Week 5: Structure of Spells

I liked how somatic poetry is about engaging everyday life through writing. I have always held the notion that only wonderful and mystical concepts could be written in poetry, however somatic poetry states that everything can be written about. Writing is a way to spark new ideas and different modes of though, and that is the magic of this kind of poetry. Creativity the only way to write about all the things that are available. I was interested in the idea that somatic poetry is in collaboration with all the emotions, experiences, and people you have encountered in your lifetime. This notion makes sense, because you can only write about things you have witnessed empirically firsthand or secondhand. Firsthand being experiencing in for yourself, and secondhand is considered reading it or hearing it from someone else. The overall objective I find is to return to the world and resist the urge to fall victim to societies and our vices. 

The workshop I relished the most contemplating about was the first workshop of "(Soma)tic Poetry at St. Mark's Poetry Project, NYC." This is because it dived into our vanishing refluxes, and it forces you to think about things that we miss during close observation. This brings up the question as to why we forget certain images and builds on ideas on why we miss what we miss. One could go write a research essay on just this assessment, because our results to deeply into our psychology of the mind. 

Sympathetic Magic

After reading about the Principles of Magic, I discovered more about poetry than I once figured I did. I actually read this article twice, because at first I did not entirely understand the main points presented. However, after reading it again I realized that there are many different types of magic; what I once thought was illusionist magic and obvious magic are not just the two types but rather have different sublevels that include Imitative and Contagious Magic. The main point I extracted from this piece was that a Magician just knows the physical realm of his poem. The magician does not think about how the audience processes the information. This approach is one that I plan to follow when I write my own poems because I should not really think about which way the audience will interpret it, but rather focusing on depicting a storyline that is appealing to my own style.

Being Weird

I found today's class extremely entertaining and mainly helpful to my development as a poet. The most interesting exercise was comparing one random question to a random answer and observing the outcome. I feel like when I write poetry, I try too hard to make "sense" of the language to create a storyline. However, as Scott pointed out the more absurd sentences often may not make sense to an individual, because every single person is able to interpret each word in each sentence very differently. More importantly, I feel that if I implement what I learned today into class, my poems would not have so much explanation but rather allow the reader to offer his/her own interpretation. I believe that this has also enhanced the definition of magic from not just inside the poem but the effect it takes on the people who read it.

Week 4 post

This week, I decided to look into the magic of Simic's poetry. My favorite poem of Simic's  is My Secret Identity Is because I think that it has a profound amount of magic in its ambiguity. The poem is a riddle, allowing for multiple interpretations. The fact that it ends with "the window is open," leaves much room for interpretation. I see it as someone leaving before they reveal their secret identity, but I can also see it as someone escaping the room after discovering their friend's secret identity. I feel that much of the magic of Simic's poetry is that he intends for the audience to take things literally. He uses the unexpected and unexplainable throughout his work. I feel that I can apply a lot of this strategy to my poetry. I have a hard time writing poetry that I feel does not make sense. I can try to use more imaginative associations and allow myself to be more "out there" than I have been in the past. This will most definitely make my work more innovative and will therefore allow me to grow as a writer.

Week 4- Magic in the small things.

For class on Monday we explored many poems and had some great conversations. There was an overall appreciation for Charles Simic poems. Each of us interpreted his poetry differently and some of his poems stood out to us more than others. The poems that really stood out were "the guardian angel poem", "My Secret Identity Is", and "I Played in the Smallest Theaters". They each received different interpretations from classmates which I actually thinks crates the magic in poetry. In the Guardian Angel poem some people in our class interpreted it as a tragedy of young children dying or humorous that someone who was supposed to be watching over you had fears. There could be two different stories being told there and no one can really determine who is right/wrong.

I want to focus though on the poem "I Played in the Smallest Theaters". Such a short poem could mean so much. I usually compare poems or at least the concept of it to a movie and this time will be no different. I think this poem is very similar to the movie A Bug's Life. It is undeniable that the world is an extremely large vessel and it is easy to get distracted or to miss something with so much going on. In the grand scheme a crumb on a window sill means nothing to the large world. When you narrow the surrounding area, which describes the smallest theaters, then he gains more value. Also when you are by yourself you can now focus in on more of your surroundings which would allow the small things like a crumb stick out. In the movie a small ant is the main character and it shows the world throw his eyes. Things humans took advantage of like dropping a penny had a large effect on the small ant which is magical. Depending on who you are the same story can now be told in many different ways.        

