Image made by Lee Jordan for Flickr.com
Churning like warm butter
Churning like ice cream
hands quicken
my fragile
breath…
*
A day, an hour
drew fine points of light
in a fine memory
of
Wedding Bells ’08
*
Cutting deeper
are your words
no longer pensive
sharp pencils
jabbing your forgive me letters
*
Feedback on this blog enables me to be sure I am putting out the right stuff for you, so comment, share, email, whatever. Let’s chat. 
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What an interesting book! Fiction told using verses.
Kristina seems to be the Speaker/Protagonist in this work. She comes from a pretty normal family but in spared words tells us: her sister is a lesbian and her brother is too young to be a confidant and her mother is more focused on her looks and writing her books and her boyfriends.
Eventually, she spends a few weeks with her dad and she finds his neighbor is a hot looking guy named Adam but people call him “Buddy”- so she hooks up with Adam and he introduces Kristina(who calls her alter ego, “Bree”) to crank. A.K.A. crack or cocaine. She begins a downward spiral drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and eventually moved on to something more hardcore towards the end of the book. But all the while, Kristina-“Bree” is battling more than one Monster: her hormones, her thoughts, the boys,and her family.
The subject matters tackled: Teen drug use. Teen abuse. Family matters. Sex. Certainly a book worth reading.
As I understand it, “Glass” and “Fallout” are the sequels to this very powerful book.
*For an in-depth review of the Crank story and how men play a vital role in Kristina’s life, please head to “Crank Review” on my hub
Gritty as the earth’s plain. Soulful as church Gospel. Poetic as smooth wine after a hard day’s work…Luis Rodriguez’s * “My Nature is Hunger: New and Selected Poems 1989-2004″, will leave you inspired by his words. This book of poetry is broken into three parts; Poems Across the Pavement-1989, from The Concrete River-1991, and from Trochemoche-1998.
Within each section are poems from Rodriguez’s life as a young man growing up in a land full of racism, gang violence, and everything else in between. Each are a snapshot of what it means to be Chicano in America and the pain it is survive where you are.
A poem in particular that touched me was “Running to America” from the first stanza beginning with: “They are night shadows violating borders/fingers curled through chain-link fences.” Pulls us into the world of the immigrants who hold on to what could possibly hold them back and the next line is chilling: “Hiding from infra-red eyes, dodging 30-30 bullets” and every few stanzas the one liner: “Running to America” presses the images and the anxious tone in your heart as these cutting lines continue again in tandem to the speaker’s words stranglehold for a “hungry people who have no country”.
Rodriguez’s style of poetry tells a story and when you really pay attention, you are hit by the tragedy of his past and the hope deferred and he does not hold back on the imagery and his tone is sharp and real. He comes across as shrewd and sensitive to the people’s struggles. Below you will find a sample of his poem for his son Ramiro called “The Wanton Life”
*Book received for my unbiased review from Netgalley for Open Road Integrated Media
Luis J. Rodríguez (b. 1954) is a poet, journalist, memoirist, and author of children’s books, short stories, and novels. His documentation of urban and Mexican immigrant life has made him one of the most prominent Chicano literary voices in the United States. Born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican immigrant parents, Rodríguez grew up in Los Angeles, where in his teen yearshe joined a gang, lived on the streets, and became addicted to heroin. In his twenties, after turning his back on gang violence and drugs, Rodríguez began his career as a journalist and then award-winning poet, writing such books as the memoir Always Running (1993), and the poetry collections The Concrete River (1991), Poems Across the Pavement (1989), and Trochemoche (1998). He has also written the short story collection The Republic of East L.A. (2002). Rodríguez maintains an arts center, bookstore, and poetry press in L.A., where he continues writing and working to mediate gang violence.
