TU Tuesday

http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Words-worth-savoring-2751581.php

"I reread and underlined Fitzgerald's bursting sentences..." is an example of a hyperbole because it's exaggerating how much the author put into each sentence, to the point where it would "burst".

"What a pleasure it was to sit down with F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece this month." is personification because it's talking as if the book is a person that the she is going to go sit down with.

"There have been too many times that I've collapsed in bed and opened a book only to immediately fall asleep still wearing glasses, the book splayed across my chest." is an example of imagery because it gives you a picture in your head.

 

Figurative language is used in almost all writing types- even when writing an article about books. To be honest, I picked to read this article because the picture that went with it was a picture of Leo DiCaprio, so I thought that the article must be interesting. Well the article wasn't about Leo DiCaprio, and the first time I read it I honestly didn't see any figurative language. But once I went back through and reread it, specifcally looking for figurative language, I found a ton. The first one I found was the only one that stuck out to me immeadiately. When she talks about "bursting sentences" I completely understand that though the Great Gatsby is shorts, it's a jam-packed book. When she talks about the book as if it's a person, the reader understands that this book is important to her. And when she describes how hectic life can be, and how little time she actually gets to read, you understand her life. This article is an example of how writers write with figurative lagnuage in such a way that you might not noice it at first, but when you go back and see it; it's great.

Original Poems III

Sestina

Holing Hands

Today you held my hand.

What was that all about?

You’re my best friend.

Nothing more.

I hate feeling confused,

But that’s how you made me feel.

Your hands had a strong, comforting feel.

You told me I had a dainty hand.

Funny how hands make me so confused.

I could tell you were about

To say something more.

But you know I only think of you as a friend.

I treasure you so much as my friend.

When I’m with you, I always feel

Safe, happy and more

Myself. You give me a helping hand,

And let me be me. It’s about

Time one of us had our feelings confused.

It was you who got confused.

I think you fell for me, your best friend.

If I tried, I could tell you all about

Why we shouldn’t be what you want, how you feel.

But to be honest, I liked holding your hand.

I know we shouldn’t be anything more.

The reason we can’t be something more,

Is that I’m scared and confused.

Yes, I liked holding your hand.

But can I, do I feel that way about my best friend?

I don’t know how I feel.

I don’t know what to think about.

When I try to think about,

The possibility of us, my mind wanders and thinks more

About how I should feel; but I don’t know how I do feel.

You leave me feeling so confused.

I surely can’t be falling for my best friend.

But today, I held your hand.

I guess it’s time to think more, think about,

How holding your hand, makes me feel

Comforted, confused, and safe. What is this all about?

Magical Powers

Reading Minds

I've always wished that I could read minds.

People have told me that's a bad idea though.

They all told me I would get my feelings hurt.

That I would hear things I didn't want to.

I guess that's true.

But I still wish I could read minds.

Then I would know what you were thinking.

When you seem like you're blanking out, I would know what you were thinking about.

When I catch you staring at me, I would know what was going through your mind.

You wouldn't confuse me so much if I could read your mind.

I know reading minds might hurt me,

But it'd be worth it to understand you better.

Stream of Consciousness
Thinking of You 


Sometimes, I realize that I'm thinking about you.
You don't seem to get of my mind.
Mind you, I do think about other things.
Things that are extremely unimportant though.
Though at least the are interesting.
Interesting is a word I've realized you use a good a lot of the time.
Time can be so irrelevant.
Irrelevant thoughts such as what words you use come to me sometimes.

Julia and Michelle B Documentary!

Orignal Poems II

Recipe for Me
Non-perfect Me
A dash of creativity,
And a pinch of musicality.
Half a cup of shyness,
And a whole cup of loud.
A little funny,
But some seriousness.
No perfection here,
So add some fear, helplessness, and loneliness.
Keep an average body weight, height and figure-
The interesting personality makes up for it.

Ladder
Eyore Doll.
Small
Glass figure
A pink bow
Worn on the tail
A very sad little elephant
Sits on the desk
I say goodnight
My friend
Eyore.

Terzanelle 

If I Wrote My Entire Life Story I Wouldn't be Lonely

I'd like to be able to tell you I wasn't lonely.

But that'd be lying, wouldn't it?

Sometimes I wish I wrote my life how I wanted it- if only.

You and I could be friends, friends who would never split.

We could do absolutely everything together.

But that'd be lying, wouldn't it?

Our friendship would progress easily, like a falling feather.

