(Not my) Poetry
Nov. 19th, 2002 02:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morrigirlCheck out this cool poem Hellenga passed out during class.
Medusa has Breakfast with Freud
by: Sheryl St. Germain
Do you like your bacon crisp or limp?
Oh, and I wish you would make up your mind:
either my snakes are pubic hairs or penises,
either you get stiff with an erection
or frozen with impotency
when you look at my face. I'll have
no either/or here.
(Have you ever noticed
that everything you look
at turns to sex?)
By the way, how do you like your genitals-
scrambled or fried?
Isn't that great?! Hellenga was using it as an example of how myths persist over time and culture. How we re-tell famous stories to reflect current ideals.
And we had a ball in Rob's class (of course.) We were reading Frank O'Hara today, and at the start of class Mark commented on how conversational his style was, and how the stanzas could easily be shaped into prose. To which Rob replied: "Everybody, you have ten minutes. Write six lines in the style of Frank O'Hara since it is apparently so easy." So we all did. I rather liked mine. I wish I could copy it down for you to read but I no longer have what I wrote for reasons you will soon understand. After 10 minutes he collected all of them, leafed through the pile, made wretching noises and occasionally muttered things like "this is horrible!" Finally in frustration he said "these all suck. Pass them back around, take a paper that is not yours and revise it to sound more like O'Hara."
So we did and then we read our revisions aloud. I was really proud of mine because Rob said it was the one that came out sounding the most like O'Hara. Whoever wrote it (all the stanzas were anonymous) did a good job in using the kinds of words characteristic of O'Hara. Only problem was the lines breaks were all messed up. The author ended each line with punctuation. O'Hara NEVER did that. He broke his lines mid-sentence, you can tell he was looking at each line as a unit unto itself. So I rewrote the stanza with new line breaks, and that made all the difference because it created a much more O'Hara like rhythm. Here's the revision. Mind you I didn't write it, I just organized the line breaks and wrote the final line. I'd happily give credit to the author if i had the first clue of who he or she was.
I sit at a bench waiting for my
ride. The cars go by. Someone sits
next to me, I ask her the time.
"It's a quarter of," she says. "Oh
thanks." I continue waiting,
and count red mini vans.
When I read it Rob was like "Yes, that's more like it."
And I think I managed to impress Rob today. We were analyzing Adrienne Rich's "Frame" today, and I was the only one who really understood the poem and the literary methods Rich was using to illustrate her point, so I kinda had to explain it to everyone else. Most of the class felt the framed narrative was kinda cheesy. I think one person called it a cop out. And initially I thought it was too. But when I got to that final line "I say I am there," that put the whole device in persepective. She uses the framed narrative to make a point about subjectivity. We have a white man framing a black woman and a white woman framing the incident and even thught the speaker claims she is telling us the truth, in all actuality she is guilty of the same offense as the police man; she assumes that she knows whats going on. And the only thing that gives her the liberty to make such an assumption is her skin color. Ah don'tcha just love literature?
And I got back my second batch of responses today. B+. If I can score a B+ or A- on my final paper I'm made in the shade. So I'm not worried about lit class anymore.
On a totally different topic, I think some one tried to hack into my SCN account. Why? I got a password confirmation email in my hotmail account today. Ya, know the kind they send when you've forgotten your password? Well, I never forgot my password, and I never asked them to re-send it to me. I think some genius had the bright idea that if they typed in my user name and then hit the "I forgot my password" link, that they could get a my password sent to their email account. Genius patrol seemed to have forgotten that a passpword request can only be sent to the specific USER'S email account, the one said user listed when they registered with the site. Fucking idiots! My hacker (cough, Lisa, Cough) will just have to find some other way to get into my account. But after this little fiasco I'm not too worried. Obviously the chick ain't too bright.
And don't you love the new picture on my front page? Isn't Sophie a babe? Thats a copy of a poster that's on sale on Sophie's underground website. I think I'm gonna ask someone to buy it for me for christmas.
