Poem Response: 10/28

Negation is eliminating something to focus on something else. It is a sort of meditation where we eliminate things to extend our possibilities. We alight something new out of the void. I have often felt this in spiritual moments. When I still identified as a Christian, I would oftentimes take great joy in praying or participating in adoration. The room would be empty, words lacking, with only a light to fill the room. In this emptiness, I felt the most whole. I focused on the interior and eliminated-for the time being-the exterior: the sounds constantly distracting from the important. I focused on what was important, myself. I would think of what needed to be improved. At the time of my first adoration, I prayed about my alcoholic father and narcissistic, abusive aunt. I focused on how they hurt me and how I no longer wanted to hurt. I felt a sense of tranquility by indulging in my pain and felt like I came to a general consensus within myself- something needed to be fixed and it could be done by analyzing each and every hurtful experience. I thought about how I could grow as a person; how I could help others even more. The room was empty, soundless, but my mind was loud and full. As a non-believer, I reflect on those times and realized that what was gained was spiritual, but, not in the holy sense. It was a sort of spirituality of delving into my innermost thoughts, gaining more possibilities, by eliminating the distracting. When I read "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour", I could empathize with the situation for the very same reason. We both gained a spiritual sense through negation. We both encountered something beautiful by alighting endless possibilities and by honing in on the important.

Poetry concept: 10/28

Negation is when "the poet conjures a vacuum into which other possibilities can unexpectedly rush." (Zapruder, 5) The imagination fills in the emptiness; we, as poets, push everything away and focus on the real or imagined.Itis a way of emptying our minds like meditation, making us focus on a single word or concept. We at times begin our poems with negation or end them with negation. Zapruder provides examples of both in the chapter "Nothing Is The Force That Renovates The World" When doing this, we open our minds to the "what ifs." What if we decided to take the road on the left instead of the one on the right? What if we decided to not take any road at all? These questions may have been very well asked by Robert Frost when he wrote "The Road Not Taken." We open our minds to the"what-ifs" f our imagined decisions. As poets, we are gifted with intrinsic creativity often not found in the logical world. We are gifted with something many can not understand because it is beyond the physical reality. With this gift, we can fuel our creative juices and see different ways of negation.

"Dream Test Subject": New Poem: M, 10/28

Mommy is my best friend.

She plays with my brown

curls and prays with me. She reads stories

about little men feeling lonely

and tells me to never bully because

everyone is special. Her hands

are soft like air. Her breath cold like

water in winter. She loves to sing

Christmas songs and always mentions how

granny sang along. Her eyes are blue like

the Pacific Ocean. Mommy used that word

in a haiku once. It went like this:

Pacific ocean

undiscovered water

see how its life sings

Mommy is a scientist. She is an o-cean-o-gra-pher. 

I like to write haikus about her swimming in the ocean.

Mommy tells me to be careful though or

else I'll drown. When she is not teaching

about the ocean, she likes to watch me sleep.

She tells me you're a paralysis patient. 

She injects me with green liquid, and when I open my eyes

her eyes turn brown. Grandma stands in the corner

and hums a lullaby. Mommy says everything will be ok. It is just

a dream. I tell mommy to stay but she always

fades. Then comes the angry man. He strips my blanket

and tells me to play with his toy. Grandma hums louder

while the blankets rustle and the serum fizzles. He leaves like

he came. Grandma faces the wall and my eyes turn black. Mommy wakes

me from my bad dream and holds me. She says it'll be alright.

But, my fingers can touch the pain. Mommy begins our new lesson

and I watch the tick-tock go by. 6 o'clock rings and mommy injects me. 

Results must be accurate. I try to close

my eyes and dream it away. Grandma smiles while pain sings.

Response to Poem: 10/21/19

Zapruder included a poem of his own that is meant to explain the symbolism in poetry. The way he used eggs, something so simple, to explain something different was interesting. I made a connection with something relatable and something less relatable. His poem was simple yet deep. The egg, as he mentions, holds different meanings. You can not find one meaning for one object. There are so many ways you could explain what it symbolizes. Zapruder does exactly this with simple food. His poem is short and simple for a reason and it adds food for thought. It connects with his message, and it makes me see symbolism more clearly in poetry. It is a tool for something much more than hacking one meaning out of test-takers. No. It is meant to create a world of meaning. The egg, although seeming simple, is much more complex. Zapruder made it complex by tying in multiple meanings. We see how it symbolizes anxiety from asking simple questions. We see how it ties into writing poetry.

