Jack Youngs @jackyoungs-blog - Tumblr Blog

Mentor Poet Post #7 “Shea Butter Manifesto”

As I looked for the final poem I was to make a post on, I decided I'm going to change it up a little for the last posts. All of my previous posts have all have intertwining themes and ideas that connect each poem together. This time I thought it would be fun to pick a poem that I didn’t understand at all and try to figure it out. The poem “Shea butter Manifesto” by Eve Ewing was definitely the most confusing poem to me out of all of them. The first thing I did after reading the poem once through was look up the meaning of the words in the title. I discovered that Shea Butter comes from an African plant. As I read the rest of the poem, I kept the idea of race in the back of my mind. I also found that a manifesto is like a public declaration of what you believe in. In the first half of the poem,. Eve describes the Delta people and their longing for water as they look to the sky. Eve states, “We the forgotten Delta people, the dry riverbed people, hair calling always for rain, skin turned skyward wishing for clouds.” So far this doesn’t tell me much about anything. She then proceeds to write, “We stand for blood. We kneel for water. For oil, we lay down.” At this point I thought that she could be possibly saying that if we want to slide on by in life, you should lay down and relax and the grease will help you slide on by. I am fairly confident I'm completely off on this idea, but it just goes to show how confusing of a poem this was. In the next half of the poem, a line that I picked up on that somewhat fit into my idea was “In this world, nothing brittle prevails, so in this world, grease is a compliment”. I thought this sentence emphasized the idea of laying down in the oil or grease and just sliding on by. It even says that things need some grease in order to prevail. Overall, this poem really stumped me and I have no clue how Eve Ewing connects this back into the other poems. The picture of the poem annotated is posted in the post above since Tumblr wouldn’t let me upload it into this post :( (392)

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Since my last couple of Tumblr posts revolved around the [a retelling] posts, I decided to continue the trend as I really want to see if I can find any big overarching themes. The next poem in the series of retelling poems was “Another time [a re-telling]” by Eve Ewing. One thing I thought was super interesting in this one was she brought up the fact that she went to Harvard. In the first line, Eve Ewing states, “I was in Harvard Square on my way to a meeting. I was walking down Brattle...”. I think she may be using this to either give herself credibility or she’s using this to create contrast between her high level of education and the damaging, racial slurs she is being called. One thing that also stood out to me was the name of the poem. Unlike the very specific and detailed names of the other [a re-telling] poems, this ones name is just “Another Time” which gives the reader no context of what its going to be about other than it has to do with something similar to the other poems. This once again alludes to the idea that there actually is a big overarching theme across these [a re-telling] poems. Just like all these [a re-telling] poems, the font changes to a very smooth, flowing font. I think the font itself is supposed to help highlight the imaginative feeling of the second half. Unlike the harsh tone of the first half, the second half isn’t aggressive like the first half but peaceful in the way she deals with the situation. The verbs in the second half are a lot more lively than the verbs in the first half. The first thing that this poem made me think of as I was reading the second half was a wizard or someone who could cast spells. In every last half of her [a re-telling] poems, Ewing always writes it as if she were casting a spell and messing with the white person in each scenario or memory. (343)

As I was looking through Eve Ewing poetry book “Electric Arches”, this poem for some reason jumped out at me. After taking a second look at it, I realized that it looked familiar because it had the same exact poem layout as the one I did a post on before this one. This immediately told me that there may be some connecting themes between the poems with identical poem structure. Keeping this in mind, I started to do my first read through of the poem. In the poem “Four Boys on Ellis [a re-telling]” by Eve Ewing, Ewing leads by recalling a time when she noticed four boys sitting on the curb surrounded by cops. Just like she did in the previous poem I read “The first time [a re-telling]”, Eve leads us in with very boring information of the scene. Her sentences in this first half lack energy or life but I think Eve Ewing is doing this on purpose. Although the first half lacks energy, it gives the reader insight into the potential racial tension in the scene. I think what Eve Ewing wants us to do is assume the officers race and the boys races. Some of Eve Ewing’s poetry has commented on police brutality, especially against black people so it would make sense if she was trying to describe the same racial scene. In the second half of the scene, after she had just been shouted at by the police officer, she changes her writing figuratively and literally. Not only does she change the font from a ridged font to a smooth flowing font, but the tone of the second half of the poem changes too. When she wrote “another officer began to yell at me” in regular times new roman, it was meant to portray the rigidness of the officers. However, when Eve Ewing started to move to her imagination, the font turned smooth flowing. The imagery in the second half is way more abstract than the first half. Something that my mind immediately thought of after reading the poem was the YouTube channel Audit The Audit. It’s a YouTube channel that has been showing up in my recommended feed and basically the entire channel is revolved around exposing corrupt and racist police officers. He takes situations like the one described in the poem and he commentates on what happened and the rights that were overstepped. (401)

