Ricky’s Mixtape For Poetry Class
Ten Poems For Poetry Class
I couldn’t find an editor’s note on the recent 2017-2018 issue of Gulf Coast but found an editor’s note from the 2014 issue, which still offered some useful information from the online literary magazine. The most important information can be found on the last three sentences on this editor’s note in which said, “With that, we hand over the great big fruit basket that is Gulf Coast and urge you to taste a bit of everything. Go on. It’s good for you” (McGlynn and Martin). This was sure a way to draw in readers to the magazine, because Gulf Coast is truly a unique online literary apple tree with so many delicious apples to eat. Readers who read this part of the note will be hungry to read numerous poems this online literary journal contains, thinking that the website is also good for their health.
In each of Taisia Kitaiskaia’s Three Queen Poems, I found something significant. In the first poem, “Queen at a Party,” the narrator, who is the queen, seemed to have talked about the significance of her dress. As she walked into a party, people couldn’t help but take notice of her, the details of her dress, and its ostentatiousness. There was one scene which perfectly described that the queen’s brazen dress made her the center of attention, “Bosom heaving down at the sight of puddings laid out, bombs crouching in gelatin” (lines 16-18). To me, these were the most significant details of this poem because most men often like to look at a woman’s breasts. Since the queen wore a see-through dress, the men, most likely, at the party, couldn’t help but stare at her breasts. The men continued to stare at the queen until she snuck away and traveled into a different room to escape and find her peace.
The second poem, “Queen’s Pall,” had a dark, somber feeling from start to finish. Kitaiskaia opened the poem with this tantalizing image, “To be sure, the dead rat will drop from the cupboard. It is certain, the sink’s juices make snakes” (lines 1-3). This reference seemed like the perfect metaphor to describe an already dead rat falling into the sink to be eaten by snakes for lunch. This line, to me, was so significant because I pictured blood escalating from the sink, as the snakes devoured the deceased rodent. This all happened from the queen’s house before she turned her attention to her back yard. The dead silent trees and the sick leaves didn’t communicate with one another (lines 4-5). This perfectly demonstrated the sound of silence, sadness, and death.
In general, this wasn’t a very lively poem because as she was languishing, everything else was either dead, dying, or not intuitive along with her. I thought she was dying because I looked up the word pall, which could be defined as “a cloth, often of velvet, for spreading over a coffin, bier or tomb” (“Pall”). The queen prepared to die and had a coffin with her name on it. Someone will be there to place a cloth on top of her grave. The lines, “No birds sing of mammoths just for her; no mammoth will carry Queen off,” helped me draw this conclusion (lines 7-9). She will have no assistance venturing up to a Heaven-ish land once she dies and will travel there herself.
However, most of Kataiskaia’s last poem, “Queen’s Religion,” frustrated me because I had difficulty interpreting a meaning for most of it. I reread this confusing poem several times and became more aggravated with each read. No matter how much time I spent carefully surveying this poem, not only could I not find a concrete, amazing meaning, but I also had difficulty grasping the unfamiliar, complicated language and metaphors. As much as I love metaphors and absolutely believe they have a place in poetry, they became too much of a good thing for this poem. As a writer and reader, this annoyed me almost more than anything.
Despite my confusion, I actually determined the meaning to only one line toward the end of the poem. The narrator described this easy passage as, “But where is Queen? Is she with us, in the hall? No—she is on the Great Lemon Boat of Suffering” (lines 16-18). First, everyone at the dinner table didn’t understand why the queen was missing or where she was. From the looks of those three lines, the queen must’ve been banned from dinner, because she wore her colorful outfit, for being herself, which was a sin. “The Great Lemon Boat of Suffering” reference made me think she was serving her punishment in the dungeon (lines 17-18). Like a child who misbehaves and gets grounded for their misbehavior often sent to their room, the queen was punished and sent to the dungeon without supper, having a miserable experience inside the dungeon. While this poem was largely difficult, frustrating, and often a nuisance to solve, I educationally interpreted of this poem, not sure if my interpretation was right or wrong.
I liked Christopher Salerno’s two poems, “King of Pop” and “Homeopathic,” because each poem touched on writing and consciousness respectively. I first liked “King of Pop” because he used Michael Jackson’s famous moniker as the poem’s title. Next, Salerno used lyrics from Michael Jackson’s song “Wanna Be Starting Something” and perfectly related them to the writing skills he likely learned from his father. As Salerno put it, “Got to be starting some thing. My father used to catch and modify minor birds with butcher twine. Revise each one to be more beautiful” (lines 1-7). While I’m personally fascinated that Salerno’s father sounded like a bird collector, I saw the words from this passage as an astounding metaphor for the writing skills his father taught him as a boy.
Salerno must’ve learned a lot about writing from his father and taught readers these skills. Salerno probably begin writing before he could actually revise his boyhood and manhood writings. Salerno’s father must’ve taught him to edit and proofread his writings several times until he reached his most beautiful work. Michael Jackson’s song must have deeply impacted Salerno as a kid to a point where the song’s analogies helped shaped Salerno as a writer.
