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I know that this is probably going to be my favorite part of creative writing. While poetry doesn’t really catch the eye of most, it is my absolute go-to type of reading and writing. I find comfort in reading and even writing poetry.
ReplyDeleteI have always had a misunderstanding when it came to poetry, I always thought it had to rhyme, and that there were certain rules to follow. Reading Starkey’s chapter on writing poetry and the elements of poetry cleared up things for me. I learned that there are certain rules to follow, only if you are writing a certain type of poem such as a Sonnet (which can only have 14 lines) or a Villanelle (which has 5 tercets/group of 3 line and a final quatrain/group of four lines). Other than that, I feel like you don’t necessarily have to follow any rules when it comes to writing poetry, although the rules do help kind of structure a poem.
It was also interesting to read about the all the poetic forms. I’m used to just reading poetry that’s more modern and they don’t really have specific forms that authors follow. I find that more interesting just because the poems will usually be more relatable I guess.
Ilene Guevara
this is interesting way to end the course, because poetry is so uniquely expressed by some poets it astounds me. its true to see that on page 15 starkey mentions how "indeed, one of the pleasures of writing poetry is that it offers frequent surprises: you never know when youre going to say something you didnt know you knew, or say something you didnt think could be said" and I thought that was really interesting to read because how I see poetry personally, its an expressive form of art, there are so many poems and clichés out there its a bit harder to be unique but not impossible. in the poem my personal recollections...by gail white was an interesting personal piece to read, it explained that you can use poetry like a song to express ones feelings, its unsure that she ever told her mom this, but had she given her mother this poem...her mother and/or the audience would a better understanding other than words such as most people catch themselves saying "idk who to explain it". in the poem winter was a emotional considering its about her late husaband, had I not known it was about herself it still wouldvr made the same impact, the peom expresses loneliness and cold bitter weather just like how shes feeling thinking about her husband "in our time we met in ornate station" its unfortunate shell always see him everywhere and depressing that a train station was once a place full of blessing to her now its a dark memory. in the last poem duration was interesting to read because of the shortness of it yet the fact that she could've been saying so much, maybe shed only understand fully, or itd need a bit explanation for the audience.
ReplyDeleteStephanie Ruiz
Being a recent highschool graduate, if you thought that lines and stanzas, and rhyme and meter, and all these poetry concepts are still fresh in my head... you thought right. And in all honesty, this will probably be my favorite of all the genres we will have looked at throughout the semester, as poetry is the shortest and requires the least amount of time to read and to write. It really is my type of literature being so compact and straight to the point. I admit, I tend to be the student that, as Starkey quoted , "[wants] a wilderness with a map" (p. 14).
ReplyDeleteRicardo Garcia
DeleteBeing a recent highschool graduate, if you thought that lines and stanzas, and rhyme and meter, and all these poetry concepts are still fresh in my head... you thought right. And in all honesty, this will probably be my favorite of all the genres we will have looked at throughout the semester, as poetry is the shortest and requires the least amount of time to read and to write. It really is my type of literature being so compact and straight to the point. I admit, I tend to be the student that, as Starkey quoted , "[wants] a wilderness with a map" (p. 14).
ReplyDeleteRicardo Garcia
I think this part of the class will be the most difficult for me, because poetry has always been very hard for me to understand. I am most interested in us making our own poetry, it has always been a challenge to condense all my thoughts into just a few lines or words. I found it very fascinating when reading Starkey that there is a common deterrence to clichés that you find when creating mostly any type of writing. When going over the elements of poetry, I felt like I was back in my English comp class, it felt very familiar and similarly just as perplexing. Looking through the models, I was surprised to find the narrative aspect and that poems need to be small, it reminded me of the thought process when doing the short short. Gail White’s poem surprised me the most because I actually understood it, and it sounded like a normal monologue in a play or a story. Ruth Stone’s Winter was the accustomed poem and I feel I would have been confused had I not read the introduction where she talks about her husband who committed suicide. Rae Armantrout’s Duration kind of just left me there re-reading and I got nothing no matter how much I read it. I felt like they were showing different pictures and I couldn’t really put them together. Finishing Starkey’s poetry chapter, I feel that a lot goes into poetry, counting syllables, and leading a person’s eyes on a page, and I look forward to finding out how I can dissect Duration, so I can understand it better.
