Sketching by Cameron

This is a really good piece to have the class read.  Spot on stuff in here.  Basically, the author tells you that there is no one correct way to write.  That whatever you decide, and whatever helps you write the best is what you should do.  While yes, it is a bit of a cop-out, it is also entirely accurate, and it can help settle the nerves of an aspiring writer.  Instead of one distinct, absolute, tried and true best way to write, all you have to do is pick a style that is most comfortable for you.

Cameron describes her writing style as "sketching".  What she means by that is that she might have a general idea, or a sketch, of what is going to happen in her head.  After that, she lets the rest of the story just flow to her.  They are influenced by the things she sees and does, and the people they meet.

Many of the other styles that Cameron describes to her daughter are more carefully planned out than her own.  The one that I admire the most would be the one where the person goes to the place they're writing about and researches everything about it.  However, this style of writing seems highly impractical.

Skyscrapers generally tower over all other buildings in the area.  That seems to be the point.  Buildings tall enough to “scrape the sky”.  What is the point then of building a skyscraper that comes up short?  Well, in a city that’s slow to adapt, its only fitting.  The laughing stock of the skyscraper world, it only makes sense that it resides in a city that only finds fame in jokes now.

In the back of the 10^th floor restaurant, in the little brother of skyscrapers, the dishwasher is making plans.  Not for escape, like so many others has.  Exodus has come and gone, but he has no plans on leaving.  “We can rebuild.  We can change the fate and course of this place.  This place can be great again.  We don’t have to keep moving in a circle all the damn time.”  His co-workers were used to rants like this.  They always just nodded in agreement, then one of the cooks would start talking about whatever random girl they were chasing after, or their latest drug induced escapade.  With a look of resignation, the dishwasher reverted back to his work, lamenting to himself that there may never be the necessary motivation to move forward.

The rundown monorail was always a bit of a sore subject in this area.  Costly and ineffective, the relic was very representative of what the city had become.  Failure to adapt led to the demise of a once great city, and their attempt at mass transportation was just another reminder of that sad fact.  The conductor sits alone up front, chain smoking during his whole shift.  Addicted to some of the most unsavory vices, the conductor had long ago given up his dreams.  A future that had once risen above his downtrodden home, he was now only left to wonder what could have been.  The fires in the “Paris of the West” may have been put out, but no one bothered to rebuild the ashes.  Such is life.  

Fiction packet 3

The story I found most interesting from this packet was The Falling Girl.  The details the author uses to describe the setting are so rich and really set the scene.  The second paragraph really reminds you of how it would look to be looking down on a city from a skyscraper.  It puts an image into your mind of how the cars look on the streets below, and how everything looks so small and peaceful from up above, even if you know the opposite to be true.

The story truly takes an interesting turn.  It seems for a little while as though Marta, the main character, is about to kill herself, and that the story is about to get really depressing.  So it comes as a bit of a surprise when all of the dialogue between Marta and the "beautiful people" is actually rather light hearted.  It seems as if even though she jumped from the top of a skyscraper, it won't lead to her death.  It really comes as a bit of a surprise in the middle of the story.

The ending is thoroughly confusing to me.  I think that she and all of the other women jumping did in fact commit suicide.  That part is rather depressing.  It seems as though as she fell, it took a long time for her to reach the bottom, and that she was actually decaying on the way down.  What a depressing way to end the story right?  my guess would be she was all bones when she hit the ground.  Hence the lack of a thud that the husband noticed.  

Twenty little poetry projects #2

The one armed, two handed man has horrible luck
The one armed, two handed man just wants to see his friends
The one armed, two handed man can never hail a cab
because no one wants to drive the one armed, two handed man...

Blood Dazzler

Won't be but a minute is the first poem from Blood Dazzler that really caught my eye.  It's another poem where the details capture me, and put me in a different place.  I can see a southern family, planning for the impact of Hurricane Katrina, just wanting to get out of town quickly and making sure that everything is taken care of.  In their hurry to leave, they decide to leave the dog tied to a tree outside.  "Just leave him some of that Alpo and plenty of water".  It's easy to picture the dog being stuck in the back yard, tied to a pole, wagging his tail and eagerly waiting for his owners to get home.