5 days and counting.
Carla
Medusa has Breakfast with Freud
by: Sheryl St. Germain
Do you like your bacon crisp or limp?
Oh, and I wish you would make up your mind:
either my snakes are pubic hairs or penises,
either you get stiff with an erection
or frozen with impotency
when you look at my face. I'll have
no either/or here.
(Have you ever noticed
that everything you look
at turns to sex?)
By the way, how do you like your genitals-
scrambled or fried?
Isn't that great?! Hellenga was using it as an example of how myths persist over time and culture. How we re-tell famous stories to reflect current ideals.
And we had a ball in Rob's class (of course.) We were reading Frank O'Hara today, and at the start of class Mark commented on how conversational his style was, and how the stanzas could easily be shaped into prose. To which Rob replied: "Everybody, you have ten minutes. Write six lines in the style of Frank O'Hara since it is apparently so easy." So we all did. I rather liked mine. I wish I could copy it down for you to read but I no longer have what I wrote for reasons you will soon understand. After 10 minutes he collected all of them, leafed through the pile, made wretching noises and occasionally muttered things like "this is horrible!" Finally in frustration he said "these all suck. Pass them back around, take a paper that is not yours and revise it to sound more like O'Hara."
So we did and then we read our revisions aloud. I was really proud of mine because Rob said it was the one that came out sounding the most like O'Hara. Whoever wrote it (all the stanzas were anonymous) did a good job in using the kinds of words characteristic of O'Hara. Only problem was the lines breaks were all messed up. The author ended each line with punctuation. O'Hara NEVER did that. He broke his lines mid-sentence, you can tell he was looking at each line as a unit unto itself. So I rewrote the stanza with new line breaks, and that made all the difference because it created a much more O'Hara like rhythm. Here's the revision. Mind you I didn't write it, I just organized the line breaks and wrote the final line. I'd happily give credit to the author if i had the first clue of who he or she was.
I sit at a bench waiting for my
ride. The cars go by. Someone sits
next to me, I ask her the time.
"It's a quarter of," she says. "Oh
thanks." I continue waiting,
and count red mini vans.
When I read it Rob was like "Yes, that's more like it."
And I think I managed to impress Rob today. We were analyzing Adrienne Rich's "Frame" today, and I was the only one who really understood the poem and the literary methods Rich was using to illustrate her point, so I kinda had to explain it to everyone else. Most of the class felt the framed narrative was kinda cheesy. I think one person called it a cop out. And initially I thought it was too. But when I got to that final line "I say I am there," that put the whole device in persepective. She uses the framed narrative to make a point about subjectivity. We have a white man framing a black woman and a white woman framing the incident and even thught the speaker claims she is telling us the truth, in all actuality she is guilty of the same offense as the police man; she assumes that she knows whats going on. And the only thing that gives her the liberty to make such an assumption is her skin color. Ah don'tcha just love literature?
And I got back my second batch of responses today. B+. If I can score a B+ or A- on my final paper I'm made in the shade. So I'm not worried about lit class anymore.
On a totally different topic, I think some one tried to hack into my SCN account. Why? I got a password confirmation email in my hotmail account today. Ya, know the kind they send when you've forgotten your password? Well, I never forgot my password, and I never asked them to re-send it to me. I think some genius had the bright idea that if they typed in my user name and then hit the "I forgot my password" link, that they could get a my password sent to their email account. Genius patrol seemed to have forgotten that a passpword request can only be sent to the specific USER'S email account, the one said user listed when they registered with the site. Fucking idiots! My hacker (cough, Lisa, Cough) will just have to find some other way to get into my account. But after this little fiasco I'm not too worried. Obviously the chick ain't too bright.
And don't you love the new picture on my front page? Isn't Sophie a babe? Thats a copy of a poster that's on sale on Sophie's underground website. I think I'm gonna ask someone to buy it for me for christmas.
5 days and counting.
Carla
