The rambunctious man sat across the wobbly table from me, a floral cloth covered the space between us. Between the grunts of mental frustration and snickering at childish witticisms we shared amongst each other, he would vigorously go to work upon the tall stack of loose paper in front of him. Long spans of unbroken and scratchy handwriting of proofs of matrices were interrupted by frantic bouts of erasing, shaking the table and causing us others to pause in our own workings. Disregarding the startled stares and quick queries, he took a moment to regain his composure and straighten his Harris Tweed blazer, returning yet again to his mathmatical mutterings and musings, making sure to make no further mistakes in his night's quandry.

It's the math man writing some equations.

His patched elbows resting on the table, the man across from me stared intently into his slick cellular phone, sending messages to whichever questionable romantic interests or frivolous friends clung to his fleeting attention for the night. Regardless, his messaging could not hold him long, and he layed the phone beside him on the floral table cloth, quickly pushing out his wood-backed chair and rising in a flurry of loose fabric and flying papers. Before any of his studious companions had the time to react, he had sped out of the room on some unspoken errand. In light of their eccentric host's curious departure, talk arose amongst the gathered regarding his intent. Theories of hedonism and mischief were hypothesized, though before they were able to be thoroughly examined, the host returned in as much of a flustered state as he had left, the sole difference being in the elaborately carved drinking glass he was carrying.
Sipping the undoubtedly noxious liquid from the vessel, he addressed his comrades.

January 14

The mind recognizes:

love, trash, blood, gore, profanity, indoctrination, corruption, propaganda, conspiracies, idiocy, blasphemy, guns, hippies, young people, radical idealism, old people, politics, expectations, the west, arousing cars, war, filth, alcoholism, christianity, beer, trigger warnings, mcdonald's bacon chicken snack wrap, garbage, cover-ups, lawyers, sex, financial advice, dietary reccomendations, pacific dreams, middle aged people, high art, dull cars, cellular-telephones, online dating services, the chinese, dog the bounty hunter, the south, hockey, judaism, smut, reruns, conservative media, obituaries, homophobia, liquid crystal displays, racists, local interest articles, liberals, poison, photos by x, leather couches, nudity, islam, movie previews, unemployment, concerned parents, russians, laptops, banking solutions, hate

The mind is dead, long live the mechanical mind.

"January 14" is a free verse poem that contains no rhyme. The first sentence serves to introduce the list of maladies and constructed thoughts that are staved off in the middle section. These pumped into the mind through advertisements, television programmes, biased newspapers, peer pressures, guardians, and the like, an aspect that is hinted at through the justified form, much like a newspaper. Rather than address the death of any human being, the poem rather addresses the death of free thought, that has occurred after years of accepting what one's told. It is bookended by love and hate, two ideals that are often seen in direct opposition. The final sentence suggests that the mind never truly dies, but will continue to exist in bastardized forms of its original incarnation.

February 1, 2013

The tone conveyed in Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" reveals much about the state of the narrators. The sudden shift in content as well as the form of the poem help to convey a sombre and regretful tone that forces the reader to reconsider the prior statements laid out in the other stanzas. While the narrators, known only as the Pool Players, put forth what seemed to be pride throughout the first several thoughts, but as the poem ends, the freedom evoked in the prior passages gives way fear before an abrupt death.

Throughout the poem, the narrators mention several actions in which they engage. These can be regarded as youthful hooliganism as they make seemingly minor infractions against the rules and laws that had been laid out before them. Brooks ends her poem with the line "We die soon." After reading this abrupt termination, the reader realizes that its through these minor infractions and youthful romanticizing of breaking rules that these people have damaged the memories of their lives, and quite likely have threatened the potential of their current lives. With this final thought, the Pool Players reveal that it is not with pleasure that they recount these actions, but shame.

January 18, 2013

A haiku is a fairly liberating form in which to write. It is not restricted by the rhyme schemes of many other forms that can drastically limit a poet's lexicon. It is also liberated in that it is not limited to either a particularly joyful or solemn rhythm, allowing it to convey a variety of themes without them seeming out of place. The content of this haiku is brought about by the decay of society that was due to the expansionist policies of Western societies into the homes and communities of the people. With a haiku, one is able to express a single stream of thought, as this rejection of the tried-and-true is an ever-present force, I was able to rally off several points that I thought crucial to this change.

relics strewn, surround,
remind us how we've severed,
suppressed, forgotten



A limerick allows one to riddle off several bullet-like thoughts about a subject. I thought it would be a challenge to try to write a poem on a purely zoological topic, foregoing the usual light-hearted, almost song-like structure that usually accompanies limericks. One of my favourite types of dinosaurs are anklyosauruses, as there are several fascinating things about them, I felt this would be an effective medium to do so, although it was almost limiting, as there are several other fascinating elements on them.

The anklyosaurus has a hard shell,
with its club tail it could wreak hell.
It dined solely on plants,
not even an ant.
During the Late Cretaceous it excelled.

Bibliography

Norman, David. The Prehistoric World of the Dinosaur. New York: Gallery Books, 1988.

Liars - Drum Gets a Glimpse

The song that I chose to analyze is Drum Gets a Glimpse, by the British group Liars off of their album Drum's Not Dead. The lyrics of the song are as follows:

It seems like all our friends are gone.
You drove them out.
Was I naive to think they'd stay?
You were a bore.
Why can't we just try start again?
It just won't work.
There's so much that we couldn't say.
You speak in tongues.
I'm bothered by these trembling stars.
Then close your eyes.
Why should we try to stay awake?
'Cause you can't sleep.
Then why should I be here at all?
'Cause you can't sleep.

Drum Gets a Glimpse is written as a dialogue between the album's two character's, Drum and Mount Heart Attack. Drum is the first voice, and is optimistic about his new ideas and activities that he introduces to his companions. Mount Heart Attack reacts to all of Drum's doings, telling him why they do not work and why they are wrong. Drum's ideas, rather than creating a positive effect amongst them, caused a riff, which in turn led to his isolation, suggested in the opening lines. These ideas come from a source external from their traditional origins, this is hinted at by Mount Heart Attack who tells Drum that he "Speaks in tongues." Drum, in this case, represents the introduction of foreign ideas into a harmonious system and this can lead to splintering. Mount Heart Attack looks to explain to him that although he thought that these ideas were going to help, they ultimately just caused turmoil and grief.

January 9, 2013

When approaching literature, I tend to take a cultural approach to its analysis. When an author approaches a topic and introduces it into their oeuvre, they are addressing it from a stance that has been directly influenced by a disequilbrium in their cultural surroundings. A writer must react to this upset in their society by not only addressing the intrusion or disruption, but by providing suggestions as to how they feel it could be resolved to restore the order which had governed their society previously. The constant intrusions into everyday life have caused a disconnect with the stability of certain institutions and figures that the general public so enjoyed in the past. All writing is as a direct result of this schism.

The poem that I chose to analyze is Blues by bp Nichol (McMahan, 465). This is a spatial poem consisting of several iterations of the word "love", all with letters rearranged, added or removed in some way. The word in some variation is featured once per line and is staggered in position from the rest of the iterations. These descending and staggering qualities suggest the instability of Nichols' love and its likelihood to crumble unexpectedly, leaving one "blue", as the title suggests. Another spatial aspect is the letter "e," which crosses through the poem in a diagonal line. The "e" represents the ecstacy that the author felt upon being struck by love initially, the fact that it is crossing through, or piercing, love signifies that this consumed him initially, but ultimately blinded him from the reality of his union.