The FINAL Blog!

After being on both of these editorial boards, I feel like the way I look at my own writing has changed. Capturing my reader’s interest at the very beginning has become one of my biggest goals in all of my writing, although the importance of maintaining the quality throughout the piece is also obvious. If you can effectively grab someone’s attention with the first paragraph, I think it is much more likely that they will keep reading to the end, even if the middle isn’t as strong.

Working on these anthologies has also made me think a lot more about trying to get my own work published. Before going behind the scenes and seeing the actual process, I thought that publication of any sort was beyond my reach. This experience has allowed me to see that it’s not impossible. It doesn’t make sense not to try. The publishing process is no longer this scary unknown, and I know now that you don’t have to be a god to submit work.

So, walking away from this class, I know I’ve gained a lot of perspective about what publishers are looking for and how to write a piece that will keep readers entertained, and I’m going to try my hand at sending in some of my stuff and see what happens. Without this experience, I think I would still be simply reading from the sidelines.

 

Blog #9

Well, out of the three poems we had for class, Jill McDonough’s “Accident, Mass. Ave.” was my favorite. I enjoyed how it was so simple and clear and still managed to pack a punch. The other poems were good too, but this is the poem that I kept coming back to.

I liked the idea of routines. Often, the only reason we do something is because it’s routine or expected by society. We don’t question it, really. It just is. We hide behind these kinds of routines and expectations, and I enjoyed seeing what happened in this poem when such a reaction was interrupted.

This poem also made me realize that we only present distorted versions of ourselves to strangers. Seeing the two characters hiding their fear behind the usual curses and insults was very realistic and contained a lot of truth. The fact that there was no dent in the car forced them to stop yelling at each other and just be two scared strangers together, holding each other in the middle of the road. The connection was powerful and unexpected.

I liked the line, “I was enormous, and I’d been acting like I’d like to hit her.” Seeing the character’s external self mix with his confused internal thoughts was very interesting, and I liked seeing how he changes in the poem.

This piece would appeal to a lot of readers because it’s something everyone can relate to, but something no one has ever really experienced. The writing is clear and beautiful and although short, is full of quality imagery. This is the kind of poem that simply needs to be published. People can read this and walk away feeling different about how they react to others and life in general.

 

Blog #8

I must say, I liked working on this anthology a lot better than Dust & Fire. I even almost enjoyed the fact that we had so many entire classroom submissions. It made finding the real gems so much more exciting.

I liked that these were all submitted by high school kids. It takes a lot of guts to submit something for publication, especially when you’re so young, and I was impressed with all of the individuals who mailed in submissions. I couldn’t get over some of the quality we saw in these poems. A few of the poets had skills that was way beyond their current levels.

The selection process for this anthology was easier for me. The winners were pretty clear from the beginning, and the large number of poems from classrooms made cutting poems easier as well. I think I also learned a lot from the process in Dust & Fire, so making decisions happened a lot faster and with more confidence.

Mostly from this anthology I learned that age doesn’t necessarily mean superior skill levels, and that it is important to start writing early. Still, I noticed that older students took more risks in their poems. I feel as if the true writers were the ones who pushed the boundaries of their assignments to find ways to say something greater and more meaningful than sticking to their assignments allowed.

Group dynamics improved from the last anthology as well. We seemed to have a pretty quick system and routine and making decisions as a group was a lot smoother. We all had our own opinions of what makes a quality poem, but we were all able to understand each other. We were a well-oiled machine at the end.

Working with this anthology made me wish that I had known more about submitting work in high school. This kind of outlet is exactly what every high school writer and artist needs.

 

Blog #7 Editorial Experience

Well, this is my first real editorial experience. I’ve always wondered what it would be like, picturing everyone smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and yelling at each other. I guess it wasn’t anything like that, though.

While I really enjoyed reading all of the submissions and seeing what other writers are up to, I kind of felt weird about the whole thing. With every choice we made, we were deciding someone’s fate. I couldn’t help imagining everyone checking their mailboxes so eagerly everyday, waiting and hoping and praying. Oh god. On the other hand, the people who do get in would be terribly happy. There’s always that.

