Workshop Response- "Last Race"

Claire Nolan's Poem, "Last Race"          

            I really enjoyed reading this poem. I think the imagery is very clear and concise, and the author really gets not just the image, but also the feeling of the runner across to the reader. I like the use of the line placement to parallel when the runner takes off, and then again when the focus shifts back to the race. I love the metaphor with a bird, flying down from the sky to win the race. I really like the last three lines “breathless / and / high” and how they are separated. The pauses these line breaks make end the poem really well, and emphasize the feelings they’re describing, especially breathlessness. I think the author did a great job of using imagery to produce concrete images, and it was easy to understand what was happening in the poem; it was crystal clear.

            I think this poem could benefit from a few things. First, a space in between stanzas. The fact that every other two lines are indented gives the impression that there’s a new stanza, and if that is the case, then I would add a space in between each one to make that a clearer distinction. I also think that the flow of the poem is disrupted during the line that says “I could not let my body defeat my mind”. I think “defeat my mind” doesn’t really fit in with the flow of the poem. 

Workshop Response- "The Ocean"

Katie Pollard’s Poem, “The Ocean”

            I absolutely love the way this poem sounds and the images it creates. I think Katie used personification extremely well- I could envision and feel what the ocean was feeling, especially here, “By drowning, dragging, pulling, / she gets what she wants and none / can calm her”. I also liked how she stayed away from clichés, which are so easy to come by when writing about the ocean. My favorite line of the poem is the first two lines of the last stanza, “She whispers, she sighs, she tells / Secrets of lovers and wars”. I love the picture this creates, and again the personification helps to clarify this image.

            I think that, while this poem is full of great imagery, the poem would benefit from concrete images of the ocean. Without reading the title, one wouldn’t be able to completely comprehend the subject of the poem. I also enjoyed the line breaks, and how thoughts flow from one sentence to the next, though I think sometimes it falls at a strange place, without having the desired effect of enjambment (lines 4-5).

            The poem has a very nice sound, which is attributed to the use of consonance of the letters s and o, and the repetition in the first line of each stanza. I really like the second stanza, I think that effectively uses consonance. 

Workshop Response- "Catch and Release"

Emily Johannes’s Poem “Catch and Release”

            “Catch and Release” does an excellent job of employing concrete imagery to form a picture and consonance to make the poem sound pleasing to the reader. I really love the image and sound of the last stanza, “I move with care and leave you / to seek the moon’s gentle glow, / delicate and beautiful, / a flutter of dusted wings”.

            I admire Emily’s bravery at writing a pantoum, though I think it is limiting because the poem is short. I noticed that the repeating lines began to be redundant by the end of the poem. I think more could have been said to describe the situation, but the pantoum structure didn’t allow this.

            I am also a little confused as to the subject of the poem. I’m unsure weather it is a butterfly (“flutter of dusted wings”, “seek the moon’s gentle glow”, “trapped behind the glass”), or a woman in a romantic scene (“I move with care and leave you”). I think this could be clarified more. But again, I think without the pantoum, there would be more freedom to explore this.

            The images are clear for each individual line, though the picture as a whole is obscured because of all the imagery. I think the poem would benefit from exploring line breaks further- each line seems to be one idea. I think the poem has a very original idea and does a really great job keeping away from clichés. 

Hey I'm 14 and I'm Katie

Hey I'm 14 and I'm Katie.

I got my hair cut today.

Now my weave is all nice and perdy.

But the ladywhowashedmyhair

was being super weird and flirty with

the guy she’s been texting.

Likeshewouldn’tshutup

I wanted to be like “woman, focus on ma weave!”

Butobviously I didn’t say that,

Ummm hello I’m a lady, heh.

But yeah…

Then I rode my bike to Rob’s

Andweatepizzaandplayedsims. 

And Kendall and I hadatwerkcompetition

and I totally won.

hashtag white girl swag haha!

It's all because I got ma herr did

and now it's niceandperdy.

oh my God what if I miss my flight

 oh my God what if I miss my flight

I get into the car and we start driving and soon, too soon, her car begins to slow down and I start thinking “oh my God what if I miss my flight” and then we’re on the side of the road and a nice lady stops in her truck and with her Jesus earrings and cross necklace and offers us a ride to the airport and I say okay but Andrea can’t come with me but so we go our separate ways and the nice lady is speeding past cops and somehow we don’t get pulled over and I just keep praying that our luck will hold and now I have a half an hour and I’m in the airport and I didn’t get kidnapped and I’m running through security and the large woman who looks like she’s having a bad day waves me to the front of the line and I’m trying not to yell at the tram to go faster, don’t they know my plane leaves in ten minutes, and then I’m running up the escalator trying to be polite to the people on the left side, but don’t they know my flight is about to leave, and then I see the gate and I join the back of the line and walk on like nothing ever happened, trying to slow down my breath so I’m not so obvious and thanking God until I’m in my seat. 

RESPONSE FOR 9/3

            In “Homage to My Hips” by Lucille Clifton, she frequently uses repetition with the word “they” or “these”. Out of 14 lines, all but six begin with the word “they” or “these”, which refer to the speaker’s hips. Clifton also uses repetition with the phrase “these hips are… hips”. Each time this appears in the poem (four times total), it creates a new subject or characteristic about the speaker’s hips. For example, after discussing how her “hips are big hips” (Clifton, 1), the speaker says, “these hips/ are free hips” (Clifton 5-6) and then continues to say how they have never been enslaved and have free will (Clifton 7-10). She also personifies her hips throughout the entire poem, saying, “they don’t like to be held back” (Clifton 7), for example.

            Both “Homage to my Hips” by Lucille Clifton and “The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart” by Margaret Atwood have a common subject: parts of the body. While both poems specify which part of the body the poem is about in their title, “Homage to My Hips” is much more straightforward and comical description of hips, while “The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart” uses much more figurative language to describe the speaker’s heart. Like Clifton, Atwood also personifies the heart, when she says “My heart/ is more duplicitous,/…it says, I want” (21-24).

            One thing I really thought was interesting about these two poems was that while “Homage to My Hips” used very little concrete imagery, I found it much easier to follow than “The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart”, which used a lot of concrete imagery. For example, she describes her heart, saying “this lump of muscle/…purple-blue, with its skin of suet” (Atwood 6-8). While that image is easy to picture, I got lost in the poem and still am not sure what it is about. The first stanza gave me the impression that she didn’t mean her figurative heart, but her literal heart, though the rest of the poem seems to speak as if the heart has feelings and influences the speaker, which the literal heart does not do. The literal heart only pumps blood through veins. One thing I take from these poems is that concrete imagery, while creating a strong image, may not always be the easiest way to get across your point to the reader.