Writer's Series Response

I really enjoyed hearing both of the poets read their work at last night’s reading. Even though I had noticed Olstein’s use of sound devices when I read Lost Alphabet, I noticed her sound techniques even more strongly this time hearing her read her work aloud. Even though her poetry didn’t conform to any regular rhyming patterns, the subtle sound devices of assonance and alliteration made the words flow together so beautifully that they seemed to have a melodic quality.  I noticed the same technique in David Daniel’s poetry too. His poem, “Ornaments” in particular struck me as a poem with a beautiful use of sound. The poem had a beautiful repetition of “s” sounds in phrases such as “the husks of insects” and “the dust will catch fire in the sun shaft.” The way that he repeated the phrase “and beat them” also seemed to serve a similar function to a rhyming pattern. Even though the poem didn’t use rhyme or a regular metrical pattern, the repetition of key words, sounds, and phrases worked to tie the ideas together and to create a beautiful echo of sounds. I would like to experiment more in my own poetry with using sound and rhythm to create a musical quality without a regular rhyme scheme or meter.

I also noticed that both of the poets had a knack for using an effective balance of plain and more ornate words in the diction of their poems. I like the way that they were able to take simple images and places and elevate them to a new level with the way that they described them in detail and used them in metaphors. I would like to emulate this practice of adding depth and meaning to ordinary objects in my own writing. I want to make sure that I don’t overlook any images or ideas just because they initially seem too simple or insignificant.

I also like the advice that Lisa Olstein gave in the Q and A section about not being too married to any one method of writing. I have a tendency sometimes to think that if I can’t follow my usual writing habits or be in my usual writing places I won’t be able to be as effective or productive. I know how important it is for me to be able to write in any place and in any situation because the writing habits that work best for me right now might not work as well or might not even be possible in the future. I liked Olstein’s statement about how our lives evolve and so our writing processes must evolve with them.

I noticed that a lot of the techniques the poet’s used and a lot of the things they talked about in the Q and A section can apply to other genres of writing besides poetry. While I want to emulate the poet’s techniques of sound and rhythm and their use of images and metaphor when I write poetry, I also think that these techniques are equally important and will apply just as much when I write fiction or creative nonfiction.  

Lost Alphabet ~ Reflection

One of the elements of Olstein’s prose poems that I most want to emulate in my own writing is her careful attention to sound devices. Usually, one of the first things I notice about a piece of writing is the way that the words sound together. Sometimes, when I read a poem through for the first time, I’m so distracted by beautiful combinations of sounds that I hardly notice what the words of the poem are saying, and I have to go back and re-read it at least once more to get the meaning. A lot of the time, though, I tend to notice sound in a more general way without being conscious of the specific combinations of sounds that make the words so beautiful. When I read, I want to work on being more aware of sound devices such as assonance, consonance, and alliteration, and rhythmic patterns. Even though many poems don’t have an organized rhyme scheme or metrical pattern, most good poetry incorporates devices of sound and rhythm in a way that enhances the meaning of the words. When I write, I want to try to think more consciously about incorporating some of these elements into my own poetry and prose.

One of Olstein’s sentences that I found particularly beautiful is on page 65 when she writes, “A chance freeze has belled the fence posts, glassed the grass into a still museum.” I enjoyed the alliteration in words such as “freeze” and “fence,” “glassed” and “grass,” and the assonance in “belled the fence” and “glassed the grass.” I also love the rhythm she creates with her alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables even though the sentence doesn’t conform to any regular metrical patterns. Another phrase I love is on page 84 when Olstein describes the sound of the moth’s wings as “papery whispers.” The slant rhyme in the sounds “paper” and “whisper” and the repetition of the “s” sound in the word whisper make the phrase sound just like the fluttering wings. I also love Olstein’s description in “Gossamer Wings” on page 85 when she says “This morning, returning with our weeping parcels, we stepped into a hut of wilted flowers, everywhere, wings loosening, falling like sails.” I love the way that she uses several words such as “weeping,” “wilted,” “loosening,” and “falling”  that are trochees and dactyls. Her repetition of the stressed-unstressed pattern makes the words themselves seem to droop and fall like the wilting wings of the moths.