From the selection process, I learned about the importance of capturing your reader’s interest right away. The first few lines in prose are extremely important. A strong beginning keeps people reading.

I was in the flexible group, so I got to read both prose  and poetry. I’ve always been interested in poetry, but I’ve never really written it. Being able to read and select submitted poetry taught me a lot and made me consider trying my hand at it more seriously. I was amazed at some of the power poetry can possess. I almost enjoyed reading it more than the prose.

Working in groups was also nice and I liked seeing what other people thought about everything we read. People in my group would sometimes point out something about a poem or a piece of prose that I had missed and it would completely change my opinion about it as a whole. I also liked to see people fight for the pieces they loved the most. Seeing their passion always made me rethink my ideas. Of course, I enjoyed standing up for my favorites too. As a writer, having people read and discuss your work that thoroughly would be wonderful.

I’ve been writing since the first grade (where I penned the masterpiece, It’s Raining Cats and Dogs, where it does, indeed, rain literal cats and dogs), and after seeing what goes on after you send something in for publication, it has actually made me consider trying to send in stuff of my own. I feel so empowered!

“Bird Feed” Blog #6

This is my favorite story that we’ve read so far. Right from the first paragraph, I was completely absorbed. It was sad and interesting to see someone go through the grieving process, especially when someone that close to you dies. In the second paragraph, the single, lonely peach that she can’t get out of her head was a striking image and I couldn’t get it out of my head for a while after reading it. It’s strange that people latch on to things like that during important moments and can never forget them, even if they seem insignificant when compared to the momentous thing that has just occurred.

I liked going through Cora’s memories and seeing all of the things she did with her grandmother. Their relationship was special and the way she described it made it easy for me to see why she had such a hard time letting go. From feeding the birds cracked corn to falling asleep watching reruns of Bonanza, all of the moments they share together are full of such little details that make their relationship very realistic.

Seeing the relationship (or lack of relationship) she has with her family was also very interesting and unique. It was strange to see how she interacted with them and how she handled her son in public. It all came together nicely with them not understanding her grief and the even greater distance that it’s created between them. No one understands each other in their family, and I think that made it shockingly truthful and intriguing. The fact that she would have rather just had dogs added a little humor, but still captured how she feels about her life.

I enjoyed the relationship she had with John. I was glad that it wasn’t a typical “cheating on your husband” story. They both were kind of in the same boat, and their relationship made her realize that she couldn’t just run away. The whippoorwill that keeps coming back throughout the story was also a nice touch, and having her walk to the tree alone for the first time was a good way to end. What a great story. I was sad to see it end.

Whippoorwills are kind of scary.

Blog #5 “The Dream the World is Having About Itself”

Carolyne Wright’s poem, “The Dream the World is Having About Itself” intrigued me. I didn’t really understand it at first, but once I read it out loud it suddenly became clear and my feelings toward it changed. I loved the way it sounded and the way it made me feel when I read it. I enjoyed that she took us through all the different decades, and the way she wove the years into her poem was my favorite part.

The imagery in the poem is also very striking. I love the idea of dreaming “between sage-green pages” and being barefoot and wearing dresses. I liked watching them walk through time, witnessing the various changes together. The lines, “You carried your final thoughts / almost to the millennium’s edge where / the westward-leaning sky might have told us  our vocation…” remained with me after I finished reading it, as did a few of her other lines (“Your lungs / were filling with summer storms…” My GOD!). It’s really the imagery that makes it for me. It was haunting.

She suffered losses, and you can feel her pain. The sister she walked through all the decades with is gone, and now she must go on alone.

Blog #4 “How to Succeed in Po Biz”

I really liked this piece. I enjoyed the desperation of the author and how she wrote it in the second person. She had real insight into the writing world, and captured it well with humor and remarkable imagery. Through her steps to become a successful writer, she reveals a lot about a writer’s life and problems, from stealing people’s secrets to drinking in the afternoon. She shows that the writer’s life is a difficult one.

