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Body of Work - SCN
Jun. 13th, 2003 12:51 amI hate having to dial up through the Knox line at night. It's a long distance call so we get chraged extra for it. I wish I could get AOL to work on my laptop but for some bizarre reason it won't recognize the dial up number, the same one we use for the other computer. I don't get it. But I tell ya, it SUX not being able to spend much time online in the evening. That's when all my friends are out! As is, I can only get on between noon and 5 and everyone is at work or asleep during those hours. Can't talk to Gayle or Teiwaz or Libby or Gemma. It's pissing me off! I miss dem. And I'm guessing Mom is NOT going to be happy when she sees the long distance calls to Knox on the phone bill, but I just can't stay offline at night. It's the only time when I have real, sure fire, not doing anything even remotely important alone time. Mom says she's gonna call Greg over the weekend. Maybe we can go out and get my computer sometime next week.
Josh reminded me last night that my birthday is a week from tomorrow. I didn't realize it was so close. So, I went out today and browsed around Barnes and Noble looking for items to compile a birthday list out of. I haven't told anyone what I want and I think they're getting antsy about it. This year all I want is music and books since there is no money in my future, and hence, I won't be able to buy such things for myself for quite a while.
Oh, I almost forgot, the entire reason I'm typing this entry...While clearing and cleaning and unpacking this afternoon I found my old poetry folders and short story notebooks. As we all know I've long been planning just to sit down with all my old poetry, revise it, and start submitting to literary magazines. Well, I was just leafing through the material and DAMN I didn't realize what a large body of work I have. I've got well over 1000 (bad) poems. I'd thought the number was closer to 800 but I was wrong. That's a lot of stuff to rewrite. And I don't even know where to start. It's all so...horrible! Really. I mean it's all my high school literal, no imagery whatsoever, no devised line breaks, no POETICS, poetry. On one hand, I think I should just scrap it all and write new poems, but there are just so many of them. And none of them will remain in their present forms. I know that during rewrites they will morph into completely different poems and, in that respect, can act as a spring board for new ideas. It's just so overwhelming in terms of the effort it's gonna take to make these poems readable, let alone publishable, and in the realization that...I WROTE ALL OF THEM!!! That I've written over 1000 poems in ten years. Thats 100 a year. Incredible.
I'm thinking back to Poetry Workshop where it took us 10 weeks to write and revise 7 poems. Hmm. That means I could put together a book length work in just over a year. *smirks* Not that anyone publishes random poetry books. You need to have a following first, and you get a following by being read in lit mags.
I was cleaning out my bookshelves today. Found about 20 or so books that don't need to be on my shelf anymore, so I'm prolly gonna high tail it down to The Strand tomorrow and try to seel some of them. Whatever they don't take I can just donate to the library.
While sifting through the shelves I came across my old copy of "Reviving Ophelia" and decided it might be time to reread it. I HATED it the first time I read it because it sounded like Pipher was just blaming all the problems of adolescent girls on the media and I felt that was a reductionistic point of view. You cannot wittle growing pains down to one source, they are much more complex then that. But, I thought maybe I was too young when I first read it, maybe I just didn't understand it, maybe I would like it better now that I'm older. So I began reading it again, and discovered that I was right the first time, this woman has no clue what she is talking about.
First off all, I think she comes form a very limited background: white, middle-class, suburban, and as such there are many classist assumptions in her work. For instance, that drugs are a new problem facing girls today. Shit, anyone in the ghetto can tell you drugs ain't new. She says sex is a problem, but that's an outright lie. Kids are no more or less sexual now then they have been in the past, it's just more publicized and out in the open now. She takes for granted the fact that her experience is not universal.
Plus, I think she falls into the trap of chracterizing adolescence as a disease. Parents are doing that quite a lot these days and I think it's the reason we see so many adolescents in therapy and on psychiatric medication. With the rise of divorce in the 60's and the belief that what's good for the parents will be good for the children came a new feeling of entitlement on the parents side. After having raised their children to the age that they can take care of themselves (adolescence) parents these days feel that they can now sit back and rest on their laurels, as if parenting stops as soon as the child reaches the double digits. Because of this new feeling of entitlement, parents today are caught off guard by the turbulence of adolescence. They get scared because they think everything is suppose to be easy now. And since it isn’t easy, they decide there is something wrong with their kid. I look at Pipher’s list of problems specific to teenage girls and all I see is a portrait of typical adolescence; moodiness, parental conflict, disinterest in school, cutting school, having sex, trying drugs. News flash: none of this is specific to girls and none of it is a new development in child psychology. All of the above have been occurring during the years between 11 and 17 since the industrial age began. It’s not the kids that have changed, it’s the parents, it’s the way our society views child rearing. Our grandparents and great grandparents dealt with the same shit from our parents and none of them were sent to shrinks or put on drugs just because they were acting their age! And basically this whole rant boils down to me being pissed that adults are blaming everyone but themselves for the “change” in America's children which isn’t really a change at all.
