Willow tree take me
out of the rain
lower your branches
free me from pain

Isolate yourself
serve only the dark

Closer than sunlight
outside the eclipse
make hast with the battlements
incorporate the spear
nursing the wounded
groaning in fear

Wolf Is Coming

-mine

Mist Svanhvit

I miss it.
I miss you.
But I never knew,
did I?

Never knew your soft feathers.
They tell me you're not real,
and I can see why they'd think it;
nature hides itself well after all.
I never knew you're blonde hair,
marble skin,
blue eyes.

Your eyes were the Mist
and your skin was Svanhvit
white as the swan wings
that graced your back.

The Valkyrie spear...
I remember the tales;
thrust through the temple
piercing the damned.
The blood gushed and splattered
but never stained,
never stained anything
but your clothes and your cane;
blemishing the dreamcatcher
dangling to the side.

Your wings remained Svanhvit always.

As you lay in the star,
having gone to far to save a friend,
heartsblood spilling into the grooves
carved into the floor,
your own spear
erect in your chest,
I lay crying, alone once more.

Why did you try to save the dead?
Why didn't you run from the gunshots?
Why did you allow
for your wings to be tarnished?

The floor was not meant for a goddess.
The star was not meant for a swan.

Your flock overtook my river
when my grandmother died,
and again when my best friend
met the same fate.
My uncle as well,
and even my cockatiel, Hedwig,
never again to sing me songs.

Your flock was a sign of your love for me.
They were your pencil, the river your ink;
surely as I created the Svanhvit from carbon,
your love was written with only an ink well,
and a Svanhvit feather.

-Mine

Tightrope Act

we are born two halves of one whole,
one with blue eyes
and the tools of man,
the other with yellow
hiding in the grass

some of us lost this balance long ago,
fell over one side of the line
we've been walking,
waiting now to see what that means

most who drop this tightrope act
end up with clockwork hearts,
but we the few remember the beast

it isn't easy,
biding one's time
disguised as mechanized kinfolk,
knowing someday
a lover might peel back your
stolen colored contacts

knowing love need be pumped,
wasting oil all the way

I beg you, someone
drink of my heartsblood,
stare into the eyes of a beast
and remember the forest --
something even a mechanical monkey
like yourself should recall with favor

peel back my skin
and wait for the laughter;
peel back my eyes
and find them within

-mine

To those wishing to navigate the chaos of all my recent posting.

This is mostly geared towards Ann. The revised copy of the final paper is actually under the rough draft as you may well have noticed. You may have also noticed that it's much better, and while a little short, really gets the point across. My goodness, I hope you noticed this or pppthhthbbbtttt! there goes the grade. Either way to all of you I just want to say, "HA! I LOOKED UP WHAT WE NEEDED TO POST AND ACCOUNTED FOR EVERYTHING!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

P.S. If I actually did miss something, don't tell me, just shoot me.

My Life...and why I didn't like it that much.

I'll be honest: I skimmed this book. I skimmed it because when I started reading it, my only thoughts going through my head were, "this is dumb" and "my brain hurts from not sleeping for two days". That's right, we were supposed to read this book when I was in my monthly insomniac recharge hibernation.

But to be honest, that's not why I didn't like it. Language poetry seems to exist to break rules and norms that I simply couldn't care less about. Good job Lyn, on getting a book deal that goes through multiple printings by writing poetry that some of your colleagues don't even agree is actually poetry! And trust me, I say this with all sincerity: good job.

Lyn, I'll probably never again open that book, unless I happen to find it in the divider of my couch like I did this morning, but I'll also acknowledge that some people do like it, so I have this to say: "Does anyone want my copy? I'll sell it for cheap. Enjoy. Really do, once again with all sincerity, I don't like it, but I'm glad you do. Now give me the money and get out of my room."

oh hey, it looks like we're supposed to put up the rough draft for points...so...here it is.