*Kind of difficult writing from a male perspective, but Tomoe’s character is so mysterious…here goes:
And she tickles my logic with her babbling
lips and those coy eyes
And I a yokai who sips
from the red light district
Is pulled in
Her longing is my whimper
from her cries and echoes,
frail under her strength
strong in her gentleness and
Her longing is my whimper
To have a human goddess
right under my clutches
right under my killing aura and
powers of fire, I want only one
fire to possess her.
And her longing is my whimper
my secret worship of her
and her tiny voice, long hands and
her shrill scream when I catch her
in a lie or sighing because she loves me
but I am yokai- I can not be loved
a human can not be trusted.
I long to make her whimper
She is me I am her.
She needs me- I want her.
But oh, the longing in her eyes when we fight together
When we tear down walls of pride by shamelessly
baring all unspoken words
of what we wanted before we were…
I know I’m already hers.
Is she mine?
phototini.deviantart.com
‘A Noiseless Patient Spider’ (1881) delivers a powerful, two stanza poem comparing the body and soul to a spider and its web. The speaker of the poem. After two readings it appears that the Spider=Speaker’s Body and its web=Speaker’s Soul. We will also look at language, symbols, and tone/mood. Check out the poem below:
A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul(by Walt Whitman 1819-1892)
***
Objects and Symbols
*A Spider
*The Soul
*A Bridge
There may be more objects you spot, but the poem’s title mentions a spider and the Speaker seems to be observing this little creature closely. The Speaker then says, “Oh my Soul…” in the second stanza which has some significance which we’ll explore later and finally there is the mention of a bridge being needed which will be formed in due time.
*Language/Rhyme
Here is where we get to more meat and potatoes of the poem, where they flow of the words and their positioning gives juicy meaning. Remember, this is what I gleaned from my reading, it may not necessarily be what you discover.
*”Noiseless, Patient”(line 1-slant rhyme)
*Mar’d…mark’d(lines 2-3; repetition)
*Vacant, Vast(line 3-alliteration)
*Filament, filament, filament(line 4-repetition)
*measureless oceans(line 7- slant rhyme)
*”Ceaseless musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect with”(line 8-9- ‘ing’ sounds-slant rhyme)
Plenty of slant rhyme and repetition. Slant rhymes are families of words that are not “whole rhymes(like “cat”-”hat”) but have endings that almost rhyme in sound. Like noiseless and patient- hear the “ent” sound? Also the repetition have a particular wave to it. Think of what a spider does. A spider throws out its thread, seeming never-ending and so of course there will be repetition here as the Speaker tries to establish a rhythm similar to a spider sitting and tossing its thread.
Then we come to the Speaker’s comparison of his/her body to a spider and its web. Lines 6-7 mirrors line 4. Check it out:
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;(line 8)
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;(line 4)
Tone/Mood
In Line 8 the human being has its soul tossed from it and it seeks its source. This could be Heaven. In line 4, the spider throws out filament after filament, seeking what it may catch and hold on it. Now, this poem can have double meaning. I am speaking of the afterlife but what if it’s about venturing out on one’s own to discover what is out there?
The speaker seems to moan, “Oh my soul” a couple of times in this poem. The Speaker cares about this unseen property in the body and the Spider is an object he/she can properly compare it to. I can’t say the poem is sad, but the Speaker is seeking something.
After your reading, is the Speaker sad? Ambivalent? Joyous? Or other?
I love responses!
*Key Terms*
Promontory-a high piece or point of land
Filament-a single thread or flexible thread
Gossamer- film of cobwebs
Ductile-capable of being drawn into wires
Image from Microsoft Office
I have been revisiting poetry again, and as you well know I enjoy poetry and whatever way I can help others with the struggle of poeming, I am more than happy to do so.
Grabbing up books on poetry is one of the best ways to get a better look at how other poets do it before you dive in. Or, if you’re like me, you just dive right in and after the fact you learn about little things like “form, style. rhyme and rhythm, and chapbooks”- you know, important stuff like that. Again, I am happy to have been on that fault line of confusion and am trying to find my way back. In fact, I am thinking of getting a book I checked out before at the library to assist me again in poeming
Right now, all of my focus is on poetry, but am way too shy to give public readings. The last public speech I gave was a an elegy for my father December 2012 and even that was hard. But I know that people will only realize you exist if you speak to them.
