Cornelia De Lange Syndrome

Laura reflects on living with a brother who has Cornelia De Lange Syndrome and then launches into a personal story of an encounter of someone mistreating her brother for his special needs. Though the story seems to have personal impact on the author, it isn't specifically addressed in the memoir.

I really liked the pieces of description in this piece. You ability to weave words and phrases into delights on the tongue made it hard to not want more when I was done reading. I couldn't tell if you were using a thesaurus or if that was your natural vocabulary but - either way - good for you. You painted these really specific images that you can't forget as you shy away from the cliches and stick with the hard details of the setting. "her three fingers covered in white, greasy lotion that smelled like Clementines and a doctor’s office" is clearly describing sunscreen lotion by use of the senses, which I think made your scenes really believable.

I did struggle with it being too descriptive at points. Sometimes I would get lost in a sentence with so many dependent clauses that I had to read it a few times to draw out the meaning. I think that some of the description can be condensed in some places. The ending was quite abrupt. I know that the beginning of the piece is talking about your experiences with your brother but the ending doesn't seem to provide any sort of closure for the reader at all. There's no reflection on the event, there's no lesson learned, there's not even a sappy "this is what i learned today mom" tearful speech.

Besides the weak ending, I think everything else was done quite well and you definitely have an interesting piece on your hands.

a night on the drunk bus

"A Night on the Drunk Bus" details Sally's bad day and spending a night riding around on the Security Shuttle at Auburn. She humorously recounts a story told by the bus driver that night, about young love and blueberry gum.

First of all, I absolutely loved the tone of this story. You portray yourself realistically and talk about situations that have happened to ALL of us (in different forms) without shying away from the gory details. You also touch on personal Auburn experiences, such as the wonder of the drunk bus specifically the snickering on the bus when us friendly passengers see the drivers as people rather than a personal chauffeur. Your humor combines well with the story, with details in certain places where you admit to exaggerating for the sake of writing and sarcastic thoughts that made me laugh out loud (lolroflmycopter etc.) (i.e. "no, Dan, I was actually hoping you would ignore my question" and "'her lukewarm coffee trickling down my calf' hardly gets the point across")

 I'm sure this will be brought up in class because it's quite obvious that there are no paragraph breaks so I won't waste time talking about that. And while I understand the need to describe your unlucky day, I feel like you wanted the core of your story to be about your time on the drunk bus which is why I might recommend cutting down some of the information beforehand. As it is, your bad day takes up half the paper which threw me off because I didn't realize that the paper would be so short. I didn't see any real reflection or meaning behind the story or how it effected you besides making drunk bussing a hobby. I don't want you to cut the humor anywhere but it kind of creates a joking mood that takes away significance from the piece overall. I think there could have been more description of those in the drunk bus or describing the air in the drunk bus. I think I'm not the only one when I say "when you get on that bus, there are certain people around you that create a mood." I'd also like to hear your thoughts on why you thought his story was dumb, though I looooved that the girls in the bus began holding out their hands for a piece without question. 

Please don't lose your humor, Plz.

Left

Alethia reflects on the relationship she had with her mother, before and following moving out. She comes to the realization that it took courage for her to leave a bad situation with her mother but she admits that she can see where her mother was coming from.

I like this piece because it shows a raw event. It starts off with an awkward encounter at the Dollar General with a cashier which launches into the backstory of why Alethia moved out of her mother's house. I like the addressing of the multiple meanings of the word "Left" and think that the title is simple but perfect. I thought it was interesting that it took time for her siblings to tell her of their relationship with their mother; it really showed the distance between them. I think my favorite line was ". All the time spent trying to confront problems that didn’t want to be confronted is time you can spend trying to heal" because I think that this is something that everyone can learn from and everyone can relate to but so few people recognize it that they get caught up in the past and end up holding grudges or feeling regret.

I think the transitions were a little shaky at times. There was a jump between a personal experience to telling history of her mother and back again that I think could have been fleshed out a little more. With this, there were times where spans of time were summarized only to go back to a time before that which left me a little dizzy trying to put the events in order. The scenes worked really well as you didn't need the dialogue for a lot of the yelling, though I think that would have made the piece stronger. By generalizing her mother's rage, the reader gets a biased side of the story (which I suppose is what a personal essay is supposed to do...) and makes her mother out to be "the bad guy".

I'm not saying that our author doesn't give credit where credit is due, it just seems like she was so personally affected by the situation that she doesn't reflect on the reasons her mother did some of the things she did. Did her mother feel entitled to her daughter's money because she was her daughter or because she had helped her in some way and thought that she deserved some credit? Can we get specifics on what her mother was sick with, so we can experience some sympathy? Was it verbal abuse that kept her siblings quiet or was it something else?

I think that this essay is written from the heart about a very personal experience. I respect you for sharing this story with us.

five of me

"Five of Me" documents how Leslie came to be born. She explores the world of her parents and their history, delving into their desire for a child and the frustration they faced when they weren't able to conceive.

I found this story fascinating that it was told from her mother's point of view. I mean, there would be no other way to do it but it was really interesting to see the details that she thought out and her speculations on what her parents felt. These speculations make the story seem more real to me because our author wasn't the one who was there but it able to accurately paint the picture to show how her mother must have felt. There was a lot of detail, which I liked, because it didn't gloss over her mother's attempts unlike most stories do with a simple "they tried for months and grew more downtrodden but then a baby was miraculously born". Instead, Leslie took that phrase and expanded on the experience, creating an overall interesting story to read and a personal look into the events that transpired before her birth.

I didn't like the ending. I understand where it came from, as a reference to her mother's treatment where there was a possibility of sextuplets. I understand that the memoir has come to a close and needs to be wrapped up in some way to show Leslie's birth into the world but it felt like it fell short. There was such great imagery throughout the whole piece and she started to continue that imagery on the last page, painting the scene of her parents and brother and what they were doing. But I guess I would have liked to see a guess on her mother receiving the news or (if possible) a scene documenting the positive pregnancy test. Because there wasn't ever a scene, it kind of dragged on even though the information was interesting.

The last line just...didn't work for me? I guess because Leslie didn't touch on the possibility of sextuplets more than once in the piece. I almost feel like it would have worked even better with just cutting that last line and ending it that way. I guess because I was confused at one point where I thought Leslie was the older sibling so I thought that the story would end without her mother getting pregnant. But once I got to the end, it all made sense. I don't think that needs clarification because I'm just a ditz and bad at paying attention. On the note from earlier, I think there could be a different title. I don't have any specific suggestions but I think it could be better at talking about what the story will address.

