Response to the first half of Maps To Anywhere

After reading the first half of Bernard Cooper's Maps To Anywhere, the piece that stuck out to me most was "How To Draw". For the most part, it stuck out because it gives an opinion on which kind of art is better and why; professional art and amateur art. Bernard Cooper feels that amateur art is superior to professional art because of the root of the motivation. With professional art, the artist is motivated my money, and fame. It is commissioned by someone and taken time with, with money in mind. He compares them to a dull fifth generation Xerox Amateur art is something done in the spur of the moment, hardly ever done by one that would proclaim themselves to be an artist. An example he gives is the Christmas gift given to neighbors by Mrs. Minn, "a little Santa, his head askew, made of Styrofoam balls and scraps of felt".

 In my opinion, both can be equally passionate, both can be equally "good". Though, I can see what he means by art being done in the spur of the moment being better. I don't necessarily think that a professional piece of art is not capable of being done in the spur of the moment. Not all professional art is done with money or fame in mind, especially considering the unstable, wavering definitions of "professional", "amateur" or even "art". Even what defines "good" is a debatable opinion. All in all, what makes art good is all in an individual's opinion.

Essay Packet 1 Response

The essay I focused on in this packet was Kristen Prevallet's Essay On The Sublimation Of Dying. In Synthesis I there is a lot of interesting use of homonyms, especially in the section titled "Homonym" naturally. She first uses the words sun and son comparatively in Mythology, as well as the words I and eye,and see and sea in Homonym. I really enjoyed the last bit of Mythology, how both the sun and the son are "...crowded by thoughts of mourning". The double meaning is so well executed, following through with the promised topic of death given by the title. Kristen Prevallet plays around with words a lot in this poetic essay, and since it is so poetic it is a little hard to follow. Even so, I enjoyed reading this essay the most of all the others in the packet. It interacts with the reader, and challenges us to think about what is being said. Death is the main theme of this essay, and it is apparent throughout. Prevallet even sort of narrates the killing of a fly on the very page in which she is writing.

Fiction Packet 3 Response

The short story from Fiction Packet 3 that I focused on was The Falling Girl by Dino Buzzati. The story is about a girl named Marta going through life rather quickly in a figurative sense. Literally, it is written that she jumps off the top of a very tall building to her death. She starts the story a 19 year old girl, but it ends with her an old woman. It is just a metaphor for the passing of life, missed opportunities and so on. Marta herself lives her life more on the quiet side, and she dies of old age. Her death doesn't have any impact on people as she wasn't all that important. She hits the ground, but no thud is heard by anyone. Marta definitely did not want her life to turn out this way. She's frightened and looks back on her life with regrets. The story is written with a lot of creatively detailed imagery; "...the city became a sweet abyss burning with pulsating lights.".

Juice Response

Juice, by Renee Gladman, is a very poetically structured story. It is without a doubt, a poem that tells a story. Like most poetry, for me, it was a bit hard to follow. It is a book written with a lot of detail at an almost obsessive level. The story the book tells is not what makes it interesting. It's the massive amount of obsessive detail that kept me interested. It was also very non linear. She describes events that took place years before, and years later. It was hard to pinpoint where and when anything was happening. It was detailed in just about everything save for a specific setting and time. It seems to be based in a city like area sometime in the 20th century, but that's all I can deduce as far as that goes. Something I found interesting was how Gladman literally puts herself in the story as a character. Her character even tells the narrator to detail her life completely (Page 56). Detail is obviously important to Renee Gladman. The book really is just a character study of sorts. A study of the narrator and the study of many others by the narrator. It also seems to be a book about change. The narrator's hometown changes drastically, her sister changes drastically, and the narrator herself changes drastically. They change so much that they don't recognize each other at the museum. One thing I never understood was the meaning of the juice. The book is titled "Juice" and the character seemed to enjoy juice, but the meaning of this went over my head.

Fiction Packet Reflection

Fiction, regardless of what anyone says, has few guidelines. There are no limits to the writer or the reader except that it's interesting, and that it is indeed fictional. You can perfectly describe a character, or leave much of it to the reader's imagination. You can say "was" or "is" or whatever you like. You can describe in detail or without any. The more you think about rules and guidelines, the more dull it gets. It will sound robotic and flat. It will not have an ounce of individuality. You don't need the senses to tell a story as Burroway suggests, though they are probably pretty useful in keeping the reader interested. I agree with most everything that Burroway and Goldberg say about fiction writing, but I don't think all of it is necessary to write a compelling piece of fiction. The best way to go about applying rules and guidelines to a fiction story is after the fact. Put all notions of rules and guidelines aside and write most if not all of the fiction story. Then go back and if it is missing something, or just not interesting enough, examine the guidelines given by Burroway, Goldberg or other writers such as Vonnegut and apply them to your story.

Response to 2nd half of City Eclogue

I understand that this blog response is a tad bit late, and I apologize.