Any helpful tips on poetry reading is welcome~ Truly!
Next order of business is learning some traditional forms. I am a free verse type of gal which allows me to spill words on the page without restraints, but lately I am seeing some really great patterns and traditions I’d like to challenge myself more with: specifically Gogyohka and Haiku as well as some Sestinas and Sonnets. Learning to break free sometimes involve learning how your shackles work, no?
Image courstesy of Microsoft Office Images
Just the tongue of my heart
that has kissed your bad luck
of straggling with me and
carrying the bricks
Just the tongue of my heart
finally welcoming you into
all that is me and all you
hope me to be as we meet
first
Just the tongue of my heart
in your dreams and your mind
that once we start, I’ll be yours
and you’ll be-
Is it the lash of the words
or the way that I sway
my hair and my eyes
and you thought I was no more
than face, neck, and back
You thought I was
less than the vixen or the
supermodel lying in gloss
pages in your pickup
and here my words have
quickened your heart
and you wonder how slow you
could have seemed to
others…
how we take our time to
drink verbals with each other….
Windy Day by Irina Baldina, Image courtesy of wikipedia.org
It is always okay to present yourself with a challenge. This season, I have been challenging myself with Haiku. Something that seems so simple to make, but has multiple interpretations, elements of surprise, and takes time and meditation to create.
I will say right now, that haiku for me can be difficult but it doesn’t have to be. As a storyteller and free verse poet, it does present its problems because Haiku only takes a the briefest snapshot of life and you must present it well enough for it to make an impact on reading.
For example, here is one I worked on recently…
Hurried turquoise kites…
Blue wind
Slaps bargain hats
It appears the haiku is not making sense but if you can visualize whats happening, you can see that it must be a windy Spring day and people are flying kites everywhere while a strong gust of wind blows men’s hats off. Pretty simple, right?
But what is the emotion you get? Does it trigger a memory? A future? Either way it seems the message is folks are gathered together in the strongest winds, fighting nature and enjoying it at the same time.
This is what I have so far. Stay tuned for more on my challenges with haiku, a little background on its origins and some masters of the haiku we can all learn from.
*There are unclean spirits
and they don’t trust you
your name is amongst the
feared and it dirties
the talk, it cramps
their walk and they drive
The low and the downtrodden,
the saddened, the broken
hearts and those who work
at the bottom of hell
and come up streaked and hot
bloodied nails and sharpened
wit on wisdom is washed away
from the news and there is no mention of them
in politics
There is no mention of them
among the rich
no mention of them amongst their
own families and churches
I am talking about the poor.
A debate featured middle class woes who have
homes and their worst problem
is taxes and if their kids will get jobs
after college
What about you who want to get to college
or you who needs a job yesterday?
Did they mention you?
Perhaps they think its your fault
for not forcing them to give you
work but then that is illegal.
Or manipulating to get the job
but then that’s pawn shop bargaining.
The 99 are poor and can storm the doors
let’s not forgot who sweeps the floors
and those who need a little more
*************************************************
Here are words in bold I used for above poem:(this is based off of a poem exercise involving conversations and snatches of words I heard)
It works
is it clean
evil spirits
it’s not them
they don’t trust you
scared
she ignored me
middle class
There is another experiment I’d like to try, and it concerns fiction and poetry.
On our daily run ins with work, church, meetings- life, we hear a lot. We hear frustrations in other’s voices. We hear people make plans. We hear someone crying, laughing, shouting.
Here’s an exercise to get your mind in the realm of writing and creating:(This may seem intrusive, but writers typically are)
As you know, I always participate in these exercises. I will be carrying my notebook with me as well and taking notes. I wonder what I will find. Let me know how it goes, writers!