ReplyDeleteAlyssa Campos
I am really glad that we saved Poetry for the end. It is one of my favorite types of creative writing, because it leaves so much room for interpretation. I first analyzed poetry in middle school, and though it cracked my brain at the time, it made me pause and appreciate each line for its significance. I found it interesting to read that poets usually do not start with an outline, they usually begin with an idea, a photo, a phrase, or a hunch. The Elements of Poetry that were discussed, included the following: Lines and Stanzas, Meter and Rhythm, The Music of Poetry, Images, Symbols, and Figurative Language, Diction, Syntax, Language of Poetry, and Poetic Forms. I enjoyed reading “Winter” by Ruth Stone, because of the amount of Imagery included. Each line was full of visuals that I was able to vividly picture. I enjoy the setting of this poem, and how she used the season to symbolize how she felt when her and her significant other departed. I think having the correct meter and rhythm can truly impact your poem. If it does not sound right, your message might not be interpreted correctly. I learned that It is okay to not write in meter, as long as you have the adequate rhythm.
ReplyDeleteValerie Jackson
Honestly, I love poetry, but can never really understand it fully. I'm really excited to finally be learning about it. I am more interested in writing poetry. It is one of my favorite things to write. Starkey says "indeed, one of the pleasures of writing poetry is that it offers frequent surprises: you never know when you're going to say something you didn't know you knew, or say something you didn't think could be said." I thought it was so interesting because sometimes I read poems and I believe they're talking about one thing and I'm so convinced that it's what the poem is about, but it turns out to be about something completely different or super simple!
ReplyDeleteSidney Carranco
I have always admired poetry, but that's the only thing I could do, just admire it. I was never really good at poetry because I always felt intimidated by all the rules when it comes down to the various types of poetry. Going through the Starkey pages I immediately had a flashback to high school, when I was trying to write Haiku's to try to seem knowledgeable to my peers. I was hoping this day would never come, but I must conquer my fears of poetry and try my very best to write something that I can fall in love with. One of the main things that I love about poetry is the way they use the text to have a literal and a metaphorical message. Another great aspect of poetry that I personally admire is the ability to use metaphors throughout the poem, while still being able to relay their message in a clear way.
ReplyDeleteCaesar De Luna
Since we are now covering poetry I am actually a bit worried. I have never been an expert at writing poetry or even interpreting it. I feel like I'll have the most difficulty writing poetry, and I am hoping that by the end my poetry will have improved a little bit. When it comes to writing poetry Starkey mentions that it's just a hunch rather than it being all planned out. This may be the reason why I struggle with writing poetry because like the opposite of this I enjoy organizing and planning out an outline in my mind before I start writing. In Gail White's poem, "My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to Prom" gave me the interpretation of how this girl wasn't appreciated for her wit, and her beauty certainly wasn't making boys fall at her feet. However, I like that at the end of the poem even though she was a disappointment to her mother and not appreciated she still ended up getting married and found validation that she was searching for. In the second poem "Winter" by Ruth Stone, this is more of a complicated piece for me to interpret and I struggled to understand if there was any meaning behind it. The third poem "Duration" by Rae Armantrout I really liked how I could hear a rhythm when I read this poem. That is another thing that I find that is very complicated to do is the fact that being able to write a poem with a rhythm that engages an audiences. Those that write poetry in my opinion are very clever.
