ENCW 101 Spring 2019

Ansel Elkins’ “Going to the Movies Alone” that begins by describing different scenes to movies and ends by describing leaving the theater. Elkins uses an immense amount of imagery throughout the entire poem, but my favorite is in the last six lines: “and I go out the door marked EXIT and into the winter night, the […]

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The Heaven of Animals   Here they are.  The soft eyes open. If they have lived in a wood It is a wood. If they have lived on plains It is grass rolling Under their feet forever.   Having no souls, they have come, Anyway, beyond their knowing. Their instincts wholly bloom And they rise. […]

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Ron Rash writes “Burning Bright” in third-person limited omniscient about a woman, Marcie who has a late husband, Arthur, and a second husband, Carl. The town she lives in in North Carolina is going through a drought and someone is setting fires in the woods. Marcie begins to believe Carl, her second husband is setting […]

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“Parables” is a poem by Susannah Nevison about destruction split into five sections. The first speaks of darkness and how it grows in prisoners. The darkness, the evil, eventually pins the person down as others, the legal system and citizens most likely, watch. This darkness is man made and on occasion given to the person, […]

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“Teenage Lesbian Couple Found in Texas Park with Gunshot Wounds to the Head” is a powerful piece of poetry by Meg Day. The speaker does not directly reference the incident that the poem is named after, but instead refers to the violence women face at any given point. Day herself crafts the poem expertly with […]

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“Wind” by Ted Hughes is a short poem about an unhappy relationship and how that makes their house feel like a storm. The speaker begins by saying the house has been out at sea all night, which creates an image of solitude and a feeling of being lost. This is a similar feeling to how […]

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“In the Cemetary Where Al Jonson is Buried” by Amy Hempel is a short story about taking care of a loved one experiencing the process of dying. It resonated with me, as when I read it I had recently spent a month taking care of a dying loved one. One of the most terrible things […]

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“Musee des Beaux Arts” is a short poem by W. H. Auden and focuses on suffering. Auden chooses to focus on the way suffering goes unnoticed. The speaker tells of people going on about daily activities- eating, opening windows, walking- and how they don’t realize others are suffering while they do so. There are some […]

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In the essay “It Will Look like a Sunset,” Kelly Sundberg goes between two characterizations of her ex-husband: One as the kindest, gentlest partner she had ever had, and one as her abuser of eight years. While the two seem diametrically opposed on the surface, Sundberg’s essay, and others like it, reveal that this is […]

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In Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset”, we follow the events of her experience with domestic violence and her eventual decision to leave. Sundberg does an excellent job in playing with duality throughout her essay. We are met with Caleb, her husband and her abuser, and taken through his character completely. […]

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“It Will Look Like a Sunset” by Kelly Sundberg was probably one of the most powerful pieces I have ever read. The pain she spoke about and the way she wrote it made it so real, she held nothing back. I thought it was especially brave of her to not only discuss what bad her husband […]

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When ever you hear stories of domestic abuse you only get a general picture. Man beats his wife. But there was something about the way Sundberg bounced from reason to memory that really paints the picture of what she actually went through. While reading this, it felt almost insulting to put it down and not […]

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  Salman Rushdie, in his essay “Out of Kansas,” presents an intriguing, insightful analyzation of the famous film and book The Wizard of OZ. He starts by explaining how the production inspired him to write his first story, entitled, “Over the Rainbow.” As a young boy he and his family traveled a lot and amidst […]

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Nell Boeschenstein in many words described everything I’ve been though in the past year. Though breast cancer wasn’t something I had to worry about, I still wen through a surgery that cause me to loose 2 pounds of. breast on each side because of an accident. Though Im not a stranger to breast surgery, the […]

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  Nell Boeschenstein’s essay, “A Few Words About Fake Breasts” takes the very serious topic of breast cancer and puts a rather playful, humorous spin on it, while still fully addressing the fact that breast cancer is a terrible trial to go through. Throughout the essay, Boeschenstein brings in the element of humor by referring […]

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“A Few Words about Fake Breasts,” by Nell Boeschenstein is a personal essay written in the second point of view. It’s about Boeschenstein’s experience and struggle with the aftermath of getting a double mastectomy to reduce the risk of breast cancer that runs in her family, and today’s societal norms. She first explains why she […]

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The Fourth State of Matter by Jo Ann Beard really made me think about who I am as a writer. She uses details that doesn’t over do her point but it’s is direct and focused on a specific goal. She plays with our minds as if she has our minds in her hands first starting […]

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“Toward a Unified Theory of the Doughnut,” Elizabeth McCracken is a nonfiction personal essay where McCracken tells the passage of time with different forms of doughnuts in each setting. It is written in the present tense with a few “flashback” types of scenes and her voice is very present throughout the essay. One of my […]

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Elizabeth McCracken’s “Toward a Unified Theory of the Doughnut” describes her experiences with doughnuts. She chose to write this essay in a strange way, each paragraph is numbered and its not written in true essay form. It is filled with comedy but also a realness that makes you think and go… oh wow. The chuckles start […]

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The “Seam of the Snail” by Cynthia Ozick is a short story about a girl’s perception of her mother and perceptions of herself. Through the lense of first person reflective, the story begins with the girl looking back on her childhood, growing up in the depression. Within this memory the girl talks about how her […]

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Terezin The heaviest wheel rolls across our foreheads To bury itself deep somewhere inside our memories We’ve suffered here more than enough, Here in this clot of grief and shame, Wanting a badge of blindness To be a proof for their own children. A fourth year of waiting, like standing above a swamp From which […]

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“The Seam of the Snail” a short story written by Cynthia Ozick. The story begins with Cynthia discussing memories of her childhood with her cousin Sarah. Her cousin Sarah was a perfectionist and could tell who made Cynthia’s dresses. Cynthia also notes in small detail her Uncle Jake’s perfection of building “meticulous grandfather clocks”, to later go on […]

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“Hip-Hop Ghazal BY PATRICIA SMITH   Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips, decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips. As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak, inhaling bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru hips. Like something boneless, we glide silent, seeping ‘tween floorboards, […]

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We can’t remember her name, but we remember where we buried her. In a blanket the color of a sky that refuses birds. The illiterate owls interrogate us from the trees, and we answer, We don’t know. Maybe we named her Dolores, for our grandmother, meaning sadness, meaning the mild kisses of a priest. Maybe […]

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Panic at John Baldessari’s Kiss by Elena Karina Byrne The aftermath always happening like an airplane falling, or a man midair falling from a horse, and an arrow, a gun, many guns pointing away, at us, our all bull’s-eye-on-the-mark. This is what he sees when he sees. Maybe Wrong or not, the appropriation, the film clip, chase, […]

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Reading poems in “Last Psalm at Sea Level” by Meg Day. The poem that I could relate, and understand to the most is Answer My Questions:. This poem make sure us think about the beginning of time in a more of a modern mindset, Meg Day writes “Who called the time” By saying this she make us […]

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  “On Nights When I Am Always Almost A Mother” by Meg Day is a short poem composed of lines no longer then three words each. Through the literary devices of vivid imagery and descriptive language Meg evokes a feeling of empathy in the reader. There is a deep sense of loss and sadness in […]

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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 […]

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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, […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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“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 […]

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“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. […]

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  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 […]

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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 […]

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“Burning Bright,” by Ron Rash, is a story about a widow who married her current husband only two years after her first one died. It’s written in third-person limited from the wife, Marcie’s perspective. She describes how she met her current husband because her husband recently died, and the “new” man was new in town […]

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