(no subject)
I dragged my ailing self to see Batman over the weekend. It was worth it and I've dredged up all my literature from my old Batman class and I think its about time I gave everything a reread.
I know...a Batman class.
It was awesome in case you were wondering.
In other news....
Here's the entirety of the collage essay I was reading at Art Day. : O My beautiful formatting is screwed up though especially on the debate poem. Oh well.
“Mosaic”
WARNING: This paper throws traditional notions of formatting, citation, poetry and rhetorical “ decency” out the window. Proceed with caution and welcome to my world.
I. Anfang
It was a struggle.
I wriggled, writhed, winced in an effort
to get the offensive clothing up my hips.
My mother’s amused smile
Only adding to the frustration.
My efforts were futile,
She knew this and -
Deep down I did too.
But yet still I struggled,
desperately wanting to be included
in the fight for the conch of Visibility.
My mother finally stood up:
Come on, you know they don’t make clothes for us here.
Defeated, I followed her out the dressing room
Back down the interstate
to our quiet lives.
*************************************************************
These hips are big hips,
They need space to/move around in,
they don’t fit into little petty places,
these hips are free hips
Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips”, lines 1-6.
The hips of the African-American female are treated as an “other” in the world of mainstream fashion. Clifton’s words take this characterization and transform it into a sense of freedom. Early in my years, I tried to ignore this difference until I realized that I just plain would not fit in the clothes worn by the majority without costly alterations. The exclusion of the black form from mainstream fashion suggests that there has to be a countercurrent which forces hips to be “free” because they do not fit society’s construction of the female. My preteen experience in Rich’s department store taught me the hard lesson that I was different and that the society I lived in was not the most tolerant of forms of deviation, even in the most simple biological form of “unruly hips.” Clifton realizes this too and suggests that being excluded from this system is perhaps the highest form of liberation and power. However, America symbolizes freedom through equality; does this not imply something fundamentally wrong with the system?
II. Heimat
A finely kept lawn,
charcoal colored shutters,
with a handcrafted fence surrounding the
companion backyard.
It was beautiful.
The insides decorated with simple finery
avoiding opulence.
The kitchen glistened with the love of use,
the family room with the spirit of joy.
It was elegance.
In all free green space,
flowers bloomed,
surrounding the mailbox,
accenting the porches,
adorning the sides of the house.
It was serenity.
And when it came time to move on,
to share our home with another,
to go away and bring joy to some other abode,
It was just sitting in the wrong place.
While Clifton does an excellent job of empowering the black experience in her poems, particularly troubling is the poem’s lack of expression of the dehabilitating disenfranchisement that often accompanies the Black existence in America. The experience of trying to sell our house was an infuriating one. My family was plagued by the knowledge that, if we only lived a few miles up the road, our house would have sold in an instant and at a very high price. The association with the black community made selling our house a year and a half long endeavor despite many people being enamored with it. Living in a black neighborhood was too much of a price to pay for many, as they knew that when they attempted to move, they would also be stuck with the problems of underpricing and prejudice. And people wonder why many of our communities seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty?
III. Die Erhöhung
Somehow when I entered the room with my partner,
I knew this time it would be different.
Be it the fervor of spectators shuffling paper,
the stares of the three male judges,
or the fact that no one expected us to make it here.
The other team’s expensive laptops,
to our pencil and paper.
Their staff of esteemed coaches,
to our self-determination.
Somehow I knew this time would be different.
It began when I noticed I was the only one in the room
lacking that infamous deformed Y chromosome.
It heightened when I noticed the other team staring.
I knew those looks
of underestimation.
Somehow I knew this time would be different.
But the last time I checked,
my femininity didn’t detract from by argumentative ability,
or my lack of patience for their ignorance and muted intolerance.
And that’s probably why they lost.
She’s a copperheaded waitress,
she hides her bad brown tooth behind a wicked smile
she shot a lover who misused her child
The common woman is as common
as a rattlesnake
Judy Grahn, Common Woman Poems, “II. Ella,in a Square Apron, along Highway 80,” lines 1, 3,16 22 and 23.
Grahn’s poem, “Ella,” shows that all women, no matter how docile they seem can have a razor-sharp edge. I identify with this well from my experiences in debate. Always polite and smiling, I had no shortage of friends in the debate community. However, in a male-dominated activity, so few of them were ready for my complete dedication to our arguments. It was not until last year that the first double female team won the National Debate Tournament. In the final rounds of a tournament, the female presence all but dwindles, and the black female presence is barely there to begin with. The rounds deciding titles were the ones in which I felt most scrutinized. At first, it was unnerving; I felt nervous, hid behind a smile much like Grahn’s waitress. But if I continued hiding in my docility, how were other females ever supposed to identify with this avenue for expression? I knew that I couldn’t hide any longer, and like a rattlesnake, first luring its observers in with its soothing tail, I attacked.
