Of All You’ve Had I’ve Been the Best by: Brandon Ghigliotty
I am: fluffy crumb, creamy white topping. Baked in dozens. Stacked to taste. Peel off my paper dress. Nip me. Nibble me. Tear into me. Tear me in two. Consume my cake. I give my life to please you, my life is not my last. I stick around to spite you, in your hips and thighs and ass. So, this one, like "The Art of Eating" has very blatant sexual undertones. This has kind of interested me lately because i want to make sure my writing is working on multiple levels. Like in this poem, there's the layer of sex, the layer of gluttony, the layer of intimacy or lack there of, the layer of disappointment and moving on. It's multi-faceted. I think that someone can look at this poem and just see sex but then if you look closer you can see this person and their lover left them and there's this frustration that they opened their heart only to be burned. It's like that saying about a woman scorned- this narrator is telling their ex-lover that the lover will never get rid of the memory of them. I love that. This whole layer of subtext is something I've been trying to develop in my train piece. I want the audience to be battling with multiple levels - morality and ethics, self-preservation, survival and instincts, etc etc etc. I think a piece needs to affect you even on levels you aren't aware of in the moment. Like with this I read it and thought about it and didn't even see the emotional intimacy until later. I want my piece to resonate like this one did with me. Ghigliotty, Brandon. “Of All You’ve Had I’ve Been the Best.” Glyph. 25 (2013): 129. Print. 31 October 201
0 Comments
The Art of Eating by Chelsey Alden I watch you / bite into a strange fruit / Suck on the seed that is pink / like a pomegranate bead / I watch you / peel back the smooth skin / Wipe the dripping juice from your chin / You hold my eyes / then / You lick the pink meat of this / My skin / My throat closes / as you start sucking on the seed again / My eyes shut / and body quivers / The sensation of a whisper Well. This is obviously about sex. But, I loved how the author threaded the lustful themes with the act of eating fruit. She had a seamless way of intertwining the two elements. It felt like she was trying to say so much more than the surface plot of sex and fruit. I aim to do that in my own writing constantly. Like with this piece I'm writing now, a murderer is holding 2 women captive on a train. The audience doesn't know if he's crazy or just troubled and searching for answers. So I have to intertwine his monologue about his tendency to kill with this internal struggle. I also enjoyed the structure of her poem, how she used dashes and broke traditional line structure. Sometimes I worry my writing is too formulaic.. like I rely on the traditional structure too much and don't break the rules enough. Granted, I don't write as much poetry but I think that other genres of writing can reveal a lot about your own. There's ways to break the rules in screenwriting just like in poetry - creating images people don't normally see, like with the short "you seen my goat". Doing the unexpected is sometimes the most effective tool for making you audience pay attention to what you have to say because it's when you do something completely out of the norm that people realize this is what's important. Alden, Chelsey. “The Art of Eating.” Glyph. 25 (2013): 131. Print. 24 October 2016. Bean Babies - Bailey Schaumburg
our shabby, untamed, jetlagged minds like that time we signed up for anatomy class knowing we’d have to dissect cats and when it was time to dissect cats we didn’t want to. thought about skipping-- got too high forgot about skipping-- lost our minds we were stoned coroners, scalpels in hand “one of them was pregnant,” our teacher said i crossed my fingers behind my back then sliced organs one by one until, in the sac, they were cuddling lima beans. i removed my gloves and scooped them out used my left pinky to press tiny chests in and out and in out begged their bean-root lungs to gasp please, please, before anyone sees but you saw you took them you tossed them around like hacky sacks then threw them in the discard pile. i wanted to find them put them back in the warm sac and sew her up-- their unbelievable little faces and ears. I loved this poem. Recently I've been getting back into poetry. I love the brevity while still being able to say so much. That's pretty much my biggest dilemma in my own writing. I love the surface story of the dissection of the cat and finding the dead kittens. But I also love how she tied in the subliminal story of her relationship with someone. I don't know much about the relationship but I don't feel I need to because of how she describes the dead kittens, all shriveled and eventually thrown away. I thought it was interesting that it was the second person who tossed the kittens around like hacky sacks. So, naturally, I assumed it was this person who ruined the relationship. I love how she coerced the reader (me) into siding with her. It felt very sympathetic. Which is what I aim to accomplish in the senior show piece I'm working on. I want my character to seem sympathetic to the audience; to be real and genuine. So that I can manipulate emotion in order to break it and show the true colors of my character. He's a psychopath but no one will be convinced that he's good if he isn't sympathetic at first. Schaumburg, Bailey. “Bean Babies.” Glyph. 25 (2013): 163-164. Print. 17 October 2016. You Failed Shakespeare - Chantal Mitchell