Great work!!

learning to let go

Carrie's story is about an experience she had before college, where she decided against her instinct to just on a tire rope swing and seized up, sending her to the hospital. As most personally stories do, this memoir requires a certain amount of knowledge of Carrie's life to understand the significance of it. After reading the ending, I realized that her relationship with her mother is strong and her going on the swing was almost a symbolic flying out of her mother's nest for the first time.

I didn't realize that Carrie had had a seizure. With her recollection of the few memories she has after her jump, it was hard to tell what had happened to her. I really liked that she emphasized her inability to recall most of tose memories, as that was quite realistic, and the sentence "I’m still, to this day, hearing about things that happened that I don’t remember." which reinforced the memory for me. I think the dialogue was near perfect in every place; there was humor where there needed to be and the dialogue really did something for the story, rather than just filler. We got a better look at her companions and her relationship with her mother.

On that subject, I might suggest fleshing out the last paragraph a bit more. You set up a meeting with your mother and, with a bit of foreshadowing in the middle, about how upset she would be with you. But, upon the actual first conversation post-seizure, I found it a bit lackluster that the scene was basically summarized to wrap up the memoir. I wish that the whole last page was just dialogue, about the worries you had about going to college and your mother's responses to that. I'm sure it's hard to remember exact words of course because memories are hazy like that but "I talked to her about some of my worries about college and how much I was going to miss her" just seemed too curt if you're trying to show the relationship you had with your mom and what changed after the incident.

I really like that we get into your mind during the moments before the jump. I think that it's essential for a reader to be in the narrator's shoes and I really think you captured those feelings right before you jumped perfectly. I wish there had been a little bit more setting? I'm not sure if it's necessary, but maybe just putting the reader in a place that's familiar: describing some of the lake, maybe someone fell off the dock and is splashing a friend, laughter tinkling in the wind (please don't use that line, it's so corny). Just little details to bring the reader to the setting to fully set the scene we're about to experience.

Other than that, I think you did a great job!

conceal, don't feel [finalish draft]

Kevin Mayo

ENGL 2000

Ms. Spell

10 April 2014

Conceal, Don’t Feel

It was because of my father that I got better at golf. He was constantly telling me the advantages of knowing the game of golf and explaining why he liked to go out and play with his buddies. I was young, then, and my mother was really good at convincing me that I needed to go play golf with my dad because “he needed this” or “he wasn’t feeling great” or “he would really enjoy it if you went with him.”

After sitting through church doodling on the program while my mother pinched my father to stay awake, my dad would always ask me on the way home: “You want to go play golf with me today?” He always made sure to make eye contact with me in the mirror of the car, where I would shift uncomfortably in the backseat and start reading over my “notes” from church. Sometimes I made up excuses and sometimes I said yes only to take a nap later. Either way, whenever I broke eye contact with him in that small little mirror, he would just smile and shake his head. “No, that’s okay.” He would assure me when I apologized for wanting to play my GameCube instead. My mother would give me a stern look and, after a short conversation at home, I would appear in the basement at 3:15, dressed in a polo, shorts, and a hat that never fit on my head right.

The golf course that we went to was rarely visited by women. We could never convince my mom to come to the course which just meant that my dad and I grew closer. It was mostly old black men getting a cheap round of golf in, either paying the additional money for carts or just bringing along push carts to roll around on the fairways. Whenever I got out of the car in that parking lot, my heart started racing. I think it was confidence. Once I got to a point where it wasn’t embarrassing for my dad to golf with me, I started to visit the course more often. Something about the rubber spikes on the bottom of my shoes and the gravel parking lot turning to smooth concrete when you stepped onto the course made me nervous.

My dad was never far behind me, hovering near my shoulder when I visited the putting green before our round. He watched from the clubhouse while I shanked shag balls into the woods next to the course. When our neighbors showed up, it was showtime. We would flip a tee in the air to decide who would tee off first. It was usually just the four of us, but sometimes another older man would join our group. Once, we had someone join our group who kind of laughed at my presence with the group. After the others had hit their respective shots and displayed their differences in age by the distance of their drives, I was up next.

“Your daughter can use the ladies’ tee, if she wants.” This was before I would recognize my actual identity as a male – but that’s a story for another day.

I remember looking at my dad as I pushed the tee into the ground, between the two blue stones representing the “Seniors” tee. I wondered how he would respond. He grinned and, I swear to you, there was a flash of sunlight on his gold tooth, making his grin infectious for me.

“Just watch.” He gave me a nod.

If you’ve never played golf before, then you don’t know the amount of sweat that piled on my forehead. There were only a handful of people standing around the teebox but the amount of pressure that falls on your shoulders to succeed and hit a golf ball with precision, force, and aim is one of the most terrifying and exhilarating moments to experience. My hands were shaking. I stared down the green shaft of the driver and I closed my eyes. As soon as I had convinced myself I was definitely ready, I took a step back and took a couple more practice swings. What was a hat good for anyway if it couldn’t stop sweat from leaking into my eyes?

I stepped back up to the ball. Etched on the side were my initials: AMM, written in my dad’s thin uppercase handwriting, made jagged from my continual use of this ball. I let out a quick breath and then swung, staring up at the fairway in hopes that I hadn’t fucked this up. The ball soared, landing a great deal past any of the other balls in the fairway and I heard a soft “Wow” behind me. I turned around and pushed my golf club in my bag, grinning the whole time.

“That’s why she doesn’t use the ladies tee.” My father said proudly, pushing his cart past me as we starting trekking down the tee box. I came pretty close to crying that day; my dad seemed really proud that I had done so well.

I remember the first time my father shed tears. 

My parents had picked me up from school just like it was any other day and took the twenty minute drive from work to home with little chatter. I was usually filled with trivial stories and my parents usually chattered about changes to the Birmingham district. 

When we got home, I'm sure I disappeared into my room like usual to read a trashy teen lit novel, my father to the basement to watch sports in the dark and pretend not to fall asleep halfway through, and my mother to their bedroom to read her African-American books, the only kind of books she had.

My mother called me downstairs which I was reluctant to do because I'd just gotten to an emotionally juicy part of my novel and whatever she was interrupting me for could wait (examples include: "there are socks on the floor in your room" and "it's six PM on a Saturday put something else besides pajamas on"). When her call became more insistent, I thundered down the stairs, running my greasy fingers down the mauve walls, nudging the wooden railing with my hip. Childishly making my presence known and that I was obeying her demand, however reluctantly.

I hung a left to the hallway down to my parents' bedroom and leaned into the doorway, rolling my eyes at my stern mother who sat at the edge of the bed. "Yeah?"

"Sit down, honey."

"Why, am I in trouble?"

She smiled sadly at me and I instantly felt this strange pain in my chest. My mother wasn't the greatest at showing sympathy. So in this small moment, seeing her show that look filled with pity, fear, and discomfort, I swallowed hard and felt the corners of my eyes stinging. I didn't know what I would be crying for, just that something serious was about to happen.

