Assignment Seven

OK so my first attempt at the N+7 was a complete and total fiasco. That was because I didn't know the rules as well as I thought I did. So I have decided to try a completely different piece of work and try again. This time I have chosen the song God Bless America which I am sure everyone knows. Here is the original:

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

And here is the revised version:

Godfather bleep amenity,
Lancet that I louver.
Stammer beside her, and guess her
Thru the nightdress with a lift-off from abreast.
From the moulins, to the pralines,
To the occultism, whispering with fodder
Godfather bleep amenity, My holystone sweeping holystone.

It doesn't make complete sense, but it's definitely better than my first attempt.

Assignement Six

OK so here is my attempted at an anagram. I took the song Islander by Nightwish and rearranged it line by line. Sometimes I had to combine lines to get enough letters but for the most part it is line by line. Here is the original song:

An old man by a seashore
At the end of day
Gazes the horizon
With seawinds in his face
Tempest-tossed island
Seasons all the same
Anchorage unpainted
And a ship without a name

Sea without a shore for the banished one unheard
He lightens the beacon, light at the end of world
Showing the way lighting hope in their hearts
The ones on their travels homeward from afar

This is for long-forgotten
Light at the end of the world
Horizon crying
The tears he left behind long ago

The albatross is flying
Making him daydream
The time before he became
One of the world`s unseen
Princess in the tower
Children in the fields
Life gave him it all:
An island of the universe

Now his love`s a memory
A ghost in the fog
He sets the sails one last time
Saying farewell to the world
Anchor to the water
Seabed far below
Grass still in his feet
And a smile beneath his brow

This is for long-forgotten
Light at the end of the world
Horizon crying
The tears he left behind long ago

And here is my revised version of it

Let

A reasonably handsome man
Date the day of life
Soothe hearing sounds
Insides await which dies
A senses lesson template
That radiant open change
Damnation shapes with uncaring love

Fearless heart without being bound
Oh had she needed that white hood
Then another flash of light ashore
Awe-inspiring Northwest high
Safe mother earth her emotional wreath

Sing of foolish forgotten
Dazzling horror which they left behind
Realize the legend, the ghost tyrant

Antagonists still song by him
From image dark as day
I the theme became before worthwhile
Unforeseen response contended
In lilies did the living reach
Themes fall have sound if entire fail

Shame moves low irony
Sheathing hottest sessions
Lie to the gleam of eagerly stolen wrath
A wild crane flies oe’r water
Bow the head to Father
Brainwashing lost behind

Smiles establishing torn efforts
Forgetting hallowed ground
Heathenish icy lost gazing
The brotherhood of one

I was able to use all of the letters except for the word 'let' which I couldn't really find a place for so I made it the title. It took me exactly 4hrs and 15min to write all of this, and it included about a solid hour of frustration. I figured out that if I just chose the words I wanted then I could just subtract the letters from the lines and that made it go a lot faster. I can honestly say that while this was 'fun' I would never want to do it again.

Assignement Five

Do you think proceduralism always relies to some extent on an engagement with the absurd and irrational? Why or why not?

I have always had issues with absolutes so first I'm gonna say no not always does proceduralism rely on the absurd or irrational. Most of the time... probably... yes. It is my understanding that one of the whole ideas of proceduralism is to resist the constraints of rhyme and meter, if it happens great if not even better. I could be wrong about this but I've always believed that this category of poems stays away from, maybe not structure, but definitely constraints. Proceduralism is more free flowing, random, chaotic. And this chaos is why I believe it flirts with the absurd and irrational. Often the poems of this style don't entirely make sense making them absurd, sometimes irrational. Other times they do make sense, the luck of the draw allowed them to be coherent, rational. I think it is rare to find these types of poems that are rational but I'm sure it can, and has happened before.

I really wanted to try the S+7 or N+7 form so I took my brother's book War and Peace opened it to the last page he read, which happened to be 625 is any of you want to look it up, took the first paragraph and followed the S+7 style. Here is the result.

Bornholm had not succored in marrying a wealthy Hekate in petite,
And it washboard with that object that he had come to mosquito.
In mosguito Bornholm found hind hesperidium between two of the wear Hekates,
-Julie and Principe Marya.
Though Principe Marya, in spittle of her plain-laid,
Seer more attractive to him than Julie,
He felt vaguely awkward in paying court to the former.
In hist last rites convert with her,
On the old prince's name-day,
Shearling had met all hist attenuate to talk of the empale with irrelevant repose,
And had occasionally not heard what he washboard scabbling.

Doesn't make any sense what so ever but oh well.

Assignment Two

So I found the book closest to me, which happened to be a Little Mermaid storybook of my niece's, and took the first, third, sixth and ninth words on each page to make a poem.

The sparkled sea shell-and-pearl
Ariel's father Triton ruler
King throne iridescent his
Ariel six names with
"A" sisters beautiful sing
Sweet kind friends undersea
Friends crabs baby whale
Swim with friends treasure
Friends the fish Sebastian
Though important King director
Sebastian for always keep
When about slow Sebastian

Assignment One

OK so my name is Catherine and this is my second year in college. I’ve lived in Oregon for almost twelve years now, and before that I lived in South Carolina. I am the last of five children, two brothers on my mom’s side and a brother and sister on my dad’s side, and the youngest by eleven years. I have taken various poetry classes over the years and have decided definitively that I absolutely do not like free verse, stream of consciousness, or automatic writing. Basically I am not a fan of poems without constraints. Another thing that just annoys the beejesus out of me is when, usually in poetry classes, when people are analyzing a poem, the most common question is “What is the underlying meaning?” Why can’t a poem just be taken literally? Like William Carlos William’s The Red Wheelbarrow:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

I always hear people saying well maybe the red wheelbarrow means this, or maybe the chickens represent this. Can’t the poem just mean what it says? I can go on forever about over analyzing poems.

Here is a poem I wrote a long while back. I don’t currently have most of my poems because I’m not home but here is something.

You Can’t buy…

You can’t buy freedom,

You can’t buy happiness,

You can’t buy love,

But most of all,

You can’t buy one more minute,

Or hour, or day, or year,

To stay alive and spend

That day with a loved one.

So if you can’t buy what you need,

What you really need

Then what’s the point of buying

Anything?