You and I, we'd grow closer and closer.

We could do absolutely everything together.

That girl you're with now, she's a poser.

She changes herself more often than changes in the weather.

You only like her because of her words- she's a masterful word composer.

You and I, together we'd be better.

I wouldn't be lonely, and we'd both be with people we really like.

I didn't have the confidence to say this to your face, so I wrote you this letter.

You and her, I really do dislike.

I'd like to be able to tell you I wasn't lonely.

I wouldn't be lonely, and we'd both be with people we really like.

Sometimes I wish I wrote my life how I wanted it- if only.

Original Poems I

This Is Just To Say
Honesty, the Best Policy?

I have been rude.
Honest? Yes.
But rude,
nonetheless.

You hurt my feelings.
I didn't mean to react the way I did.
But I did react.
And I'm sorry.

I had no right,
to say that to you.
Though you had no right to say that to me either.
I am sorry.

Memory Poem
Walking Together

We walked up Olim hill together.
It was a Saturday night,
because I remember spending Shabbat Breira with Sarah that day.
But walking with Shay was the highlight of the day.

Walking up Olim hill with him,
We were a little behind everyone else.
But that was okay,
we were talking.

Walking up Olim hill, talking,
about unimportant things,
like how he sometimes skips Limud,
to go take a nap in his bunk.

Walking up Olim hill with Shay,
me confessing I could never skip Limud.
No matter how boring it is,
I'm such a goody-two-shoes.

Walking up Olim hill with Shay,
to Saturday night Hvadallah services.
I realiZed that there are a ton of small things that make us different.
But he's still a best friend.

Pantoum
I like to Think.

I like to lay in bed and think.
Sometimes, my thoughts take me nowhere.
Sometimes, my brain goes on a vacation.
I think a lot at night, I seem to think well before bed.

Sometimes, my thoughts take me nowhere.
It's always sad when you feel empty like that.
I think a lot at night, I seem to think well before bed.
Thinking is hard sometimes.

It's always sad when you feel empty like that.
Empty and dull is one of the worst feelings I know.
Thinking is hard sometimes.
I try to make thoughts meaningful to me.

I like to lay in bed and think.
Empty and dull is one of the worst feelings I know.
I try to make thoughts meaningful to me.
Sometimes, my brain goes on a vacation.

Vocabulary on my Mind

Once upon a time, I had an ephemeral relationship with a boy. The thing was, I always had to talk very gingerly to him. Almost anything I said was superfluous or deleterious to him, and he was insanely obdurate. He claimed to have a languor, but I think he was just obtuse, indolent and not willing to do anything. Yes, we were in a relationship- but he always seemed to ambivalent and indifferent towards me! It was banal for him to go an entire day without showing any affection towards me. On those days, I would've been complacent with a nice, pithy hug to allay my stress. What attracted me to him was that he spoke with such an eloquence, and eloquence that I still aspire to have one day. Listening to him speak was a great time- he was mellifluous and exuberant. He had a plethora of ways to say a single thing. His eloquence had another side though- he was sly, devious and stealthy. His words gave the illusion of him caring. His cordial, congenial, garrulous personality covered up how cantankerous, austere and unyielding he really could be- at the inception of our relationship at least. Underneath his swagger and convivial jocular moods, he was really an egotistical, arrogant narcissist. Personally; strident, raucous and acute clamours scare me. As my boyfriend, he should at least try to mitigate, assuage, or mollify my fear. But his volatile personality completely prevented that from happening- instead he would upbraid my fear, and would start to act very contentious and discordantly towards me. Now this would always leave me in a quandary- one moment he was an avid part of my life. I was only to heedful that the next moment I felt slavish, and that he was detrimental towards my mental health. It almost seemed as if he were my adversary from the obsolete antiquity- yet we had only been dating a month! I knew he was intractable, but the second he would adulate me-which wasn't often, since he was very phlegmatic- my sagaciousness was gone. I did feel like the two of us were complementary at times. At times he gratified my boring life. But I was always indignant when he spoke in brevity, using circumlocution. I could never stand to hear talk to me in a colloquial manner- it was his eloquence that I had fallen for after all. Finally I decided I needed to end things. I was sick of being berated for being what he considered vapid. I knew I was much to submissive to him, listening to him prattle on about subordinate things.  I became very impassioned about how he was doing me wrong. But exactly what he was doing wrong was obscure in my mind. I knew it wasn't fair for him to act virulently towards me when I made a petty mistake. But we would always coalesce, and placate each other. Soon enough though, I learned that everything I actually liked about him was superficial. I was finally discerning and broke up with him. Now I'm single, happy, and thriving.