"Honey, your Daddy had been feeling very sad today. Honey, Daddy's crying in the basement right now." I was twelve years old, very past the point of calling my father "Daddy" anymore, not that she would notice. What could possibly make my father so upset? He hadn't cried at his father's funeral, he hadn't cried when Mom had a meltdown and ran away to Virginia, he hadn't cried at anything. My dad was a strong man and he was someone I looked up to: someone who didn't have to show all those expressive emotions when he felt them.

I didn't believe her. I wanted to go downstairs but her grip on my arm was too tight. I was eight inches taller than her but all it took was a look for me to sit back down, ears back and tail between my legs. I finally brought up the courage to ask the question. "Why is Dad crying?"

"Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore."

"What? Why?" It was such a strange answer to that question. I was generally a good kid: I did was I was supposed to, I rebelled where I could, but I mostly followed whatever they said without questioning. I strained to remember if I had something that would indicate otherwise to my dad. 

I really couldn't think of anything. I'd struggled with the relationship with my mother: we fought often about what I should or shouldn't wear, what was acceptable to do in public, how I needed to act when we went to church. My dad was often the only part of my childhood where I could actually be whoever and be accepted as I was. The other place was the internet. Our afternoons at the golf course gradually became a routine for me, not just a chore.  The only thing I really shared with my mother was a love for reading but she was never interested in anything not by black authors so I wondered if she and I were even related. 

"..Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore because...well. We talked about it and we decided that it was the right time to tell you: You're adopted."

I sat still for a moment, still captivated by the image of my father crying. It was hard to imagine his happy round smile turned anywhere but up. The graying hairs of his beard and moustache poking in his lips as he grinned, his belly shaking with laughter were replaced with tears streaming down his face, making ugly what once held a serious passion for his job. The way his eyes lit up when he made a joke, the way he snickered and sometimes started coughing when he said something that was too funny. It was too strange.

"You guys don't have to have anything to worry about." I moved over and put my hand on my mother's shoulder, giving her a half-hug. "You're the ones who raised me, you're my parents as far as I'm concerned." I heard her sniffle and then give me a little push. "Go talk to your father. Make him feel better, okay?"

I stepped out of the bedroom and pulled open the door to the basement. I looked down the stairs and hesitated. Did I want to see my father in that weakened state? Would I ever see him cry again? I was bringing him good news - that would mean he would stop crying, right?

As I crept down the stairs, I wondered if my presence would surprise him. I wondered if they were testing me. A cruel, sick joke to see if I actually loved them and if I would run away, like I always planned to do when things rarely didn't go my way. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I knew it wasn't a test. The two television facing the couch were blank and soundless. The florescent light over the workbench provided a sickly light onto the concrete which made me wonder if he was down there at all. I flicked the light switch by the bottom of the stairs and I felt a jerk in my chest, like an instinctual knee kick from a hit to the patella.

My father sat on the couch, soft unfamiliar noises coming from him as he held his head in his hands. His ashy elbows balanced on his bare knees and I was struck by how old my parents really were. His bald head had little gray hairs growing on the sides, a sign that my mother was going to cut his hair in the basement later that week. I saw the gold band wrapped around the fourth finger on his left hand, contrasting with the dark, strong skin on the back of his hand. Though he was fifty-six at the time, I always thought that his arms and hands didn't show it.

Finally, I cleared my throat and, sweat appearing on my forehead, I approached him and sat next to him on the couch. We stayed quiet for a moment and then I slowly wrapped my arm over his shoulder. He gave a quiet sob and then began to hastily wipe his eyes, giving a fake smile through blurred vision. 

I don't really remember what he told me. I don't really remember what we talked about. I do remember crying with him. I remember sitting next to him on the couch, trying not to sob pathetically as he asked me “Do you still love us?” It was really hard not to break when he was grinning through his tears and rubbing me on the back.

I assured him, “I love you even more now” and he patted me on the back. He looked like he wanted to cry more, but he also looked less distraught. “Go see if Mom needs help in the kitchen.” I smiled at him, a little sad that our moment was over and turned to go. “Hey.” I turned back around and looked at him as he stood up, motioning at me. “I love you too.”

Our round of golf wasn’t great. I missed about two hundred really easy putts, frustrating me to no ends. I shanked a couple of iron shots and ended up taking a lot of drop balls, jacking my score up. It was starting to get late as we trudged the uphill fairway to finish the eighteenth hole. It was straight out of a movie: a father and child pulling their carts up the fairway as the sun set majestically in the background. He reached over and pat me on the shoulder, smiling at me with those warm dark eyes. “I’m glad you came with me today.”

“Me too,” I wiped at the corners of my eyes, trying to hide my emotion as we approached the green.

“Finish strong, go ahead and sink that putt.”

I did.

conceal don't feel [memoir] [actual thing]

I remember the first time my father shed tears.

My parents had picked me up from school just like it was any other day and took the twenty minute drive from work to home with little chatter. I was usually filled with trivial stories and my parents usually chattered about changes to the Birmingham district.

When we got home, I'm sure I disappeared into my room like usual to read a trashy teen lit novel, my father to the basement to watch sports in the dark and pretend not to fall asleep halfway through, and my mother to their bedroom to read her African-American books, the only kind of books she had.

My mother called me downstairs which I was reluctant to do because I'd just gotten to an emotionally juicy part of my novel and whatever she was interrupting me for could wait (examples include: "there are socks on the floor in your room" and "it's six PM on a Saturday put something else besides pajamas on"). When her call became more insistent, I thundered down the stairs, running my greasy fingers down the mauve walls, nudging the wooden railing with my hip. Childishly making my presence known and that I was obeying her demand, however reluctantly.

I hung a left to the hallway down to my parents' bedroom, smirking at the faceless African dancers hung in time on the wall. They'd confused me as a child - black faces with colorful garb? What were they celebrating? I leaned into the doorway, rolling my eyes at my stern mother who sat at the edge of the bed. "Yeah?"

"Sit down, honey."

"Why, am I in trouble?"

She smiled sadly at me and I instantly felt this strange pain in my chest. My mother wasn't the greatest at showing sympathy. So in this small moment, seeing her show that look filled with pity, fear, and discomfort, I swallowed hard and felt the corners of my eyes stinging. I didn't know what I would be crying for, just that something serious was about to happen.

"Honey, your Daddy had been feeling very sad today. Honey, Daddy's crying in the basement right now." I was twelve years old, very past the point of calling my father "Daddy" anymore, not that she would notice. Confusion, shock, fear. What could possibly make my father so upset? He hadn't cried at his father's funeral, he hadn't cried when Mom had a meltdown and ran away to Virginia, he hadn't cried at anything. My dad was a strong man and he was someone I looked up to: someone who didn't have to show all those expressive emotions when he felt them.

