This is my last blog for this class and I want to express how Ive doubted that I would to be able to make it through this class because I didn't know what to expect from this class but now I know that you have to go into things with an open mind and not think bad or good about something because it will turn out to be the complete opposite of  what you'd expect. This class makes you express your inner creativity which isn't easy to express for me. But i made it through so I pat myself on the back. I wanted to drop it but I was committed to trying something new.

I am working on finishing up my fiction portfolio which I have been procrastinating lately. its easy to get done but its just the fact of  sitting down and working on it. I am good at writing its just the fact of getting my ideas together and figuring out what it is that I really want to write about. I am determined to get all  my work done so that I am not worrying anymore. Its like so much to do with so little time.

I already wrote a response on Maps To Anywhere and Bernard Cooper has a different style of writing but its actually kinda interesting the way that he went about it. I can see why he won an award for his work. He is obviously liked by readers because he won The Pen/Hemingway Award. I am interested in what the class will have to sat about the book and how they felt about it. I know there will be a lot of different opinions because not everyone likes the same things and have different feelings about things.

The word that I am going to develop my little piece of nonfiction on is struggle. This word can go with so many thing in my life. Even if its good or bad there's many stories to be told behind this word. The word struggle has many meanings behind it and I plan on portraying the few sides of the word through my story. I hope that I can make it good and really get this assignment down to the T because its interesting and different. I chose this word because I couldn't really think of  word at first and then I just thought like well my whole life has been a struggle that I am blessed to be making it through because there's not too many people that can actually say that they have overcome there struggles. Some people are still living in there struggle from being a child, Can you imagine that?Having to deal with something your whole entire life. Depressing is the word to describe that.

Maps To Anywhere, when I first got this book the cover just threw me off and make me thing a lot if things about how creative writing was going to be. I was like "what the heck we need a book of maps for??" Then I opened it and seen what was inside and skimmed through to kind of get the jest of why it had that title. Inside are some stories about places and some about objectives and things of that sort. Its an ok book so far, doesn't really catch my attention that much.  There's isn't a theme that ties the stories together, many essays include different points about the beginning topic within the few pages in which the work resides.  These writings are very diverse and recounts Cooper's lessons and important stages in his youth and throughout his life. It tells stories about how things came along to be and how they were developed and just they story behind it all.

A story that I actually enjoyed reading was Potato Spirit. It reminded me of my addiction to French fries. I just love love love them. Everyday I just got to have them. Potatoes are just amazing and they fill you up when your hungry. Matter of fact I just got hungry thinking about them. The one painting that's The Potato Eaters doesn't reflect how I feel because I feel that potatoes can fill you up and stop you from being hungry. Potatoes are just good.

In the essay packet 1, there's a new story on almost every page. On the first page I become confused already with the statement that the author used she said " the air of the loom." I don't get this what is the author trying to compare the air to? It tells about a fox and a hawk . I think that its telling the story of a hawk hunting the fox but in the end it the fox got away and everything was back to being ok. There was a story on a recipe that was the the great grandfathers in a drugstore in central Illinois. Everybody loved his Mint Snowball invention, people drove from all over just to buy it. But everyone dies so his time came and he before that he decided to sell his recipe to somebody for $100. This decision didn't make too many people happy because they felt that it should of been inherited down to the rest of the family to be carried on.

'The Mute Dancers: How to Watch a Hummingbird' explains the story of hummingbirds and what they do, who they are and basically whats important about them. It tells facts that people wouldn't even think of or know unless they did some research on them. It compares the birds to many things such as dancing, cats, dogs or humans and even places. It tells about how there's 16 species of hummingbirds in North America, and it just goes on to let the reader know more and more interesting facts about hummingbirds. Inside of the story is a story about a neighbor and how she was attacked by her bird. That's something I could never think of a hummingbird being aggressive to that extent.

The Essay on the Sublimation of Dying has 6 synthesis in it, why?? I honestly don't get it. There's like little poems at the end of each page.It had a story that on one side that was like a contradiction to the story that is on the opposite side. For example Synthesis I, the left story was mythology and the one on the right was a homonym. then under it was a little poem I guess which was about the word moth and how it was burning and on fire. I don't get how that relates to the sun but this whole little story is just really confusing me. Synthesis III and IV are different they have different endings. One has lines with no words at the end and the other has a picture of something that I cant really make out but it doesn't look like it has anything to do with the story  just like the poems at the end of the first two.

