Despite the COVID-related hardships the world has faced thus far, I wanted to spend some time reflecting positively on my life. After applying to multiple grad schools two years in a row, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) offered me the best financial package and showed the most interest me. Ultimately, I enrolled at SIUC as a first-year M.F.A. poetry student, teaching English 101 students part time while taking classes of my own.
My classwork was more than doable, surprising enough; but my teaching load at times became unbearable. However, the five days I was given to learn about my job before the semester were helpful, and I liked taking a class that taught me different pedagogues related to writing and teaching. Throughout my first semester, I learned the importance of maintaining reasonably high standards, the importance of spending plenty of time each DAY (not just each week or month) to "decompress," and the importance of reflecting on my priorities. Speaking to loved ones over the phone and Skype improved my mental health: I spent many hours sharing my fears/worries about attending grad school with my mother over the phone. For example, as I explained to my family, I was comforted by the idea that I was (and still am) attending grad school first as a poet, not a teacher. Focusing on my immediate goals and desires--for instance, "write poems regularly" and "read often"--allowed me to take greater pride in myself as a CREATIVE. I was nominated for TWO Pushcart Prizes this year, I wrote many poems that I'm still deeply proud of, and I started to live by myself. My SIUC classmates are wonderful, my teachers candid and generous. Simply put, this year has humbled and empowered me. In 2021, I plan to write more poems, expand my professional Website, and grow as a student/teacher. One of the greatest lessons I learned as an undergrad can be summed up as such: To cultivate confidence, humility, and integrity, you must strive after your potential through critical, reflective thinking. I hope to embrace this lesson as I enter 2021.
0 Comments
If you haven't already, please read my earlier blog posts, which feature links to amazing poems. For this post, I keep the ball rolling with five more amazing poems (links included). Enjoy!
"My Grandmother's Bible" by James Pollock James Pollock taught me poetry writing during my undergraduate years. This poem captures the emotional and lyrical prowess I often expect in great poetry. "At Rochman Memorial Park" by Allison Joseph Allison Joseph teaches me poetry writing at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. This poem describes a real memorial park with statues of dragons and wizards. The last stanza is so heartfelt. "Remember" by Christina Rossetti This sweet poem uses form well and sometimes makes me cry. Great emotion throughout. Wonderful volta. "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson This seemingly innocuous poem ends in a shocking twist. This poem is a testament to irony. "The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window" by Joy Harjo This gripping narrative poem depicts a woman on the edge of death (both literally and metaphorically). The refrains are exquisite. More poems I love:
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" by Walt Whitman An ecstatic classic by a renowned poet. "Help Me to Salt, Help Me to Sorrow" by Judy Jordan A candid, lyrical poem by an award-winning poet. "Moss-Gathering" by Theodore Roethke A vivid poem with a fantastic final line. "Honey" by Robert Morgan A visceral poem that expertly uses rhetorical devices. "Loud Music" by Stephen Dobyns A relatable poem about how one loses oneself in music. More poems I love:
"The Cord" by Leanne O'Sullivan A tenderhearted poem about a parent-child bond. "Numbers" by Mary Cornish A fun, "numerical" poem that partially inspired this poem of mine. "After the Miscarriage" by Ed Byrne A visceral poem made more heartbreaking because of its title. "October" by Bruce Guernsey A stark poem with haunting images involving cornstalks. "For the Sleepwalkers" by Edward Hirsch A highly imaginative poem with lovely music. Here are five more poems I enjoy:
"Chicken" by Kim Addonizio A playfully dark take on the classic joke, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "With a Green Scarf" by Marin Sorescu A tenderhearted poem with captivating isocolons. "Poetry" by Marianne Moore A fun, funny ars poetica. "Home Burial" by Robert Frost A stark poem about a married couple discussing the death of their child. "Notice" by Steve Kowit A foreboding poem about our mortality. Kowit wrote one of my favorite books on poetry writing. Here are five additional poems I admire. Enjoy!
"Totem" by Eamon Grennan A lyrical poem about a rotting pumpkin. One of my favorite poems. "I Go Back to May 1937" by Sharon Olds A vulnerable poem about familial strife. The last line will haunt you. "Tonight I Can Write" by Pablo Neruda A heartbreaking poem on loss. This reading of the poem makes me cry and love the poem even more. "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver A simple yet heartwarming poem by an illustrious poet. "Memory of Highway 20 West" by Anna Girgenti Written by a former classmate of mine, a poem with wonderful concrete images. Here are five more poems I love. Click the hyperlinks and enjoy reading the poems!