What I Need to Know about WRITING AND WRITERS to Become a Better Writer

What I liked best about each and everyone one of the writes that came and talked to us, is that they all wrote for different reasons. Robyn Ringler started writing just so she could share a story with her daughter. Stephen Leslie wrote because after studying with the monk, it was a way for him to find a calm. Deb Smith writes because she loves the people she meets when she travels and she feels that those stories should be shared. Last but not least, Therese Broderick wrote because she wanted to be able to give her writing as a meaningful and emotional gift to others. But they all write because they love it. Whether it was travel articles, personal essays or poetry what they write means something to them, and they love it. So the topic that I would like to chose is, "Why is writing important to you?". No one is going to write an amazing piece if the topic isn't important to them; and no one will become a great writer if writing isn't important to them. Personally, I connected with Stephen Leslie and Robyn Ringler. Leslie, because he meditated which I love to do. But Ringler, because she wrote personal essays. I like to write, I really do. And I enjoy writing about my life. I would love to write about this past weekend, where I went on a weekend retreat with my youth group. And there are so many different pieces I could pull from a single weekend- I could write about seeing the program I wrote being set in action. I could write about group leading for the first time, and how I had a blast with it. I could write about getting up on stage at meals with Renee, Lauren, Jessica, Ally, Hannah and Lisa and belting out (while completely embarrassing ourselves- but it was okay because of who we were with. These people wouldn't judge us, we knew) whatever song Bryon would play on his iPod. Or I could go the sappy route, and write about being in the friendship circle for the first time. Which topic I chose wouldn't really matter though- each and every one of those topics I just listed are important to me. And what better to write about, than something important to you?

1/17 *****

Round Four: Robyn Ringler

The first essay of Robyn Ringler's that I read was "Letter to Al Pacino". I really liked how she started off the letter telling us about how exciting it was to meet Al Pacino, and how they thought nothing else could top that. But then she's goes on talking about other things, maybe more memorable things that happened. At the end when she goes back and says "Life and death are real. Love is real. New York City is real. And you are real. It was nice meeting you." it shows what she learned that trip. The "It was nice meeting you." really shows that while she was starstruck, she understood that meeting Al Pacino was not the highlight of the trip, but instead it was observing and being with people she loved.


The next essay I read was "Hanging with Horses". What I like about this essay is how her daughter walks away from her, not only because she's embarrassed by her, but because Ringler found the entire situation comical. Her biography tells us that she was a stay-at-home mother for ten years; which is why she was able to go to every horse back riding lesson of her daughters. I know that if I was her daughter, I would've thought it was hysterical. I would've went over to help my mom right away, so she wouldn't have came out of her bra like Ringler did- and yes I would've been embarrassed, but I definitely would've laughed at my mom.


The last essay I read was called "Letting Go". This essay speaks of the time in her life when Ringler was a nurse, which was when she was a young adult. This essay is my favorite out of the ones that I read. It's so simple and genuine. You can tell that Ringler really loved Gloria. Ringler had this connection with Gloria- maybe because it seemed as though Ringler was the only one there for Gloria while she was dying. Ringler says "I realized then that all along I had been praying for her to live." Ringler hadn't noticed before Gloria died how much she cared about her. This essay shows us that we really do have to value what, and who, we have before we lose it. 


1/12- ****

Round Three: Stephen Leslie

A Haibun is a type of poetry similar to a Haiku. A Haibun though, is longer and tells of daily experiences but shows how these daily experiences have meaning. A Haibun might have a Haiku woven into it somewhere.

In Leslie's first Haibun, he talks about his relationship with a women- only the women ends up being his GPS. An everyday experience, but it ends with a Haiku: "Swirling dense fog /Her reassuring voice /GPS." exposing that this 'women' is his GPS system. In the second Haibun, Leslie writes about a kid he barley knew growing up who went to war and dies. Again, Leslie ends with a Haiku that shows us that this boy he knew did not make it through the war. "Cold black granite walls/The Vietnam Memorial/I touch Joe's name." The third poem is about a dead bird he finds on the side of the road. At first, you don't understand that the bird is dead though. A couple paragraphs in though, He shows that the bird is dead by saying "Sunday night, when it was dark, I lit a bundle of desert sage and approached the hole I had dug earlier." Once again, he ends the Haibun with a meaningful Haiku. And the last Haibun was written about him playing music for a women as she dies. The Haiku at the end of this poem is "departing here/arriving there/elevator music." I particularly like this Haiku because I think it's a nice way of showing that this women is leaving this world comfortably, listening to music. It's almost saying that's she may be leaving this world, but she's entering another and I think it's a pretty cool way to end this poem.