But you know the difference between a cat’s paw and a claw hammer. How to drill nails into dry-rotted wood and make something as dead as Elvis seem alive and well. How to turn twigs into many-roomed mansions and replace linoleum floors with ones of marble. Floors so pure that the foot that touches them bare asks their steps for mercy and may never walk again. I’m cool with that. Build me a wheelchair. So I wrote an entire soliloquy about this piece, posted it, and then had a meltdown when it all got deleted. Nevertheless I am going to attempt to recreate the genius. I really connected to this piece because of the language. It was so intimate. It also expected us to know immediately what was going on. By introducing the poem with "but" the author assumed that we already understood. Which I loved. That's something I've been thinking about a lot with my upcoming senior show. There's so much I want to include but I also want it to be intimate and intricate and I think that there's this fine line between expecting too much of the audience and treating them like they know nothing. You can't just hand over information otherwise what do they have to work for and why would it stick with them afterwards? If they're given everything they need to know, they don't grow as people and see art in a new way. I want my work to be more intimate and I think I try too hard to tell the story without letting the story tell itself. If that makes sense. I also loved the language of this piece because it was simple. It wasn't trying to be more than it needed to be. I think that's a chronic dilemma of mine... I try too hard to say what I want to say that it comes out forced and stilted. People connect to things that feel natural and like something they'd see out in the world. I loved this piece because it felt effortless and so real. I can relate to feeling so broken that you're ok with being in a wheelchair. It was honest. I want that level of honesty in my work. Mitchell, Chantal. “You Failed Shakespeare.” Glyph. 25 (2013): 149. Print. 10 October 2016. She Said Relax... This...Won't Hurt a Bit - Morgan Elise Dawson
Knees rotting from overuse And hands attempting collusion You are allergic to grass But the clouds look different when there is a blanket between you and-- I have considered cannibalism I want to fully experience you No fork, no separation You must taste of perfection the kind of purity People go to India for Let me inhale you I want to hear you I didn’t stuff those feathers bullets glasses Down your throat for nothing I love the structure of this poem. I find that my work is in some ways similar and in some ways, not. I am similar in that I love brevity. I love clipped phrasing especially in dialogue. Now, do I always follow through with that? Not in the slightest. I also love long, flowing descriptions. So I just go back and forth depending on my mood. I would, however, like to be more like this author. I think that a lot more is said when less words are used. I also love the use of the second person. I do this quite frequently. Though I don't write much poetry anymore, when I do, it's usually in the second person. I think it creates more anonymity while still being incredibly intimate between the author and the reader. Dawson, Morgan Elise. “She Said Relax.. This...Won't Hurt a Bit.” Glyph. 25 (2013): 127. Print. 2 October 2016. Luna - Bailey Schaumburg
It comes from my head chains In the walls Chains On my teeth Chains Anticipating in swings Like a pendulum an umbilical cord An extension cord she might as well Shrink her babies back down to size and hang them there too Little snakes All curled in a ball there loving each other Ticking away on the watch I don’t wear? On the watch I don’t even own? I love her use of repetition in this piece. Her use of ‘chains’ adds a sort of punctuation to the piece. Though she only uses it in the first stanza, it always ends the line. Which, I like. It makes a kind of definitive “oomph” for lack of a better word and keeps the reader drawn in. I also love her lack of real punctuation except for the rhetorical questions at the end. It makes it seem like one very long, drawn out breath. Or a journey that comes to a close as she asks about the watch. I love her comparison of a pendulum to an umbilical cord. Maybe it was just me but I saw a juxtaposition of time versus youth. Like the umbilical cord is the child and the pendulum symbolizes the loss of youth and the want to get it back. It makes me wonder, though, with the watch reference, if she’s saying that she doesn’t care about time. I don’t know if that’s the goal but it seems to me that she just can’t be bothered with time at all and she is perturbed that someone even asked her about it. TL/DR: I love the use of repetition and lack of punctuation. I think it adds a heightened level to the word choices present. Schaumburg, Bailey. “Luna.” Glyph. 25 (2013): 69. Print. 25 September 2016. Why I Write- Tess Cutler
Because I want to write good. Because we’re taught that you say ‘well’, not ‘good’. I want to break the rules and write good. The only people who can manipulate the English language to be incorrect but still correct are writers. I love that she chose to begin her essay with “because I write good.” It’s instantly intriguing. I’m thinking, that’s wrong. But then I’m thinking, maybe she’s trying to say she writes good things…so then is the grammar really incorrect? Couldn’t she just argue that she was using the noun form of the word? See? I’m drawn in. Then she tells me that, no, she writes good because she can. That is so freeing and so simple… because I can. That is the essence of writing. Well, no, that’s one of the many possible motives to write. One I love. I think that part of the reason I write is because I get to be God. I get to decide everything. Anyways. As far as style and voice go, I love how simplistic her voice is. I’m a very descriptive writer but I love simplistic writing. That’s what I reach for every time I start a new piece; only using what’s necessary. And style? Nothing really stuck out to me about her style. I guess her use of repetition was really cool. I love that idea. Keeping one or a couple central points and bringing them up frequently throughout the piece. TL/DR: I loved the hook she used. I love her simplistic voice and repetitive style. Cutler, Tess. “Why I Write.” Glyph 25 (2013): 71-72. Print. 15 Sept. 2016. |
AuthorThis is my blog of thoughts on pieces from contemporary literary journals. Archives |