I liked “Homeopathic” as well because he addressed things that humans often take for granted. For example, he magically addressed it as “I like how loudly the pink / azaleas bloom / beneath / the cambered pine. / How my eyes auto- / tune each blade / of grass into ‘the grass,’ / even though a field / is more orchestral” (lines 9-17). Seeing azaleas bloom must have been something lively to humans to which Salerno stated that readers must take full advantage and awareness of something like this. Therefore, he perfectly demonstrated an outdoorsy feel in this passage.
I liked reading Alex Lemon’s poem, “The World Turned,” because for one month, everything, for the most part, turned eventful. As Lemon put it, “Whole month, it spun so fast / It was impossible to be jealous / Or afraid or lost” (lines 2-4). From the looks of this passage, it most likely meant time spun so fast, it was hard to keep track of negative emotions like jealousy, hate, anger, and fear. It was easy to only feel positive feelings, throughout all the chaos that’s going on in this world we currently we live in.
I liked how Lemon’s poem described different things and scenes occurring simultaneously, providing numerous instances of imagery, including, for example, “Lapdogs floated / Away, zigzagging across / The sky like balloons” (lines 5-7). I thought the small dogs inside hot air balloons, ascending to the sky in a zigzag motion. I never read poetry with dogs ascending in hot air balloons before. I found another vivid image in the sentence before, “Pants flew off strangers” (lines 4-5). I pictured a person’s pants falling off them and flying up into the air, specifically those who are strangers to Alex Lemon. These colorful images allowed me to get lost in them, as this poem wouldn’t be whole without the images to take readers to different places.
I couldn’t find an Editor’s Note from the last 12 months on Poetry Foundation but did find an Editor’s Note from. This editor’s note, which came from an unordinary issue of Poetry Foundation thanked some of the people who contributed to this magazine and said that some exhibit will be put on display in Chicago at this organization’s main office (Editors). I wouldn’t even think the people from Poetry Foundation would put an exhibit on display for the world to see.
I found the poem, “Snow Day” significant for many reasons. In a nutshell, a day-long snowstorm closed down an entire city. I found the part about the names of the day schools significant because schools are usually closed whenever snow days take place. I loved it when Billy Collins mentioned all the names of the schools that closed down because the names often were humorous. I laughed when read some of the names, including “Kiddie Corner School,” Ding-Dong School, High-Ho Nursery School,” as well as “Peas-and-Carrots Day School,” or even “Peanuts Play School” (lines 21-30). The author displayed a sense of humor and decided to make people laugh by giving the day schools these silly names. I never imagined schools with those kinds of names. Therefore, for me, the names of the day schools stood out in this poem above everything else.
I enjoyed reading Sandra Lim’s poem, “At the Other End of a Wire.” I loved that she listed numbers for the emotions instead of the names of the emotions themselves.
First, she used the numbers as metaphors for certain kinds of emotions. The number “260” must have been a metaphor for Lim’s reaction to something she didn’t like (line 12). Something probably irritated about something and this irritation turned into anger. Whatever she disliked really bothered her and used this poem as a way to utter her mind.
Second, somewhere in the poem, she mentioned “Emotions 75 and 78 made me happy to know they existed” (lines 5-6). While these sounded much happier and joyous, they actually veered to the fact that she was glad to be aware of her sadness. It was also possible that “75” represented depression and “78” signified loneliness (line 5). She must’ve felt lonely and depressed and realized it as she talked to this man on the phone. Maybe, this person is the narrator’s only friend, she is deeply lonely and has no one she can seemingly talk to. Perhaps she felt less lonely after talking to this man on the phone.
Lastly, I liked that she listed there being “261 emotions” she experienced (line 1). I found only 9 of those emotions listed as Lim didn’t tell us the other 252 emotions she experienced during her phone call with the man she talked to on the other end of the line. The mystery aspect is so significant because it leaves readers wondering what other 252 emotions they can experience when they communicate with people or are alone.
I couldn’t find an Editor’s Note for this recent issue of the Boston Review (Poetry), but I found a totally unrelated Editor’s Note on this website which contained some useful information about this website’s details. An author named Jack Halberstam wrote a book detailing trans feminism called Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (2018). The author is a transgendered male and talked about his experiences as one (Halberstam). Throughout this essay, Halberstam discussed the trans movement, including sections that touched on transphobia, gender change, use of the ‘wrong body’ terms, feminism in the trans movement, transsexuality, and the goal to protect trans people from being harmed whatsoever (Halberstam). The amount of information he covered on one essay fascinated me because it gave me a new understanding of trans as a concept.
In the essay, Jack Halberstam, who publically revealed being transgender in the 1980s, used an asterisk after the word trans, which signaled something important. Halberstam mentioned he used an asterisk to state that “it holds open the meaning that trans and refuses to deliver certainty of the term through the act of naming,” which grants “trans* people to the authors of their own categorizations” (Halberstam). Similarly, the importance of the poems I’ve read have been signified with the imagery and meanings I discovered as I read them, to which I wrote about the significance of the images I uncovered throughout all the ten poems I found.
