Extra Credit

I really enjoyed most of he short poems from goldbergs book "writing down the bones, This book along with the short stories have really helped me improve my comprehension skills and deepening my analysis of what I read. I've always thought authors either painted the picture for you or allowed you to paint your own picture. I never realized maybe they wanted the reader to paint more then one picture or two. For example in the short story speaking about the prostitute everyone had their opinion on why she did what she did and why she called the men she slept with suitors.

From goldbergs book I thing one of the poems I liked the most was "obsessions". Where she says its good to write down the things we consciously and self consciously spend out waking hours thinking about. She spoke about putting them to good use, because we are ran by our compulsions. She also explains what real freedom is and how it feels. She then says that not all obsessions are bad.

I agree with goldberg about obsessions its better to face then then allow them to lurk in the shadows of our lives waiting for opportunities. An obsession of mine lately has been avoiding any talk related to my grandmother, as soon as she used to come up in s conversation I'd quietly excuse myself and do something to get her off my mind. So for my final portfolio I faced my obsession of avoiding speaking about my grandmother by dedicating my whole portfolio to speaking about her. It has helped me in many more ways then I imaging, I'm not saddened to think about our good time or even our bad ones. I'm just very grateful for all the time I got to spend with her and cherish the things she's taught me.

I really like the structure of coopers book so I followed in his steps a bit by writing about something persona. But I chose not to beat around the bush I let it all out. It's as if the words I wasn't able to speak jumped onto the page. My story doesn't really fluctuate between time like his does I feel as if it has an even flow. I added lots of details and as much imagery as I could, though I followed in coopers footsteps I know my writing is still very amateur compared to his work.

April 9th

In class we spoke about " The House of the Future" where cooper speaks of all the opportunities that layed in the future as a reader it made me excited and drove my imagination insane. At the same time it made me feel like I needed to appreciate the smaller things in life more like the people and things that are currently in my life. I've always tried to live in the moment and see the positive sides of everything. Also I've tried to forgive as much as I possibly can because my very last memory with my grandmother wasn't as good as it could have been. I remember it was my birthday I had planned to spend it with my fiance and cousins who lived all the way in Detroit. My birthday was awful my fiance ended up blowing me off for a really silly reason and my cousins had to go home early. Then when we went to visit my grandmother at the end of the day we found her apartment a wreck and she was very stubborn about not allowing us to help her clean. My mom maid my siblings and I sit while she spent 3 hours cleaning. On top of not getting to do all that I wanted for my birthday I blamed my grandma for my lack of sleep that day and I was a bit rude to her about it. I know she didn't hold it against me but I never got to apologize for that night.

Cooper speaks of his brother dying from a disease she hasn't told us much about. He speaks often of not so great memories he had while his brother while he was sick. I felt as if he didn't recall enough about his brother while he was well. From the way he beats around the bush of telling us about his relationship with his brother I feel as if they had a pretty good relationship. He spoke about his fear of not being able to remember his brother and I think he means remember the good things about his brother. I know for me I have a difficulty not remember my grandmother she's just in everything I do.

I especially liked this line "It could be said that hardly a natural material occurs in it's original state anywhere in your new home!"  Its kind of saying that the future in uncontrollable and that no one's ever ready for the changes it holds. I recall cooper say how he'd come home everyday wondering if his brother was still alive or not. Though the death of his brother was expected I felt as if cooper was still waiting for a miracle of some kind to  keep his brother alive. The optimism of children saddens me sometimes because they don't really believe bad things can happen until they actually happen.

April 2nd

So I've been reading bits and pieces of coopers book Maps to anywhere because I didn't purchase the book on time. I read the essay "How to Draw" where cooper spoke about his experiences with art from a young age. His dying brother used to draw they eiffel tower slanted to the left, his mother enjoyed are with fine details, where as cooper found himself enjoying are made on the spur of the moment. Coopers speaks about the different forms of are and how everyone took different positions on classifying art.

At a young age cooper was told he didn't master how to draw hands by a teacher he had, so he began to draw pictures of himself handles. I thought this was very interesting. Usually when someone tells a person they aren't good enough at something they try to master whatever it is to feel good about themselves, not just stop doing it at all. Well that's how it is for me. In most of the poems I've seen bits and pieces of cooper seems to speak alot about his family and his personal life. He also speaks about about creativity and how important it it. 

Another essay I read was The wind did it where he spoke about the relationship he had with his father. The language he uses here makes everything palpable, as if you're experienceing it with him. I especially like the line "The worst by far was coiling the hose, a task he claimed I could never do well, though he made me do it again and again. Heavy and green and recalcitrant, the hose would snake in the wrong direction and cramp with kinks I couldn't undo."  The way he chooses to descibe the hose was just the same as I would have described it. As a child I used to pretend the hose was a snake so its nice to see someone else thought of it as a snake as well. 

Febuary 19th

For the week of February the 19th I read Burroways "The Writing Process". In this piece of writing she spoke about how revision is good and necessary for all writing pieces to perfect them. Personally I find myself having making way more revisions then I can count. Whether it's simply adding or exchanging words or completely changing the plot. When I make revisions I like to keep the old versions so that when i finish a piece I can look back and admire the long way I've come.

Since starting your class I surprisingly haven't made many dramatic revisions to any of my pieces of writing. I find myself pondering for quit some time before deciding on a topic if I don't find the prompts and exercises you put up interesting enough. Once I find the perfect topic I feel like the words spill across the page on their own. No doubt there are always grammar errors but other then that I'd have to say that I've only had revisions for the max of 4 of the writings I've turned into you. I don't know whether I should take this discovery as a good thing or a bad thing. 