ReplyDeleteLianna Andrade
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ReplyDeleteI remember when I was trying to figure out who I was that I went through different stages in middle school. one of the phases I went through was poetic emo. I would go to the library after school and read poems by E.E Cummings and Edgar Allan Poe. This phase along with my English classes helped me understand how poetry is structured. a poem is a composition of verses created for artistic expression. the verses are used for the reader to analyze the words carefully to understand the imagery the poets trying to convey, like reading Shakespeare. the sentences of poetry are called lines, the lines begin on the left side of the page the stanzas are made to group the lines together. Rhythm is a regular pattern of accented and unaccented syllables. the music of poetry focus on the rhyme and alliteration of the words to create a musical effect in poetry. symbols are depended on poetry in order to signify what the poet's trying to convey. diction and syntax are combines to create the language of poetry. a poem is complex to write and the only way to express your emotions is to use the elements.
ReplyDeleteKatia Garcia
I’ve always had an admiration for surpassing the restrictions set forth by writing, though I most admired the creative work-arounds for rules, and even the turning of rules into an art. Duration seems to accomplish such, but it leaves people like myself rather clueless as to the specifics behind each line. For instance, there is this line: “Silver whistles of blackbirds needle the daylong day.” I’m not exactly sure on what this means… Without much in-depth interpretation, I suspect none of these couplets are connected by content, but moreso through the emotions they portray through imagery.
ReplyDeleteOne detail I can take after particularly is the reflective and slightly satirical nature of My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom. I’m rather sure this eyeful title here is partly satirical, as it’s a lot of something about nothing, one might say. I’ve also written satirical short stories that incorporated nonsensical titles as both a small gag and an eye-grabber. Though it may not seem much, I think there’s a direction to take here. Not only that, but both Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom and Winter have a knack for structuring lines with either one or two words spaced left. I can only assume that’s both poems’ method of applying impact - there’s a separation of ideas done by spacing left in this case. By doing so, we can let the line stand out and sink in before then reading the next line. That’s how I see it at least.
- Gary Tolar
I personally have a love/hate with poetry, and it truly depends on how picky I am about the poet/poem in order to read it. One of the most intriguing elements of poetry to me was "The Music of Poetry". It is known to be "the sounds words make when coming together." (19) I like how the meaning of it is gain a better perspective of of alliteration and rhyme and how they create the musical effect. In Gail White's "My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom" , Ruth Stone's "Winter", and Rae Armantrout's "Duration" they all in their own distinct ways follow the elements of poetry with their groupings of stanzas, different meter patterns, the figurative language, diction, and poetic forms. While all of them each have their own unique forms within the elements, but the one to stand out the most to me was "Duration" by Rae Armantrout. It made me really focus on it and study how the diction makes the poem what it is. The diction is what drew me in the most because in poetry, that is what I'm more attracted to reading. I distinctly like how they described small pecks as "leaky faucet kisses. (24) I've never heard it be described like that before which made it more appealing to read right from the start.
ReplyDelete-Faith Ortiz
I have enjoyed the simplicity of today’s poetry and the complexity of poetry from the past since I was very young. Poets have always stood out to me amongst the plethora of writers, so this genre is one that I have been looking forward to the entire semester, and I’m glad that we are ending on it. One of my favorite quotes throughout the chapter was John Keats when he said, “if poetry come not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all” (15). He’s saying that writing poetry is a long process, one that has great moments of difficulty, but can be very rewarding in the end.
ReplyDeleteGail White’s, “My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to the Prom,” was beautiful and the exact type of poetry I go for. It’s witty, yet it carries a somber undertone. White shows that she can write out her feelings in a way that comes across as funny, but there is hurt underneath all of those well-versed words. I also really like the layout of Ruth Stone’s poem, “Winter,” because she slowly shows her cards while introducing worldly characteristics to also showcase the pain of winter. Rae Armantrout’s, “Duration,” carries a simplicity that moves quite drastically from each break to each break. It’s interesting, yet I’m not sure what to make of it.
One of my favorite things about poetry is the line work and the use of space that poets use on the page. I think the positioning of words is one of the most interesting things that poets do as they write, because they create a movement of words that can be viewed as a song.