In her piece titled “Instar” Olstein writes “Each specimen is scented. It’s difficult to believe I was so unaware” (56). In the same way in which Olstein became more aware of the minute differences in scent among the different specimens, I want to become more aware of the subtle nuances created by the sounds of words in what I read and in my own writing.

Meditation on a Color: Silver

Summer rain is warm and yet refreshing, savory with the scents of salt and sand, of mountains and of oceans. The silver drops crackle as they fall on leaves so dry their emerald skin has faded into celadon with the heat. The colors of the land dissolve like dust into the rain along with hopscotch lines from sidewalk chalk erased by summer thunderstorms. The geese are restless, waiting, watching for the signs that tell them when the time has come to leave in autumn.

Autumn rain is melancholy and reflective, pungent with aromas of cinnamon and smoke from wood stoves. The silver drops stain the trunks of maple trees from brown to black and wash the red and yellow leaves until they gleam like the sequins on child’s costume on the night of Halloween. Rain drops ripple down the wrinkled skins of rotted pumpkins left behind at farm-stands already closed for winter.

Winter rain is harsh and bitter, sharp with the silence of the empty trees that birds have all abandoned and of December clouds, dark and bleak and heavy because they should be holding snow. The silver drops freeze on branches stripped raw by winter winds and on the skin of bright red berries growing by a stream frozen in time until the sun comes out to thaw it in the spring.

Spring rain is clean and sweet, smelling of earth and life and freshly-washed laundry hung out to dry in sunshine and then forgotten. The silver drops dye each blade of grass a deep green as bright as strands of plastic grass that line a child’s pastel-painted Easter basket. The wind is more refreshing and not as bitter as in winter, tinged with the promises of warmth and color from the crocuses and forsythia blooms, of shadows and of sunshine and of summer.

Verses on Bird ~ Reflection

As I read through Er’s poems, I found myself wishing that I knew how to read Chinese so that I could experience the poems in their original language. I imagine that there must be a great deal of beauty in the original forms and sounds and rhythms, and I know that much of that must have been lost in their translation. Though the English translations still have some elements of beauty and some moments of striking imagery and comparisons, for the most part, these poems didn’t quite resonate with me as much as some other poems I’ve read. At times, I found myself almost getting lost in Er’s poems. There were moments when I was delighted by the beauty of the images she describes, but I struggled a bit with the ambiguity of some of the poems. With many of the poems, I felt as if there were something I was missing, something I wasn’t quite able to grasp. Maybe the poems are more clear in the original language, or maybe the author intended them to be a bit vague for a reason. Or maybe it’s just the way I read.

 Despite some of the confusion I had with the meaning of some of the poems, however, I was struck by Er’s ability to create places and images with such depth and immediacy. One technique from this book of poems that I would especially like to emulate in my own writing is the technique of taking an ordinary object or place and looking at it from different perspectives, giving it more depth and shades of meaning. I like the way that Er is able to create a story in some of her poems out of just a simple place or object, making observations, meditating, and commenting on human nature and life in general. Two poems in particular that stood out to me as examples of this technique were “The Hardware Store” and “Watermelon Juice.” I enjoyed experiencing the worlds she created and the stories she told with her images in those poems.

One element of my own writing that I would like to work on is incorporating imagery in a more meaningful way. Sometimes when I use imagery, my focus is mainly on making the setting more detailed or using the five senses so that my writing is more vivid, but I realize that it is also important for me to think about why I am adding a certain image. Some images may contribute more fully to the topic of my writing than others, and I need to put more thought into the reasons for the images that I choose to use. Reading Er’s poems has reminded me that imagery can be an important element of tone and meaning and not just of the setting and that I can use it to add depth and a sense of immediacy to my writing.

A River Dies of Thirst ~ Reflection

Though Darwish writes about a part of the world that is unfamiliar to me and though many of his experiences are so different than my own, his use of aptly chosen metaphors and similes allowed me to understand his perspective and make a connection with his writing. I think that the idea of using metaphor and simile to help make writing more accessible for readers is an important technique for writers. Readers who have shared similar experience with Darwish may understand exactly what he is talking about, but for someone like me who knows almost nothing about his world, metaphor is a technique that helps me to understand.

