Introduction to The Literary Studio
Posted in Assignments, Poetry on Feb 28th, 2019
For this exercise, you should select two or three lines from one of the poems we’ve read, and write your own poem by applying to those lines the rules of The Golden Shovel. Place your poem in the Poetry Exercise 2 folder on Google Drive by class on Tuesday, March 12. Here is an explanation […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 28th, 2019
Answer My Question: is a poem by Meg Day in her collection Last Psalm at Sea Level. This poem feels almost like a curse, probably towards God for taking something important from the author. The opening lines suggest the thing taken from them was a loved one. It begins: Who called the time, wrote The […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 27th, 2019
Meg Day’s “When They Took Her Breasts, She Dreamt of Icarus” is a poem describing the aftermath of a mastectomy, in which Icarus entertains our speaker as she recovers with all the grace of the titular figure plummetting into the ocean. Though complicated by enjambment and slants, the rhyme scheme is a clear indicator of the form […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 27th, 2019
In “Lethal Theater” by Susannah Nevison I read the poem titled Witness the thing about “Lethal Theater” is there are 4 poems titled witness. The poem I read talks about the voice having to euthanize there dog 2 years ago. I believe there is a deeper meaning to this poem than just having to euthanize there dog, […]
Posted in Assignments on Feb 26th, 2019
Write a poem divided into two sections. One section should include these words: purple, giraffe, orchid, ruining, and glass. The other section should include these words: supple, carafe, lurid, unshoeing, and sluice. You should place your poem in the Poetry Exercise 1 folder on Google Drive before class on Thursday, February 28.
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 26th, 2019
These are amazing:each Joining a neighbor, as through speech Were a still performance. Arranging by chance….. – John Ashbery “Some Trees” This poem repetitively uses metaphors “joining a neighbor, as though speech” using speech to connect to one another, and the image of a tree and its roots joining. The use of imagery helps to understand the significance […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 26th, 2019
Ansel Elkins poem “A Girl with Antlers” is a medium-length tale about a girl finding herself though she is different. Throughout the poem, the speaker is meant to represent the hard transition many find themselves faced with. She grows up. The poem is segmented into different portions of her life, from her birth to the […]
“The Girl With Antlers” by Ansel Elkins is a quirky, complex and somewhat enchanting poem. Tracing a girl’s life from her birth to her teen years, the poem starts out by describing, in gruesome detail, how a baby girl was in fact born with antlers, which made the delivery a painful, displeasing process. Abandoned, […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 25th, 2019
When I first read “Going to the Movies Alone” by Ansel Elkins, I had not paid much attention to the title. In doing so, the first few lines seemed extremely disturbing and like something one of the darker versions of The Joker would write. Tonight, I want to see something explode. I want to see a dirty […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 25th, 2019
In few words, Ansel Elkins embodies an omnivert’s character. The speaker is confident enough to go to the movies alone, but goes to the movies to allow himself to experience the feelings he’s missing out on. But he’s fine with missing out on it. The speaker seems to be content with life as it is, doing only what […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 21st, 2019
“Riven” is defined as something that is split or torn apart, and that is exactly what Christian Wiman does to the first lines of each stanza in “Every Riven Thing.” He repeats the phrase “God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made” at the beginning of each stanza, but uses different punctuation to change […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
In “The Portrait,” the narrator describes his experiences growing up in his mother’s grief. His mother apparently decided to erase her husband’s memory from their home, saying, “She locked his name/ in her deepest cabinet/ and would not let him out/ though I could hear him thumping.” When the narrator tried to bring his father […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
In Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sunday’s” he gives us a poem about memory, recalling actions of his father who each Sunday would wake up early and make a fire for them and shine his shoes. He added, “No one ever thanked him” He uses a reflective tone, and is very aware and greatful of the […]
Dave Lucas’, “About Suffering” is a beautiful, rich poem that addresses the topic of suffering. The poem begins by pointing out what true suffering is. Whether suffering strikes the unexpecting, regular people leading regular lives or people who knew misfortune was on its way, genuine suffering comes bearing great impact. Through the use of imagery […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
Stanley Kunitz’s poem “The Portrait” explores how loss, abandonment, and childhood incidents last with people long after they have passed. As much as this poem is about the speaker, it is also about his mother. He begins the poem introducing the fact that his father committed suicide in a public park when his mother was […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2019
Dave Lucas’ “About Suffering” is a poem that lives up to it’s name. Lucas writes about suffering, specifically about a cancer diagnosis, and relates it to the famous myth of Icarus and how he flew too close to the sun with wax wings. He begins by stating how suffering is not like Icarus’ great fall […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2019
T.R. Hummer’s poem “Where You Go When She Sleeps” is about love and the strange effect it can have on people. Instead of using flowery, comforting, and happy imagery to express his feelings, Hummer uses the simile of being like a boy who has fallen into a silo of grain and died. This seems like […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2019
In the first half of the poem “The Portrait” by Stanley Kunitz, each new line adds a new layer to the story. My mother never forgave my father for killing himself, especially at such an awkward time and in a public park, that spring when I was waiting to be born.” When reading it seems […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2019
“Men at forty” by Donald Justice, is written with a lovely metaphor of how when you turn 40 you are realizing that you are no longer a child, therefore you are finally mature. “Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to.” Justice is using a […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
“Autumn Day,” by Rainer Maria Rilke has a rhyme scheme that is very inconsistent. In the first verse, there is this one rhyme and what follows it is very fluid to say. Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by. In the second verse, the ending of the first and last lines rhyme but the […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
No Children by John Darnielle I hope that our few remaining friends Give up on trying to save us I hope we come up with a failsafe plot To piss off the dumb few that forgave us I hope the fences we mended Fall down beneath their own weight And I hope we hang on […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
For more poems by Melissa Lozado-Oliva, go here.