Kimberlee Salas
I’ll share about my relationship with poetry since this seems to be the theme of discussion so far in the above comments. I remember writing haikus in maybe third grade and counting lines in classic poems around the same time. My mom liked Emily Dickenson and tried to get me interested. I don’t think I had the patience as a kid to understand what most poems I read were talking about (besides nursery rhymes, and even then!), and no life experience to appreciate them, either.
ReplyDeleteStarkey’s chapter is full of definitions, which served as a helpful review. The difference between meter and rhythm confuses me, because both are unseen. Keeping time while playing piano remains hard for me, and even after years of practice, others say I’m “off” in my timing even if the notes were perfect. Maybe I have trouble hearing it?
I really liked how Starkey mentioned “every line begins and ends where it does for a reason,” making enjambment a solution to keeping the syntax. I think enjambments are cool ��
While it sounds abstract, the quote by Li-Young Lee about “meaning is born as the breath dies” alludes to the “beat” of inhaling and exhaling, and the “time” of the universe – waves, heart beats, etc. and I think this is beautiful and true, since most (all?) living things cycle through a form of death/letting go before being renewed.
Natalie Roeglin
Poetry was always something I enjoyed reading and learning about, but never found myself trying for fear of failing. The way it was taught to me back in middle school had me overwhelmed with all of the structures and qualifications for it to be considered poetry. Poetry can be so open-ended and have literally hundreds of interpretations yet getting that literary freedom meant fitting it through a strict writing format. It was in reading this section that made me believe that poetry doesn’t need to be forced into that structure. Poems don’t need to rhyme at the end of every line so long as there is a rhythm to it. Reading through Ruth Stone’s ‘Winter’ and Rae Armantrout’s ‘Duration’ made me cringe at first. ‘My Personal Recollections’ by Gail White had a pattern to it: ABACACAC. The next two didn’t and it made me more concerned about the rhyme scheme rather than what the poems were saying. Reading through the elements of poetry made me realize that the poetic structure comes in many different forms that allow writers to not concern themselves over whether their words rhyme in a noticeable pattern. Granted there are still strict rules to writing poetry, but they don’t feel as suffocating now after reading through this section.
ReplyDeleteTeresa Villarreal
I was surprised by the number of things that writers must take into consideration when writing poetry. There is even a type of rhyme called “sight rhymes” which are words that look like they rhyme but don’t rhyme once you say them. Even though I like poetry, it can be difficult to understand. The first poem called “My Personal Recollections of Not Being Asked to Prom” by Gail White was about a girl that didn’t get taken to prom but says she still managed to get married. The set-up of the poem was weird. The sentences would end and begin at odd times. The second poem called “Winter” by Ruth Stone described the train, the station and its walls and how it made her remember a certain person. She uses a lot of similes to compare the train station and create imagery. The last poem called “Duration” by Rae Armantrout was difficult to understand. I feel like he is describing the repetition of birds singing outside of his bedroom window. Rae used the type of stanzas called couplet which is only two lines per stanza. The whole poem is 9 stanzas long even though the length of the entire poem is only 5 complete sentences.
ReplyDeleteFrancisco Rosales
When writing about poetry we need to focus on the language, emotions, movement, and revision. In starkey’s writing it states “ many traditionalists now acknowledge that poetry can be made in free verse.” Meaning that poetry doesn’t have to be well thought out sometimes when you’re just writing free hand the best work will come out, because it’s open topic you can write about whatever and you can also write it however you would like to. Not all poems need to rhyme sometimes by their flow of the tone of the words is what makes a poem. I have always liked reading about poems in grade school especially the ones that rhymed it’s what made English so enjoyable. I am actually very happy that poetry is the last section that we are going to cover. I personally haven’t written any poems so I am curious to see how well I can do in this topic and really focus on how I can write my stanzas. I feel that this section will actually be somewhat difficult for me since I have never written them before, but there is never any harm in learning something new. Also since my goal is to become an English teacher in the near future this would help me teach future students.
ReplyDelete-Krystdamayne Guerrero