Seductive Oddities

Funny how
A water damaged page
Starch brown makes the sound
Of rain percussion heavy on a tin roof
Funny how we don’t eat
Pretty fish funny how we
Call them clowns and
Angels too, keep them in a circus
Tank our
Screwed up faces
Jackhammering fingers on the glass
Feeding them green and orange flakes of
God knows what
Funny how fungus grows
Pink
In the shower even though the shampoo’s blue
How humble mushroom bulbs are all connected underground
in systems so advanced that it takes years
To form to be
Stomp-thromped
by a little girls untied pink high tops
the color of her gummy
Smile funny
How she likes the way they feel all
Flattened under toes under thin
Rubber soles funny adolescent teeth jutting
sideways freshly torn, her
Lips have to swell to catch up to those chompers
Funny
How saliva forms
and spurts involuntarily when I
See a bag of big league chew or try to
Resist the potent pull of
Salt and vinegar
Funny how my brain corresponds being cozy with
The bulbous mushroom bulge of your hairless
Squareless belly
soft as flannel sheets and just as warm, your
trim Testicles
resting lightly In the lines of my palm flesh
Sleeping, cradling flesh after
The punctuated sigh and the reciprocal
Release.

An itch in my claws

A tree bush full of chickadees or maybe
oriels, finches
something of the sort all
chatting as we pass by, purposefully
predatory
cats playing with their prey.
We try to run them off like seagulls,
we seek squawks.
The little ones are apathetic
they turn their acorn heads and spy with
caviar eyes sink back
into the crosshatch of camel covered twigs
and we stare back shaking branches shaking
primal yearning into the air shaking
instinct out our shoelaces waking
those little birdies out of their mono-
emotional hideout.

If I was a bird, I say, as I watch their silhouettes
char and fade under the glare,
I would aim my poop for people's heads play
games like that all day surely
there must be some more fun perk to flying than
fleeing.

Book review/rant

I spent the last couple days of my spring break reading a book called The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. I don't usually feel terribly compelled in my free time to put my reaction to a book into words, especially not on spring break when I should be spending my days napping in a hammock on some veranda in some far off destination, having breakfast served in pretty little rose embellished china, but, I'm broke, I'm bored, and I've been terribly effected by this brilliant, although ultimately disappointing piece of art.
So here goes:

The book is narrated by two closeted geniuses inhabiting a wealthy apartment building in Paris. It is a compilation of the journal entries of the autodidactic concierge, who was raised under impoverished and tragic circumstances, and a 12 year old genius who is the daughter of two wealthy bafoons living in a luxury apartment in the building. The two women struggle to find a sense of belonging in a world that they both view as absurd. They are both sensuous, intelligent, and hypersensitive to both humanity and art. The characters use writing as a means of reflection, as a way to confront themselves and their observations,and as a way to make some sense of the thoughts that riddle their seclusion and dominate their lives. Here are some of the quotes that I found carried the most resonance:

"To beauty all if forgiven, even vulgarity."

"Stay centered without losing your shorts."

"Politics, she said, a toy for little rich kids that they won't let anyone else play with."

"In our world, that's the way you live your grown up life: you must constantly rebuild you identity as an adult, the way its been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile."

"nobody is a greater schoolgirl in spirit than a cynic. Cynics can not relinquish the rubbish they were taught as children: they hold tight to the belief that the world has meaning and, when things go wrong for them, they consequently adopt the inverse attitude. 'Life's a whore, I don't believe in anything anymore and I'll wallow in that idea until it makes me sick' is the very credo of the innocent who hasn't been able to get his way."

"The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship..."


These type of insights, both charming and just oozing with the clarity of truth, are abundant in this novel. The writing is so clear and beautifully crafted that you become convinced that these unlikely characters are, in fact, genius', and that they must meet one another. You begin to slowly see the overlapping thoughts and the similarities between the workings of their minds as the book progresses. It is indescribably satisfying when they finally do meet. They discover in one another exactly what their lives were missing, and so much more. They discover a path to true happiness, and a new beginning that challenges the judgments, assumptions, and fears that govern them both.

And then, one dies.

This ending was beyond disappointing to me. There I was, eagerly consuming page after page of this writing that I was just about to categorize as being artistically divine, when all of the sudden I was jarred, not emotionally carried away, but brought back to reality. It was almost as though I was feeling the literary decision being made, and I was arguing with the plot not to be so pretentiously ironic, cliche, banal and altogether over-dramatic.The woman gets hit by a dry cleaning van for god's sake, while trying to save a drunk bum the day after she finds true love and happiness.I mean come on...how could you Muriel Barbery? You not only ruined my entire day, but you also ruined what was shaping up to be a truly effective piece of literature, the kind of book that I would read ten times over, until the binding bursts and the margins just can't stand to fit even a measly little exclamation point more. Oh, and another thing, since you made it perfectly clear throughout the entire book that what I was reading was a compilation of journal entries, and you also stressed the thematic importance of life-after-death being a man made means of coping with the fear of one day having to let go, then how on earth do you expect me to be just fine with assuming that the last journal entry, the one that describes the death of this woman, was,
what?
written by her ghost?

