Reading The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck has been pretty impressive. She writes with an eye that both includes the grimier details of life (keeping the story grounded) but also with an almost dreamlike style of narration (that leaves you adrift in the story). It is an impressive combination of the two that has me trying to dissect how exactly she makes it work so I can try to use it in my writing.
Musings on Death
Thinking about death, about how people write about and view death, for my long essay for class. Reading some poems by Jack Gilbert, thinking about my own encounters with death, and trying to put this all together.
Poetry: NW Portland @ 10 AM
November chill hits as the bus pulls away,
Her warmth absent now from my arms,
Tale of one city but two schools.
I pass a group of four hoody’ed guys,
One slurs, “I like all the little shops.”
10 am and already stoned, life on 21st.
I Miss Literary Theory
Looking over my prospectus, my thesis, and the list of responses I have written so far this term fills me with an odd mix of shame and dread. I hate most everything I have written for the class, they feel like a mix of random bits of nonsense I threw together to complete an assignment or glimpses of the inside of my head that I’d rather not have shared.
Poetry : One-Eighth
Every so often I overhear a conversation so insipid that I have to write about it to get the memory of it out of my brain and somewhere else into the world where it will do less damage. Hopefully less damage. So a very rough poem, inspired by something I needed to process and forget.
Listening to Carl & Emily on Writing
Listening to Carl Adamshick and Emily Kendal Frey speak in the WR 222 class last week, and talk about their poetry and processess, had me thinking about my writing and my own processes.
What I’ve Read Lately
While we are reading a lot of poetry in WR 222, which is not usually on my reading list, it had me thinking about what I do normally read, what is typically my reading tastes, and what I’ve read over the last few months. Here then, as best I can remember, is what I’ve read in the last three months:
The Four Temperaments
Among the things we’ve read so far for my WR 222 : Intro to Literature and Writing class was an essay by Gregory Orr called “Four Temperaments and the Forms of Poetry” (can be found online here). Since reading that I’ve been thinking about my writing, and his proposition in general.
L&R 2014 – Reflecting on London & Rome
Part of my study abroad trip to London and Rome in September was a series of blog posts about the things we saw and did while on the trip. This is the last post, a reflection about the trip and my experiences.
L&R 2014 – Frustrations of Travel
Part of my study abroad trip to London and Rome in September is a series of blog posts about the things we see and do while on the trip. This is the fourth of four final required posts about the experience, and is about disappointments or frustrations of the trip.