BENJAMIN PERCY & ADDONIZIO and LAUX:Â
In âSet Piecesâ, Percy puts a lot of emphasis on the set piece of a book/movie. He talks about how Charles Baxter states âwe write to make sense of the widowed images in our livesâ (41). Something that we want to get down on paper is centered around an image that was unforgettable to us. Percy also introduces his corkboard, which is used to compile several of these images so that he has several scenes of inspiration to draw from. However he also warns against describing every single little fact in your story in great length because the readerâs attention begins to waver. As a result, when it comes to presenting your set piece, the audience is not going to be as affected by what is supposed to be an impactful moment. Percy advises that you should make sure that you are building tension to the attention grabbing moment rather than making every single moment a hard hitting one.Â
Similarly, in âImagesâ, Addonizio and Laux talk about the important of sensory details to invoke a certain feeling in the reader. According to the text, âPoets need to keep all five senses- and possibly a few more- on continual alert, ready to translate the world through their bodies, to reinvent it in languageâ (86). This ties into Percyâs corkboard because he describes he draws inspiration to write from everywhere. Peopleâs conversations, magazine cuts, all and anything can be used to enforce his own work, and this constant vigilance definitely carries over to a medium that relies on connecting with its readers with less words. The set piece that Percy describes is the entirety of a what a poem is. Addonizo and Laux use examples from the poem âWhere You Go When She Sleepsâ where the poet uses the hair of the woman the narrator loves and associates different, grander things with that same color to make us understand how the narrator feels about something so simple about her.Â
In âDeath and Griefâ, Addonizio and Laux state that when you write about death, you need to make sure the reader understands what the context of your poem is about, or at least have a general idea of what the theme of the writing is. In Rachel Eliza Griffithâs poem âGood Motherâ, I think sheâs successfully able to connect to the readers through what is a commonly universal association with mothers, which is their unconditional love despite outside circumstances. According to the text, despite being completely strangers to the narrator, she âdidnât wipe my snot from her shirt, my tears from her collarbone, who did not tell me to pull myself together while everything inside me droppedâ. This type of care in this form is something that most people would associate with something only their mothers can give to them, or once did. I think that part of the poem works really well because the narrator doesnât explicitly state how a notion like this would be important to the narrator. However, in terms of subtlety I think thatâs where it ends. The readers definitely understand what the grief is about, but I think that the way the narrator was grieving was too hammered in. That might have been the point, but the repeated âmomâ mantra, and then the poem being turned into a general statement about appreciating mothers just felt overdone to me. Readers will know the loss, but Iâm more ambivalent on whether or not they feel it with this poem.
In Heather Sellerâs âAccidental Practitionersâ, intimacy is created in the poem through name association. Everyone knows the feeling of being reminded of another person closer to them when someone has the same name. Peopleâs identities are tied down to their names, and the Sellers uses that as the concept of the poem, because the students the narrator is teaching are all painful reminders of people she once knew. I believe the reader may feel the loss through quotes such as âI say his name aloud to alter my relationship to griefâ. We can understand the narrator is struggling to change that association to the student rather than her brother. And although the narrator plainly states what happened to her brother, ex-husband, and father so the reader knows exactly why she feels the way about them, the narrator also shies away from stating how they have truly hurt her, just as she avoids seating those students with the names together. For example, when the narrator tells the student with her ex-husbandâs name, âYou can lose me, I tell him. Pretend you will lose meâ, this creates a feeling of desperation because we know that her ex-husband has clearly moved on from her. The readers can interpret that she says this because she wants her husband to feel as though he has lost something and that she meant something, and that idea could be saddening to the reader.
One of the most effective things about similes and metaphors are that they transform the literal meaning in a sentence into something deeper to express a certain feeling or idea. Intimacy is created in Akbarâs poem through Akbarâs daily surroundings. According to Addonizio and Laux, the magic behind the use of similes and metaphors when used in poems such as âFinding Somethingâ is that the poem is written in a way that combines both senses and emotion alike. The narrator states that his âheart is as helpless as crushed birdsâ (Simile and Metaphor, 98). Beings that fly being constricted and harmed shows the magnitude of the grief the narrator is feeling. Akbar does something similar in his poem where Lydia is represented by orchids that are in everything the narrator sees. The reader comes to expect to see orchids described in every line, and when the last two lines are revealed, the reader understands that itâs not really about the orchids. This creates a feeling of claustrophobia and helplessness because no matter where the narrator goes, they will be reminded that Lydia is gone.
ADDONIZIO and LAUX, JANE SMILEY, & CATHERINE POND:Â
Some âseedsâ I noticed in Pondâs poems was definitely the way she wrote how them and their friend would react to the funeral procession if she had been with them, to drawing us back to their reality. I think everything about Kayaderosseras moves smoothly, from the flower petals hitting the windshield to the narrator inexplicitly expressing how uncomfortable they are passing by the funeral procession by describing how their fingers felt against the wheel.
However, I thought that âAs Ifâ was not as neatly executed as the previous poem. This one was more of a pebble for me because the narrator mentions lots of seemingly unfinished ideas and thoughts. They jump between mentions of Ontarioâs fires which didnât fit the theme of the poem and made it feel out of place, and itâs difficult to tell who is being addressed to in the poem in a way that is more confusing than interesting. For example, the narrator states that âNow we stare at the lake not speakingâ, but who the âweâ is is never specified, and right after sheâs turning on the blinker. Itâs nonsensical, but we can tell that thereâs real grief behind what the narrator is saying. This makes me think that itâs what Addonizio and Laux meant when they stated that although a poem may seem to be well written, there were definitely feelings behind it that may or may not be polished and refined in the future.
**Professor Gaudry if you happen to be reading this, did you know that I make dollhouses? I know you mentioned liking miniature furniture so here are some of mine (house 1 | house 2 | house 3)**
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