But perhaps I am being a bit harsh, after all, I do feel the better for having read this book, and I would recommend it to anyone, just so long as you stop reading about 312 pages in. This is where the book should end. With a satisfying, although thought provoking resolution. What, might I ask, is it about happy endings that writers are so scared of? What is wrong with leaving people with a smile and tears of gratitude in their eyes after closing the back cover of the linguistic and emotional challenge that you have created? There is nothing cheesy about that.

Capstone continued

So, on to the next step: Implementing Core. I can think of many ways that the idea to start an afterschool writing workshop would be pertinent to the classwork that I have done for Core, but the most closely related class would probably be Human Rights. In this class we had countless discussions and debates on the universal rights of all human beings. What I decided, after a semester of depressing, yet inspiring readings, films, and research, was that every human has the right to just be. I believe whole heartedly in the "live and let live" philosophy. Of course there are many obstacles standing in the way of this right, and one of those obstacles is the restraint of educational policy and funding. Education is essential to our being. Your innate "self" develops over time, as we learned in our freshman year course on Identity, and the development of your self depends on the community of which you are a part of, as we learned in our class on community.

I grew up in a small rural town in upstate NY. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I had a peaceful childhood filled with trees, fireflies, and an overall absense of anything fearful. But unfortunately, I did not take a single class on creative writing until I came to Champlain. I chose the major based on a life long gut feeling that my "hobby" of writing would always stick around. The only encouragement that I ever really received was from my fourth grade teacher, and then briefly from my senior teacher when we did a two week interval of poetry. That was all we really had time for. The school had to comply with regents regulations. The budget just wasn't enough to cover the implementation of more creativity, while also having enough left over to rebuild the football field.

There are low income schools all over the country, both in rural and urban areas, that are full of students who are craving a creative outlet. I think that it is important to personal development for children to be encouraged to take hold of their talents and be proud of what they can do with them. There are only certain talents that are nurtured in most schools, and this makes an impression on the youth. It is more impressive for a third grader to master the memorization of his times tables than it is for him to write a poem about flowers. This effects the view of the entire classroom, and can cause creative children to introvert in order to avoid scrutiny and maintain a sense of belonging. Artistic talents should not be viewed as futile to the future of a child. It is a human right, in my opinion, to be accepted as who you are, and to have the your talents appreciated.

Capstone

So I'm supposed to create a capstone that is representative of all of the knowledge that I have gained in my college career. Sound like a loaded assignment? I thought so too. At this point I am still confused at how exactly I am going to combine the core requirements with my writing ambitions, but so far I have the following plans:

-To complete a full manuscript of poetry, and possibly a series of creative nonfiction essays. I am taking advanced poetry with Jim Ellefson right now. We are creating chapbooks, which is a half length manuscript. Next year I hope to continue working with Jim, as well another mentor Jim Mcginnes, to create a publishable full length book. Over the last couple of years I have realized that poetry is the form that comes most naturally to me, and the genre in which I have shown the most promising talent. I hope to continue my studies of Poetry in an MFA program after graduating from Champlain.

-To start up a creative writing/art and doodling after school program at a low income elementary school in town. I have been working at Lawrence Barnes Elementary school in Burlington through the America Reads program. I have very much enjoyed the time that I have spent there. Children have such a creative nature about them, and I think that writing would be a great outlet for some of that energy. I want to focus on low income school because those seem to be the schools that are in the most danger of being forced to cut creative programs.

Seasonally Bullied

I tried to
Make amends with January, I
Shook his bony hand and batted my
worn out lashes, tried to sneak
a little warmth into his photogenic
Smile, he
Chattered his teeth in my direction
chapped my lips
Filled my ears with tire skidding, iron
Pipes moaning, flaking rust on those
too quiet mornings when the antique
snow has lost its luster
In the grey.

I am a balloon filled with too much air
My fibers are stuck tight and burning, jammed
Up and clogged drains, mangy
Tangles of ink hair soaked in head and shoulders suds
Black scribbles heavily doused in low
Quality white out, the kind that’s wet and smells
And kills brain cells.
I am the fog ridden road that tightens the nuts
And bolts in your spine and
Turns the radio off, pits
Sweating with the seatbelt
Tangled and rubbing, you
Forgot to take your jacket off again, you
Cranked up the heat to four.
I am the last neon
Orange coal in the woodstove sitting
Bright on chalky scales of heather gray,
All the embers that have faded
In the hollows of your mind,
All the aspirations
that you let yourself
Smother under
Blankets, in
Unnatural heat,
filled with
Dust,
mold,
and ashes.


Clara Mae Barnhart

In Early Morning

The sky is mauve, the leaves are
burgundy and plum, the distant lights are
Marigolds,
with four star spiked petals glowing thick
like oil paint,with
the shallow luminescence of
candle flames burning in the dark.
The silhouette of a body in my bedsheets, black
Wrapped in fabric neatly bunched and
Folded like Egyptian shades.
His eyes the shining black of beetle shells,
my hairline dampened by the labor of dreams,
hands travel as if soothing a skittish mare
loose across my hip and settling
on my rump
and I coo
I am the mare with nostrils flared
he is a dog
and I am his chair.
My neck is the chew marked arm,
the soft white stuffing that he nuzzles with his muzzle.
We are
Overlapping limbs and
dreary eyed kisses barely touching
lips and
my ponytail curled
around his chin,
a husky sleeping in the snow
We are each the other’s yawn
in early morning.


Clara Mae Barnhart