Introduction to The Literary Studio
Posted in Poetry on Apr 12th, 2019
Meg Day’s poem “Batter My Heart, Transgender’d God” discusses Day’s complicated relationships with both relationship and gender. One of the first striking things about this poem is the title. One of the common mistakes people make in discussing trans issues (by which I mean, things that affect those who are transgender, as opposed to how some […]
Posted in Poetry on Apr 8th, 2019
In The Last Psalm at Sea Level by Meg Day, I read a poem titled, “If There Had Been Time for Healing.” I would have done it on the road – carved out a corner of that map & lost myself in its thick-clustered veins: I’d double back on potholed highways & stop alongside those lined […]
“Equestrian Monuments” by Luis Chaves seems to be a rather sorrowful poem. Through the structure of a litany poem, the life of a man is examined and then is described as being a complete waste. This man recollected his life as being lived in a fog. Unfortunately, he had that realization toward the end […]
Posted in Poetry on Mar 20th, 2019
Brenda Shaughnessy’s “McQueen is Dead, Long live McQueen” is an elegy in which the narrator explains how she has been mourning. There are many similes and metaphors in this poem to express the pain and the unclearness of her immediate future, which is stressful for her. Everything actually is blurred, not just how you see. Glasses […]
Posted in Poetry on Mar 19th, 2019
“It is a tragedy, yes, but a confusing one. What happened to the wrestlers and where have they gone? Loulou the Pomeranian would love to know. Outdoors the hills are buried in snow, but inside a rose, a rose full-blown, a roomful of rose. The bloom and its shadow overtaking the space. The bloom proposing […]
Posted in Assignments, Poetry on Mar 14th, 2019
Write a poem using one of these poetic forms or types, all of which are discussed in the glossary of literary terms on this blog: Ekphrasis “Description” in Greek. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on […]
Posted in Poetry on Mar 14th, 2019
The poem “Teenage Lesbian Couple Found in Texas Park with Gunshot Wounds to the Head” by Meg Day is an extremely powerful poem. The first thing that I noticed that helps make it so powerful is the repetition of “It’s always the girls” that starts off each stanza. As JGB always says, when you repeat […]
Posted in Poetry on Mar 13th, 2019
“Answer My Questions:” is a poem written by Meg Day that is written from the point of view of someone having to witness the impending or current death of a child. This is told to me by the last couplet in the poem, How do you choose a coffin for a body that’s still growing […]
Posted in Poetry on Mar 11th, 2019
In her collection of poems Last Psalm at Sea Level, Meg Day explores different form to treat different subjects and their limits. In the poem “On the Day That He Goes, I Will”, she dedicates the poem to Avery and we can imagine that this is one of her loved ones. The first surprise is at […]
Posted in Poetry on Mar 6th, 2019
Meg Day’s “Answer My Questions:” is a sorrowful poem about the impending death of someone close to the speaker. In the poem, the speaker uses “you” to address the dying person, but it doesn’t seem as though they actually voice these thoughts to the person aloud. Throughout the poem, the speaker makes references to things […]
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 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 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 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 Poetry on Jan 14th, 2019
In order to give you a sense of my expectations in regard to your blog posts, here is a sample from my Contemporary International Writers course last semester. The post is by Jessica Bell, writing about the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska’s poem “The Women of Rubens” (I’ve placed a pdf of some poems by Szymborska, including this poem, on Google Drive […]