What is Poetry? A Theory of Individual Practice

Poetry is an expression of the utmost inner workings of an individual taken in the context of their personal life experiences including race, politics, philosophy, gender, geographical location, age, etc… It reflects a person in and out, culminating in a unique way for each individual. It can be used for political change, to enlighten the masses, express a feeling, tell a story, play with words, or to jot down the world around you. I’m being vague, and intentionally so, for without trace amounts of obscurity, I could not accurately portray the truth behind what poetry is. After all, poetry is not something that will ever be strictly defined; it is not something that can truly be contained by a specific definition. Its essence will be argued by the poetry greats time and time again as time meanders on, changing sides fluidly as the eras flow by.

I was asked as part of this paper to talk about the opinions of Lyn Hejinian and Yusef Komunyaaka both against each other, and then in reference to my own thought. Well, simply put, Yusef Komunyaaka seems all for using poetry as a means for political and social reconstruction. Lyn Hejinian is a language poet, and therefore more open to the use, and structure of poetry in general (we’ll get back to these two later on in the paper). Luckily, these both being viewpoints that tend to butt heads, they both lend themselves to my point; it’s a singular, individual based concept, with intricacies that cannot (or will not) be perceived as exactly the same by any two people.

In the end, poetry comes down to the individual; nothing is more important than this. How it is portrayed, perceived, and crafted are all based on each individual being. The individual culminates themselves into their poetry, and then another individual receives it, and, drawing it into them, makes it a new part of their essence. In that way it begins, and ends, as a portent of a singular personage. 

Does this mean anything can be thought of as poetry? Theoretically speaking, yes, but once again it’s up to each being’s own terms. I certainly see the poetry in the eyes of a young boy crying for his mother’s embrace, in the way a dog might raise its head to only its masters voice, in the grace of a dancer’s sweat rolling along with the dancers flourishing arms, or in the moonlight reflecting off of an old woman’s knitting needles.

But that doesn’t mean you do. After all one of the dictionary definitions of poetry is “poetic qualities however manifested”.  As in, anything that would seem poetic. A definition of poetic is “possessing the qualities or charm of poetry” (both found on Dictionary.com, not the most prestigious of dictionaries I suppose, but it’ll do to get the point across). That point being that our guidelines for defining poetry are very open, and no two people will ever come up with the same one. So how then, you might wonder, will someone actually be able to write a paper on just what poetry is? Well, that brings us straight back to my original point; poetry is all based on each and every individual, and there are no collective assumptions to make. That being said, I suppose I’ll just have to tell you my thoughts on the matter.

            To start off, I think I’ll state that the above was all personal speculation (intriguing how that fits perfectly into my theory, almost like it was planned) and, while it is, in fact, my personal feeling on the subject of poetry, it is but the sketch of the painting of which I must now fill in with the brushstrokes of personality and being that is me; for if every individual arises to their own conclusion of poetry as I believe, then I too am subject to this rule, and must have some sort of connection and feel about what poetry is. It does feel a little weird though, explaining my thoughts of poetry over all, and now trying to condense it, so instead I will explore the ways in which I find poetry enlightening or useful instead of continuing on the broader topic, as I’m sure it’s been well drilled into your head by now.

            I’ll start by simply stating that I’m a rather prolific writer, (as most of you that have actually been checking blogs probably know). I write about past loves, and hope for future ones, for futility found in life, for minor inconveniences, childhood memories, particular urges, or sensations, major life changes, etc…(whether or not any of these poems are any good is up for debate). But that’s just the thing: I don’t write for others, I’m not even sure I write for myself. A lot of poets talk of dictation, and simply writing what comes to them. My individual poetry project poet, Billy Collins believed himself a “secretary to the morning”, and someone who’s sole job was writing down the dictation of the world. Well I am no secretary to the morning, no slave to the machinations of that going on around me; no, I am instead chained to the idea of the soul. I have always, and will always be a man of emotional reasoning opposed to the rational, or relevant. When I feel something, whether it be sorrow from a memory of a lost friend, or something simple, like the joy of a candy bar, it will spill out from my mind into words and my hands will write or type whatever comes forth. That’s my personal poetry, a chaotic mess of emotion thrown into words that sometimes I can’t even remember the definitions for.

