Poem for 4/8 Workshop (Hannah)

Not To Be is a Degree of Being

Windows with bullet holes say not bullets

Healed burns never say hurricanes that came

Attempted to voice their silent gullet

Tenebrae in tainted paint rollers blame

This monumentus stillness of a prance

Homeward to write the improperly voiced

Insistent smiling whenever I glance

Some angular perception, perfect choice

Intonations of metaphysics spoke

Sliding my being to faster presence

Nested secret enough to be named moat

On my metaphorical heart’s peasant

Tribe of new sensations of the minded

Attention to detail yet so blinded.

Love like this was normal in middle school

Over hurts forming regularity

Very painful and gladly skipped. fool

Enough to trust that love could still be. free

Polkadots if you never know this love

On into college, until you become

Everything you were but also above

Maturity and back to being young.

Promising yourself not to change for an

Attainable yet unlikely to make

You feel like writing sonnets that will span

Time bending temporarily to fake

Ordinary conversation into

Nearly the most awkward moment for you.

Payton's Workshop Poem

Lactose Intolerance

The slippery elbow of a little brother while he reaches for another white-floured roll, violently ignores the peas to his right, draws backward, focus on his target, misfires into his sisters’ dairy glass. It cracks, fragile walls of Jericho, a leaky faucet, drips like a lost waterfall, unsure which way to flow. Rain anxiously rolls off the earth or the pilgrim tablecloth. Sister kneels upon the shards

wine she cannot drink

soaked through her jeans,

sticks to her milky white bones.

With a craned neck, eyes fall back, tongue like a funnel

to catch the falling snow. Clunk. Her head bruises the table. It is it, not she, who cries.

3 Workshop Poems

For Wednesday:

Exploding Head Syndrome

Was that you?

Who banged that drum and broke that vase and fired that gun?

Has it been you all along,

Trying to reach me through my dreams

Only to accidentally wake me up?

My roommates don’t believe me when I tell them what you’ve done.

He’s throwing the furniture around in my mind, I explain.

He’s shooting my thoughts down,

Even now.

They don’t understand my fury

When I scream, they think it’s at myself.

But it’s not me I’m screaming at –

It’s that you that has taken over inside.

What are you trying to say –

I’m sorry, forgive me,

Or are you taunting me for kicks?

For kicks and shots and shrieks and any way you can make noise?

But you know,

You could be silent and I’d still wake up screaming.

 For Monday:

Dear You

Confident Intellect,

I’ve felt the fangs of a lion crawl along my torso

Watched in slow-motion as the beast extended its paw to tear me apart –

And I survived.

The presence of the deadly animal gave me the strength of a rush and the importance of a wit

but all your mere sub-six foot, non-threatening presence gives me

is a clouded mind, a nervous tick

Dear you

Ex-Lover,

Do you know what it’s like to live in a volcano like I have,

to feel the molten lava mold your skin and bones,

but refuse to steal your life?

Or to survive in a vent

Night after night- for there was no Day,

To live among the stink bugs and the ants,

who made a home of my scalp?

But I’d fight a lion again,

if it would just give me the confidence

To shoot you down.

And I’d take any of my previous domains

Over your shadow.

Overheard

The message in "Overheard" is, in my opinion, that lovely weather continues whether we feel like it should be a lovely day or not. Ross Gay describes horrifying, tragic events, saying that this man does not mention them, rather "no, he said only, it's a beautiful day, / this tiny man / limping past me / with upturned palms / shaking his head / in disbelief."
This poem reminded me of a line from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. At one point, Victor Frankenstein exclaims: "Dear mountains! My own beautiful lake! ... Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?" The beauty of nature continues even when our hearts feel the weight of tragedy. Similarly, the song "Someone Great" by LCD Soundsystem conveys the same idea with the line: "The worst is all the lovely weather - / I'm stunned / it's not raining."
In Gay's poem, the man is shaking his head in disbelief. His palms are upturned. He's confused as to why it's so nice out when he feels so terrible inside. I think we can all relate to this poem, and its meaning, at some point in our lives.

The Syndromes: Mason's Syndrome

This poem, where Ross Gay brings up creepy behavior in children, reminds me of some stories I read about on the internet. Children sometimes say and do creepy things for which adults can find no explanation. Check out this link:

http://ice-whisper.tumblr.com/post/115621954229/sixpenceee-some-more-of-the-creepiest-thing

Opera Singer

One of my favorite poems in Ross Gay's Bringing the Shovel Down is "Opera Singer", which illustrates a man following his happiness, literally, following the sound of it through the streets. This poem I think best shows Gay's skill with imagery with lines like, "Today my heart is so goddamned fat with grief / that I've begun hauling it in a wheelbarrow." and "delicately rolled r's like a hummingbird fluttering the tongue".

Although this is not the exact first moment in the book where the tone is no longer the darker, more grim tone the first half of the book had, this poem clearly possesses the hopeful spirit that took root in the second half of the book. Here, his lack of punctuation is advantageous as we discussed before, because the way his words read coincides with his frantic run toward joy. The way it is written as a run, with details like the women's breathing, running into a mulberry branch ("across my face / staining it purple and looking, now, like a mad warrior of glee") and the parade of kids running barefoot behind you. It is just so...real, the clumsiness and I feel the branch on my face and I start to breathe irregularly--and the poem works. At the end I have this relief, because I feel like I have really reached a destination, to this "women in slippers and a floral housedress". My reward then is, "heaven sailing from her mouth and all the fish in the sea / and giraffes saunter and sugar in my tea and the forgotten angles / of love and every name of the unborn and dead" (the last one throws me a bit, but I think the memories are a good thing).

The last line is perfect to me, though I am not sure how I want to read it; I can't choose: "let me stop here / and tell you I said thank you." Who is the you? Me, the reader? Some other? Who did he say thank you to? The women singing opera? Me for running alongside him? Some third party like God for giving him this happiness? Clarity at this particular spot isn't important, I don't think. Gratitude is just nice to give, and to be grateful of something means you have something worth giving thanks. Cheesy? Possibly.


I change my mind; this is my favorite of his poems.

Week 13: Gravediggers

In the context of Bringing the Shovel Down, "Undertaker's Syndrome, or Gravedigger's Syndrome" was particularly striking to me. So much of the book is about trained violence and systematic suffering, in this poem I saw an invented syndrome that speaks to the potential side-effects of being aware of that hurting.

...patient develops the deep and abiding sensation of being the caretaker of an invisible cemetery. Sometimes being aware and affected by violence and suffering in the world can mean wandering around life more attentive to the "invisible cemetery" than to being alive. For me this poem dealt with the challenging dimension of compassion. 

In the advanced condition, the imaginary cemetery dominates all aspects of a patients waking life... As a highly sensitive human, having perspective on the horrors of the world may make one a more knowledgeable and effective world citizen, but it can also take over "waking life." This poem feels important because it acknowledges human emotional limitations in the context of changing the problematic world patterns.