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Meet My Mentor Poet #4

As I was going through Eve Ewing’s pieces, I was looking for poems that were more traditional, with stanzas and rhythm. However, I took a second to look at some of the poems that were in more of a paragraph form and I though this poem was really interesting. In the poem “The First Time [a re-telling]”, Ewing takes us back to a moment in her early childhood to where she’s riding her bike up and down her street in her neighborhood. Ewing makes a point of describing very small details someone usually wouldn’t casually bring up. One detail that stood out to me was that she made sure to define the race of the old lady yelling at her. To most, the statement “the old white lady came down the block time to time...” could sound casual, nothing unusual. But I think Ewing is using the word “white” as a rhetorical device that turns our initial picture of a friendly neighbor scene to a setting full of racial tension. Ewing really changes the feeling of the scene with her language by using the racial slur in the following sentence. One aspect of the poem that made me think was the title itself. After reading the poem once through, I was confused on what Ewing was referring to when she says “The First Time”. Is she referring back to when she first learned to ride her bike or to the first time she can remember experiencing racial tension as a kid? I think this was what Ewing was trying to do with the title and that she was purposely trying to use double meanings. Lastly, there was also an interesting visual change in the poem itself, as Ewing decided to change what font she was using half way through the poem. I think this change in font defines where the shift of the poem is. I think the fonts of the first half and the last half parallel the rigidness of the responses from the white old lady and the little girls mom. The white old lady gave a very ridged, or strict response to Ewing riding her bike, just like the strict, ridged limitations the typical times new roman font has. However, Ewing describes being the bigger man in the second half, as she decides to lay the old lady down softly next to the water instead of basically drowning her. This act of forgiveness or non-rigidness is paralleled by the nice flow the font of the second half has. Overall, I thought this was an overall great poem and I would give it a 10/10. Because of the very non violence response Ewing gave to her neighbor, It made me immediately think of Martin Luther King Jr and how he also pushed for non violent protests during the civil rights movement. (477)white”

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Mathew Olzmann Poetry Blog #3 “Cheating on my Poet

When we took a trip outside the other day, and picked up another persons book, I ended up by chance choosing Mathew Olzmanns book “contradictions in the design”. However, I didn’t know how much I was going to enjoy the work of Mathew Olzmann when I first picked up the book. As I sifted through the table of contents, there were a few titles that stood out t me, one being titled, “Imaginary shotguns”. As I looked through more of the titles, it seemed that a lot of the titles Olzmann choose could have something to do with politics, similar to my mentor poet Eve Ewing topic/genre of choice. After reading “Imaginary Shotguns”, I noticed how Mathew was taking a stance on police gun violence in the United States. The poem talks about how, especially if you are a black, the police could say anything, like seeing a shotgun that’s not there, and the police know they could get away with that lie. He talks about how once the police say they have “seen a gun” or say “someone reached for a gun”, it’s like planting a flag in stone, it will not budge. And then they will build an entire country around that lie to make it real. I really liked this poem as I really enjoyed the really creative abstract analogies he gave to explain the United States issue with police brutality. (250)