She Sees what it Sees is the next poem I want to talk about.  The language that is used here is incredibly dark, and portrays a bit of a sense of hopelessness that had to be felt immediately following Hurricane Katrina.  "Babies balanced in the air" and "withering the strength of stoops" are two of the darker lines to me, bringing to mind chaos and destruction.  "It has provided hard passage, sparkled its trickery and shepherded them to death before." That line to me is both powerful and dark, and an excellent closing line in the poem.

"Weather is nothing until it reaches skin,
freezes dust, spits its little swords".
These lines, the opening to the poem Katrina, are especially effective when knowing what these poems are about.  The way that most everyone in New Orleans undoubtedly felt the same way immediately after the Hurricane hit.  This line is just spooky good.  I actually got chills reading it, and it makes sense to me.  for all the complaining that people from Michigan do about the weather, to see someone who was truly impacted by the weather, it makes what we deal with up here seem like nothing.  Powerful stuff.

City Eclogue

"She know the form, her tongue's just sharp and short of"
That's the opening quote from Stand in Invocation, the fist poem in the book "City Eclogue".  (Note, I'm not sure if the book or the poem is supposed to be italicized when referencing it.  I'm just guessing so you can correct me if I'm wrong.)  Anyway, this poem hits some interesting points with it's details.  It's not so much visual imagery, but it's really more the way the words add a tone to the poem.  The quote from the top of the page makes it seem really angry and bitter, yet right above that line the two "ould've"'s in a row give it almost a tone more of lament and self-loathing.  By bringing to mind phrases like "should've" or "could've" or "would've", Ed Roberson can bring to mind a feeling of regret and lament.  Details like that don't bring to mind a particular physical space, but they do associate with intense feelings.  Also, the fact that the two "ould've"'s are off in their own section of poem in the layout, adds excellent effect and detail.  That layout of the poem adds a feeling of loneliness along with all the other sad, angry and bitter feelings.

Idyll is the next poem that really stuck with me, particularly because of the way the poem made me think of specific places.  My sister was lucky enough to go to college in Chicago.  I'm still kinda bitter about that.  But anyway, I used to go visit her semi-frequently.  It was really cool because the dorms and apartments that her college used were usually high rises.  That's the image I had in my head after reading Idyll.  "Out on silence, a ledge" reminds me of one of her apartments in particular because out of her window was  a little courtyard that didn't have railings around it.  It was basically just a really big ledge.  Also the line "the more people, the more lidded certain sound" reminds me of looking out of one of her windows and seeing so many people walking below, but then not really hearing anything from them.

The poem Untitled uses good visual imagery to create a scene in your mind.  In mine I was picturing an old dynasty from back in the early days.  Something like the time around the French Revolution.  Living in luxury, "a vacation of blue gown ocean".  The first part of the poem is rather peaceful.  Then in the italicized part, it all turns to chaos, as castles and cities are burned.  "As smoke dust empties the sky of its blue"  makes me think of what it must of looked like to watch protesters burn their cities down back in the old days.  Its very vivid imagery, at least to me.

I enjoyed reading Goldberg’s Intro to Obsession.  I thought it was an interesting way to present ideas that seem to be more common sense in nature.  The quote on page three, “Learning to write is not a linear process.  There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer”, was a really well written thought, and it can be helpful when thinking about writing.  Too many people want there to be a process to writing, and they want it to be a difficult one.  But the fact that writing isn’t logical and doesn’t always make sense can be part of the problem for some people.  If your mind works better in a more linear A-to-B-to-C way, then writing will be extremely difficult.  But if the A-to-B-to-C way isn’t how your mind usually works, then writing will be more natural and easier to do.

The tips on page eight of Intro to Obsession are also good, and can come in handy when writing.  Keep your hand moving and don’t cross out, or self-edit as Goldberg called it, were the two that I thought were most important, and the two that I know I usually struggle with.  I’m constantly worried about whether or not I spelled a word right, if I capitalized, or if I used correct punctuation  (even over the course of typing this sentence I corrected myself at least five or six times).  And I know that that isn’t conducive to being able to get down as many ideas as possible. 

  I also have a problem with constantly keeping my hand moving.  I’ll get stuck in a sentence and spend five minutes worried about what one word I should use, instead of making sure to get something down and keep going.  It really is a problem because while I'm fretting about every little word, I'm missing what I'm thinking about in the moment and losing the opportunity to write that down, especially since my memory isn't the greatest (and to prove my point for the last paragraph, I just spent more time self-editing this paragraph than actually typing it).