A possible explanation for the decreasing in the number of revisions I make is that I am writing about things I'm interested in. I high school teachers always told me what they wanted my papers to be about there wasn't much of any room for me to add my own sparkle. I was so focused on telling the teachers what they wanted to hear and following their strict rubrics maybe that's why I was constantly revising. In high school I also had peer editing,  where a classmate got to write all over my papers with red ink reminding me what the teacher did and didn't want.

March 26th

I decided to try one of CA Conrads (Soma)tic poetry exercises, just for fun. The one I chose to do required me to slip a penny under my tongue, drink orange juice, and sit outside quietly, at some point I also had to place the penny on my head. After carefully following the steps I was to write about poverty from the perspective of someone who has been Loved in this world. I chose to write my poem from the perspective a child, below is an complete and unedited version of the poem I decided to do:

At the age of 4 my parents found out that I had an enlarged heart and that I could die if I couldn't find a donor. My parents were eager to find a way to save me, finding out how much the surgery would cost had them both devastated. You see my parents were only 14 and 15 when my mother had me. Because of me both my parents had to drop out of high school to support me. Neither my mothers nor fathers parents agreed with their decision to not abort the pregnancy. We lived in a 1 1/2 bedroom apartment above a restaurant most of my childhood, to make ends meet my dad worked odd handyman jobs while my mother worked as a waitress and a part time house keeper. The hospital had offered to do my surgery as a Pro Bono but my parents were too proud, they felt as if it was a handout they didn't need. It took them all of 2 years to raise enough money to pay for my surgery, after the money was raised it took another 5 months before a donor was found.

 My parents did their best to explain the surgery to me, all I got out of it was that they'd bought me a new heart. The 6 year old I was at the time hadn't experienced enough life to really comprehend the depth of their words. All I knew was that this new heart would make me feel better enough to go outside to and play with other children. I also knew that heart weren't something that could be purchased from grocery stores. Just knowing how hard my mommy and daddy had to work to be able to buy me the heart made me a very humble child. I never complained about not getting the latest toys or having to miss all the field trips that required a parent to attend (because mine were too busy working). The humbleness I acquired at that very young age and my new heart is what I carried with me throughout my life.

March 19th

This week in class we read a few poems by Dawn Martine. All of her poems were quit unique to me. The first poem I read was titles " Violent Rooms", here I noticed how she spelled the words out just as she wanted them to be said and heard. It wasn't like "tick-toc" or "BOOM", but "Gu-erl" (girl) and " Suh-ssuh-ssuck". This poem seemed to be about a woman experiencing childbirth. I could see how "Violent Rooms" could be associated with giving birth. At the age of 25 a woman is ready to settle down and start a family with someone they love, inside of the room she gives birth in there could be too many different outcomes. The mother and baby could survive the process of childbirth, or either the mother or the baby could die, or both of them could die. It's hard to ever tell exactly what complications will be faced before a woman begins having birth.


The second poem I rad by Dawn was titled " Morning Hour", I didn't understand much of it at all. I believe the structure of the poem was too much of a distraction for me, the words were scattered all about the pages. It made it very difficult to read the poem, let alone comprehend it. At the top of the first page of Dawns poems there was a quote that read " I can't do it, poetry. I don't know what it is." This made me question what the "ideal" definition of poetry was. Like art I think poetry is what we make it to be, comeing in many sizes, forms, languages. So what Dawn see's at a perfectly written poem, its perfectly fine for me not to agree that its a good poem.

In class we also read a few of CA Conrad's writing prompts. I find him to be a very interesting writer. Most of his writing prompts are absolutely ridiculous, and funny. But I see a bit were he is coming from, the craziest actions can produce the best pieces of work. As a kid I used to keep a diary, whenever I got into a confrontation of any kind with my mom my diary entry for that day would be 10x better then the days I didn't have a confrontation with her. I didn't realize this until a few years ago when I read through my old diaries. Since then I've noticed that when I'm angry in general my writing is better.

March 12th

This week in class we spoke about two story. The first story was called Indigo. It's about a 11 year old girl who enjoys playing the flute, even though she's horrible at it. Indigo plays her flute daily, disturbing her mother and everyone in the neighborhoods peace. When her mother offers to pay for flute lessons Indigo turns down the offer. Indigo thought that by turning down the offer her mother would be happy. You see Indigo's mother paid her older children to have musical lessons, I guess Indigo thought by turning her mothers offer down there would be a win win; her mother would save money and indigo would be able to play the flute how she pleased. Indigo is very stubborn yet very determined. She doesn't let peoples opinion of her music affect her, I admire that. She reminds me a lot of Scout from to kill a mockingbird.

The other story we read was called night woman. The character in this story is a single mother who sleeps with married men to support herself and son. It would be too easy to simply classify this women as a prostitute. Seeing that she doesn't get picked up from a corner or alley by strangers. She calls the men she sleeps with suitors, and they always come bearing gifts; some even bring gifts for her son. So I'd say that she's a mistress. Her son is too young to understand what his mother is, whenever he catches his mom in the act she makes his believe he's dreaming or that his father was brought back from heaven for a visit.

The characters in these two stories are very much alike because of their stubbornness. Indigo is stubborn because she insists on learning to play the flute on her own. Despite how everyone, even her own mother, tells her how awful she is. The mistress is stubborn because she refuses to work at a day job where other women making sure that work never runs out. The mistress isn't necessarily proud of what she does, but she enjoys the stability it brings her. She doesn't have to worry about loosing her job because work has ran out.