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Mentor Poet Blog #2

As I was reading through the poems in the book “Electric Arches” by Eve Ewing, I was honestly just looking for a poem that I read first time through and had a general gist of what she was talking about. One issue I keep running into with some of her work is that she always seems to be referencing current events or sayings that I haven’t heard about. This just makes it difficult for me to somewhat pick up what point she is trying to make. As I was reading, a poem finally came around where I read it one time through and kind of understood what Ewing was getting at. When I saw the title “Origin Story”, I immediately knew just from the title that she was emphasizing the start of something new, although I didn’t know yet what she was referring to. In the first stanza, Ewing talks about her mother and her father individually and brings it together at the end of the stanza to comment on how their independent lives eventually intertwined. She uses parallel structure to talk about her mom and dad by using similar statements like “my mother, all thick glass and afro puff,” and “my father, all sleeveless and soft eye,”. She does this to really contrast the different status her parents grew up in, as she describes her dad having to sell mimeographed copies of comic books on the corner and her mother having the ability to buy an overpriced copy of a comic book. Ewing then moves on to the next stanza where she shifts from her parents origin story to metaphor about the comic book itself. She states how “love is like a comic book. It’s fragile”. Just like if you take good care of a comic book and it lasts decades longer than it should have, if you box up a marriage and store it away, it will definitely last for a long time also. However, she throws in a twist when she comments on how her parents marriage was boxed up and preserved, it was the opposite. She basically states her parents marriage had some wear and tear on it over the years, and, although the love didn’t last decades, it had a good ending. I think what she is trying to say that it is okay to have some ups and downs in marriage because that's what marriage is about. If you box up your love and just try to preserve it, where's the excitement in that. It’s kind of a weird featured companion to mention but the first people that popped into my mind when I read the poem were my neighbors. Since we are close family friends, I’ve gotten to see their family go through their ups and downs and although it has never been super stable, as Eve Ewing said, it does have a good ending for them as these ups and downs always end up as something they look back and laugh on. (500)

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“Affirmation” by Eve Ewing

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“Affirmation” Eve Ewing

As I was going through the table of contents in Eve Ewing’s poetry book “Electric Arches”, I was looking for a name of a poem that stood out to me. Immediately, the poem “Affirmations” stood out to me, since my mom always gives my siblings and I “affirmations” on special days of the year like birthdays or celebrations. I noticed that the poem immediately gave context about who the poem was written to with italicized font: to youth living in prison. I immediately connected the dots and realized that the poem was about encouraging or giving emotional support to young people who found themselves in prison. After reading the poem, I really enjoyed the message it gave. Eve Ewing paralleled rain and sunshine with being in prison and there still being hope in the future. She uses phrases like “Somewhere it rains, and things will grow green and wonderful. Somewhere inside me, too, it rains, and things will grow green and wonderful.” I thought this was a beautiful way of saying when you go through a low point, there is growth and hope on the other side. I also thought it was interesting how she reminded the youth in prison of all the things they can be grateful for through the vocabulary she uses. She uses words like “lungs, heart, brain, pulses, feel, life, alive, blood still carries, etc.” to remind the youth in prison to be thankful for the miraculous gift of physical life. Overall, Ewing gave off a message that was important in keeping hope alive in the struggling youth in the US. Someone who this poem made me think of was Tee Grizzley. He’s from Detroit Michigan and had gone to jail through his youth and actually talks about his childhood in his song “First Day Out”. In his song, he talks about how he kept hope as he went through prison and now he happy with where he is in his career. (326)

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Meet My Mentor Poet!

When I first started looking for a poet, I had no idea what I was looking for other than they just had to be alive. As I sorted through poet lists, no one really was catching my eye since I didn’t even know what I was looking for in the first place. As I scrolled down the list, what eventually caught my eye wasn’t even the poets Eve Ewing’s poetry but the picture of her that the website had posted. All the other pictures of alive poets I had saw were either older than 50 or they looked too serious of writers, which I knew wasn’t going to be interesting to me. Her picture, however, presented herself differently than everybody else as she gave off more of a young, edgy, artist tone. Once she had caught my eye, I started looking into some of her poetry and I realized how political it was. At first I didn’t think I would find interest in politics mixed into poetry but as I read, I actually realized I enjoyed the way she tied poetry and politics together. The line of hers that caught my interest was just something that made me think out of the box. The tone of this poem was also different too. She leads with:

Okay you guys are going to love this. get this

Mall the black women turn invisible

All of them

It it just seemed to me like a weird way to open a poem but I also kinda liked the way she wrote it. She ends off the poem by saying:

The scary part? Stick with me

They’re not gone. YOU JUST CANT SEE EM

Think about it

They can see each other

But you can’t see them

And they could be anywhere

I know from this style of writing she uses that her work will be something I enjoy.