Week 4: Magic Words

Of all the poems we read this week the one that felt most magical to me was Seeing the Wind by Shira Erlichman. It felt magical because it transported me to a different place through clear images but was also mysterious. I loved the image of getting to the end of life, not being able to offer the things you consider successes to this fish god, and having to say all the words you do not know. It got me thinking about the way we mark success, and which of those things last. 

The part of the poem that felt both most magical and most human was when "the test" begun and "I" said a series of images from being alive. This string of images felt magical because they were all ordinary things it is possible to experience on any given Thursday. We would probably rush past them if any happened in a busy day, but there is a beauty in them. Those moments that don't feel like the "most important thing" when we are "living life" are just as much what life is.

      The broken piece of a key left in the lock. 

                 The forgotten bicycle.

One who laughs in her sleep. 

        To cut one's nails too short. 

All of these things would be either annoying or ignoreable, but when I thought about each of them they felt like the wholeness of a life. 

               Arguments that can only be solved by dancing. 

       The jokes heard in sleep. 

None of these words are foreign or distant, but put together they give an amazing vignette of a life. Those Ordinary Thursday Words are magical. 

--Hannah

The Magic of Impossible Imagery: Charles Simic

In Charles Simic's prose poems, he uses the magic of originality and obscurity. For example, in one of his poems, he talks about an "old river, which in its confusion sometimes forgets and flows backwards." His personification the river paints an image in the reader's mind of the river being an old woman or man. And, rivers cannot flow forwards or backwards; they just flow. But, when Simic put it down on paper that this river flows backwards, he made it possible. When he writes,"The dead man steps down from the scaffold. He holds his bloody head under his arm," Simic makes this possible, because the reader pictures it. In this way, the magic in Simic's poetry exists in the mental imagery that cannot exist in this world's reality.

Post Class Reflection

After class today, I began to develop a new appreciation for poetry that does not make any sense. While this may sound extremely unintelligent, I believe the poetry that is open to various interpretations and has no set meaning serves the most useful purpose. If a poet is able to convey his story to a reader, in which the reader is able to take whatever he/she wants from it, I consider that to be a poem of high quality. Simic's poems can be interpreted by different individuals in various ways, but the beauty of them is that they often left me flabbergasted. At times when I thought I was connecting the dots of the storyline, a new sentence would completely throw me off. Even though it was frustrating to read these poems because there was no clear storyline or even a visible connection between sentences, I started to enjoy this new form of poetry simply because it caused me to think about how the words pertain to my life. This is exactly why I find poetry more personal than other forms of writing. Not only when I write, but when I read, I am able to discover more about myself than I ever deemed possible.

Week Four: Magic Words & Summoning; Proses

This week I enjoyed reading Charles Simic’s poems from “The World Doesn’t End.” Prose poetry speaks to me differently than ones that follow a metric pattern.  I feel as thought it is more personal and can be just as allusive. One poem that I enjoyed especially was on page eight. The narration from animalistic point of view reminded me of Life of Pi, in which characters are masked as animals to promote their specific archetype. The systematic relationship created by this constructed food chain shed light on the type of relationship the son/daughter has with their mother. The mother as the feline uses her son/daughter as bait in order to catch food (metaphorically it could be money, success, any association with greed and egotism). She is willing to have her child eaten alive by the mouse (or what the mouse figuratively represents), in order to consume her meal. The mother leaves her child in the cellar for years (this could also be allegorical yet still represent isolation or isolation from his/her mother). Simic does not leave many clues as to who are “pacing upstairs, tossing and turning in their beds.” Presumably, it is the rest of the family going on with their lives without her/him. Another intriguing point is when the mouse nibbles on her/his ears stating, “These are dark and evil days.” This makes me wonder who the mouse representative of? Or a person in the family or a wicked element? Overall, I believe it is centered on an abusive relationship, in which the mother uses her child to get what she desires and has an apathetic feelings toward her child.  

Simic's Stories

One of the things that worked really well for Simic was the rather plain way he wrote. By that I mean he did not use too many words, trying to shove multiple details down our throats, trying to amaze us with his vocabulary. But his images were still clear, and I think another reason some of his poems (not all) worked for me is because of the way he builds a story out of images, not simply words.

       My mother was a braid of black smoke.

       She bore me swaddled over the burning cities.

       The sky was a vast and windy place for a child

to play.

       We met many other who were just like us.

They were trying to put on their overcoats with

arms made of smoke.

       The high heavens were full of little shrunken 

deaf ears instead of stars.

I love when a poem makes me want to paint (something I do not usually do). There is magic in the ability to visualize something that does not exist; this is something familiar words, even if put in unfamiliar places, help us do.

Another one of my favorites:

     The stone is a mirror which works poorly.

Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dim-

ness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds

like a black cricket.

There are so many different things working together in the poem above. Simic takes two familiar concepts like stones and mirrors and puts them together. He also includes the conversational question, and I love when poems can take a conversational tone; in this moment it is even more interesting, though, because the conversation exists in the midst of a "deep" subject. I love the uses of "your", making it personal to the reader; the last line is so beautiful and it pertains to me! That gets me excited as a reader, feeling fully involved.

Lastly, I love this:

    The ideal spectator who lives only for art,

hands folded behind his back.  A blank canvas

appropriately entitled "Blank" before him. It's exact-

ly 11 A.M. in the provincial museum. One can hear

the rumbling stomach of the uniformed guard, who

has the face of someone drowned by moonlight.

Like the first, it tells a concrete story, probably even more concrete. The story is a system of images working together. It is without emotion until you yourself create the images; then I think this poem is actually pretty funny. A man who claims "art is life" stares at a blank canvas. And that last line. Just wow. Keep in mind, it is only 11 A.M., yet he is drowned in moonlight. That right there is magic, telling the whole story of a man in three words.

Keys to Poetry

After reading Simic's interview, I discovered many things about poetry I once did not realize. From each and every one of Simic's answers, I deduced a simple aspect of poetry that I felt was taught to me to be very different. This way of thinking I feel allows me to not worry so much about what is being put on paper but rather what is going on in my mind. The main points I found were:

1. Foreign does not mean unknown to the world, it just has to mean unknown to the individual.
       
When I attempt to come with a place that nobody has ever heard of, it makes it increasingly difficult to focus on the poem I want to create. In imagining a world that already exists but that I have not been to, I am able to write my poem about a place that is foreign to me without being foreign to others.

2. Mysticism dictates how to create a poem.

Rather than thinking about the conventionality of poems and how poems are "supposed to be," create a poem that has no conventions. Create a poem with mysticism, magic, uncertainty.

3. Have a place and then attempt to create it through language.

A poet never can create an elaborate setting without description. Before describing a place, find it!

4. Conveying thoughts not to words but to emotions.

I tend to try to convey my thoughts to words, but really poetry is an example of conveying thoughts to emotions and then to words. Our emotions are really us speaking.

The Jumping Bean: Empiricism vs The Romanticism leanings of Surrealism

The jumping bean, in the debate between Andre Breton and Roger Callois, represents the beautiful mystery of nature. It represents the teacher that William Wordsworth speaks of in "The Tables Turned." While Breton agrees with Wordsworth, and divulges in the "sweet lore which Nature brings," Callois aims to "murder to dissect" (Wordsworth). Breton even cleverly admits that he would not have been opposed to dissecting the bean once all its mysteries and curiosities have been exhausted -- which, as he well knew, would be never (Warner). The sheer nature of mystery itself is that its curiosities will never be exhausted.

"Choose life with its waiting rooms... choose life unfavorable and long"

In reading Breton's poem "Choose Life," I have come to the conclusion that Breton valued the emotional in life; and thus, he was romantic. He is advocating for young, depressed people to refrain from suicide and to instead take in all the emotion life has to offer and to live. Breton is aware of the constant waiting in life; but he would choose that any day over nonexistence, and urges others to think the same. Similarly, in the poem "The Verb To Be," Breton describes how sadness and depression makes you notice the beautiful in life. Though humor can be found in the line, "What weathery weather," Breton has a point -- if he had not awaken to the thought of his own nothingness, he would never have thought "the air in the room is as beautiful as drumsticks." The saddest notice the most. Once you get to the point at the very bottom, when you adapt existentialist views, or the thought that everything is nothing and for no reason, you begin to appreciate the mysterious beauty of nature and of art.

Week 3 post- Dark Magic

This week's blog post was a bit challenging for me because the poems were dense to say the least. Most of the poems had a "dark magic" feel. A lot of the language, words, and phrases reminded me of the land of the tortured from the movie "The One". They almost had a demonic sense like they were written from the lairs of evil powers and witches. It confused me though, because I often felt like I was misreading or misunderstanding them. I believe in some poems like "Lagoonal Calendar" and "The Verb To Be" it was written in a similar fashion of the way Maleficent's story was told. It is always to hear the Dark Magic's side of the story, because I feel as an audience it is easy for us to fall in love with the good side/heroes. We tend to totally disregard the other end of the spectrum simply because our perception of it as evil.