Scherz ist die drittbeste Tarnung. Die zweitbestre Sentimentalität. Was unser Freund Sepp erzählt: Kindheit bei Köhlern im Wald, Wasienhaus, Zirkus und so. Aber die beste und sicherste Tarnung (finde ich) ist immer noch die blanke und nackte Wahrheit. Die glaubt niemandd.
Max Frish, Biedermann und der Brandstifter,,Szene 4
I know you probably did not understand a word of that, but its OK, because now I know you are really trying to listen.
IV. Das Finale
This is before I’d read Nietzche. Before Kant or Kierkegard, even
before Whitman and Yeats
I don’t think there were three words in my head yet
I knew perhaps that I should suffer…
C.K. William’s “The Gas Station,” lines 1-4
In “The Gas Station”, C.K. William reflects on a time in his adolescence when he and his friends try to hire a prostitute. Williams chooses to clutch to his philosophers to attempt to justify his ignorance. Throughout his poem, he brandishes names like swords, mere excuses to try mitigate his foolish actions during his younger years. I will do no such thing. Yes, I have read Nietzche, Kierkegaard, and Kant, but I have also been influenced by a few people he failed to mention: Tickner, Zizek, West, Campbell, Dillon, and Nayar. These names mean nothing. They are not Harry Potter’s magic wand; they cannot make past actions dissipate into thin air. They do not serve to justify why I was foolishly trying to be something I could never be and erase part of my identity when I was trying to slip into those jeans years ago. It does not change the fact that I went along with the vacuous structure of middle-school politics, and did not try to alter the structure that was pitted against many of my fellow African-American friends. I watched many of my male friends become instant scapegoats for any action deemed a deviation from the standard order. Yes, many times, I would stay silent, even though a few mere words could have changed something or someone. I was young, and I was scared of being wrong, scrutinized, or judged. But, I won’t deny that I was foolish, because without my foolishness, I would not have been shaped into my current self and I am all the better for it. One last bit of poetry…
You cannot be mediocre. You must be better than the mean, and do thrice as much as the average. Only then will they recognize you. You cannot settle for low standards; you must be strong. You cannot be complacent, you cannot hide, and you sure as hell cannot be lazy. For then, even if you work hard, you will only be the lucky one or in your position because they needed a person of color or a girl. You must always remember who you are. You cannot accept those who cannot accept that. You cannot stay silent, for silence is oppression. You cannot fight every battle, for then people will grow tired of your protests, and you won’t be taken seriously. You cannot escape who you are and everything it means, you must accept it. Only then will you be regarded as equal and gain respect for what you care for.
The above lines… are from my mother.
In life, we are so fortunate to have mothers. These days it has almost become cliché to acknowledge your mother, but for me it is essential because I feel that I am exceptionally lucky. My mother was born fifty years ago in a quiet home in Nashville, Tennessee. She grew up embracing the world around her with an exceptional love for music and learning. As a child, she played five different instruments and had an exceptional voice, skills she continued to use while in college. Many of these dreams whirled to a halt when she was diagnosed with a neurological disorder in her late 20s, but despite the many odds forming against her, she was not defeated. She fought on forming herself into the successful leader that I respect and admire today. Above is a collection of my mother’s most meaningful sayings and that is certainly not all the advice she has given. But, the reason these ring most true with me is that they were part of my mother’s overall purpose in raising me: to shape me in to an independent and strong-minded young woman, and I think she would be happy to know that I believe she succeeded.
WARNING: You are now exiting back into the realm of the conventional. During your brief stay, you may have caught a glimpse of the mosaic of my life, but until the next deviation from normalcy, I bid you farewell.
Works Cited:
Clifton, Lucille. "Homage to My Hips." Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir. Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, 1987. 168.
Grahn, Judy. "Excerpts from The Common Women Poems." For a Living: The Poetry of Work. Ed. Nicholas Coles and Peter Oresick. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1995. 183-84.
Williams, C.K. "The Gas Station." Contemporary American Poetry. 7th ed. Ed. A. Poulin, Jr. and Michael Waters. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 558-60.
Wright, Kelli. “Ramblings About The House.” If only she had a publishing company, 2008.
German translations for the curious reader:
Angang- The beginning
Heimat- Homeland
.Die Erhöhung- The rising, often used to refer to a piece of music
Der Ausklang- Finale, mostly used to refer to a piece of music
That long passage in the middle…I said it wasn’t important to know what it meant. : )
I know...a Batman class.