All of the images come together well in, creating a vivid and hilarious picture. She writes about dealing with crazy fans, spam that makes her feel like she should enlarge her penis, and standing under the cardboard cut out that makes her look fat and gross. I loved all of it, but my favorite part of this piece was the image of her as part of a carnival act. She writes, “Sensibly, he left the carnival to work in sales, while you suspect that you have become a sideshow act, a fake mermaid shriveling in her tank, uselessly flipping her plastic scales” (137). It was perfect for what she was talking about, and I liked how it related back to her ex-carnie lover.

Being written in the second person really makes it interesting. It’s like she’s reaching out and grabbing you when she’s telling you all of these things to expect. I felt like I was interacting and experiencing all of the defeat with her. It made it much more powerful, and the fact that it was a “how to” guide was also original and  funny. I felt enlightened after I read it, like someone was finally telling the truth about becoming a writer.

Blog #3

Brock Clarke’s “Our Pointy Boots” was not really the type of story I would pick up and read on my own, but I must say that I found it pretty interesting. The use of “we” instead of “I” made the story unique and it emphasized the soldiers as a group. Not focusing on one specific character showed what war does to people, and that it changes everyone. Getting out of the “unit” frame of mind can also be difficult when returning from war, and I think its point of view captured that as well.

Mostly, I enjoyed the pointy boots as a symbol. The soldiers desperately wanted to go back to that time before the war, when they were teenagers and paraded around the town square, finally finding that thing they were missing. When they returned from war, they struggled to get the boots on, because their feet were so used to their round-toed combat boots. It showed how difficult it is to go back to how things were.

I was also intrigued by the protesters. They really creeped me out, especially the man who wanted to know all of the gruesome details. They seemed to forget that the soldiers they were fighting for were people, and just wanted to get the most entertaining, juicy bits. It disgusted me, but I thought it held a lot of truth.

The ending shocked me. I didn’t see it coming at all. I didn’t understand why they killed Saunders. I guess it makes sense that they were saving him. There was no going back from what he did.

Blog #2

Out of the three selections from the book, I liked “Rain” by Peter Everwine the best. From the very beginning, I felt like I was there with the author smelling the “wet clay in the wind”. Throughout the poem, although it is short, the imagery continued to impress me, allowing me to almost hear the call of the loon myself.

I also love the description of the loon’s cry. It gave me shivers a little bit when I read it. The idea that the call is of either loneliness or wildness really interested me, and it also seems as if the loon is connected to the speaker in the poem. At the end, he doesn’t understand what he is feeling, just like he didn’t understand the call of the loon entirely.

The fact that he is remembering back sixty years to when he was with his father also made me love the poem. The memory was just so simple. It was perfect. Later, when he hears the rain, everyone is gone, and he is at a loss of what to feel. Instead, he just stands there in the rain and listens. It was a very sad, but effective ending, and reminded me about the importance of memories.

About Me

Hello Friends,

I’m a junior from a town four hours away from here. I’m also a barista there, and I spend most of my summers caffeinating the masses. When I’m not doing that, I enjoy the occasional bike ride, writing, napping, and killing Koopas. Nice to meet you.

I really enjoy reading almost everything I can get my grubby little hands on. I’m not one for Fabio-covered romance novels or hardcore fantasy, I suppose, but I’ll read almost anything else. Mythology has also always really interested me.

I like to read about pathetic people who discover that they’re not so pathetic, and I like to read about realistic situations and people. Even if a story is about magic, I still like to see my friend or my neighbor or myself in the character.

As of right now, my favorites books of all time are Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Kind of an odd mix, now that I look at it.

I believe that in order to produce quality writing, you can’t be afraid to take risks and try new things. A writer should be fearless. Everything can always be improved. All first drafts are good in the sense that they can turn into anything. They have nowhere to go but up.

The idea of poetry “taking life by the throat” intrigues me. It does “take life by the throat” because poetry allows you to actually see everything around you closely and for what it truly is. You are forced to examine life closely in order to produce quality poetry.

So, that’s the first blog I have ever posted. I’m now truly part of my generation.