The poem "Lagoonal Calendar"was one of those thought provoking poems that made me rethink my life and what type of society we live in. The most moving line is, "I inhabit from time to time one of my wounds (new line) each minute I change apartments (new line) and an peace frightens me." The magic in living in our wounds is that we tend to dwell on painful memories more and let them often consume us. They have the most impact on how we live our lives and makes us paranoid. That paranoia causes us to always be on guard for potential danger which is why we are hesitant to accept peace. I believe there is continuous theme that even the "dark magic" has a disturbing effect on those who are formed from it.

Week 3: Surrealism Mystery vs. Empiricism

        Before entering this course, I was unaware that Surrealism originated as a literary movement. I had only studied Surrealism in art as an advent-guard movement that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind.  When I think of surrealist artwork, I think of irrational juxtaposition of objects and familiar images. I found it interesting to see surrealism in poetry, the disembodied voice that creates mindful contradictions.

        Just like surrealist art, the literature can be confusing. To me, lines of Joyce Mansour’s poetry were difficult to comprehend. I think this is because they have ambiguous meanings, and it’s challenging to try to piece together what message is trying to be conveyed. Nonetheless, many of her lines are magical. One of my favorite lines in “Blue Like a Desert” is “The nomad under his tent listens to the time screeching on the gravel of insomnia” (line 17,18). A nomad, one who moves constantly, hears “time screeching.” Time as human made construct is outpouring a shrill cry, possibly because it’s fed up with its metaphorical existence. “Gravel of insomnia,” is such an obscure connection. What I enjoy about these poems collectively is the breaking of rational and elimination of the limitations of logic.

Surrealism

Based on my understanding, surrealism is a style of art and writing that developed in the post World War II era. It is known for its use of surprise that develops by writing about imagination and the subconscious.  I could see this development of the subconscious in Blue Like a Desert by Joyce Mansour. There were many places in the poem that came out of left field, just as elements of the imagination are unexplained. The lines that spoke to me the most were, "The winged sun loses its feathers on the horizon/The eternal summer laughs at the wet grave," (8-9). I found the imagery of the sun as a winged bird to be extremely satisfying. These two lines were a shift from the system Mansour previously put in place of discussing "those" and "they." Both of these lines started with what could be perceived as happy imagery and ended in a much darker place. For example, laughs and the sun are usually aligned with joy, but there comes a shift when Mansour places them with loses and wet grave. This leaves me with a sad feeling and focus on dark imagery, which is what I perceive monsieur was going for based on the fact that the title is a contradiction that moves from happy to sad within itself.

Week 3: Surrealism (Hannah)

In The Verb To Be, the refrain line, I know the general outline of despair, got me thinking about every time someone has said they "understood" what someone else was going through. This happens all the time when people are going through unpleasant/difficult experiences, but it is usually not true. Once I was visiting my younger siblings' friend in the hospital and he said something about how I had no credibility in that situation because I wasn't him. My response was that I knew what it was like to be that seriously ill, I knew what it was like for it to happen when you were 13, and I knew what it was like to think no one knew what it was like. A large part of why this poem affected me was that I can imagine saying to him in that moment, I know the general outline of despair. This feels like it could be true more generally in life, and yet "in its general outline despair has no importance."
It was also striking in the fact that it although it gave a personality to despair, it did not all feel sad. There was beauty for me in lines such as, "...their blood doesn't have the slightest thickness." This image felt oddly comforting, even though it is of blood from fallen birds. Blood without thickness feels less threatening, like you wouldn't choke on it as quickly if it filled your airways, somehow it feels safer. "A pearl necklace for which no clasp can be found and whose existence can't even hang by a thread." This image feels like a description of despair, and yet a pearl necklace for which no clasp can be found feels free, not useless. If its existence cannot hang by a thread it may be less drawn out, but this does not just mean it cannot exist, perhaps it only knows how to exist and just does not know how to almost not exist. "I live on that despair which enchants me" "...the despair with long slender surprises..." The OED defines despair as the absence of hope, "entire want of hope." But these lines make despair feel like something with a life, while despairing not everything has to be bland and dull. In fact, "it's always in despair that I discovery the beautiful uprooted trees of night." This feels like magic, giving despair, the concept, the word, a life beyond hopelessness without betraying the feeling of despair.

Surrealism & Duality

Andre Breton's Choose Life is now definitely high up on the list of my most favorite poems currently, because his use of fantastic imagery as well as the emotion that strikes when read aloud (Why have I not always read poems aloud? It really allows for a connection between the poet and reader.)

My favorite word pairings: overripe stones, murmuring pool, and especially, less gentle shelves. I have come to realize the importance of being odd in the world. Like with these descriptions, it is the unusual that grabs our attentions and hold our minds there for a second longer.

