PERMISSIONS: To view the blog, post on it, and comment on posts, you must be invited. I will send you an email invitation to join the blog, and then you must follow the instructions to join up and begin posting. You can't join the blog without first creating a Google account.

POSTING: Post your poems by clicking "New Post" at the top right of the page. Paste your poem into the window.

LABELING: Then label the post with the assignment name (i.e., "confessional poem," "sonnet," etc.), your name (i.e., "Tony Barnstone," etc.), and the week (i.e., "week one," "week two," but not "week 1"--spell out your numbers). If you post a poem in week two that is due in week three, label it "week three." When you begin to type in a label, the program will fill it in for you, so your post will be labeled with the rest of the poems in the same category.

COMMENTING: Afterwards, you can "comment" on the posts of your classmates. Post "group one" and "group two" one-page critical responses as "comments" on the posted poems, but also print out copies for me and for the poet and give them to us in class.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Response to McDaniel

A response to Origins by Jeffrey McDaniel

I'm from biking in the woods and warnings of prowlers
I'm from detached family values and sad limbs of family trees
I'm from mutt blood and hiding behind clothes racks
I'm from forced love and alcohol stained ceilings
I'm from stealing scenes in high school plays
I'm from uniforms and moonlit tag on golf courses
I'm from across the playground as the pretty girls learned about popular boys
I'm from lying to get out of babysitting and nomadic pupils
I'm from unwashed hair in good company and hands in mismatched pairs
I'm from not heeding warnings and empty shells
I'm from don't drive like your father because it's unsafe and don't interrupt like your mother because I can't stand it
I'm from men exploiting my sweetness to get a grab, a taste, a feel, of my nineteen year old sex
I'm from fuck you when my friends are around and why, why, why when I'm alone
I'm from talking behind my back and the spitting of it in my face from drama queens
I'm from nuzzled necks in cold wind
I'm from you're the reason I want to leave this family
I'm from exit plans that involve pills and cars and cliffs
I'm from you're not allowed to be a feminist until you stop letting shitty guys abuse you
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1 comment:

  1. Alexander JohnsonFebruary 21, 2009 at 11:51 AM

    Wow, great work... My only question is this: is this supposed to be autobiographical or a character? Either way it's an exciting and evocative portrait of a young woman, but I just figured I would ask.

    What I especially liked was how you used inference and how you alternated between that and being explicit. It's an effective technique. I haven't read McDaniel's work, so I don't know how close this is to his own, but yours stands on its own feet.

    I would only say that it seems a bit chronological, and I don't know if that was intentional (it feels like it's going from childhood to college years). It may make it a bit more powerful if you toyed with the time, but then separating the lines into chunks would become somewhat necessary. In any case, it's up to you in the end and I hope what I have had to say helps or gives you some other ideas for other poems. I look forward to reading more from you. :-)

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