Spring Break
So, I just got back from spring break, and it was extremely cool. My dad had a convention to go to in New York City, so I tagged along and went museum crawling (similar to pub crawling, but subtly different). We go there Wednesday, and I followed him around at the convention. Thursday day was the Museum of Natural History (which is amazingly cool, and if anybody ever wants to go back, I'm game, because there are several wings I did not get a chance to explore) and Ground Zero. I tried to go to the Guggenheim, but it seems it is not open on Thursdays. Friday was Museum of Modern Art (I wasn't planning to go, but they had a special exhibit on Edvard Munch) and the Guggenheim. With the exception of some corned beef hash Thursday morning, all the meat I ate there was raw (and Ethiopian variant of steak tartare Wednesday night, and sushi on Friday), which is just wonderful. I got my roommate to lift her ban on raw eating raw meat in the apartment, so I'm thinking I may make some kitfo (the tartare-like stuff) tomorrow for dinner.
(note to maternal-types: I promise not to make myself sick.)
on a completely different, and belated note, I took a poetry class over J-term and did my final paper on the Sestina. I find the sestina to be an intriguing form of poetry, and so, I will inflict it on you now.
*ahem*
The sestina is a bit peculiar--it belongs to a cluster of poetic styles known as "obsessive" forms, where repetition is more important than rhyme. It's a little hard to describe. Take six words--they can be any six you like, but choose wisely. These are your end-words. Every line will end with one of these words. Each stanza has six lines, and there are six stanzas (actually seven, but the last is different). The words must be used in a particular order in each stanza, but I don't think I will explain it here.
if you mess up a sestina, it is absolutely horrible, annoying and forced. The good ones can be extremely subtle. Sometimes, if you read it out loud, you barely even notice the structure, and the collective meanings of the words creap into your subconscious.
Here are two of my favorites:
Nani
Alberto Rios
Sitting at her table, she serves
the sopa de arroz to me
instinctively, and I watch her,
the absolute mama, and eat words
I might have had to say more
out of embarrassment. To speak,
now-foreign words I used to speak,
too, dribble down her mouth as she serves
me albondigas. No more
than a third are easy to me.
By the stove she does something with words
and looks at me only with her
back. I am full. I tell her
I taste the mint, and watch her speak
smiles at the stove. All my words
make her smile. Nani never serves
herself, she only watches me
with her skin, her hair. I ask for more.
I watch the mama warming more
tortillas for me. I watch her
fingers in the flame for me.
Near her mouth, I see a wrinkle speak
of a man whose body serves
the ants like she serves me, then more words
from more wrinkles about children, words
about this and that, flowing more
easily from these other mouths. Each serves
as a tremendous string around her,
holding her together. They speak
nani was this and that to me
and I wonder just how much of me
will die with her, what were the words
I could have been, was. Her insides speak
through a hundred wrinkles, now, more
than she can bear, steel around her,
shouting, then, What is this thing she serves?
She asks me if I want more.
I own no words to stop her.
Even before I speak, she serves.
Sestina of the Tramp Royale (must be read in a Cockney accent)
Rudyard Kipling (who, much to my dismay, I really like)
Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all,
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.
Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done,
An' go observin' matters till they die.
What do it matter where or 'ow we die,
So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all --
The different ways that different things are done,
An' men an' women lovin' in this world --
Takin' our chances as they come along,
An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?
In cash or credit -- no, it aren't no good;
You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you might ha' done.
But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done?
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,
In various situations round the world --
For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
'Is life on one same shift; life's none so long.
Therefore, from job to job I've moved along.
Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,
For something in my 'ead upset me all,
Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good,
An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die,
An' met my mate -- the wind that tramps the world!
It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readin' done,
An' turn another -- likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn 'em all.
Gawd bless this world! Whatever she 'ath done --
Excep' when awful long -- I've found it good.
So write, before I die, "'E liked it all!"
anyway, there's that.
(note to maternal-types: I promise not to make myself sick.)
on a completely different, and belated note, I took a poetry class over J-term and did my final paper on the Sestina. I find the sestina to be an intriguing form of poetry, and so, I will inflict it on you now.
*ahem*
The sestina is a bit peculiar--it belongs to a cluster of poetic styles known as "obsessive" forms, where repetition is more important than rhyme. It's a little hard to describe. Take six words--they can be any six you like, but choose wisely. These are your end-words. Every line will end with one of these words. Each stanza has six lines, and there are six stanzas (actually seven, but the last is different). The words must be used in a particular order in each stanza, but I don't think I will explain it here.
if you mess up a sestina, it is absolutely horrible, annoying and forced. The good ones can be extremely subtle. Sometimes, if you read it out loud, you barely even notice the structure, and the collective meanings of the words creap into your subconscious.
Here are two of my favorites:
Nani
Alberto Rios
Sitting at her table, she serves
the sopa de arroz to me
instinctively, and I watch her,
the absolute mama, and eat words
I might have had to say more
out of embarrassment. To speak,
now-foreign words I used to speak,
too, dribble down her mouth as she serves
me albondigas. No more
than a third are easy to me.
By the stove she does something with words
and looks at me only with her
back. I am full. I tell her
I taste the mint, and watch her speak
smiles at the stove. All my words
make her smile. Nani never serves
herself, she only watches me
with her skin, her hair. I ask for more.
I watch the mama warming more
tortillas for me. I watch her
fingers in the flame for me.
Near her mouth, I see a wrinkle speak
of a man whose body serves
the ants like she serves me, then more words
from more wrinkles about children, words
about this and that, flowing more
easily from these other mouths. Each serves
as a tremendous string around her,
holding her together. They speak
nani was this and that to me
and I wonder just how much of me
will die with her, what were the words
I could have been, was. Her insides speak
through a hundred wrinkles, now, more
than she can bear, steel around her,
shouting, then, What is this thing she serves?
She asks me if I want more.
I own no words to stop her.
Even before I speak, she serves.
Sestina of the Tramp Royale (must be read in a Cockney accent)
Rudyard Kipling (who, much to my dismay, I really like)
Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all,
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.
Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done,
An' go observin' matters till they die.
What do it matter where or 'ow we die,
So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all --
The different ways that different things are done,
An' men an' women lovin' in this world --
Takin' our chances as they come along,
An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?
In cash or credit -- no, it aren't no good;
You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you might ha' done.
But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done?
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,
In various situations round the world --
For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
'Is life on one same shift; life's none so long.
Therefore, from job to job I've moved along.
Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,
For something in my 'ead upset me all,
Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good,
An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die,
An' met my mate -- the wind that tramps the world!
It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readin' done,
An' turn another -- likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn 'em all.
Gawd bless this world! Whatever she 'ath done --
Excep' when awful long -- I've found it good.
So write, before I die, "'E liked it all!"
anyway, there's that.