I didn't believe her. I wanted to go downstairs but her grip on my arm was too tight. I was eight inches taller than her but all it took was a look for me to sit back down, ears back and tail between my legs. I finally brought up the courage to ask the question. "Why is Dad crying?"

"Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore."

"What? Why?" It was such a strange answer to that question. I was generally a good kid: I did was I was supposed to, I rebelled where I could, but I mostly followed whatever they said without questioning. I strqained to remember if I had something that would indicate otherwise to my dad.

I really couldn't think of anything. I'd struggled with the relationship with my mother: we fought often about what I should or shouldn't wear, what was acceptable to do in public, how I needed to act when we went to church. My dad was often the only part of my childhood where I could actually be whoever and be accepted as I was. My dad and I would go out to the golf course on Sundays and those were the days when I realized how much I loved my father. Not just because we had a good time and he was helping me get better at something, but because it was an afternoon away from our nagging glue that held our tiny family together. With the amount of time my father and I spent together and the vast difference of my enjoyment of my time with him over my time with her, I sometimes wondered if she and I were even related.

"..Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore because..well. We talked about it and we decided that it was the right time to tell you: You're adopted."

I sat still for a moment, still captivated by the image of my father crying. It was hard to imagine his happy round smile turned anywhere but up. The graying hairs of his beard and moustache poking in his lips as he grinned, his belly shaking with laughter were replaced with tears streaming down his face, making ugly what once held a serious passion for his job. The way his eyes lit up when he made a joke, the way he snickered and sometimes started coughing when he said something that was too funny. It was too strange.

"You guys don't have to have anything to worry about." I moved over and put my hand on my mother's shoulder, giving her a half-hug. "You're the ones who raised me, you're my parents as far as I'm concerned." I heard her sniffle and then give me a little push. "Go talk to your father. Make him feel better, okay?"

I stepped out of the bedroom and pulled open the door to the basement. I looked down the stairs and hesitated. Did I want to see my father in that weakened state? Would I ever see him cry again? I was bringing him good news - that would mean he would stop crying, right?

As I crept down the stairs, I wondered if my presence would surprise him. I wondered if they were testing me. A cruel, sick joke to see if I actually loved them and if I would run away, like I always planned to do when things rarely didn't go my way. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I knew it wasn't a test. The two television facing the couch were blank and soundless. The florescent light over the workbench provided a sickly light onto the concrete which made me wonder if he was down there at all. I flicked the light switch by the bottom of the stairs and I felt a jerk in my chest, like an instinctual knee kick from a hit to the patella.

My father sat on the couch, soft unfamiliar noises coming from him as he held his head in his hands. His ashy elbows balanced on his bare knees and I was struck by how old my parents really were. His bald head had little gray hairs growing on the sides, a sign that my mother was going to cut his hair in the basement later that week. I saw the gold band wrapped around the fourth finger on his left hand, contrasting with the dark, strong skin on the back of his hand. Though he was fifty-six at the time, I always thought that his arms and hands didn't show it.

I remember biting my lip, taking in this moment of sadness that I could not understand. It kept going through my mind: why are they so upset? They're my family, I couldn't ever love them less. Why are they crying? I love them more than anything in the world. Years later, I would discover that I could love them less. By separating myself from them biologically, I would come to isolate my feelings and myself away from them.

Finally, I cleared my throat and, sweat beginning to appear on my forehead, I approached him and sat next to him on the couch. We stayed quiet for a moment and then I slowly wrapped my arm over his shoulder. He gave a quiet sob and then began to hastily wipe his eyes, giving a fake smile through blurred vision.

I don't really remember what he told me. I don't really remember what we talked about. I do remember crying with him. I remember staring into his eyes and realizing that he wasn't just a hero, he had flaws and imperfections and fears. I remembered loving him more, having more respect for him. I remember telling him that everything was going to be okay and that I was always going to love him. More than anything else, I remember feeling closer to my father and pledging my eternal devotion to be a Daddy's boy.

If you knew then, Mr. Green Jeans

I found that both pieces offered a myriad of ways to look at creative non-fiction as a genre. "Son of Mr. Green Jeans" was a disjointed telling of history by providing a series of seemingly unrelated facts to provide "a meditation on fathers", which took many pieces and made into a whole. "If You Knew Then What I Know Now" is a memoir using every little detail the author can recall to "warn" his younger self of what he was getting into, creating the memories that Ryan recalls now, in the present.

In Van Meter's story, I was confused about the line in the middle "They saw it and there it will be, holding a box of cupcakes." Is he referring to himself naively holding the box of cupcakes referring as a metaphoric image of his homosexuality? It was interesting that, in their reunion, Van Meter is conscious of the reunion apology cliche and acts on it, telling Jared not to apologize.

"Green Jeans" is written from small snippets of time, often including an exact year or date which made the story that much more personal. By providing that level of detail (read: you can google it), Moore brings the reader to realistic people doing realistic things. He increases his solidity as a reliable source by using the name of the actors rather than referring to their roles in their respective television shows. He provides their names for reference but doesn't go into specifics of their character - this is to create a connection with the audience as if the name says it all. Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best were iconic in the time that the flourished and the narrator relies on this importance to bring the actors to realistic life with facts on the juxtaposition of their cookie-cutter Father roles and what kind of lives they actually lead.

The tense of Van Meter's story is an interesting choice. It's basically second person future tense, which puts the author at a different point in time from the audience. This perfectly describes the title: the author's hindsight vision is twenty-twenty and wants to address that to his past-self by describing each step of the story to him as inevitable because he's already seen it. I think it worked though I wonder if the end could have been changed. I liked the transition to present tense, to show the audience that we've entered the "What I know now" but I wonder if he had continued with the future tense, would it have worked just as well?

physical evidence

I enjoyed the writing of "Physical Evidence" because it almost reads like a short story, providing more information as the plot thickens and our narrator finds out more about herself. The difference between a short story and this story, I think, is the personalization of the subject. The unexpected murder of Carlisle's mother is not a light-hearted subject but she tackles it with the fiercest determination to tell her story. I found myself shaking my head the entire story, imagining our narrator building up the courage to call the police station in an attempt to find answers and not receiving much more.

The final line "This is what I know about my mother: I am her daughter, and her memory rests with me" is so powerful that it's still resonating with me. Here she was, finding answers to her burning questions that anyone might have been too scared to find. She accepted them in stride and, without dashing her image of her mother, Carlisle lays out everything she knows about her mother on that final page.

