stop fighting it, it can be consuming and eat away both our time and our energy.
The passage that her mentor, Roshi, tells Goldberg when asked about if one would get used to loneliness is one of the most important passages of this chapter. Roshi states that "you don't get used to it. I take a cold shower every morning and every morning it shocks me, but I continue to stand up in the shower. Loneliness always has a bite, but learn to stand up in it and not be tossed away." This means that loneliness will always be horrible and cold and will make you feel distant, however you have the choice of sitting in that cold shower and letting the ice water run over the contours of your body and freeze you, or to stand up in that cold water and let it run over you, but stand triumphantly and don't let it consume you, body and soul.
Finally, the chapter concludes with a message of advice, as most of them do. However, most other chapters reflect a message of writing advice; this one is a great deal more personal. It might just be due to the emotional similarities that Goldberg and I share through this chapter, however I think it's something more.
"Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression - to speak, to say who you are and how you care about light and rooms and lullabies."
Loneliness and negative emotions will forever live in my heart, and its existence is something that I can't help, but it's not something that I should just let consume me and cripple me. Loneliness, just like joy, is an emotion, usually one that drains and sighs your energy away, however it is an emotion, and a powerful one at that. I can't allow negative emotions to cripple me, but rather I need to express them in word form. I need to taste the bitterness of isolation so I can feel a kinship and compassion for all people who have been alone.
Art connects us, and so does loneliness.
How both ironic and cliché of me.
I suffer from what is known as SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, meaning that during the late Fall and Winter months, I have depressive feelings and thoughts. At first, I always thought they were just the Winter blues, however after investigating the disorder and the fact that every Winter, I always get the same feelings, I concluded that I have SAD. Normally it's a feeling of loneliness that resonates through the colder months, making me feel absolutely disconnected from those around me, even those who during the warmer months I surround myself with intimately. Goldberg mentions this in the chapter, when she states that she "felt that [she] was the only person in the world who ever felt [loneliness]". That's typical of depressive feelings, as they leave us emotionally disconnected from the world around us, and just how she told her mentor Roshi that she would get interested in her loneliness and stop fighting it, it can be consuming and eat away both our time and our energy.
The passage that her mentor, Roshi, tells Goldberg when asked about if one would get used to loneliness is one of the most important passages of this chapter. Roshi states that "you don't get used to it. I take a cold shower every morning and every morning it shocks me, but I continue to stand up in the shower. Loneliness always has a bite, but learn to stand up in it and not be tossed away." This means that loneliness will always be horrible and cold and will make you feel distant, however you have the choice of sitting in that cold shower and letting the ice water run over the contours of your body and freeze you, or to stand up in that cold water and let it run over you, but stand triumphantly and don't let it consume you, body and soul.
Finally, the chapter concludes with a message of advice, as most of them do. However, most other chapters reflect a message of writing advice; this one is a great deal more personal. It might just be due to the emotional similarities that Goldberg and I share through this chapter, however I think it's something more.
"Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression - to speak, to say who you are and how you care about light and rooms and lullabies."
Loneliness and negative emotions will forever live in my heart, and its existence is something that I can't help, but it's not something that I should just let consume me and cripple me. Loneliness, just like joy, is an emotion, usually one that drains and sighs your energy away, however it is an emotion, and a powerful one at that. I can't allow negative emotions to cripple me, but rather I need to express them in word form. I need to taste the bitterness of isolation so I can feel a kinship and compassion for all people who have been alone.
Art connects us, and so does loneliness.
How both ironic and cliché of me.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Reader Response 1/29/2015 - Tocqueville
At first, I was going to respond to PowerPoint I or perhaps Tocqueville by Khaled Mattawa, however I decided upon reading further into the poems. Tocqueville was a long narrative poem and the story that it told me was incredibly, however I feel that I lack the background contextual information in order to understand a lot of the metaphors. PowerPoint 1 is also quite an interesting poem, and I incredibly relate to one stanza that states "for to love one person / you must contemplate loving the whole world" but past that, I couldn't really synchronize with the rest of the poem, as it's structure is just too confusing for me. However, I feel as if I have read Mattawa's magnum opus being the final poem in the collection of poems. I know that this is most likely not actually his magnum opus, but considering how much I like it (and considering this is, after all, my blog lol) I just feel compelled to use the term. The poem that I am going to be reflecting upon for this blog post is Khaled Mattawa's Before.
In this poem, the narrator, who I believe to be Mattawa, reflects upon the time where he fed a cat who belonged to a friend. It is obvious that Mattawa truly enjoyed this exchange, as that is what it became, for he "talked with her" for a while and eventually fed her a bowl of milk to drink. Strangely, the cat takes a single sip of the milk and then proceeds to reject it. For quite some time, I sat attempting to wonder what this was a metaphor for, if anything. However, continuing on with the poem I'm not so sure if it is a metaphor for anything, however it is still incredibly important.
