Blood Dazzler

I really enjoyed reading Blood Dazzler. I think it was easier to understand what I was reading because it is something we have heard about over and over again. It was also something we already knew so much about and we have all had our own feelings and emotions over it. Whether we knew someone involved, helped clean up, or donated money, we were all connected to the victims somehow.

I really like the style of this book even though it is still poems all the way through. There are poems that are supposed to be by other hurricanes like "Siblings" and poems that were said about voodoo. Some of the topics of the poems were repeated like the dog Luther. Some of them had some improper language but I think it was important to have that language because that is how the people down south talk. The language really captured the victims and what they had been through.

The poems were mostly in normal stanzas with no special forms. The only forms that were a little different from the rest were Tankas and the poem about Katrina hitting landfall on page 5. Even though they were in strange formations, they were a lot easier to read and focus on than the poems in City Eclogue.

My favorite poem was the one called "Only Everything I Own". I went to New Orleans on a mission trip after the storm and we helped clean up what still needed fixing. We would pass the houses that had the spray paint on it with the number of deaths or evacuated. Just to think, in that house was everything that person possessed. All of their memories and belongings were washed away in the floods. My favorite part about the whole book though is how the poems were coming from certain people or things. Also, just the way I can read the book and really understand and envision what is going on.

City Eclogue

Reading the book City Eclogue really frustrated me. I don't enjoy reading things if I don't understand what they are saying. These poems just seemed like they had random words put together. At least that is what it seems like to the reader. The poems were also difficult to read based on the fact that some were spread out on the pages. Some sentences ended where they didn't sound right or there were some words that were not even complete. I know we weren't supposed to analyze each poem and really understand what they were trying to say but it is really frustrating to keep reading what seems like just random words to me. Some of the poems I was able to understand a little about what it was saying based on the title. Sometimes, I did not even know where one poem started and where the other ended.

The language and the usage  of the language is what I looked at most because I couldn't pay attention to the meaning. My favorite usage of language is personification. Making an object come to life with human qualities. In the poem "Urban Nature", the line that says "the bus stop posture in the interval" is a personification in that they are putting posture with a bus stop. How does a bus stop have a posture? Posture is something very human-like and the bus stop is just a bus stop.

There are some poems that have very positive images and I even saw that while skimming through the poem. Using words suck as 'lovely', 'butterflies', 'blossoms', and 'sweetness' such as "Painting from Science for Hui Ka-Kwong" used, just puts good images in your head. Even though I cannot understand what is going on in the poem, I can assume that it is something good and not something negative. Other poems are the exact opposite, you can just tell that they will be negative according to their language used. In "Height and Deep Song", there is language such as 'disaster', 'ledge', 'crying', and 'screaming' which may indicate that something bad or negative is happening here.

The poem "Idyll" is a good example of how the poem is spread out on the page and sometimes very difficult to read and understand that way. I feel that I may miss a line or a word because my eyes are not trained to read that way. I think it was kind of fun though to try and read like that but I focused more on trying to read in order then actually focusing on what the poem was saying or any of the language. The phrases are all different lengths as well so I feel like it does not flow as nicely as the others. Also in "Idyll" the first line has two words and then there are three lines together after that and then two words again and then just on line. I didn't know where to take a breath or pause because there really isn't a whole lot of punctuation in the poem.

This kind of poetry may be for some people, but I'm thinking it may not be for me.

I really enjoyed reading Goldburg's articles. I really like her style of writing and it was fun to read! It is very hard for me to just sit down and write like some people can do. I am good at sitting down to write research papers and details that I can build off of, but to just sit and write is awful. Goldburg talks about caring about your work and then it will take care of itself and some people may like it and others may not. As long as you are satisfied with your work then that is enough. I wish I could be satisfied with my work all the time but there are times when I just cannot think of what to do to make it better. A perfect example of not being satisfied is when my thoughts are racing through my head and I cannot get them all out on paper in time. I will skip over things and forget to put them back in. I love how Goldburg wrote about getting a good pen to write with, I never thought that would make such a big difference in someone's writing and the timing of writing. I guess there are a lot of aspects to writing than I thought!

I loved reading about obsessions. I can relate so much to Goldburg. I also love to talk and brag about my family all the time. I think it is true that our obsessions have power because that is one topic that i can sit down and start writing about in an instant. It may not be interesting to some people but it excited me and gets my hand moving. Talking about places I have been or the other people that surround me is another thing that can get me to enjoy writing. If the topic I am supposed to write about does not interest me, then it is pure torture to sit and write about it and I am pretty sure the people who would be reading my writing would not be interested either. Goldburg says, "the act of repressing it seems to repress everything else too". I agree with this statement 100 percent. I can even see it. My writing is so much more interesting when I am interested in what I am writing. Having the freedom to write whatever I want is a very liberating feeling.

Another topic Goldburg talked about was using original detail. I have a problem with detail. Sometimes I use too much detail and sometimes I don't use enough. Very rarely do I do a good job using the right amount. I really liked how she said that our details are important. It is a good thing to hear from another person. Once I start talking about something important to me, I feel like other people don't find anything I am writing half as interesting as I do. Adding our emotions to our words is another thing that frustrates me in my writing. I am a very straight forward person who has a problem with looking deeper within things. I guess every person has some things to work on, I just have more in my writing.

I have never blogged before so hopefully I did this right!