Throughout her essay, Carlisle explains her transition of growing up, from being a curious child at eight to a worshiping child at eleven, a morbid child at twelve, and a responsible adult. The few times she talks about being a child is indicative of the stages of development that most people go through, which I thought was a really interesting way of expressing change.

This narrative is written with such personal details that the reader can't help but feel empathetic toward the writer. She reveals the answers to each of her questions as she finds them, which creates a journey that the reader can venture on with her, finding out as they go together. I would like to see more by Carlisle, about a different personal subject, to see if she can invoke the same emotional sympathy that I felt from reading this.

well a rat always knows when it's in with weasels

Dillard's explanation of the life of weasels does well to express her suggestion of "carpe diem". I never imagined weasels as being so ferocious, what with the way the author describes it. I always saw carnivores as doing what they need to survive, not dragging corpses to their crib just because. I know that I may be taking the metaphor too literally, but if Dillard's suggestion to "live in the moment" is to satisfy your immediate needs and fuck everything else then I don't think that I can get on board.

I think that Dillard has a more prominent meaning, though, in her final paragraph where she argues for you to "grab your one necessity." I think that people should have a passion that they pursue until their very last breath. By dedicating ourselves to that one calling, we are not like that weasel. I can't tell if the author is trying to relate the weasel's violence as his one necessity or if the author is trying to prove that the weasel is not human because the weasel cannot choose what its necessity is. Should we choose to dedicate ourselves to one calling, however, we will find something cannot be stripped from our person. 

I am confused with "I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should." Where is the should involved? Because we're humans we should live by choice instead of necessity simply because we have the option? The weasel should focus on finding its next meal and where to lay his head because that's how things "should be"? Is Dillard arguing that we live in the moment, "remembering nothing"? I suppose it would be favorable to be able to forget the past and just move forward but we are a bundle of experiences; we learn by associating things with other things. 

I like Dillard's connection to the weasel,it provides a fresh look at the human experience as compared to an animal in a non-cliche way (such as a pride of lions or murder of crows). I think that the heavy description in the specific memory provides a clear picture of the scene, puts the reader in the moment which makes her reflection all that more relevant to her image. I want to get better at providing a descriptive scene so I'll definitely take note of some of her concrete details (bright blow to the brain, plugged into another tape) in my attempts at creative non-fiction.

Dammit, Kitty

I think that "For the Family in the Car Passing By" starts with a conflict that basically summarizes the story: Earl is dissatisfied with the presence of his wife's cat. Though Earl does not come to love the cat - unlike most stories about an undesired pet - I do believe that there is some change in Earl as a father and pet-owner.

I started reading this story passively, trying to multitask to get homework done and found that I had to direct my entire attention to the story, going so far as to remove myself from a noisy room so that I could devote my full attention. I found that this story was filled with excellent detail and conflict, making it hard to put down because you aren't sure what's going to happen next. I liked the twist on the age-old "cat person or dog person" in that Earl refuses to accept the cat as his while Crystal seems attached to Jerry,  showing that there is often a grey area in matters of conflict.

The transition in the middle of the story is abrupt and caught me off guard: it seemed as though it was a time shift into the future rather than the past, making me think that they were getting yet another cat at the expense of Earl's sanity. It was only after Crystal's brother and sister-in-law gifted her with a fluffy white kitten did I realize that this was a flashback. I think this could be easily rectified by showcasing something from the flashback in the first three pages of the story so that the reader can recognize the jump into the past, i.e. walking past the family photo in the kitchen, describing the cool May weather.

I normally use the title of the story as something to foreshadow the events to come. The title immediately made me think of "Videotape" by Don Delillo, which was really only because of the involvement of a family and a car. My interpretation of the title came after the story: you got your inspiration for this story from a car passing by with a family inside? I'm not sure but I was definitely expecting a whole different story from the title.

Your ability to weave description blows my mind; the detail you put into setting and characters really creates a realistic depiction of this imperfect family. There were times when these descriptions were to your detriment, distracting away from the plot with blocks of text to set up the scene. I don't want to see any of that description cut out but it dragged on in places that seemed to be describing mundane marriage life. I know like I'm going to sound like I'm contradicting myself but I still like it because it really does paint the whole picture of a real family. So kudos to you.

I enjoy the ending because it highlights Earl's humanity. I've never seen a cat get hit by a car and therefore cannot validate the flailing around of its body but it provided a dark humor to the situation because, the sick dog-loving bastard I am, fur flying around as the cat attempts to revive herself was only slightly amusing so I don't feel that it took away from anything at all. Earl's struggle with his hatred of the cat and the love of his family is what makes him hesitate in putting the cat out of her misery. I'm glad that you didn't show him pulling the trigger because it provides an open ending for the reader to interpret: will Earl put the cat out of its misery or will he kill the cat out of spite?

numb

Our main character, Sophie, enters into the story crying for an unidentified reason, which definitely created some conflict from the get-go. Sophie is forced to deal with the accident of a former boyfriend and eventually she rectifies her feelings and seems to get over his eventual death.

Our characters include: Sophie, Will, Zoe, Sophie's mom, Will's parents, and a doctor. Zoe is introduced so shortly and so succinctly that I wonder if their interaction could be changed. Zoe's wearing the same clothes as yesterday - why include that in the story if it won't be expanded on in the slightest? I think if Sophie is possibly sobbing over lunch with Zoe about her lost job (which is what I assume happened before the story opened and why Sophie is constantly looking for an email from her boss) and then gets a phone call from her mother where Zoe pressures her to answer it would be a good opening scene rather than her sitting in some random park.

Sophie's decision to fly home was very sudden and kind of jarring. The author says that she's motivated by guilt but I don't really feel like that's being shown. It would also add a little bit of conflict into the story if she couldn't get the right flight or there was some sort of storm or something. Logistically speaking, is it possible to book a flight for the same day and fly home without any problems encountered? We get some characterization of Sophie's mom from the phone call but it's really solidified when Sophie arrives home and her mother commands her to visit the hospital. It seems kind of unrealistic, but if Sophie's mother really does care about Will even after the breakup, then it would kind of make sense for what she said to her daughter. I wish there was more dialogue between them so we could see their interaction and get a full feel of how SOphie thinks about her mother.

I wish there was more dialogue in general, actually. There are a lot of opportunities to show how numb Sophie is that are instead summarized into quick dialogue and quick action. The author could really capitalize on the awkwardness of Sophie and Will's parents as well as her one-sided conversations with Will if only by having her sit and stare at him to say something and then reflect on what he looks like, you know?