As important, or more or less, I am not quite certain, are the phrases and lines that caught my voice for a moment as I read them:

The life of being here nothing but being here
Where one voice says Are you there where another
                                              answers Are you there
I'm hardly here at all alas
And even though we might be making fun of what we kill
                                  Choose life

All I can come up with, or at least the thought I am stopping at and what I want to stress, is that there is power in words that are both specific and general. Like the specific conversation between two people, but the next line, I'm hardly here at all alas is one that can be related to anyone. In the next line too, And even though we might be making fun of what we kill, kill seems to be such a specific action, but depending on who you are and where you are, it can mean many different things. Like I, being from a place with lots of hunting reads something very different than someone who is in affiliation with the military. In a word being able to apply both personally and worldly, there is magic.

Another favorite part of mine,

Though the sun is only a shipwreck
Insofar as a woman's body resembles it

Because of the image so strong I could paint it, if I had that kind of ability, that is; also I love it because of what the poet says about women here. Though it may not be what he intended, I take meaning from the words that women are broken, but still powerful, still bright, still strong.

Finally(I cannot make myself pick simply one),

Life the makeup on God's face

I love the oddity of the statement primarily, but also there is an openness here too. Makeup is not everywhere, but in many places a universal concept. But there is cultural differences, for sure, which also made me think about the differences in beauty across cultures. It is subjective, like what makes a good life, and what qualifies as choosing a life (or a life worth living).



  

Magic but How?

After reading The Writing of Stones, I realized that magic in poetry is not as simple as I first thought. When Scott introduced magic, I understood it as a simple definitive aspect that poets used, but after reading the Writing of the Stones, I discovered that there are various forms of magic that the authors can use. As I mentioned in one of my first blogs, the concept of creating an illusion through poetry seems to be one of the most fascinating ways to enrich a poem. However, the illusion can be created naturally as indicated by Caillois or mystical as stated by Breton. Both are very effective techniques, yet there are applicable to various situations in various poems. I determined natural magic in a poem to be the magic that is obvious, such as a simple illusion that the audience can see. They may not be able to discover how the illusion was created, but it is physically in front of them. The other mystical illusion I felt was more internal and surreal. It made one's mind think about how to process what was happening in the illusion rather than simply witnessing it, such as in the movie Inception. When I was first introduced to poetry, I was a novice (as I still am), but after reading about the techniques poets use to create a unique poem, I realize that the world of poetry has much more than rhyme, rhythm, and emotion.

Ode to the Object

As we read the two "Ode to" poems in class, I really realized that it opened a new door for my understanding of poetry. When I learned poetry in high school, everything that I analyzed seemed to consist of an overly complicated emotional plot. However, when Scott told us to pick an object and just write, I found it much easier to create a poem. This spurred my thought that we do not notice the vital objects in our daily life: such as a pencil, tissue, or even t-shirt. We casually pass by these things, but when I sat down and wrote about one of these objects I realized that I utilize it more than I thought I did. I also found it much easier to personify each of these objects simply because I was able to describe their purpose a lot easier, thus making my poem much richer in detail. Especially in the "Ode to the Watermelon" poem I really enjoyed how the watermelon was used to describe the colors of the flag of Palestine. This line stuck with me the most, and I hope to use a comparison similar to this in the future.

The Natural World as Magic

While Coleridge takes the supernatural and makes it seem natural, Wordsworth takes the natural and makes it seem supernatural. Thus, a magical moment in a Wordsworth poem would be a moment in which he transforms any ordinary, natural event- such as death- and draws it in a supernatural light. 

For example, in “We Are Seven,” Wordsworth brings to question the topic of death and heaven. In this poem, a young girl has seven siblings, but two of them are deceased. The narrator asks the question, “‘How many are you, then… if they two are in heaven?’” to which the young girl replies, “Nay, we are seven!” 

The idea of heaven, or any afterlife itself is an element of the supernatural. But Wordsworth ventures further. He brings up the idea that even when a person dies, his presence still lingers on Earth, which in itself is a sort of magic. And, the fact that Wordsworth chose to use an 8 year old girl to convey this idea makes the poem even more striking, since children are innocent, yet this poem is about death.

Wordsworth was able to portray the realistic battle between an adult and child's understanding of death in We Are Seven. The repetition of the title throughout the poem was particularly "magical" in my eyes. The simple act of repetition is not magical though, it is the journey that takes the little girl into the final declaration, "we are seven!" that provides new dimension to the poem. When the girl first mentions how many siblings she has, she simply states, "seven in all." From there, she progresses her wording by stating, "seven are we." Next, she says, "we are seven," and finally ends by shouting, "we are seven!" This progression is effective because Wordsworth takes time to develop the child's voice. It is realistic that she would not start out the confrontation by shouting we are seven at this man. As time goes on, she changes her wording and becomes more forceful in her statements because she is frustrated with the man. The slight word and punctuation change highlights the deep emotion the child feels as the argument goes on. This emotion is mirrored in the readers who are innately on the side of the innocent child.

