All The Single Ladies

This brings me much joy:

Click on the picture. It takes you to a special place.

Conditional Poetics

I know I have sometimes said that people who post their poems on the internet really bother me. Usually that poetry is not very good and the poet posts it explicitly to gather praise from the internets. What I'm about to do pains me ever so slightly, and may be laden with hypocrisy. I am going to share with you, dear readers, one of my poems.

It's still pretty rough, this is about the third draft. I will not claim that it is any good (I like it a lot, but I'm far from impartial, and it's really fresh, so I'm even less impartial than I might be about another poem). The reason I'm posting it now is because I think it really needs a good title, and I can't think of one.

My dad suggested "Bread Pudding" because the 1970's pop band Bread came out with a (really terrible) song called "If" and the poem is like a pudding, especially bread pudding, because it is melange of material. He also suggested "Blue Universe... O" or something like that.

I've considered calling it something like "Empirical Condition" or "49 Conditions" or something like that. The poem is made of a series of half conditional statements so... that's where I got those titles. I don't like them much though.

Anyway, here is the poem:

if the poetry of science can be found in the stars
if the universe is, at its core, blue
if blue is nothing more than a wave-length
if the stars vibrate with cries of O
if silence (not sound) is the foundation of (English) language
if poetry has the power to teach the erring man
if I whisper secrets into blue clay mugs
if blue becomes onomatopoeic
if the prefix “demi” means one half
if poetry can be empirically dissected
if all possible scientific questions can be answered
if poetry is an experience of imminent revelation
if the (English) language can be picked apart and stripped to essence
if the scar exactly bisects my back
if I change the details (you) to improve the story (us)
if it is possible to write blue poetry
if there are some (many) questions science can’t answer
if we don’t speak over tea
if scar tissue is blue
if scars can be empirically dissected
if I use the blue clay mugs for tea
if poetry and science are at odds with each other
if O is a scar on the (English) language
if the prefix “hemi” means one half
if rocks can resist the sky
if poetry and science cannot be separated
if blue has the power to teach the erring man
if stars are rocks that didn’t resist
if we (I) must obey the (English) language
if blue is a rock on the surface of the universe
if the (English) language once meant something else entirely
if the rock and the sky are each half
if O hangs, silent, in the air between us
if blue always points south
if I write everything down and hide it
if the prefix “semi” means one half
if the story (us) is deeply scarred
if love can be empirically dissected
if paper beats rock
if it becomes possible for the writer to have, like Picasso, a blue period
if O is set aside for later
if one is rock and the other is sky
if the stars are made of blue clay
if every scar clutches a story
if Carolina, Cobalt, Sky, Steel and Midnight are all shades of blue
if O falls off the edge of the universe
if the (English) language can be sculpted in blue clay
if science has the power to teach the erring man
if we (I) throw implication to the wind and use only “if” but never “then”

Please post any ideas you have for a title (or anything else you want to say about the poem) in the comments. Or us whatever other means you have to communicate with me.

Thanks for your help, cyberfriends!

Helter Skelter

Hi Bloggophites! Did you miss me? I sure missed you.

I don't actually have anything particularly in mind to write about today, but I am taking a break from homework to blog anyway.

I guess because I haven't written in so long, I should really have a lot to say. Shall I tell you about my classes? Ok.

I am finally back in school full time. I moved back in with my parents back in July (not the most awesome thing I've ever done, but it's not really bad) for monetary reasons. Plus, if I don't have to worry about paying rent, I have time to focus on academics. I really just want to get school over and done with at this point. So I'm trying to focus - now that the semester is half-way over I'm kind of getting into the swing of things. I'm taking 4 classes, which doesn't seem like a lot, but their all upper-level and the work load is not insignificant.

My favorite (and hardest) class is a Critical Literary Theory course. The professor is fantastic. The reading is nearly impossible to understand, but once I do get it, it's fascinating. In a few weeks we are applying all the crap we've read (and presumably understood) to such things as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica. If that doesn't make an awesome class, I don't know what does.

I'm also taking another generic English class (Literary History blah blah blah). It's not bad. Not great.

I'm taking Communication and Gender because I thought it looked interesting and wanted to take something that was strictly English. It's an interesting class. I've discovered that Communications is sort of English Lite, so that class is fairly easy. Any of the writing we have to do I can pretty much handle with my eyes closed. The topic is really interesting though, and the discussions we have in class are quite stimulating.

Finally, I taking a Poetry Writing class. This is the great disappointment of my semester. I love writing, as those who know me or have been reading this blog for a while know. I expected this to be my favorite class of the semester. I wanted (and expected) it to be inspiring, to open new levels of creativity and intrigue in my poetry and the way I write in general. As it turns out, the class it strongly mediocre, bordering on blasé. I'm not sure the teacher (who is a grad student, not a professor) had any real sort of plan for the class. Everything seems sort of unorganized and incongruous. Plus she's kind of dippy and has a penchant for wearing mis-matched, neon fabrics plucked right out of the 70s. Tragically, the class has not only NOT inspired me to write much of anything at all, it's almost turning me against poetry. I say almost because there's probably not a force on earth that could really make me stop writing completely. Still, this class is disheartening and uninspiring.

I should really get back to my serious reading for class now. Good talk, bloggates. I'll try to visit you more often. I think I'll try NaBloPoMo again in November. I didn't much like doing it last year because I felt like the quality of my posts declined pretty drastically. This year, though, I don't think they could really be much worse. I might add in the additional goal of posting something of quality every day. If nothing else, maybe it will get me into the habit of blogging more often again. I really love this silly little project, and I hate to think I'm coming close to abandoning it.

Just Testin' Ya

It's midterm season. This is how I feel about it:



























That is all.