Response to Concept: 10/21/19

Symbolism is not meant to be taken so literally in poetry. There is not one meaning which can be derived so easily like a multiple choice answer ready to be bubbled. It is fluid in poetry. There is so much to do with one word and its meaning could be nothing at all. It could be everything. It could be every sense and be anything beyond its scope. A heart could symbolize a giraffe's evolution; it could symbolize the brain of a preacher. Does this make sense? Perhaps not in such a simple sentence, but it could mean a lot more in a poem about human evolution. As Zapruder mentions, we are not supposed to designate one meaning to one object. To be poets, we must master this play with words, crafting stanzas of metaphors and symbols. We must become symbolists and do with the language that a scientist never could.

New Poem: "White Rice" 10/21/19

Yây remember when

cheese in the sky

looked so yummy?

Green stems soaked in 

water above our knees.

Mud crinkled in dead skin,

callused toes, squeaking

inside my new black boots.

How much was paid that day

for Khuṇ pū̀s’ brown hands?

Was enough paid for

the rumbling in Anurak’s

tummy when he ate rice

caked in blood? 

My own back hurt

like camels across

the Indian Ocean.

A circle of yellow 

blanketed by black night

could feed my entire village.

It stared when flesh reeked

in dirt and did not help

any village. I wanted to eat

it whole and say no to the day

my brown hands turned red.

Response to Concept: Wk 8; M, 10/7

In Why Poetry, Zapruder explains the concept of "associative movement." It is the association between different concepts, and it is the leaping between different subjects. It is all about making connections and including them in your poetry. Zapruder includes the poem "Meditation at Lagunitas" as an introduction to this concept. The poem makes connections between blackberries, which the poet must recite during his meditation, and making love to a woman. We see the relationship between these two subjects and how they intertwine through small moments. Even though we may not go directly from blackberries to sex, there are little connections that could gradually lead us into that direction of though. It is like a train with different parts adding together to create the whole thing. I enjoyed reading about this concept because it creates food for thought. It shows how my poems can be written, starting with the form and content.

"I am your Eve"- New Poem: Wk 8; M, 10/7

Kisses melt like butter 

in brown skin. My mind

wanders to lessons inside

white chapel on Bethany Street:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: 

sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality.

You’re a cartographer- 

tracing lines, sketching

the rivers that course

                                  down my small peaks.

My lip curls in my mouth, 

blood staining my teeth.

The pain a reminder of sin 

that feels so good. 

You lead me into your room:

a bed to the side.

Your warm hand tells me

this will be the night. 

Clothes, prey to gravity,

crash to the ground.

Our primitive form revealing

what I covered every Sunday night. 

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, 

but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

I look into your eyes,

glazed with lust, and my

hands tremble like a sinner

in church. I whisper:

Go gentle, it’s my first time. 

Babble-merchants sold

stories of women crying

through the night. I was told

a stick would poke my insides.

You were different. I was open

like a clam showing its pearl-

luring you into my treasure,

and you took it, and it was warm

and wet inside my sea. 

My whimpers purred 

for your creamy milk 

to wash my mouth of sin.

I wanted you, back arched for more. 

A diamond did not glint on

my left finger. Your name,

property I did not possess. 

Your home, a stranger to my own.

Let marriage be held in honor among all, 

and let the marriage bed be undefiled, 

for God will judge the sexually immoral. 

Yet, we were one. And my body

was married to your Cuban

flesh which glided on

bright sweat, lit by the yellow

lamp above our heads. 

I bit the apple and let

the snake ravish my body.

My soul will never

be cleansed of the mark

you made inside the Garden of Eve. 

Poem Response "The Lost Pilot": wk 8; M, 10/7

When I first read this poem, I was stupefied. I kept drifting, trying to find the meaning. It wasn't until we went over the title and dates that something seemed to click. I stared at the pages, my mouth agape. I was reading about James Tate's father; the man who died when he was only a baby. He included the years he lived alongside his fathers to show the timeline. "The Lost Pilot" refers to his father, a soldier lost at war. When he addresses him, he addresses a dead man who is lost somewhere to be found. He pretends he is still alive...orbiting somewhere we can't fathom. He pleads, "If I could cajole you to come back for an evening, down from your compulsive orbiting, I would touch you..." He yearns to touch his father, to meet the man who is in constant orbiting. Even though he has a curious, pleading nature, he also has a guilting nature: blaming his father for his death. I really loved how this poem made me imagine the fictional- a man orbiting in space while his son begs him to come back down to earth. It is a beautiful take on something miserable.