Week 2- Magic makes one alive

On Monday we read two poems, "We Are Seven" and "Ode to the Table" where I think the concept of magic was brought into poetry. "Ode to the table" reminded me of the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast". There was a scene where Beauty was in the kitchen with normal, standard kitchen tools and supplies. Although the toaster, teapot, candle, etc, looked the same as what many others have in their kitchen, they were far from original. The magic gave them life, and more meaning which allowed them to be and do so much more. That same supernatural magic allowed the table to be much more as well. It became much more than just a piece of furniture, but "a trustworthy titanic quadrupeds, that sustain our hopes and daily life".


In the poem, "We Are Seven", magic overpowered science. Scientifically speaking, once you pass away, you aren't really counted anymore. Your physical presence is nonexistence to the world. The little girl though did not follow that "status quo" and kept her two siblings "here", despite them dying. She claimed that they were very well here just underground, ignoring the idea that that normally means they aren't here. By keeping their spirits alive she essentially kept them alive. The idea of a soul still living without the body is against the basic principles of science. In my opinion, that is where the magic happens which is very similar to what happens in Casper the Friendly Ghost.

The Natural World: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

                                   The Natural World In Rime of the Ancient Mariner

In my opinion, the poem is essentially an assertive statement that the natural world exerts dominance over humanity. For periods during the poem, the Natural world does not seem to even be a setting, but rather a character who is interacting with the Ancient Mariner. As soon as the Ancient Mariner displeases the spirit, his consequences is received through the hands of the natural world. The sun takes a brutal toll on the Mariner as the wind seems to die down, while the ocean is described as containing serpents with legs, reflecting the personality of the natural world. The powerful storm on the sea often threatens the life of the Ancient Mariner, while the fire of the cloud above defines the power of the natural world. In the conclusion of the poem, it is evident that the Ancient Mariner advocates for respect for the natural world, because he realizes he must respect the natural world if he is to respect god. The natural world is one of God's creations, so by respecting nature, the Ancient Mariner is respecting god. At the end the Mariner says to the wedding guest, that the way to achieve cohesion with god is through "the image of a greater and better world."

Week 2: Dreams, Dew and Death: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Not often do I read out loud. Not enough, now I should say, because my favorite parts of Coleridge's  The Rime of the Ancient Mariner I like because of the way they sound when I read them aloud.

"The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained."

The magic in this part in particular seems to stem from my ability to put myself into the situation, which reading aloud greatly helped me do. I could see the rain filling buckets around me, dripping from clouds like the dew off the morning grass, my mouth was open and I could taste it. Magic is experiencing something surreal--magic is a dream, just like in this stanza.

"They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise."

First when I read this I thought, is Pirates of the Caribbean based on this poem? Which I will look up the answer to later, but after that I again noticed the presence of dreams. I think why dreams catch me, and maybe this applies to more people as well, is that dreams are a medium through which we can relate to anything and everything. Maybe I have never seen an albatross or sailed the seas; surely I have never seen dead men rise, but through dreams I can experience it, or at least pretend to experience it, depending on what one thinks dreams are.

A favorite image of mine was,

"For when it dawned--they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed. 

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one."

What made this magical to me was that all of the descriptions they gave easily matched an object in my head--birds. The descriptions he chose to give the souls really forces the human brain into connecting the souls to birds. Here, we pair the natural with the supernatural when we picture souls flying, singing as birds do. Like Samuel Coleridge writes in Biographia Literaria, "For the second class, subjects [of supernatural poetry] were to be chose from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such, as will be found in every village and its vicinity".

Week 2 (Hannah)

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring--
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming. 

In this moment, the wind that breathed on the Ancient Mariner does not seem to have any affect on anything else. There was no external physical sign of its existence, no sound, motion, path, ripple, or shade. And yet, it "fanned [his] cheek" and "mingled strangely with [his] fears" and even "felt like a welcoming." This is magical because it is the opposite of how winds affect the real world. Usually while there are external physical signs, winds do not single out one person, or interact with them this intimately.
This moment of magic works to highlight how the Mariner is experiencing a different relationship with his reality than any of the other characters seem to. Throughout his epic tail at sea, he is the exception to all rules, and cannot even die. This magical wind that chooses him made me notice more clearly how without this bubble of disconnection he couldn't have survived.
The wind seems to sooth him, and after it comes a bit of hope. I saw a potential connection to why he needs to tell his tale to the Wedding Guest. To survive this strange crucible, and survive in a world after it has ended, he must tell the tale to bring that combination of mingling with fears while also welcoming some sort of okayness, just as the wind did.