I like Sophie and Will's history. It's a real testament to the length of relationships and makes the reader consider the depth of said relationships. I like that Sophie thinks she feels nothing. Where I am confused is that Sophie keeps saying how much she doesn't care about him and, after a while, it seems more "this is fact" rather than "this is denial" if that makes sense. Sophie says definitively that she doesn't care about Will but then the author keeps implying that she's just numb and hasn't realized her pain yet. And then, when Will dies, she doesn't experience any pain - just release. So does this mean that our character hasn't changed at all? Doesn't numb mean that you're staving off some kind of pain? If Sophie is unaffected by Will before the story and unaffected at the end, has she changed at all?

I guess you can say that she changed by losing her job and moving back home but that doesn't happen in the span of our story. We don't see Sophie move back home with her mom and return to her vulnerable self. Instead, we see Sophie eating a bag of candy to symbolize Will's death in her life.

As for the ending, I really really really like the line "Will was gone, but his body was still there". It really encapsulates the feeling of loss without describing the exact physical reaction. Not only does our author create Sophie's "out" but the author also shows how death is not just one thing: there is death of body and mind. It would have been a bit more realistic to have the sheets stripped clean (cliche) or them carting his body out (cliche) or parents sobbing loudly and refusing to release his body (kind of cliche). As it stands now, Sophie walks in to his parents sitting by their dead son for who-knows-how-long when the doctors/hospital probably would have removed his body.

I think this a really good story with a unique twist on losing an old friend but just needs some sprucing up and some more editing.

best saturday

I really like the point of view of this story. We aren't exactly in the head of Journee, our main character, but we're close enough that we can see her thoughts and her reactions to her surroundings and receive her input. There was a part, however, that seemed like it was dipping into the thoughts of Karla and I wondered if it was supposed to be third person omniscient. If that were the case, I think we would have a look at what Sam thinks of the kids. It would provide some humor, even, to include her point of view and get an exact description of what the two girls look like to her.

Overall, the description was really great. Not only did the author paint the scene of the projects, but they also provided little details that solidified the characters and really made it realistic. I wish there had been a little more description of the actual projects, because the author does a really good job of painting the girls as poor by describing their clothes and their actions but not so much the state of their physical homes, which may not even be necessary since the story takes place at a gas station.

 Basically, Journee is going about her Saturday routine, wishing that things were better. I like the fact that it's just a slice-of-life story of how Journee decided that Saturdays weren't all that bad. There is a conflict at the very get-go with Journee's hatred of Saturdays and it was kind of obvious that something good was going to happen today, what with the title and all. Journee seems to have changed: she no longer hates Saturdays which I think is simplistic. A child in the third grade isn't going to reach self-actualization in one story so I really like that this is a sliver of how her day was made better.

The dialogue was only weird in one place and that was just the introduction of Karla. Everything else seemed believable and really like the mind of third graders chatting as they look for something to do. I really like the "stupid taxes" line as well as Karla and Journee's thoughts on what to do with the money.

I don't think that this is the typical story - crazy events building up to some climax and then resolution. I think that this is telling a story, revealing some details of the people that are in the story, and then something awesome happens and then it closes. It isn't boring; I found the descriptions and the detail of Journee and Karla to be interesting and provide a good pace for the rest of the story. I'll admit, I was a little surprised that they found a one hundred dollar bill on the ground and, like children, decided to bury it instead of doing something, but I think it provides to that child mentality and reminds the reader that two nine year olds found one hundred dollars and buried it instead of enabling drug use.

I do wonder - what's going on with the little flashback to Sean and Journee's mother? What triggered that memory in her mind? I understand that the police/Sam might have brought forth that image, but I can't see the relevance to that part of the story or how it ties in. When there was a "flashback" talking about Marcus, you could kind of tie it in because that's where Karla got the money from and you had to explain 1) why the money was unattended and 2) why Karla could just slip in there and take it. But in the Sean flashback, there isn't anything that really ties it back to the current story, making it kind of hang off to the side. Journee does warn Karla on the dangers of stealing so that seems relevant so I might just suggest a stronger image that triggers Journee into her flashback about Sean.

The Henry Show

Henry is a delusional, mentally unbalanced man who just seems to want to get by with his life. He's always attempting to impress the cameras and his audience, though he never actually seems to be interested in the things that he's doing, often becoming distracted by what he thinks the audience is thinking. Over the course of the story, Henry makes some startling changes only lose his life at the end of the story.

Alright, so I was understanding and getting the story until the author got to the end and turned it into some sort of story of a story which took away from a lot of the realness and made it seem choppy. With that aside, the ending that actually occurred was interesting. Not only did Henry drive himself to the point of homicide, he also was so delusional that he couldn't bring himself out of it for the sake of self-preservation which would have required a certain social understanding that I suspect wouldn't be possible for someone with his condition.

I didn't understand the aside between the actor and Jeremy. First, why was Jeremy introduced properly and not the actor? Why was it still being told from Henry's point of view when Henry is out cold? Am I missing something? Don't get me wrong, it was good development of characters and definitely experimented with dialogue which was humorous for the situation they were in. It kind of felt a little improv-y? Like both were actors and making things up as they went? Which would have been interesting if it was a play all along. That's what I thought was happening when it opened and Henry's illness is presented so matter-of-fact that it comes off "here's a definition of what this is because i'm sure you don't know it, reader" rather than a natural conversation coercing it out of the speaker. It seems like you want to explain to the audience what's "wrong" with Henry but I feel like showing rather than telling would be way more effective here.

I think the setting could have been played up a bit more. There was hardly any details throughout the passage and I found myself wondering a lot of the time what they were doing. I think that's why it was so difficult to imagine this story actually happening - I can't imagine the characters. I don't think that's a bad thing because this is fiction and I feel like the reader should fill in the blanks themselves. But maybe a little hint? No ages, no distinguishing features, no gimpy walk. I don't think it could hurt to add some more description.

The Comfort of Keys and Bacon

Our main character, Ryan, is coerced into breaking into her ex-boyfriend's house by the energetic Kim where they encounter more than they bargained for. Ryan wants to forget all about Adam but continues to carry around his key in her pocket. Ryan doesn't really seem to change over the course of the story but maybe Adam does? 

I really liked the tense usage. Most stories are written as if it already happened while I actually felt like I was in that Waffle House. I also enjoy the realness of our narrator i.e. holding on to a memory of the past because of tradition and her struggle between staying stagnant moving forward. I think the ending works well! It's a short story for a short moment in time. 

I could almost imagine it as a little novella, though. By including different points of view, the story could build to a climax and disperse among the participants. If you could flesh out Kim and Adam by including points of time from their point of view, the reader could create a better connection with each character so that the big ending can be more meaningful.

The dialogue to text ratio is just about perfect. There isn't too much to overwhelm the reader but we also aren't just stuck in the narrator's head. Sure, I almost felt like we had an unreliable narrator until Kim confronted Adam. The dialogue is very real, along with the actions. "Kim said with a mouth full of hash browns" - that happens! That actually happens.

