I know, who reads this anymore?
So, creative writing. Me. not getting along. Its only the first real assignment too. So help, anyone??? Which poem is better?
Birdfood
It would be impossible to think of her
without remembering the birds. The way
she fed them almost every day with
breadcrumbs leftover from yesterday’s
loaf or last week’s Wonder Bread. Her bread
always seemed to go stale faster than
ours ever did. She said it was because
it’s so humid down at the shore.
But I
secretly wish that she would sneak
into the kitchen in the lazy breeze of midnight
and expose the air to the heavy scent of yeast.
That way she could spend the slow hours of
late afternoon with wave-weary and sand-scrubbed
grandchildren, her own sparrow hands crumbling
hard dough into edible chunks, sweeping breadcrumbs
as wizened and shriveled as she was towards the street
waiting for the birds to arrive.
Grease Monkey
You work on cars for fun, pick apart mechanisms
and put them back together by instinct, like a foal
first tripping upwards onto weak spindly legs
for that first taste of white warmth. Your hobby imprints
onto you, and I can always smell the faint
liquid-penny scent of motor oil following you
like a gaggle of newborn goslings.
Not one of your jeans has been saved
from oil magnetism, and it smudges the white lines
of your shirts, never to be clean again.
You seek dirt and other well-grounded things,
embracing this strange nectar as if it conditioned
your mechanisms, kept your heart running smoothly,
your joints well lubricated.
Watching the gritty oil drain from my car
while you taught me engine knowledge that college
had failed to expose to me, I lay with you
under a ton of metal and plastic held aloft only
by two small wedges. My hands were dripping
warm, baptismal black onto your garage floor
and you were smiling at me,
and so I reverently clean my hands of fluid
so that later I can cup them again to receive
whatever new offering ravels from your mystery.
(i want to add more to the second stanza of Grease Monkey but i hate everything im writing. So im waiting til tomorrow)
Here are the guidelines:
Poem Assignment: Portrait by Possession
"Find big things in small things."
--Film director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Predictably enough, the goal of a portrait poem is to draw for the reader a picture of someone in words. What might be less predictable is that your poem will probably come alive most successfully if you zero in on a particular object or action that has a strong emotional association with the person you are portraying. Bring in enough copies for everyone in the class--ten in all. For examples, see Burroway 28, 119, 192, 193, and 318, as well as the poems below.
Tips:
1. Avoid generalities and abstractions, in favor of specifics that would make it impossible not to believe in your subject as an individual. (If you're writing about your uncle, for instance, what makes him him, and not just any uncle?)
2. Keep it surprising. One way to give life to your writing is to choose settings, descriptive details, events, and aspects of character that your readers would probably not have thought of on their own.
3. Your character is especially likely to come to life if you associate him/her with a possession that we usually don't think of as meaningful. As a rule, it's best to avoid overly symbolic objects--e.g., rings, wedding dresses, medals--whose meaning is already familiar to us without your poem.
4. To disable the automatic capitalization--at least if you're using Microsoft Word--go to Tools, expand the list with the arrow at the bottom if you need to, then click on "Autocorrect Options." Uncheck "Capitalize first word of sentences," hit "OK," and you're all set.
NB: The speaker of this poem should not be the central subject--i.e., this should not be a portrait in the subject's own words. Print out enough copies for the whole class, including yourself and me.
Birdfood
It would be impossible to think of her
without remembering the birds. The way
she fed them almost every day with
breadcrumbs leftover from yesterday’s
loaf or last week’s Wonder Bread. Her bread
always seemed to go stale faster than
ours ever did. She said it was because
it’s so humid down at the shore.
But I
secretly wish that she would sneak
into the kitchen in the lazy breeze of midnight
and expose the air to the heavy scent of yeast.
That way she could spend the slow hours of
late afternoon with wave-weary and sand-scrubbed
grandchildren, her own sparrow hands crumbling
hard dough into edible chunks, sweeping breadcrumbs
as wizened and shriveled as she was towards the street
waiting for the birds to arrive.
Grease Monkey
You work on cars for fun, pick apart mechanisms
and put them back together by instinct, like a foal
first tripping upwards onto weak spindly legs
for that first taste of white warmth. Your hobby imprints
onto you, and I can always smell the faint
liquid-penny scent of motor oil following you
like a gaggle of newborn goslings.
Not one of your jeans has been saved
from oil magnetism, and it smudges the white lines
of your shirts, never to be clean again.
You seek dirt and other well-grounded things,
embracing this strange nectar as if it conditioned
your mechanisms, kept your heart running smoothly,
your joints well lubricated.
Watching the gritty oil drain from my car
while you taught me engine knowledge that college
had failed to expose to me, I lay with you
under a ton of metal and plastic held aloft only
by two small wedges. My hands were dripping
warm, baptismal black onto your garage floor
and you were smiling at me,
and so I reverently clean my hands of fluid
so that later I can cup them again to receive
whatever new offering ravels from your mystery.
(i want to add more to the second stanza of Grease Monkey but i hate everything im writing. So im waiting til tomorrow)
Here are the guidelines:
Poem Assignment: Portrait by Possession
"Find big things in small things."
--Film director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Predictably enough, the goal of a portrait poem is to draw for the reader a picture of someone in words. What might be less predictable is that your poem will probably come alive most successfully if you zero in on a particular object or action that has a strong emotional association with the person you are portraying. Bring in enough copies for everyone in the class--ten in all. For examples, see Burroway 28, 119, 192, 193, and 318, as well as the poems below.
Tips:
1. Avoid generalities and abstractions, in favor of specifics that would make it impossible not to believe in your subject as an individual. (If you're writing about your uncle, for instance, what makes him him, and not just any uncle?)
2. Keep it surprising. One way to give life to your writing is to choose settings, descriptive details, events, and aspects of character that your readers would probably not have thought of on their own.
3. Your character is especially likely to come to life if you associate him/her with a possession that we usually don't think of as meaningful. As a rule, it's best to avoid overly symbolic objects--e.g., rings, wedding dresses, medals--whose meaning is already familiar to us without your poem.
4. To disable the automatic capitalization--at least if you're using Microsoft Word--go to Tools, expand the list with the arrow at the bottom if you need to, then click on "Autocorrect Options." Uncheck "Capitalize first word of sentences," hit "OK," and you're all set.
NB: The speaker of this poem should not be the central subject--i.e., this should not be a portrait in the subject's own words. Print out enough copies for the whole class, including yourself and me.