It was awesome in case you were wondering.
In other news....
Here's the entirety of the collage essay I was reading at Art Day. : O My beautiful formatting is screwed up though especially on the debate poem. Oh well.
“Mosaic”
WARNING: This paper throws traditional notions of formatting, citation, poetry and rhetorical “ decency” out the window. Proceed with caution and welcome to my world.
I. Anfang
It was a struggle.
I wriggled, writhed, winced in an effort
to get the offensive clothing up my hips.
My mother’s amused smile
Only adding to the frustration.
My efforts were futile,
She knew this and -
Deep down I did too.
But yet still I struggled,
desperately wanting to be included
in the fight for the conch of Visibility.
My mother finally stood up:
Come on, you know they don’t make clothes for us here.
Defeated, I followed her out the dressing room
Back down the interstate
to our quiet lives.
*************************************************************
These hips are big hips,
They need space to/move around in,
they don’t fit into little petty places,
these hips are free hips
Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips”, lines 1-6.
The hips of the African-American female are treated as an “other” in the world of mainstream fashion. Clifton’s words take this characterization and transform it into a sense of freedom. Early in my years, I tried to ignore this difference until I realized that I just plain would not fit in the clothes worn by the majority without costly alterations. The exclusion of the black form from mainstream fashion suggests that there has to be a countercurrent which forces hips to be “free” because they do not fit society’s construction of the female. My preteen experience in Rich’s department store taught me the hard lesson that I was different and that the society I lived in was not the most tolerant of forms of deviation, even in the most simple biological form of “unruly hips.” Clifton realizes this too and suggests that being excluded from this system is perhaps the highest form of liberation and power. However, America symbolizes freedom through equality; does this not imply something fundamentally wrong with the system?
II. Heimat
A finely kept lawn,
charcoal colored shutters,
with a handcrafted fence surrounding the
companion backyard.
It was beautiful.
The insides decorated with simple finery
avoiding opulence.
The kitchen glistened with the love of use,
the family room with the spirit of joy.
It was elegance.
In all free green space,
flowers bloomed,
surrounding the mailbox,
accenting the porches,
adorning the sides of the house.
It was serenity.
And when it came time to move on,
to share our home with another,
to go away and bring joy to some other abode,
It was just sitting in the wrong place.
While Clifton does an excellent job of empowering the black experience in her poems, particularly troubling is the poem’s lack of expression of the dehabilitating disenfranchisement that often accompanies the Black existence in America. The experience of trying to sell our house was an infuriating one. My family was plagued by the knowledge that, if we only lived a few miles up the road, our house would have sold in an instant and at a very high price. The association with the black community made selling our house a year and a half long endeavor despite many people being enamored with it. Living in a black neighborhood was too much of a price to pay for many, as they knew that when they attempted to move, they would also be stuck with the problems of underpricing and prejudice. And people wonder why many of our communities seem to be trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty?
III. Die Erhöhung
Somehow when I entered the room with my partner,
I knew this time it would be different.
Be it the fervor of spectators shuffling paper,
the stares of the three male judges,
or the fact that no one expected us to make it here.
The other team’s expensive laptops,
to our pencil and paper.
Their staff of esteemed coaches,
to our self-determination.
Somehow I knew this time would be different.
It began when I noticed I was the only one in the room
lacking that infamous deformed Y chromosome.
It heightened when I noticed the other team staring.
I knew those looks
of underestimation.
Somehow I knew this time would be different.
But the last time I checked,
my femininity didn’t detract from by argumentative ability,
or my lack of patience for their ignorance and muted intolerance.
And that’s probably why they lost.
She’s a copperheaded waitress,
she hides her bad brown tooth behind a wicked smile
she shot a lover who misused her child
The common woman is as common
as a rattlesnake
Judy Grahn, Common Woman Poems, “II. Ella,in a Square Apron, along Highway 80,” lines 1, 3,16 22 and 23.
Grahn’s poem, “Ella,” shows that all women, no matter how docile they seem can have a razor-sharp edge. I identify with this well from my experiences in debate. Always polite and smiling, I had no shortage of friends in the debate community. However, in a male-dominated activity, so few of them were ready for my complete dedication to our arguments. It was not until last year that the first double female team won the National Debate Tournament. In the final rounds of a tournament, the female presence all but dwindles, and the black female presence is barely there to begin with. The rounds deciding titles were the ones in which I felt most scrutinized. At first, it was unnerving; I felt nervous, hid behind a smile much like Grahn’s waitress. But if I continued hiding in my docility, how were other females ever supposed to identify with this avenue for expression? I knew that I couldn’t hide any longer, and like a rattlesnake, first luring its observers in with its soothing tail, I attacked.