Mattawa continues with other fragmented stories, such as a child running "for the simple flame that must burn" or when he visited grave sites and tombstones and "ran through the cemetery and laughed [his] Cairo laugh". Both of these short moments are related through the theme of running, and it could be possible that the boy initially running at the beginning of the poem is him, however Mattawa declines by stating that "the child is not a memory, / only a gesture on [his] part" meaning that the story of the child is but written and not lived, however I still believe this can be used to argue that Mattawa was this child, being that the story of the graveyard is not lived but written to us. It is his gesture that allows us to know of the story, and while his living of that moment is directly related to him using a gesture to inform us, it is still words that share the child, not the memory.
What is the importance of establishing this link? To be brutally honest, there is only one valid view in my eyes. This poem focuses on time and moments, and how each moment happens affected by another one, but independent. The feeding of the cat, the rejection of the milk, the child running for the flame, the Cairo laughing in the cemetery, all of these moments comprise up someone's life, and they each happened in some specific order. On paper, Mattawa can choose to state them in any order that he wishes, as he is the poet, however in actuality the moments occurred in an order. This all comes together with the final section of the poem, "Billions of snowflakes in between, / and the befores that follow the first before." This means that all of these moments, these snowflakes, they fill the air that is life, the space between the start and the end of life. They swirl about in the air, seemingly infinite, however there is always a snowflake before that one right in front you, and so on so forth. This is how the passage of time is, there is always a moment before a moment, and there's even things before the first moment, the first snowflake.
This poem really is something special, in my opinion. It's like a quick snapshot into Mattawa's life and his perception of time. Time truly is such a magnificent and epic thing, and to truly be self aware of our place in time is incredibly daunting. Even personally, it's easy to state that "oh yeah like 7 years ago I was in middle school and I was tutoring a fellow student" but that's just a perception from one side of the edge of time to the next; from the here to the then. To fully comprehend every moment, every snowflake in between... it's stupefying, stunning, in awe. It puts me in a state of complete consternation, as I am anxious because time will continue on like a cliché ravaging endless river. The river that, despite the mass of snowflakes that flow through it, will never freeze.
In this poem, the narrator, who I believe to be Mattawa, reflects upon the time where he fed a cat who belonged to a friend. It is obvious that Mattawa truly enjoyed this exchange, as that is what it became, for he "talked with her" for a while and eventually fed her a bowl of milk to drink. Strangely, the cat takes a single sip of the milk and then proceeds to reject it. For quite some time, I sat attempting to wonder what this was a metaphor for, if anything. However, continuing on with the poem I'm not so sure if it is a metaphor for anything, however it is still incredibly important.
Mattawa continues with other fragmented stories, such as a child running "for the simple flame that must burn" or when he visited grave sites and tombstones and "ran through the cemetery and laughed [his] Cairo laugh". Both of these short moments are related through the theme of running, and it could be possible that the boy initially running at the beginning of the poem is him, however Mattawa declines by stating that "the child is not a memory, / only a gesture on [his] part" meaning that the story of the child is but written and not lived, however I still believe this can be used to argue that Mattawa was this child, being that the story of the graveyard is not lived but written to us. It is his gesture that allows us to know of the story, and while his living of that moment is directly related to him using a gesture to inform us, it is still words that share the child, not the memory.
What is the importance of establishing this link? To be brutally honest, there is only one valid view in my eyes. This poem focuses on time and moments, and how each moment happens affected by another one, but independent. The feeding of the cat, the rejection of the milk, the child running for the flame, the Cairo laughing in the cemetery, all of these moments comprise up someone's life, and they each happened in some specific order. On paper, Mattawa can choose to state them in any order that he wishes, as he is the poet, however in actuality the moments occurred in an order. This all comes together with the final section of the poem, "Billions of snowflakes in between, / and the befores that follow the first before." This means that all of these moments, these snowflakes, they fill the air that is life, the space between the start and the end of life. They swirl about in the air, seemingly infinite, however there is always a snowflake before that one right in front you, and so on so forth. This is how the passage of time is, there is always a moment before a moment, and there's even things before the first moment, the first snowflake.
This poem really is something special, in my opinion. It's like a quick snapshot into Mattawa's life and his perception of time. Time truly is such a magnificent and epic thing, and to truly be self aware of our place in time is incredibly daunting. Even personally, it's easy to state that "oh yeah like 7 years ago I was in middle school and I was tutoring a fellow student" but that's just a perception from one side of the edge of time to the next; from the here to the then. To fully comprehend every moment, every snowflake in between... it's stupefying, stunning, in awe. It puts me in a state of complete consternation, as I am anxious because time will continue on like a cliché ravaging endless river. The river that, despite the mass of snowflakes that flow through it, will never freeze.
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