week #11 critical #2

So spring break is the week that most of us will probably be getting our barriers together and start to work on our poetry collections. I think back to when I heard Natasha Trethewey speak last week and she went into depth of why she choose certain pieces to place in her collection, Native Guard. Her collection started off with the an elegy to her mother. Most of the poems in the beginning were about her relationship with her mother, and ultimately dealing with the grief of her passing. Then the last part of her collection was about the forgotten soldiers of the Native Guard. She explained to us the reason for her placing her mother and these soldiers in the same collection. She said that they had one thing in common. Each of them were left to be forgotten, and that the people that should have honored them left no memorial for them. She did not give her mother a tombstone, and the Blacks soldiers names were not left on a plague like the white soldiers names were. This made her collection connect and come together. This made me realized how important it is that your collection has some sort of theme to it. It gives depth and meaning to your poems. Reading other collections you also see how the poems all connect. Some poems feed off of the one before, almost like a story. So as you create and set up your portfolios think about what kind of story or message you want to tell.

week #11 free

Morning

Savoring moments before I leave.

I open my eyes, staring at you.

Making sure that you inhale and exhale

The air you need to survive.

Oh how I could beat the hell out of time.

How dare it cause me to leave your side.

The torture of the day awaits me,

As I daydream of last nights encounters

I try to slip out of the puzzle we have created.

Amazed by the masterpiece of our bodies.

What a sight. My leg underneath yours,

Your arms over lapping mines.

Finally I break free from this heavenly prison.

But just as I think I’m free from capture.

You grab my hand and ask me where I’m going.

I kiss you on the forehead and reply,

“The day awaits me my love”

This was my Aubade poem. Im thinking about if I want to put this in my portfolio book. But I was looking for suggestions about how I could make this better. We didn't get to workshop this poem. so appreciate the comments. Thanks

week #10 critical #3

Erasing Amyloo

A father with a huge eraser erases his daughter. When he  finishes there's only a red smudge on the wall.   His wife says, where is Amyloo?   She's a mistake, I erased her.   What about all her lovely things? asks his wife.   I'll erase them too.   All her pretty clothes? . . .   I'll erase her closet, her dresser--shut up about Amyloo!  Bring your head over here and I'll erase Amyloo out of it.   The husband rubs his eraser on his wife's forehead, and as  she begins to forget she says, hummm, I wonder whatever  happened to Amyloo? . . .   Never heard of her, says her husband.   And you, she says, who are you? You're not Amyloo, are  you? I don't remember your being Amyloo. Are you my  Amyloo, whom I don't remember anymore? . . .   Of course not, Amyloo was a girl. Do I look like a girl? . . . I don't know, I don't know what anything looks like  anymore. . . 

      Russel Edson

I like reading this prose poem and when we read it in class it really made sense to me. 

A lot of times people wish they could pick and choose parts in there life that they want to remember. 

But as the poem demonstrates we can never complete forget anything.I t will always be a part of our lives.

I also think about how some things wouldn't be the same  if they were erased. Like If my mom 

and dad never met, there would be no me. I also feel like another there could be another meaning to the poem. It reminds me of

 the government, and how they all try to cover up there mistakes as if they never happen. But this poems

shows that no matter how hard you try it will never be forgotten.

I feel that prose poems are short and sweet and give you something

to think about. Maybe that is what makes them so poetic.