“Those Winter Sundays” is a poem written by Robert Hayden that begins with the speaker reflecting on the father’s routine: then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. The speaker clearly displays in his eyes that the father has never been treated correctly […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
The wind flung a magpie away and a black- Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly… — Ted Hughes, “Wind” This poem is full of remarkable metaphors: a house “far out at sea all night,” the woods “crashing through darkness,” the “skyline a grimace,” the house ringing “like some fine green goblet in the […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
Men at Forty Men at forty Learn to close softly The doors to rooms they will not be Coming back to. At rest on a stair landing, They feel it Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship, Though the swell is gentle. And deep in mirrors They rediscover The face of the […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother’s countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one […]
Posted in Poetry on Feb 20th, 2019
Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter, You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing, You […]
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized on Feb 19th, 2019
Posted in Fiction on Feb 17th, 2019
Throughout “Behind the Blue Curtain” by Steven Millhauser, the reader, along with the unnamed main character, feels as though they are seeing things better left unseen. Speaking in the past tense, the narrator describes a Saturday in his childhood when he was first allowed to go to the movies alone. His first description of the […]
Posted in Fiction on Feb 13th, 2019
In Jeanette Winterson’s “The Green Man,” it is at first unclear who is telling the story. For the first page, the author writes in a poetic way that makes it seem as if it is from the perspective of the daughter. These round bellied glint-eyed horses are Trojan horses. Truant, feckless, anarchic, unsaddled and munching […]
Posted in Fiction on Feb 13th, 2019
The short story”Are These Actual Miles”by Raymon Carver is told in the third person; it’s about a man named Leo and a woman named Toni. In this story, Leo and Toni are selling an automobile and Leo is afraid that Toni will not be successful when making the sale. She, however, is successful in making the sale. […]
Posted in Assignments on Feb 12th, 2019
Choose one of these images and without using dialogue, write two pages that convey to your reader what the character is seeing, thinking, and feeling in this scene. Place your document in the Fiction Exercise 3 folder on Google Drive by Thursday’s class. (And don’t forget that we’re moving to Benedict 101.)
Posted in Fiction on Feb 11th, 2019
“In the Cemetery Where Al Johnson is Buried” by Amy Hempel is definitely a story about fear. Of course, the overall theme is a fear of death, but then there is an underlying theme of the fear of running out of time to do something important. An important piece of this story that you shouldn’t miss is that […]
Posted in Fiction on Feb 11th, 2019
In the short story “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried,” Amy Hempel explores the last moments with a loved one who is dying. Indeed, the narrator is visiting her best friend at the hospital while she is sick and about to die. We understand that she comes late to visit her and that she […]
Posted in Fiction on Feb 11th, 2019
In Tobias Wolff’s “The Night in Question,” we gain a close look at the bonds formed in terrible circumstances and how they effect different characters’ lives. The story follows Frances when she goes to visit her younger brother Frank and delves into how their abusive childhood has shaped the course of their lives. The story […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 11th, 2019
“In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” by Amy Hempel is a very sad story where the main character is pre-mourning the looming death of her best friend who is dying possibly due to cancer. It is filled with various stories that had happened in their past, mostly related to death and natural disasters. […]
Posted in Fiction on Feb 11th, 2019
“In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” by Amy Hempel is a heartbreaking story that deals with guilt and grief and loss. This was the first story we’ve read that made me cry. We never learn the main character’s name; to us, she is the “Best Friend” of her dying friend, who is […]
Posted in Fiction on Feb 10th, 2019
“Are These Actual Miles?” is a short story written in the third person about a man and a woman trying to sell a car. The man, Leo, “sends” the woman, Toni, out on a date to see if her charm and good looks could hook a buyer for their automobile. Leo downed drink after […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 7th, 2019
Elegy in Translation by Meg Day I was trying to wave to you but you wouldn’t wave back —The Be Good Tanyas Forgive me my deafness now for your name on others’ lips: each mouth gathers then opens & I search for the wave the fluke of their tongues should make with the blow […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 6th, 2019
Both of the stories by Ron Rash are concerned with characters who have a deep, longing dissatisfaction with life. In the case of “Chemistry,” Paul’s illness is brought on by some malfunction of the brain, while in the case of “Burning Bright,” Marcie’s unhappiness is more situational. The two characters share more than just a […]