Original Haibun:

In September, I sit with my two best friends. The three of us- one guy, two girls. In November, I sit with my two best friends. The three of us- the two of them falling for each other, and I. The lonely one out, to be expected. In December, I sit with my two best friends. The three of us- a couple, and I. The lonely one out, as I am used to.

In January, I sit with my two best friends. The three of us- one guy, two girls. The lonely one out- not me anymore. The one guy, broke one girls heart in the process of falling for the other. The two girls, promise not to let the one guy come through them, but the two girls don't know if they can honor that promise.

In February-

Three best friends, or he and I?

Best friends, or couple?

1/10- ****

Round Two: Deborah J. Smith

For the articles, I read the one titled "Sit Up Straight" about Deborah J. Smiths trip to Italy with her son Conor. One thing I learned about Italy through this piece is that they eat pigeons over there. Smith says "Pigeons he chased around the piazza in the morning while I ate them for dinner at night." I like how she connects her and her son through the pigeons, while the pigeons are telling us about Italian culture. I also like how she put an Italian word in there. Piazza means "square" so she was telling us about watching her son play in the streets of Italy.


For me, the only time I would ever willingly listen to an audio essay would be while I was in the car. In the car there's really not much you can do at all, so listening to a story being told is a great thing.  Yes, you can read in the car (if you're not driving) but reading in the car is just never an enjoyable thing because you can get carsick and I find it hard to concentrate on a book in the car. I think the car is the place where audio essays have the most to offer listeners. But here I am sitting in my room on my laptop with many more distractions than I would if I was in a car in which everyone was listening to the audio being played. The audio essay I listened to was about when Smith and her son went to an Icelandic bakery in the morning, and the bakery had plenty of choices of fresh pastries for them. But since I'm in my room where I'm having a hard time fully concentrating on the audio essay, the part of the audio essay that stuck with me the most was that her son took a picture of a pastry with pink frosting- and they have kept the picture because to this day it makes her mouth water when she looks at it. I didn't get the meaning of this audio essay- but maybe if I were to take a drive with my mom and we listened to this essay, I would come away with more than a pink pastry.


Questions:
What has been your favorite trip?
Why did you choose to be a travel writer?


1/6 Speaker: ****

Round One: Therese Broderick

Through reading some of Therese Broderick's poems and one interview about her, I wa really able to learn a lot about her as a poet and as a person. To start off with, she's a mother. She has a daughter who is a young adult who she obviously loves to death. Broderick tells us that she  gave the chapbook as a gift to my daughter" for her birthday. Anyone who writes a book of poems to somebody most definitely loves that person. Girls dream of guys writing them songs, or poems- but I think that it's almost sweeter that it was her mother that wrote poems for her. I imagine that she and her daughter have a fantastic relationship.


Another thing I learned about Broderick is that she's insanely creative. Of course she has to be creative- she's professional poet. You have to be creative to succeed at writing. But how many poets make up their own stylle of poetry? "The Selene is a poetry form I invented, but no invention is purely original."I think it's fantastic that she credits other people influenced and helped create that form of poetry- and it's still quite impressive that she came up with the Selene form of poetry.


"..which leaves people in a state of Wonder about the human condition." Broderick says in the interveiw. Through that quote, you learn that she wants people to think about what she's writing. Not just to read and enjoy, but to think about it's meanging, why it was written, and what truth it holds. Through that quote you learn that Broderick values people and their ability to wonder- which I think is pretty awesome.


One last thing I learned about Broderick through these readings is that she's not afraid of emotion. She says "...at whatever she had to live through,  at what little could be saved. " It's rough to write about experiences that altered you, and hurt you emotionaly. But she is able to take that emotional event and put that emotion on us. She is able to motivate the reader to feel exactly what she felt. And with that, she creates something powerful, and something that hopefully sticks with you.




Questions:
I know you said that you don't like to classify your poem into one specific genre, but what type of poetry would you consider your favorite?
Do you find it easier to write poetry about your own life, or to make things up?