I like that the story begins with conflict. By the third paragraph, our enthusiastic coffee drinker inquires on Ryan's memento, thus causing confusing feelings and memories. It might sound cliche, but if this story was to be made longer, there could be a potential to return to the Waffle House and see how they've changed. Maybe she doesn't order those three pieces of bacon this time. 

The conflict is subtle which makes it less gratifying when the narrator exits the house without the key. By having her best friend swoop in and tell him off, Ryan gets off with an undeserved happy ending. Kim just did all the dirty work for her and she wasn't even the one in the relationship. I guess it would have been a bit more cliche and weird if Adam were to return home to find his ex girlfriend on his couch. But still, I didn't feel as triumphant as I imagined the narrator did; I wish it could have been drawn out more to get some more character depth.

Brownie points

I really liked this story because it explored the dying trend of racist culture. Not only did it exhibit a troop of black Brownies struggling with their identities as African-Americans but it was also a study on empathy. Once the troop found out that they would be beating up a Brownie troop of mentally challenged girls, our fearless heroes began to back off. It seemed as those the girls decided that they would beat up the other troop because Daphne was called a "nigger" thought none of them relate any stories about it happening before and why they were offended. They reacted instiunctually, their minds filled with "we have been insulted, we must react". And yet, when it came down to the actual performance of said revenge, they backed off and chickened out. Why? Because, though they felt offended (and had no proff, which is a different matter), they thought that someone else could have it worse off from them and that cult-like mentality of "do what the leader says" fell off its high horse and crashed instead of making a mistake that could have costed quite a bit of stress to their childish lives.

I am confused, however, as to Laurel's reference to the Menonnites and her obsession with Daphne's poem. "My father, the veteran" is a poignant line and does provide some feelings but what are those feelings toward? What makes Laurel feel so compelled by Daphne's words that she repeats them over and over again? And why does she describe Daphne's picking up of trash in the bathroom so fluidly? I want to understand the last line of the story but I can't quite find the meaning.

trashing the camp [character]

He was incredibly wasteful, that much was clear. Not only was his trash can over-flowing, but the "recycling bin" had now been littered with half-empty jars of jelly and soda bottles with the tops cut off. The bag sagged inside the can, holding onto the precious liquid that had spewed out of the five month old eggs he had left for too long and hastily thrown away when discovered. Abandoned hopes lay in the tangle of wires of the rescued electronics found at the thrift store, nothing could be done. Tucked in the corner, poking a hole in the side of the bag was a sterling silver ring with a spot of blood on it, stained into the stainless steel and reminiscent of a bar-fight that got personal. The remains of his attempt at responsibility, wrapped up twice in three plastic bags tossed in with a bag of pet food that expired years ago. Scratched discs, "designs" carved into that 15.99 CD he'd pulled from the shelves undetected.

You couldn't tell if he was clean or not. A moldy glass gingerly placed near the bottom, a taste of milk left on his nightstand after passing out before he could drink it. Tiny flakes of glitter and a soiled Valentine's Day card lay flat at the bottom, straining at the thin plastic. Another tear had begun on the left, a partially destroyed box that had been ripped open in excitement. A garbage romance novel, the cover showing off two ludicrously muscled men in the arms of the other, wind-blown hair glistening in the glossy light of the hazy book cover.

The room reeked, a foul smell sinking into the walls as he was left unattended. His nose stained white and his eyes staring into some blank abyss far from there. His arms splayed out by his side, holding a dollar bill and a metal cigarette case.

response 2/25

Wow, "Orientation" really was an Office-Space caliber short story of the mundane monotony that is office work. I like that it took a personal turn toward the middle to talk about the fancies of each of the workers, going into the office romances and intricate webs they weave. I think the second person point of view works well because it makes the story more real. It provides a "welcome to your new reality" while giving the third person omniscient narrator who looks into the deeper meanings of their lives. The presence of the serial killer didn't surprise me; I think that the trope of "The Quiet One" is being played up enough by media. The story doesn't rely heavily on it though, so that makes up for it. I like that nothing is really supposed to happen. It just kind of outlines the lives of the reader's new coworkers, presenting a new, separate society filled with characters with their own pros and cons just like the real world.

"Hitchhiking" was an interesting read because I didn't understand what was going to be happening. I like to read through a story and not be able to predict how it will end. I was especially caught up with the end lines of "Hitchhiking" and I wonder what it meant. How exactly was our narrator supposed to be helping us? He boarded different cars (never telling US where he was going, mind you) only to insult us later after the accidents were usually caused by a combination of bad timing, driving conditions, and personal responsibility. If this narrator causes crashes and wrecks with whoever's car he gets in, wouldn't he begin to feel paranoid and a little less likely to try again? Or was that the whole point? Did he have the ability to save all of humankind and we, the ridiculous people, kept putting him in harm's way every time he tried to get to his destination to save the world? I would like to know how he hasn't died if those first lines described his most recent attempts at hitchhiking.

the things they carried

This is my third time reading "The Things They Carried" and I can't say that I'm all that mad about the repetition. O'Brien goes into the lives of each of these soldiers, bringing forth details that make them that much more human and remind you that there are men in the boots. Originally, I wondered if it was going to be about the physical things they were carrying in their packs, the bags slung over their shoulders. But it was more of a metaphor, providing a sort-of personification of their worries, woes, and grief. Which is pretty incredible to think about. Not only were they heaving around huge packs with things they needed to survive in case they got shot, but there were also so many emotions and feelings left behind by their fallen comrades and the families they had to leave behind. While enduring physical hell and trudging through battlefields, they had to suffer through the cries of their peers and the horrors of the potential to die at any moment.

Did Lieutenant Cross distance himself from Martha because he needed to? Did he put that split down because he didn't dare dream of her? Maybe he was trying to make it impersonal, make sure that he didn't have any hookups keeping him from his duty. No holds barred. Cross was ready for death now that he had left Martha behind, which is sad to think about. Can you only accept death once you've let go of the people you care about?

number place

numbers falling into place
stretched across nine tiles
squinting, staring at the page
frustrated shavings
tiny tears on thick paper

yellowed with age
a riddle never solved
always rearranged,
but never thrown away
numbers dotted in
what looks like random
order but organized chaos

long minutes spent pouring
over possibilities, searching
for a four that has been

misplaced

kicked around by
excited success for
solving the sevens
carelessly tossed in a
corner on a
baseless guess

that four,
which you so rudely
pushed into a square
upon sight of another,
won't return to your memory

not until the end
when it will do
the most damage

chris [voice]

man i was at this party
and this dude came up on me
and i said back up dude
he was so fucking rude

i'm fucking with you man
god i am so drunk
and i was blackout, damn
smoking on that skunk

(what'd you do?)
do? i fucking punched him
but i was so drunk man
man what was that guy's name?

carver or some shit
he was wearing a fucking suit
i told him to get the fuck down
but he didn't go on his own

(what'd you do?)
i don't even remember man
(no seriously, what'd you do?)
i don't even remember man

this dude came up to me
man i was at this party
he was so fucking rude
i told him to back the fuck up dude

(shut up and chug this beer)

got a rat by her tail [replacement]

A Dog Has Died By Pablo Neruda
 My rat has cried. I grabbed her in the cage next to a wooden monster chew.