I greatly admired Alexandria Peary’s two poems, “Pellet” and “Shadowbox.” The first poem, “Pellet” had two significant things. The poem described the darkening and lightening sun, reflecting on the trees and bushes around it. The narrator’s body is taking all the beauty she sees around her. One line I found pretty cool was, “the dripping of trees / and the reverse sunset / mostly a mauve and orange / or a yellow and black” (lines 2-5). This line wrapped readers immediately to imagery the sunset, as well as other things in the background, making it a profoundly perfect line. I, for one, immediately knew the events that took place, the colors of the backward sunset, the actions of the trees, and the background overlooking it. Reading it allowed me to get lost in the imagery and to see those images point blank in my face. As a reader, imagery is the one thing that fascinates me most about, because images allowed me to travel to a different world.
I was also fascinated by Peary’s description of her necklace, which she stated it as “I wear on a leather cord / around my neck, pellet / of just a few syllables” (lines 10-12). From reading this passage, the necklace pellets must have been bedazzling, sparkled all over her neck, attached by a cord that kept the beads in place. This significantly also most likely metaphorically described the beads on her necklace, which I never compared to pellets in my own life.
I found two significant things in “Shadowbox” as well. This poem seemed to discuss a woman who kept her treasured shadowbox inside her house. It discussed things that came from the inside of a shadowbox. After reading this line, I pictured an actual cardboard FedEx or UPS box with a shadow when she stated, “In a shadow’s box, a recliner, circular rug, reading lamp, cobra, and fireplace” (lines 18-21). It looked like the narrator opened up the box and seeing all these things she bought. It looked like she received a reflected FedEx box with gloves for warming herself in the cold weather. She also found a floor rug to place on the floor of her house and a fake cobra snake to put on display. She also received this colorful floral blanket with flowers all over it. She also got a reading light she could use while she’s reading. She settled everything by the fireplace so she could look at it all the time, which explained the value she found with the stuff she bought.
Peary’s inclusion of the Lazy Boy couch or chair fascinated me as well, to which she described it as “Round and round on the rug, / the centipede time / line circles the Lazy Boy” (lines 40-42). The centipede reference formed a fascinating image in my head: centipedes eating the corners of the rug, leaving behind only a circular shape below Lazy Boy. However, the usualness of this passage made it significant because it gave the reader something they wouldn’t usually think about, a circular bug by a comfortable, cozy Lazy Boy chair.
Collins, Billy. “Snow Day.” Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems, 2001. Random House Inc. Poetry Foundation, 2018. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46707/snow-day. 26 January 2018.
Editors, The. “Editor’s Note.” Poetry Foundation, 2013. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/70010/editors-note. 27 January 2018.
Hablerstam, Jack. “Toward a Trans* Feminism.” Essay taken from: Halberstam, Jack. Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability. UC Press. 2018. I found this essay in Boston Review Poetry, 2018. http://bostonreview.net/gender-sexuality/jack-halberstam-towards-trans-feminism. 27 January 2018.
Kitaiskaia, Taisia. “Queen at a Party.” Gulf Coast, 2018. http://gulfcoastmag.org/online/2017-summer-fall-gc-online-exclusives/three-queen-poems/. 23 January 2018.
Kitaiskaia, Taisia. “Queen’s Pall.” Gulf Coast, 2018. http://gulfcoastmag.org/online/2017-summer-fall-gc-online-exclusives/three-queen-poems/. 23 January 2018.
Kitaiskaia, Taisia. “Queen’s Religion.” Gulf Coast, 2018. http://gulfcoastmag.org/online/2017-summer-fall-gc-online-exclusives/three-queen-poems/. 23 January 2018.
Lemon, Alex. “The World Turned.” Gulf Coast, 2018. https://gulfcoastmag.org/online/2017-summer-fall-gc-online-exclusives/the-world-turned/. 29 January 2018.
Lim, Sandra. “At The Other End of a Wire.” Poetry Foundation. The Wilderness: Poems. 2014. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/145268/at-the-other-end-of-a-wire. 27 January 2018.
McGlynn, Karyna & Zachary Martin. “Editor’s Note.” Gulf Coast, 2014. https://gulfcoastmag.org/journal/26.2/editors-note/. 24 January 2018.
“Pall.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. <Dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/pall>. 2 Feb. 2018.
Peary, Alexandria. “Pellet.” Boston Review (Poetry), 2018. http://bostonreview.net/poetry/alexandria-peary-two-poems. 27 January 2018.
Peary, Alexandria. “Shadowbox.” Boston Review (Poetry), 2018. http://bostonreview.net/poetry/alexandria-peary-two-poems. 27 January 2018.
Salerno, Christopher. “King of Pop.” Gulf Coast, 2018. https://gulfcoastmag.org/online/2017-summer-fall-gc-online-exclusives/two-poems-king-of-pop-and-homeopathic/. 29 January 2018.
Salerno, Christopher. “Homeopathic.” Gulf Coast, 2018. https://gulfcoastmag.org/online/2017-summer-fall-gc-online-exclusives/two-poems-king-of-pop-and-homeopathic/. 29 January 2018.
