We're starting... poetry?

     Beloved is finally gone and done- or off hiding in the woods with the Sasquatch waiting for a chance to return, we can't be sure. Maybe Serge could tell us- and next class we are going to start the poetry unit. The...poetry...unit. In part I'm greatly looking forward to this, but for the same reason I'm also dreading it: I don't get poetry. I know I personally dislike most rhyming ones and like ones with lots of imagery, but when it comes to interpreting most poetry, I usually get stuck at "Uh, that sounds...pretty.". I've always thought of poetry as very symbolic or emotional, meaning the most to the author. It's easier to write it than to read it.   Even for the poems I understand the meaning of, I can't place meaning in line breaks or punctuation. I can't separate ideas well either. Ideas in stories have more pages more time for em to sort them out, poetry is so short that it takes me hours longer to piece it together. It could be that I over think it, or psych myself out (Oh  geez it's poetry its going to be ten times deeper than my brain is capable of diving and have weird images and ideas I'll never understand. Better to give up now and save myself the trouble),  or maybe it's just old-English poetry I can't understand, or maybe I really am this inept (thank you 3 years of creative writing classes. At least I can talk pretty to myself sometimes, since I can't talk well to others).
     I googled "most famous poems" out of curiosity, and received a bunch of rhyming poems, most of which I have read before in school. I expect the ones we receive in class will be of higher literary quality (not that rhymes CAN'T be good quality...it's just....I hate them unless it's to music of sorts or written intentionally childish...). I hope in class we break poems down into pieces together before they're simply assigned as homework and quizzed about the next day and are taught how to analyze how purposeful or meaningful line breaks and punctuation are, as well as just overall taught how to understand poetry.



...All I ever do on my blog is complain about how I either don't like or don't get something.  I really need to reevaluate my life.

Anyone up for a rhyme?

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/top_poems.html

Makeup blog: Reflecting on the past

     My way of dealing with bad memories is somewhat similar to Paul D-and even Sethe- in Beloved. I lock them away, try my very best to pretend they don't effect me. Much like Paul D found though, it's hard to keep them at bay. The more you try to ignore it, the more the smallest things will remind you of said events. I'll be in the middle of class and something someone says reminds me of a time I had a fight with my parents or made of fool of myself while presenting something (this happened quite often actually).  I physically convulse, looking much like a squirrel with turrets  leading people to ask me if something is wrong or if something scared me. With the intensity of my flinching, you'd sooner expected me to have PTSD from war than a simple embarrassing memory. The feeling of boiling magma in my stomach does little to aid my recovery time from the flinching also. I don't handle...emotion well. From nauseating guilt to flinching embarrassment to fall-on-the-floor-while-singing happiness, I just feel intensely. I have no real coping method  to share. My pattern is: try to ignore it, attempt to write a somewhat cathartic poem or story about it, ignore it some more. It's still under revision. The writing thing does helps sometimes however. I wrote a "poem"in creative writing class whilst having a minor panic attach over graduation and growing up, and I feel a lot better about it now (so much better in fact that I cannot wait for school to END).

In attempt to make this post seem more legitiment, I'll post the aforementioned poem on here.
(If you judge me I might very well cry. Do you want me to look upon this blog as a flinch-worthy memory? I'm bearing my soul here people, and Lord knows poetry is not my forte. If I have a forte.)

How do I grow?

Do I grow up?

Up, like a tree

with rings of wisdom

stretching outwards from inside of me?

(But so easily burned?)

Do I grow out?

Out, with echoes of

do this pay that go here move there what.are.you.doing.

Hammering me, like it did others before me

and will others after?

Perhaps I’ll just grow old.

As old as I am competent,

As old as I am independent,

As old as I never wish to be.

Maybe I’ll plant a garden and grow little seeds of lead,

And deal one sided pencils

to the world outside these halls of underaged cinder block,

Where there are no erasers.

(Better for you than me)

No, certainly I shall not grow at all.

I’ll stay ungrown,

Undeveloped

Unknown

until my affair with death becomes so scandalous

that Hell is in awe and children become stunted

and the world’s finger begins to rot as it points towards me and demands

that somehow, I must grow.

Soon I'll hear green paper shackles

singing a lullaby

as they grow like ivy around my wrists,

Coaxing us into their cardboard walls

of cardboard ideas

at the top of the beanstalk.

What if I can't climb,

won't climb?

It's easier to watch the fables grow.

Up the fables and up the stalks

will march blue capped porcelain dolls

stretching like jack-in-the-boxes as they

grow and shrink

grow and shrink

with faces of shattered mirrors

that reflect one hundred images of me.

I'll turn away,

and leave the toys to march

onward.

I will laugh at them,

I will envy them,

And they will grow.

Up and out and old.

I shall never

Decay

Or break

Or mature.

How do I grow?

Perhaps, I will grow under.

I can be the roots,

Never hoping

to see the sun

never dreaming

of anything but going deeper and deeper

into my safe dirt prison.

Makeup blog 2/14:The Guilt Trip

     Guilt is an emotion I don't feel often, but when I do, I not only take a trip but an entirely temporarily upheaval of my life to settle in Guilt Land. I feel like flamingo dancers are performing in my stomach, trying to spin fast enough to rise like a helicopter up my throat and vultures cruise through my system as their wings brush against my veins and the circle my heart looking for dead flesh. I try not do or say to things I know are wrong or mean or I would have to lie about, simply because I feel guilt so intensely that I get physically sick. Eighteen or not, lying to my Mother still sends me running to the bathroom and prevents me from sleeping for days on end. I can't do it.   Well intending or not, telling details of a friend's life to another fills my mouth with moths. Yet, I still do these things- though not often. It doesn't help when that on parent wants you to feel guiltier than you already do. It's the whole "oh sure you can go to your friend's. They're obviously more important to you." or "Oh, you'll have to ask someone for a ride. This wouldn't be a problem if you were driving," . Pointed, but true comments. Lucky for them, I already feel bad about those situations, their comments only giving my internal vultures offspring. In the end, I probably need to learn to deal with guilt more effectively than just feeling ill until it passes, or just quit doing anything Id feel remotely guilty for. 

makeup blog: open letter

Dear Backpack,
    Could you please stop killing my poor spine? I spend five days a week with you, trudging around with you on my back to show off to the world that yes, I have school books and yes, I have a picture of an owl. I rely on you greatly, and even take a bit of pride in you- when you don't smell like cheese crackers at least-  but it's becoming increasingly hard to appreciate  your usefulness when I end up with the seven dwarfs  hacking away at my shoulder blades and spine as they sing "hi ho! Hi ho!" every other day. Is there really nothing you can do about that? Shift a little weigh perhaps? "Accidentally" get sick and puke all my books up in the toilet and flush them away? I'm not asking for much, just a little relief. If you could oblige, I'd been infinitely grateful.
                                                                                                  Yours truly,
                                                                                                   Lauren.