            My personal poetry doesn’t limit what I count for poetry though. I used to be skeptical of language poetry, but I gained a new appreciation for it while reading Disclamor and My Life. I don’t really understand it, but there seems to me to be something undeniably poetic about the different forms the words will fall onto a page. From Lyn Hejinian’s almost incoherent ramblings, to G.C. Waldrep’s strange spacing, language poetry has found a new place in my heart as a mysterious but intriguing force.

            As I’ve already stated, I personally find poetry in most things, be it writing, action, or well, anything really. It’s hard to be anything but inclusive when my above theory comes into play. And so, poetry can mean and do different things for different people. For me it’s a release of the self, for someone else it an expression of confinement or rage as in some popular performance poetry, and for another it may be a way to strike out against an abusive government. At its heart, poetry is an expression of the individual put forth to the world.

Works Cited

Forché, Carolyn. Against Forgetting: Twentieth-century Poetry of Witness. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. Print.

Hejinian, Lyn. My Life. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon, 1987. Print.

Waldrep, George Calvin. Disclamor. 2005. Print.

Hejinian, Lyn. Introduction. Lyn Hejinian and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2004. Scribner, 2004. 9-14. Print.

Komunyakaa, Yusef. Introduction. Yusef Komunyakaa and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2003. New York: Scribner, 2003. 11-21. Print.

Here it is, short succinct, and to the point. Final Paper

Corey Roth

Intro to Literature

Ann Hostetler

4/27/2011

 What is Poetry? A Really Good Question.

Poetry is in and of itself a very hard to define term. It has so much potential for difference and change that chaining to a single list of what is and isn’t poetry is nearly impossible. Luckily the fact that it’s hard to define is actually the key to deciphering what it really is. Poetry is a medium of writing that emphasizes a set of rules that change over time because instead of expecting them to be followed, they actually challenge a poet to break them in creative ways that showcase a mastery over language. It was hard to set to a strict definition because it encourages the definition to be altered by the very people who use it.

So that’s my working definition. My actual definition would be more along the lines that poetry can only be defined by an individual, as every single person will define it differently. Lyn Hejinian seems to agree with me, saying, “poetry has always been so full of energy and so inventive that it is impossible to define poetry once and for all or to delimit its space” (Introduction 2004). This suggests that poetry is a beast that cannot be contained by a strict definition, and instead it is up to each of us as to what poetry really is. Therefore the above working definition would be my individual definition, and I’m sticking with it.

For instance, a large, sentence bound book is not poetry. That is until someone like Lyn Hejinian shows up and writes a poetry book like My Life. A cut up collection of random leaflets isn’t poetry, until Jena Osman arranges it into a poem like “Dropping Leaflets.” Poems usually have structured spacing, but when people like G.C. Waldrep get involved words can appear just about wherever they want to on a page. Non-rhyming lines didn’t used to have a place in poetry until someone invented free verse. Prose used to be just that, prose, but now there’s prose poetry. Poetry can’t be tied down to definition because poets are always bending the current rules, ignoring the old rules, or flat out inventing new ones.

            Poetry, with all its dynamism, can do amazing things. Shakespeare is renowned as the most famous poet of, well, ever, and he used it to create many of the modern words that we use today. He took the rules of his language and he broke them, and we have much of our modern English to thank for it. It can be used to express horror and outrage over a war like what is done by John Balaban with his detailed and terrifying imagery, or to express a connection and loving subservience to life and nature like Billy Collins who uses a quick wit to bring readers to an almost spiritual relation to the world around them. It can be used to capture one’s religiously structured upbringing like many of the authors in A Cappella do. Or it can be used for a purpose, such as calming fear or anger, or seeing into the human soul, which is what Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa believes (Introduction 2003).

            Poetry is ever changing, and its only constant is that very fact: it will always continue to change. Poetry has rules; break them. Poetry has structure; misplace your words. If you do it with intent, with determination, and with a strong understanding of language, well then congratulations, you’ve just written some poetry.

Works Cited

Hejinian, Lyn. Introduction. Lyn Hejinian and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2004. Scribner, 2004. 9-14. Print.

Komunyakaa, Yusef. Introduction. Yusef Komunyakaa and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2003. New York: Scribner, 2003. 11-21. Print.