LHSP 230.003 Week One Blog- intro

Writing poetry and I have a long standing relationship that dates back to my elementary school days. I have written a little poetry throughout the years, but I've always dreamed of writing on the levels of poetry legends like Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes. I realized my creativity could never reach their levels, but my interest in poetry has not faded. I have spent hours on Youtube watching Russell Simmon's "Def Jam Poets" episodes. I did contribute a poem to a campus org's Women's Appreciation Week during my sophomore year.

I decided to take this course mostly I really wanted to take a creative expression course, and my choices were limited due to scheduling conflicts. The title of the course is slightly intimidating, and I am not entirely sure what to expect. I hope I get a chance to explore and develop the more creative side of myself, which is a huge relief from the typical academia and scholarship I am accustomed to. I find it interesting that this class is mixing science and magic because they are usually are at the opposite of the spectrum. Science is always trying to technically explain most things that people label as magic. Incorporating these two ideas as the focal point of poetry would seem to be very odd and difficult, but I am ready for the challenge. I am use poetry covering topics like love, heartbreak, nature, struggling, and etc. I look forward to growing not only as an inspiring poet, but as a creative critical thinker as well.  

Poetry???

I find this question extremely difficult to answer. Comparatively, it is when people ask what is art and what can be considered art. There are the three main theories one can consider when identifying what is poetry. The first is the "Art World Theory." Is it considered poetry if it gathers attention by the wider poetry community, consequently considering it poetry if it is accepted into the tradition and standards of the art world. The second is formalism, whether the poet facilities a wide range of diction, syntax, tone, and imagery successfully. The context of the written piece and what other people think of the pieces is not as important than the form of the poem, therefore it is the use of poetic devices that make a poem a poem. The third is expressionism, if the poem elicits an emotional response from the reader. In vast contrast to formalism, expressionists consider the use of poetic devices of disinterest, it is the position that poetry should express some kind of emotion. Although if I had to put a definition to poetry I would say it is a rhythmic composition crafted with poetic devices invoking pathos. Poetry tends focus on aesthetic qualities in structure to further express their message.
The purposes of poetry are multifaceted, it would depend on the intention of the author. There are a wide range of poetry such as confessional, persuasive, and narrative. Poetry is one way of self expression. As mentioned in class, it is a way of connecting concepts and ideas that haven't been thought of before. It help us understand the world better, it helps us understand one another better. Poetry can be used to better comprehend magic or science. Similarly, poetry has a bit mystical and analytical.  

Week 1: Poetry as Religion

Poetry is hard to attach a definition to when trying to use it as an umbrella term to cover what poetry means to everyone. Really, all I can really do is tell you what poetry means to me; each person's own definition is really the most important anyway.

I would describe poetry initially as a way of thinking. When asked to further describe what exactly it was that I meant by that, I would most likely unsatisfactorily shrug and mumble, "I don't know." Even though I do know, otherwise I probably would not have said it.

The reason I would mumble I don't know is maybe because I am lazy, maybe because I am shy, I just know that the way I think whenever poetry is involved is in webs, branching out and stemming and weaving across ideas and words that I am just not sure I know how to say, let alone if the person who asked me cares enough to hear the entire answer. I wouldn't remember the entire answer.

Poetry is a race, chasing the lines with lead.

Then are science and magic hurdles of poetry? No, I don't think I will stick with that metaphor, because the two work beside poetry, not against it. Outside of poetry, magic and science are explanations for people to cling to; they are providers of hope and consistent beliefs people depend on and shape their lives around. Poetry too, is a faith.

Out of curiosity, I have often asked many of my religious friends and avid church-goers about why they believe in their particular faith. Most shrugged and stumbled. Some quoted the words of others. A few got angry. I know why, though.

When asked why I believe in poetry, or what it means to be a poet I would probably shrug.

"I don't know."

