2nd half of City Eclogue....Still Lost

After reading the second half of City Eclogue, I am still completely confused on what to think. The poems still seem like the author just wrote some random words, put in random spacing, and decided to call it a book of poems. The class discussion that we had on Tuesday did help me a little bit with reading the poems but I'm still pretty lost with this whole poetry thing.

One poem that I sort of understood was on pg 121-122 called Escape Training: Instructor's Flying Rappel. This poem was actually pretty easy for me to read and understand. I think that since it was written almost like a story it helped me to be able to comprehend it. The poem did have some spacing throughout it that helped make the poem more dramatic; for example, when it says "you run out of breath     you run." Due to the spacing it causes you to see how dramatic that line can be. It really helps you to visualize running out of breath.

This poem used a lot of imagery. I could picture the majority of the poem in my mind, just like if you were to watch a movie. I could see someone preparing to jump off the cliff; taking the first step, then another, and finally taking the plunge off the face of the cliff. The line "ninety feet below it takes seconds the rope sings" helped me to picture how little time it takes to actually reach the bottom. I could also visualize the rope "singing" as it was being stretched out to the bottom.

Overall, I know that I'm still pretty lost when it comes to poetry but this one poem helped me to see that I'm slowly starting to understand poetry.

Why Does Poetry Have to Be So Confusing?!

Well, after another week of reading poems from our poetry packets, and also reading the first half of City Eclogue, I'd have to say that I'm more confused then ever about poetry. No matter how many times I go back through and re-read what we went over in class, it just goes in one ear and out the other. I don't know how so many people in the class can understand what the poems are about. To me, it seems like the poets just threw some words together and decided to call it a poem.

I tend to think more in terms of what stuff literally means. I'm not good at being an abstract thinker. There weren't many poems that I understood from the first half of the book. There were, however, a few different lines that when I thought about it I feel like I kind of understood it. I still think that I'm only thinking about it in a literal sense, but at least something stuck with me.

One of the lines was on page 48 where it said "arrested for what they mouthed off against." It makes me think about how people have always had to watch what they say because they can end up getting in trouble for it. Like take school for example, I had a teacher once where if you said something they didn't like, even if it was just you didn't think that their idea of what the author meant by saying something was the only thing the author meant, you'd get in a lot of trouble and be lectured about why you were wrong. That's just one of the many examples where people have to watch what they say.

Another line that I actually somewhat understood what the author was saying is on pg 56 where it says "he woke in a fight for his life in that he went at the alarm clock as if to kill." This made me think of where sometimes people have bad dreams and in the middle of a really bad part of that dream, when your alarm clock goes off, it scares you so you lunge towards the alarm clock because it scared you so bad. Going at the alarm clock like you're going to kill it is a normal response if it scared you that bad.

Overall, I'm still not getting the whole concept of poetry and I'm still struggling greatly to understand it, but I'm happy I was able to take something away from the book even if it was only understanding two or three lines.

My thoughts about Goldberg..

Okay, so first off I would like to point out that I am terrible at writing. After reading through what Goldberg wrote, I found that there were many helpful tips to help anyone with writing; no matter what level you currently are writing at. I thought that reading through the packet helped me learn some very useful skills that I will end up using, especially during this class.

Three major concepts that Goldberg talked about really stuck with me. The first piece of advice that Goldberg gave that I found very useful was when she talked about trusting your own mind when you are writing because you will create confidence in yourself through experience (pg 3). This was one of the major pieces of advice that I really connected with because I have no confidence in my ability to write. Goldberg helps me keep in mind that through my experience with writing, I will become confident in myself and what I end up writing.

The second piece of advice that I found useful was when she said to experiment with writing (pg 6). Goldberg said that you could try typing or speaking into a tape recorder instead of just handwriting. I found this interesting because of the idea of recording yourself and your thoughts. By doing that you are able to let your thoughts flow freely and you don't have a chance to censor what you are thinking or feeling. It can be helpful because sometimes the stuff that you censor would really help your writing but you might find it to be "lame" so you don't want to include it.

The third, and final, piece of advice that really stuck with me was when Goldberg said not to stop at tears, but to go through to the truth (pg 10). I found this piece of advice to be pretty powerful because sometimes when I've had to write I'll end up getting emotional (yes, I will admit to that). Most times it's because I'm frustrated with myself but I feel that if I just kept pushing through those tears I would probably end up writing something that would really be good.

Overall I felt like I took a lot of tips from Goldberg to heart. I feel like I'll be able to improve my writing, or at least I hope I will be able to improve it, by following most of the advice she gave.

Who is Sarah?

Hi guys,

My name is Sarah. I am a freshman at Eastern but I do have a pretty decent head start on my schooling. I graduated high school with my first year of college complete. I'm happy to say that when it comes to my credit level classification, I am considered a sophomore! :)

I'm super excited for college but I'm not looking forward to having even less time during the day since I never seem to have enough time during the day as is. I work at a daycare called The Learning Tree. I am currently an assistant teacher in the toddler room but I'm moving up to being an assistant teacher in preschool. I also am really enjoying working out pretty much everyday. It's the one thing that seems to keep my calm and helps me not get stressed.

I am undecided in what I want to go to school for but I'm hoping that taking a variety of classes and meeting new people and hearing about their majors will help me figure out what exactly I want to do! As much as I enjoy working with children right now, I don't see myself being a teacher for the rest of my life.

I believe that's pretty much it!  Hope ya know a little bit about me now! :)