The second half of City Eclogue is, to me, quite nonsensical and unstructured. I can hardly extract any meaning from Roberson's poems. It seems he is still going on about cities and racial tension, though even that is difficult to get from this. He speaks of birds on multiple occasions, as well as cars and trains and other symbols of freedom and transportation. I suppose truly being free and being ridden of racial prejudice is the main theme in the entire book. I like how "Eclogue", and the book itself, ends with a quote from Carl Sagan. "We are the stuff of stars". In the context of this book, it means something a little different. In a literal sense we are the stuff of stars, matter and such (I haven't studied astrology in awhile). But in the context of the book it could symbolize how every individual is special or connected by the fact that we are all matter. People aren't that different, and prejudice of race is a silly, unnecessary concept.

Response to 2nd Fiction Packet

The short story I read from this packet was Brian Evenson's Internal from his book Contagion. It is a little hard to follow as it is very descriptive in its' details. An intern is asked to literally spy on a doctor's brother, going as far as drilling holes in the wall to spy on him. The intern finds out that the apartments where he could be are abandoned.  The intern is asked by an entirely unrelated doctor to spy on their brother as well. Their are already holes in the wall, seemingly made by the brother to observe the intern. I could not really extract a deep meaning from the story. The details given in the analyses of the doctors and the intern are almost satirical in a way. They are obsessive in categorizing and labeling people with types and percentages. Toward the end, the story becomes a bit horrific in a way in my opinion. The intern watches the brother, the brother watches the intern, the intern even considering jabbing a sharp object into the brothers' eye.  

Response to fiction packet 1

The first short story I read, and only story I will be responding to from fiction packet 1, was Survivors by Kim Addonizio. It is about two gay lovers arguing over who was going to die first. I assume that they both have the AIDS since it mentions right away that they were down to their last few T cells. I may be wrong. I'm sure neither of them wanted to see the other go. One of them said that he wanted to die first because he didn't want to deal with his lover's parrot (as it seems like a piece of his lover left behind) or his homophobic family. His lover's father had beaten him until he got his son's sexual orientation out of him.

Being someone not only in love, but not entirely straight either, this short story hits a nerve. Now, what I have no room relating to  is the fact that both men have AIDS. I cannot relate to this in any way as even the chance of this happening with me and someone I love is baffling. Not being either "in" or "out" of the closet, I've never really felt looked down by my family, but I understand what being out would probably do in a family like his. Being in love, or what I define as love at least, I know I'd much rather die first as to not go through the pain of her death.

Response to first half of City Eclogue

Ed Roberson's City Eclogue is strangely formatted throughout. Several lines are fragmented without any reason that I can deduce, aside from possibly symbolizing the fragmented structures of a city. Another reason might be that the lines are segregated from each other, as racial segregation is a theme in the poems. It may just be for the purpose of having the reader take more time reading and processing the message Ed is trying to convey. 

I found that everything up to Beauty's Standing was far too hard for me to understand. The message on government, and racial issues throughout Beauty's Standing was interesting. Specifically, I found the poem(s) on page 45 and 46 to be particularly interesting. The poem, I think, speaks of racial prejudice in the government. Strangely enough, page 45 is structured and punctuated properly. I'm not sure of the meaning behind the change in structure. 

My favorite bit of this poem is the line "despite the toll --- values = mere votes for their pull". The substitution of the word "poll" with "pull" seemed to go unnoticed. The values seem to refer to the prejudiced family values of the time, while the votes refer to prejudiced men remaining in power because of these "values". 

Poem Packet Response 9/21/13

Ted Berrigan’s first poem is probably one of the more interesting poems I have read. The sonnet is filled with cultural references to things in the 1960's. Marilyn Monroe, the model, and actress who died in 1962. William Carlos Williams, the poet, whom died in 1963. Joe Brainard, the artist and writer, seems to have collaborated with Ted in 1964. I cannot seem to figure this poem out. It reads like it was written using the cut-up technique. This technique is done by cutting up a full text such as a newspaper, a word or two on each piece, and arranging each piece into a new original text. It doesn't appear to have much rhyme or reason. 

Susan Howe's poem from Singularities seems nonsensical at a glance as well, but with a little looking into, I could at least come to the conclusion that it was about the French & Indian Wars. The scattered chaos of this poem is hard to interpret. It could be interpreted as being similar to the guerrilla warfare used against the French in battle, as pointed out in class. Even with this knowledge, some pieces of this poem still come across as nonsensical. 

Langston Hughes's "Dream Boogie" is interesting. I could not understand why anyone thought that this poem had something to do with children because of the language used. "Boogie woogie", "bop", and "bebop" are obvious jazz terms, not childlike terms. Even the use of "Daddy" is likely just speaking of a friend. The poem seems to be speaking of the jazz movement in Harlem itself and racial discrimination. Jazz was popular among all races and ethnicities, but no one paid any attention to what the songs were about. They only listen to the beat, not the lyrics, not the message. 

Introduction

I am Jacob Box. I am an Early College Alliance student at Eastern Michigan University. This means I am finishing my high school requirements and gathering college credits by taking college classes so, no major or minor right now. My future goals are unclear at the moment, but I am thinking that I want to work in the film industry in some form or another. I'm an introvert and rather antisocial, so I keep to myself mostly. I enjoy writing but I haven't been motivated much to write as of late. I hope to change that soon.