Introduction

Each poet has his own personalized definition of poetry. For me, poetry is any written account of strikingly honest emotion. And, more often than not, poems are for nothing. There is no reason for them other than to be expressed- which is the beauty of poetry, and all else that exists for no reason at all. Take the galaxy, or life on this planet: there is no purpose for such existences. They are merely there. But just because they have no purpose does not mean that they do not serve a purpose. The galaxy is a wonder to the world; its infinite vastness instills fear, awe, and comfort all at once. Life brings hope, possibility, and appreciation. Poetry saves lives.
Not only does poetry help people through tragedy and heartbreak, it also helps people appreciate the beauty in simplicity and in life. It helps people better understand themselves and others. Through poetry, people can explain every thought and their feelings about those thoughts. Others who then read that poetry may discover new truths about humanity or the world. Good poetry, according to Descartes in Discourse On The Method, contains the seeds of good thought, which in turn reveals certain things about existence.
Since poetry is an expression of the experience of life, everything in the world relates to poetry. Everything that we know, we can turn into poetry. Thus, science is poetic; chemistry, biology, and the natural world are all artforms. Further, every aspect of science is essentially magic. Think about it: we know chemistry, and that chemical reactions occur and how to enforce them, and many of the elements, but where our knowledge ends, magic begins. We know our biology, and how it all works, but what is it that gives us this conscious animation, or our souls? It is the inexplicable science: magic. Magic exists in humanity as soul, as creativity, as imagination. The jolt of emotion one feels when reading or composing a poem: that is magic.

Week 1 (Hannah)

Poetry is a state of mind that changes our level of understanding or intimacy about something. This could mean an external structure forms words with a shape that leads to unexpectedly striking syntax, or it could be something we have not yet discovered and therefore cannot describe. Poetry doesn't have to make sense to change the way we use our brains, and that is a type magic.
In some poetry, mystery is unnecessary for the storytelling, but in others it is the specific images that leave us confused enough to actively wonder. The wondering is what can lead to a visceral experience of existence and emotion. In the Emily Dickinson we read this week there were many groupings of words that caused new things to exist in the reality that is imagined concepts. We discussed "Your Brain -- to bubble Cool--" and "When Winds hold Forests in their Paws --" but the magic in this piece for me came when lines such as "He stuns you by Degrees--" and "For the Ethereal Blow / By fainter Hammers -- further heard -- / Then nearer -- Then so -- slow--" In these moments, as in the whole thing, it felt like there were contradictory personalities or situations; one of the actual words, ethereal, faint, slow, a gentleness. But another that appeared when the words were read together, it felt aggressive. Perhaps that is how death thinks, this strange feeling of both glacial slowness, gentle but lethal yet tender, and also the inescapable subtextual feeling of aggressive entitlement, to life, to take life.

Week 1: Blog

Poetry Introduction

In high school, teenagers are exposed to the introductions of poetry through various literary terms (alliteration, personification, simile, metaphor). However, when an individual looks outside of the conventional thinking and analysis of poetry, there is much more to offer in terms of understanding and interpretation. I personally believe that there is no correct meaning for a line in a poem; perhaps the author's intention may be to state something simple such as, "the balloon between the girl and the boy was red." However, upon analysis one person may view the red balloon as a symbol of love, while the person sitting adjacent to them may view it as hatred and bloodshed. As we discovered in class, there is a sort of magic that appears in a poem but at first I was unsure as to how to describe the magic. I believe the magic is created when a word can have many different interpretations, as it causes each individual to ponder over what emotion the author is trying to provoke or portray. The type of magic I would associate poetry with is illusions, because while the magician sees how the trick is being played, the audience is left wondering how in the world did he/she produce something so extravagant? While I have not been a big fan of poetry, mainly because I have not been exposed to it, I feel some sort of connection to it mainly due to my fascination with magic. The technique we learned in class enhanced my understanding of poetry, and above all instigated interest in my mind for the correlation between magic and poetry. 

My Joy -- first day poetry magic from LHSP 230

Hey y'all.  Here is the poem we wrote together in class today, in case you'd like to preserve it for posterity:

My joy is multilayered.

My joy’s shape is not formulaic.

My joy casts shadows.

My joy has freckles.

You could break my joy, somehow.

You could throw it against something more

dense than itself,

explode it,

crush it.

My joy is misshapen and ugly.

My joy reminds me of the brain.

My joy would leave a bruise.

Welcome to Poetry, Magic, and Science!

This is the class blog for LHSP 230.003: Poetry, Magic, and Science.  Each week, students will post their reflections here on elements of magic and/or science in the poems and materials we read for class.  I look forward to reading along as you all engage and grapple with the poems and "think out loud" about what effects these poems have on us, and how.

Here is one take on the relationship between magic and science, via xkcd.com.  This comic is titled "The Data So Far."



In our class we'll do our own kinds of experiments and see if we can confirm or complicate these findings.  Let's have fun and mess with the universe.