Some how I've hurt her right there, and now she's running around with her saggy skin, her black eyes and her bleeding tail, and I, the sadist, who never wished for any hard times in their lives for any intelligent pet, I pray for a tail that'll never reappear. Yes, I wish for a tail for Zelda where her stump slithers away for my arrival
slipping her rat-like tail in disappointment.

Ai, I'll not admit it here on earth, of pulling the tail of a companion who was only hungry. Her disgust for me, after that of a dog without its trust, was the ugliness of a wench, bitter, with no more eagerness than was pulled for, with no complications: she always peed all over my sheets covering me full of her droplets or her gnawing, she never bit down against my mouth like curious rats scavenging for food.

No, my rat used to leer at me, begging me "the freedom I want", the care called to create an animal lover like me crave that, her a rat, I was pathetically codependent, but, without those ears so much cuter than mine, I'd keep on gasping at her with a glance that discovered, for me alone, all her selfish and scavenging life, always near Algernon, never asking her and taking everything.

Ai, how many nights have I spied her tail as she bounced around on the heads of the companions in the secluded corner of Investment One where the excited rats climbed the walls and my dumbo rat was stealing about all of the sustenance of the cage's supply: my curious thief, snuffling around with her pointed nose buried down, bowl to hide "without the others' knowledge".

Selfish, selfish, selfish, as naturally prey know how to stay alive with only the anatomy of their faceless parent.
There are no tears for my rat who has cried, and we don't know and never did cling to each other.
So now she's out and I freed her, and that's all there is to it.

poetry response #3

Alright, so I really liked both of these poems. "homage to my hips" made me smile because it brought back growing up with my mom and how she always joked around that black women have big hips and how proud they were of it (I'm black so it's okay to say stuff like that?). The poem is almost a representation of freedom and the ability to do what you want. The particular "enslavement" line didn't mean anything besides what it said until I found out that the author was African American, which I feel like says something about the way our society is (or some faulty wiring in my brain). It's a poem about empowerment which is a cool thing to think about because how often do people find courage in their bodies so openly?

"A Woman Who Could Not Live With a Faulty Heart" really spoke to me because it was borderline cynical and used some serious imagery to un-romanticize "feelings of the heart", something that I do frequently. I thought at first that the narrator was talking about a heart that's torn between two ideas, two emotions, two people but then I wondered if she literally meant "a faulty heart" as in a unsteady rhythm, a heart murmur or something of the like. A heart where something extreme could happen and her heart could could be still. Still, the narrator laments the beating of her heart - "a constant pestering" - which makes me wonder if the narrator was so torn by whatever decision that she was teetering on self-destruction. Why else would someone call their heartbeat pestering?

I don't know, I think the images created are meant to be dark and set the mood for you to really understand how a heart physically works. But I think that it's a representation of the futility of life = constantly a struggle between what you want and what you don't want and in the end you'll die soon. This is a sharp juxtaposition of "homage to my hips" which is really saying "i can do whatever i want to, watch me seduce this guy". Two very different poems that used repetition in a similar way to produce a different outcome. Am a fan, 10/10, would read again

a chair is just a chair [image]

resting, coiled energy surging through the stationary wood
force is pressed to the back rest,
a deep turquoise, dotted with a glorious display of last meals
to swing the chair back, balancing on the small sweet spot

the cushion comfortably supports you
like a flexible branch, tempting your leafy green to the greedy wind
not too hard, not too soft
a sanctuary for mediocrity with just a hint of fashion

it simultaneously represents obesity and comfort
the sharp juxtaposition of sluggish and commonplace
why does anyone have chairs?
is it possible it's because there is an expectation for comfort?

no one told you to make yourself at home
and no one told you you could have whatever you wanted
and yet you expect that dark teal, four-legged representation of laziness
to hold you for five hours while you waste your life away staring at a screen

poetry response #2

I think the reptition used in "DNA" by Bierds serveas a literary device to instill these images into your mind to make them as concrete as possible. From the way the poem ends, I almost feel like it's giving a sharp litle jab to those who work with DNA, maybe prodding them a little in accusation of "playing God". The narrator seems to be a scientist constructing a model of DNA in London, February 1953. Upon further inspection, I found that this was the date when Crick and Watson declared in a pub that they had "discovered the secret of life" (citation needed). What's really fascinating about this poem is the way that it's structured. It seems that the base pairing of DNA is used to structure part/most of this poem. Coincidence? I think not. GC, AT as the pairs, A - cloud white, the scissors, T- At hand :the rounded shapes, G - two dozen toothpick pegs, a vial of amber glue, C - he's at play, James Watson: the cardboard shapes. In the next stanza, the order is G, (new line A), C, (new line T). Next, A, (new line G), T, (new line C) and so on. I was confused by the amount of repeats, but it shows the wit of the author, to be able to come up with images and specific phrasing to repeat to simulate base pairings in the DNA code.

The other three poems seemed the most similar to me, though "DNA" showed some similar elements as well. "A Dog Has Died" explores the grief behind losing a pet dog, "I Go Back to May 1937" deals with the grief of love struck teenagers and the "real" adults they would become, and "Loading a Boar" goes in-depth of the grief of life in general. Each lament their woes - "I'll not speak of sadness here on earth", "you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of", "nothing's going right and I'm feeling half dead" - and, in some way, each accept their fate. After celebrating the good times, the narrator of "A Dog Has Died" accepts the death of his best companion and admits that his dog is now just buried out in the garden. The narrator of "1937" examines young love, commenting on the pleasing setting that create the rift in time from whence he was born - the meeting of his parents. He calls them young and dumb and naive and yet does not want to stop their meeting because he wants to be born and he has accepted history for what it is - a bundle of experiences that shape you into the form you have in the present day. "Loading a Boar" is written in a much simpler form - a run-on sentence. My curiosity lies in the author's choice. Did it more effectively convey his point? The poignant advice on poetry made me rethink the process completely and I sat down to consider poetry more thoughtfully after that. I hope to use the advice of John some day to write a poem that means that much to me.