The technique from this book that I would like to emulate in my own writing is Darwish’s use of metaphor and simile. I often avoid using those techniques when I write because I’m afraid that they might seem too contrived, but after seeing how effective they can be when it is used well, I am inspired to experiment more with metaphors and similes in my own writing. Some of my favorite examples of Darwish’s use of metaphor and simile are: “yellow is the color of the hoarse voice that only the sixth sense can hear” (21), “waiting is like sitting on a hot tin roof” (44), “the small clouds are towels drying the drizzle off the mountain tops” (111), “a clear sky is a thought without an idea, like a garden that is completely green” (117), and “cooking is the poetry of the senses when they are combined in the hand, an edible poem which cannot tolerate mistakes in the balance of the ingredients” (134). I love how concise yet full of meaning these phrases are and how rich they are with vivid details and imagery.

Blueberries Three Ways

I am sitting outside at a picnic table on a summer Saturday morning after a friend’s sleepover birthday party the night before. Beautiful shade on my face from the oak tree, beautiful  sunshine on my back, beautiful, round pancakes marred by dark spots like the marks of a person with leprosy or maybe the Bubonic Plague. My friend’s mother has mixed blueberries in with the batter. There are so many of them. I can’t get even the smallest forkful of pancake without puncturing at least one of the squishy globs, dark purple juice oozing out all over my plate, spoiling even the sweet taste of the syrup. With every bite, the juice explodes in my mouth, curling my tongue, making my taste buds shrink away from the offending flavor. My lips, my tongue, my teeth, my entire mouth protests with every bite I dutifully eat. And I force a stiff smile as I swallow the berries, hoping my friend’s mother will think I like them, hoping she won’t notice the way my nose crinkles and my eyes narrow as I try to endure the sharp tang of their taste.

Nineteen years old:

The sun is hot on my shoulders and on the top of my head, so hot that my hair feels as if it is on fire, but these sensations enter my mind only vaguely, eclipsed by the coolness of the dark green leaves of the blueberry bushes, the smooth skin of the berries, the largest ones shimmering with white that looks like a dusting of snow in the sunlight. I put my hand into the bush, and the ripest ones fall into my fingers effortlessly, heavy and firm and the size of small grapes. And as the sweet ambrosia of their juice electrifies my mouth, I don’t ponder how it is that I have come to change my mind about their taste or how my childhood hate has turned to love. I only eat and taste the sunshine and smell the long grass from the field nearby and hear the rushing of the wind through all the leaves.

Last year:

The mist on the grass feels cool on my feet as I walk outside on a summer morning to the berry bush in my back yard. Birds are chirping and June bugs are already complaining about the heat and the sun is just beginning to seep through the leaves of the maple trees. I check the berries right before I leave for work, give them water, find the ripe ones that will be ready for picking later on to have with supper. And I return that afternoon to the bush in my backyard to find it empty, stripped of berries except for ten or twelve hard, green ones that won’t be ready until summer’s almost done. And I look up at the trees to see the birds, blue jays and crows and sparrows, and I wonder which one of them it was who ate my berries or if they all conspired together against me to spoil my evening and steal the ripest ones.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

This book is probably my favorite of the books we’ve read so far this semester. I loved Amy’s eclectic compilation of information and memories and the way that she organized everything as if it were part of an encyclopedia. I also really liked her use of tables and charts to present memories from her childhood such as what her childhood tasted like and a list of some of the things that used to confuse her when she was a child. Her unconventional way of organizing information and her use of illustrations throughout the book captured my interest and made me look at objects and places and situations in my own everyday life in a fresh way. I enjoyed Amy’s observations about even the simplest and seemingly the most trivial aspects of life, and I was amazed at how many times throughout my reading of the book that I found myself remembering some event from my own childhood that I had completely forgotten.

From this book, I would like to take away Amy’s technique of using everyday objects and events in a meaningful way. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life looks at the world through a heightened perspective, drawing attention to details that most of us don’t even notice in our usual routines. I found Amy’s use of sensory details in her telling of childhood memories to be inspiring since so many memories are strongly connected to at least one of the five senses. I also like the way that this book takes even the most mundane aspects of life and comments on them in such a way that appeals to the reader and allows readers to make connections with their own lives.