"Death of a Naturalist" by Seamus Heaney A visceral narrative poem about a child's shift in attitude toward nature. The poem's music is exquisite. "Bringing My Son to the Police Station to be Fingerprinted" by Shoshauna Shy A sartorial poem with an ironic title. "Splitting Wood" by Billy Collins One of my favorite Collins poems. The allusion to Robert Frost in the first stanza always makes me smile. The final image is delightful. "Smoking" by Elton Glaser A short, fun poem with all the "typical" sections of a poem: setup, buildup, twist/volta, resolution. The poem's music is breathtaking. "Cellar Stairs" by Thomas Lux One of my favorite poems when I was an undergrad. It blends music, form, and narration brilliantly. Below are five more poems I admire. Read the poems by clicking the hyperlinks.
"So This Is Nebraska" by Ted Kooser A fun, "stately" ode with great pastoral images and examples of personification. Dick Cavett reads Kooser's poem here. "On the Death of a Colleague" by Stephen Dunn A shocking elegy about a group of teachers and students mourning the death of an alcoholic drama teacher. Also a heartfelt narrative poem. "Gouge, Adze, Rasp, Hammer" by Chris Forhan A relatable poem about coping with loss. The poem employs many visceral images conveying movement, just as the poem's enjambment and tercets help to "move," or quicken, the work's narrative arc. "The Summer I Was Sixteen" by Geraldine Connolly A brilliantly overstated coming-of-age depiction of girlhood glee. The work incorporates many vivid images and several literary devices such as tricolon and assonance. The final image is haunting, conveying a naive sixteen-year-old girl "tossing a glance / through the chain link at an improbable world" (the world beyond serving as a metaphor for adulthood). "The Meadow Mouse" by Theodore Roethke A gripping poem about a pet mouse. The poem employs literary ambivalence to illustrate joyful and lachrymose curiosity. The last two lines of the poem--especially the penultimate line--still exhilarate me. Below are five poems I admire and brief reasons why the poems interest me. Read the poems for yourself by clicking the hyperlinks.
*** "Nothing But Death" by Pablo Neruda This Neruda poem incorporates many rhetorical devices such as metaphor. It "balances" dark subject with vivid details and resonating lyricism. Read the poem aloud and learn from its mastery of language. "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop Like the Neruda poem, this Bishop poem demonstrates a masterful command of language, describing in detail a caught fish. The poem demands to be read aloud, its music an echo refusing to be silent. Exemplifying epizeuxis, the religious allusion at the end makes the poem even more captivating and endearing. "Timely Enumerations Concerning Sri Lanka" by Oliver Rice Incorporating many colorful congeries, this Rice poem reads as a dramatic monologue, with the implied speaker acting as a travel guide. The seemingly random collections of "sites" the speaker points out generate powerful historical and emotional connotations. (The concept of an "objective correlative" comes to mind.) Like most poems I love, "Timely Enumerations" demands not only to be read aloud, but also performed in front of others. "The End and the Beginning" by Wisława Szymborska This Szymborska poem poses the question, "What happens to a country after a war?" The first stanza answers this question, and the rest of the poem explores the answer, offering a series of grim images and employing lovely rhetorical devices such as repetend. "The Student" by Dorianne Laux One of my favorite Laux poems, "The Student" describes a simple relationship between a teacher and pupil in a world built on vivid imagery and assonance. Just as Bishop uses overstatement to highlight the fish in her poem, Laux uses overstatement to explore the teacher-pupil relationship. The last three sentences never fail to astound me. *** Indicative of the types of poems I love to reread, each poem above blends thematic, narrative, and lyrical Truth to create an enduring, emotional experience that balances sound and sense, form and content. Moreover, the poems above are "accessible," though hardly profound in the strictest sense. I plan on continuing to reread these fun poems to learn more about the craft of poetry writing. The YouTuber ContraPoints (aka, Natalie Wynn) discusses controversial political topics such as racism, homophobia, and capitalist elitism. I love her irreverent sense of humor and nuanced perspective on current affairs. Below are several videos of hers that I especially admire. |