Stupid computer, cut me off right in the middle of my entry! :-p Oh well, I’m done ranting so I’m gonna let this little baby have a rest.
Night.
Josh reminded me last night that my birthday is a week from tomorrow. I didn't realize it was so close. So, I went out today and browsed around Barnes and Noble looking for items to compile a birthday list out of. I haven't told anyone what I want and I think they're getting antsy about it. This year all I want is music and books since there is no money in my future, and hence, I won't be able to buy such things for myself for quite a while.
Oh, I almost forgot, the entire reason I'm typing this entry...While clearing and cleaning and unpacking this afternoon I found my old poetry folders and short story notebooks. As we all know I've long been planning just to sit down with all my old poetry, revise it, and start submitting to literary magazines. Well, I was just leafing through the material and DAMN I didn't realize what a large body of work I have. I've got well over 1000 (bad) poems. I'd thought the number was closer to 800 but I was wrong. That's a lot of stuff to rewrite. And I don't even know where to start. It's all so...horrible! Really. I mean it's all my high school literal, no imagery whatsoever, no devised line breaks, no POETICS, poetry. On one hand, I think I should just scrap it all and write new poems, but there are just so many of them. And none of them will remain in their present forms. I know that during rewrites they will morph into completely different poems and, in that respect, can act as a spring board for new ideas. It's just so overwhelming in terms of the effort it's gonna take to make these poems readable, let alone publishable, and in the realization that...I WROTE ALL OF THEM!!! That I've written over 1000 poems in ten years. Thats 100 a year. Incredible.
I'm thinking back to Poetry Workshop where it took us 10 weeks to write and revise 7 poems. Hmm. That means I could put together a book length work in just over a year. *smirks* Not that anyone publishes random poetry books. You need to have a following first, and you get a following by being read in lit mags.
I was cleaning out my bookshelves today. Found about 20 or so books that don't need to be on my shelf anymore, so I'm prolly gonna high tail it down to The Strand tomorrow and try to seel some of them. Whatever they don't take I can just donate to the library.
While sifting through the shelves I came across my old copy of "Reviving Ophelia" and decided it might be time to reread it. I HATED it the first time I read it because it sounded like Pipher was just blaming all the problems of adolescent girls on the media and I felt that was a reductionistic point of view. You cannot wittle growing pains down to one source, they are much more complex then that. But, I thought maybe I was too young when I first read it, maybe I just didn't understand it, maybe I would like it better now that I'm older. So I began reading it again, and discovered that I was right the first time, this woman has no clue what she is talking about.
First off all, I think she comes form a very limited background: white, middle-class, suburban, and as such there are many classist assumptions in her work. For instance, that drugs are a new problem facing girls today. Shit, anyone in the ghetto can tell you drugs ain't new. She says sex is a problem, but that's an outright lie. Kids are no more or less sexual now then they have been in the past, it's just more publicized and out in the open now. She takes for granted the fact that her experience is not universal.
Plus, I think she falls into the trap of chracterizing adolescence as a disease. Parents are doing that quite a lot these days and I think it's the reason we see so many adolescents in therapy and on psychiatric medication. With the rise of divorce in the 60's and the belief that what's good for the parents will be good for the children came a new feeling of entitlement on the parents side. After having raised their children to the age that they can take care of themselves (adolescence) parents these days feel that they can now sit back and rest on their laurels, as if parenting stops as soon as the child reaches the double digits. Because of this new feeling of entitlement, parents today are caught off guard by the turbulence of adolescence. They get scared because they think everything is suppose to be easy now. And since it isn’t easy, they decide there is something wrong with their kid. I look at Pipher’s list of problems specific to teenage girls and all I see is a portrait of typical adolescence; moodiness, parental conflict, disinterest in school, cutting school, having sex, trying drugs. News flash: none of this is specific to girls and none of it is a new development in child psychology. All of the above have been occurring during the years between 11 and 17 since the industrial age began. It’s not the kids that have changed, it’s the parents, it’s the way our society views child rearing. Our grandparents and great grandparents dealt with the same shit from our parents and none of them were sent to shrinks or put on drugs just because they were acting their age! And basically this whole rant boils down to me being pissed that adults are blaming everyone but themselves for the “change” in America's children which isn’t really a change at all.
Stupid computer, cut me off right in the middle of my entry! :-p Oh well, I’m done ranting so I’m gonna let this little baby have a rest.
Night.