 The first little story called "When It Rains It Rains a River." It tells the story of playing in the rain and how the brothers love it and the mud. Its like its a part of them, singing, eating, fishing, running, drumming.  That's the scene that they make. Then it tells the story of the how they make girls out of the mud. Each body part especially the knees are mad of mud and they said this because they always have the boys kneeling on their knees. As the night approaches they come alive and wake up and stare into the eyes of the boys. Now the girls are sisters so the story now has sisters that are sisters and brothers that are brothers. Its a little love story to me of the imagination of little boys and the mud girls they created.
 The singing fish is a continuing of brothers and this cave that is the body of a sound asleep girl. They see a lot of stuff going on inside of this cave "girl". there's words and carvings inside of this cave on the walls. they make out stick figures and words but not words they couldn't tell exactly what it was. then the next story tells about how these brothers get in trouble because of what they mothers told them. to not get muddy and they did anyways.
Then the lasts stories were fiction so they were real and told about a real life event or whatever. They were much longer than the short stories and they had titles that pertained to something that was in the story. for example one title was a specific date and places that were real. its called August 25th 1983. Its about a room, a dream and all that and it is kind of confusing. All the stories were about real stuff and the last story was called "The Fifth Story" and its about cockroaches and how to kill them. Very disturbing. It made me itch. Who in they right mind would want to tell us about this. UGH it really didn't have anything to do with what they other stories were about.

   The assignment instead off class!!!!!

Tisa Bryant "Unexplained Presence"

Tells a story of how people perceive the world in their own eyes. How do things really look.?

Some people can tell others secrets without evening having conversations with those people. they just have that special ability to read people. Her pieces tell about how their are differences between the maker and the reader and how everything is perceived. She uses Toni Morrison's " Playing in the Dark" to compare her views on how she feels. She is basically describing something known as the black presence. Which means they aren't acknowledged anywhere that they go. There's various I guess you would say short stories on these black presences and they are unexplained to what their purpose is or who they are. Basically meaning these people are seen as nobodies in some peoples eyes. The real story behind it is this is how the white people looked at blacks. the seen them as nothing but a black presence, they had no purpose but to do as their "maker" told them to do. This was a very long piece that had multiple stories and even a couple of short poems. these pieces basically told the story of the non-existence of the  black presence.

"The Black Automation" Douglas Kearney 

This piece was full of poems that all started off talking about a lion and each one had a different color lion. 

They were Blue, Green, Black, Red and Yellow, and these were letters to these lions that people wrote. They looked like little short poems, but they were letters talking about something and then there were replies to these letters. Each letter describes someone different in each, no two are the same. they have repetitive statements or rhetorical questions as well that didn't need an answer from the audience because they were being asked no wanting an answer because the person answered them-self.  It began with a story about the radio and the went on to tell about an lullaby for a baby. This writer was telling the life of blacks and what they did do and how they were people just like whites and how they were capable of doing all the same things. even though they had struggles they still made a living doing whatever necessary, they were no longer that black presence they were that colored lion.

This blog is on the book Juice and how i fell about  it. My first impression if it is that I can deal with reading  it. At first I was hesitant and didn't really know where this book was taking me. but after reading some more of the stories i actually could picture what was going on and making the book come alive with vivid with every word that Renee Gladman put on the page. I really liked reading this story that I portrayed as the life of a squirrel on page 14-15. I thought about humans at first and then my thoughts went to squirrels. I feel as if she was trying to tell a story what her story was I don't know or even understand but whoever can read her piece of art and figure it out. they are grand.   

  

The readings by Burroway, Lamott and Goldberg were  kind of confusing and made you think about what is it that the author wants us to get out of this??!! The pictures helped the reader kind of get an understanding and put the words to it and make their own meaning to whats going on. More on the book Juice i felt as if she was telling something about a love story and she had so many things to tell about it. one thing that is a readers beware is to never judge a book by its cover. when i looked at it i was like uumm OK?? whats this going to be about. there's a telephone poll on it and what seems to be a land and yea just doesn't seem like an interesting piece of book but once you start reading it it kind of gets you attention and you find yourself still flipping the pages and getting involved.

                  



          This is my blog post on how i felt about the book "City Eclogue" and my opinion on the authors poems.

 One thing that I noticed about these poems is that they have breaks in them. I don't understand. Maybe its for the reader to see that this is where the author is giving emphasis to something or starting on a new or different idea. i just really don't know but it makes it confusing to read. There is also parts in the poems where the author did not finish the words or sentences. which leaves the reader wondering what the author was going to say next or what word they were trying to say. Some of the poems are telling a story of the hard times people are having. Taking place in the Harlem streets and many other places.

             This can also lead readers think that the author is illiterate and does not know how to spell or write completely. But yet it gives it a little bit of mystery and not be dull and bland like how other authors do their work. ever poet is different sand has their own way of creating poems and telling their stories through them. I'm definitely not good at deciphering what poems are about so most of these poems are just here for my enjoyment to read and wonder and ponder upon what the author is trying to get me to realize or understand from the poem. A lot of the poems had to do with scenery and gardens and flowers and stuff like that. 

    There are poems where the places are compared to other things that are like the complete opposite of what is being talked about.While reading these poems i had one poem that caught my attention  in doing so as i was going through each page. For example in the one poem called the distant stars as paparazzi. The poem describes the news to a bird and flying. i dont understand it that much to be honest but it was one that caught my attention.