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madyiscool

Secondary source!

Not only was Jeannie diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, she was also diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and borderline personality disorder. These links go in depth on what those disorders are and why they occur. Jeannine doesn’t go into as much description besides just being diagnosed.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizoaffective-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20354504

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationshi

jackyoungs-blog

I think these are really effective secondary sources for your book because they are vital to understanding what the character is going through in the book. If I were to just read the book and hear those diseases, I would assume they are bad but I still wouldn’t be able to grasp what the main character is going through. With these articles, however, I am able to get a little bit into the mind of the main character and understand what she is experiencing as a result of these disabilities.

madyiscool

Secondary source!

Jeannie was diagnosed with bipolar disorder she says in the book after her fathers passing. I wanted to take a deeper look into the mental side of her book. This link talks more about triggers and things that someone would deal with if they have bipolar disorder.

https://www.everydayhealth.com/bipolar-disorder-pictures/biggest-triggers-of-bipolar-mood-swings.aspx#understanding-and-managing-common-bipolar-triggers

People with bipolar disorder are seven to eight times more likely to fall apart during stressful times. Learn about the most common triggers

jackyoungs-blog

This is kind of how I felt with Kitum Cave, the Ebla virus and how it works, and the ethics of experimenting on monkeys; I generally just wanted to learn more about each. I think its very important to go out of your way to learn more about a subject if you are confused or even just interested. It will even expand your comprehension of the book too so you can get a greater understanding of what the author is trying to show you.

madyiscool

Secondary source!

Find out about bereavement and what to do if a loved one dies, including how to cope and where to go if you need help and support.

Throughout the book Jeannie talks about how she doesn’t believe she will be able to move on from her fathers death. She is so depressed and later on having suicidal thoughts. She doesn’t want to seek help because she wants to be strong. In her writing you can see doesn’t want death for herself. She is confused and doesn’t know where to turn. This source gives different things that you can do to help understand how you’re feeling and help move on from someones death.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/coping-with-bereavement/

jackyoungs-blog

Its interesting the common theme you took with all your secondary sources. Each source is mainly focused on articles that can help you cope with a death in different ways. It would be interesting if you tried to find a source that is commenting on how the book was written and the rhetoric moves that were used in the book.

madyiscool

Secondary source!

Information on what grief is and different signs you’re experiencing it. Also, explains the grieving process. Throughout the book Jeannie explains instances where she is going through them. However, this source uses senarios different from the book to help undrstand the process and what is going on in someones mind.

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm/

jackyoungs-blog

I have never been too familiar with what it means to go through grief or depression so reading this article was nice and it gave me a general understanding of what its is. My question is grief something you can control or is it something that biologically happens in your brain?

madyiscool

Jeannie is at her breaking point. She has hit rock bottom after her father passing and having to continue on without him. She is still thinking about her half sister Jeanne and wanting to be “perfect” like her. This obsession with being like her half sister Is making Jeannie lose who she truly is.

jackyoungs-blog

That is an interesting point I have never thought about. When you strive to be so much like someone else, what does that mean about who you really are. Not only do you fail to be the perfect person just like your loved one, but you loose your true self too.

madyiscool

Jeannie has a half sister that die in a car accident. Throughout the book Jeannie explains how she is obsessive over trying to be perfect in the ways she believed her half sister, Jeanne was. This is something she struggles with throughout the entire book.

jackyoungs-blog

Why does she feel the need to be perfect in all the things her sister did? Is it because she wants to honor he sister after the car crash or is it a personal striving to be better than her sister?

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