Scherz ist die drittbeste Tarnung. Die zweitbestre Sentimentalität. Was unser Freund Sepp erzählt: Kindheit bei Köhlern im Wald, Wasienhaus, Zirkus und so. Aber die beste und sicherste Tarnung (finde ich) ist immer noch die blanke und nackte Wahrheit. Die glaubt niemandd.
Max Frish, Biedermann und der Brandstifter,,Szene 4
I know you probably did not understand a word of that, but its OK, because now I know you are really trying to listen.
IV. Das Finale
This is before I’d read Nietzche. Before Kant or Kierkegard, even
before Whitman and Yeats
I don’t think there were three words in my head yet
I knew perhaps that I should suffer…
C.K. William’s “The Gas Station,” lines 1-4
In “The Gas Station”, C.K. William reflects on a time in his adolescence when he and his friends try to hire a prostitute. Williams chooses to clutch to his philosophers to attempt to justify his ignorance. Throughout his poem, he brandishes names like swords, mere excuses to try mitigate his foolish actions during his younger years. I will do no such thing. Yes, I have read Nietzche, Kierkegaard, and Kant, but I have also been influenced by a few people he failed to mention: Tickner, Zizek, West, Campbell, Dillon, and Nayar. These names mean nothing. They are not Harry Potter’s magic wand; they cannot make past actions dissipate into thin air. They do not serve to justify why I was foolishly trying to be something I could never be and erase part of my identity when I was trying to slip into those jeans years ago. It does not change the fact that I went along with the vacuous structure of middle-school politics, and did not try to alter the structure that was pitted against many of my fellow African-American friends. I watched many of my male friends become instant scapegoats for any action deemed a deviation from the standard order. Yes, many times, I would stay silent, even though a few mere words could have changed something or someone. I was young, and I was scared of being wrong, scrutinized, or judged. But, I won’t deny that I was foolish, because without my foolishness, I would not have been shaped into my current self and I am all the better for it. One last bit of poetry…
You cannot be mediocre. You must be better than the mean, and do thrice as much as the average. Only then will they recognize you. You cannot settle for low standards; you must be strong. You cannot be complacent, you cannot hide, and you sure as hell cannot be lazy. For then, even if you work hard, you will only be the lucky one or in your position because they needed a person of color or a girl. You must always remember who you are. You cannot accept those who cannot accept that. You cannot stay silent, for silence is oppression. You cannot fight every battle, for then people will grow tired of your protests, and you won’t be taken seriously. You cannot escape who you are and everything it means, you must accept it. Only then will you be regarded as equal and gain respect for what you care for.
The above lines… are from my mother.
In life, we are so fortunate to have mothers. These days it has almost become cliché to acknowledge your mother, but for me it is essential because I feel that I am exceptionally lucky. My mother was born fifty years ago in a quiet home in Nashville, Tennessee. She grew up embracing the world around her with an exceptional love for music and learning. As a child, she played five different instruments and had an exceptional voice, skills she continued to use while in college. Many of these dreams whirled to a halt when she was diagnosed with a neurological disorder in her late 20s, but despite the many odds forming against her, she was not defeated. She fought on forming herself into the successful leader that I respect and admire today. Above is a collection of my mother’s most meaningful sayings and that is certainly not all the advice she has given. But, the reason these ring most true with me is that they were part of my mother’s overall purpose in raising me: to shape me in to an independent and strong-minded young woman, and I think she would be happy to know that I believe she succeeded.
WARNING: You are now exiting back into the realm of the conventional. During your brief stay, you may have caught a glimpse of the mosaic of my life, but until the next deviation from normalcy, I bid you farewell.
Works Cited:
Clifton, Lucille. "Homage to My Hips." Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir. Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, 1987. 168.
Grahn, Judy. "Excerpts from The Common Women Poems." For a Living: The Poetry of Work. Ed. Nicholas Coles and Peter Oresick. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1995. 183-84.
Williams, C.K. "The Gas Station." Contemporary American Poetry. 7th ed. Ed. A. Poulin, Jr. and Michael Waters. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 558-60.
Wright, Kelli. “Ramblings About The House.” If only she had a publishing company, 2008.
German translations for the curious reader:
Angang- The beginning
Heimat- Homeland
.Die Erhöhung- The rising, often used to refer to a piece of music
Der Ausklang- Finale, mostly used to refer to a piece of music
That long passage in the middle…I said it wasn’t important to know what it meant. : )