Poetics 1

I chose to write on “My Slippers,” because they bring me comfort and joy. It’s rare that something so simple can bring such pleasure, and at any time of the day or night. It seems with all the fancy trappings in this world, that a well-worn pair of slippers become their most comfortable just at the time they need to be discarded. They go with me into every corner of the house, but have also been known to venture down the stone driveway to retrieve, the mail or a wayward dog. Whoever invented the slipper, was a genius and a person who also enjoyed simple pleasures. I love my slippers and feel comfort when I put them on. Yes, in my own way, I feel like a queen. I feel pampered and loved and cared for by a thin soled pair of synthetic slip-ons. The poem reflects this. I felt the object poem was most difficult to write, because It was meant to focus on the “thing,” and not what feelings and emotions that thing evoked in me. The poem was intended to have me focus on the most minute details of the object and to describe them to the reader. It was difficult to try to focus on the characteristics of the slippers and still have it seem interesting. Writing an object poem vs. other kinds of poems, is challenging because one can interject more feeling and also the reactions and feelings of others. In writing this poem, I discovered how important simple pleasures are in life. I discovered that it’s important to treat yourself with loving care, and that it doesn’t take a lot of money or material things to enjoy life. What better relief is their than to slip into your comfortable slippers at the end of a long stressful day? It starts with the feet, but travels to the heart and mind. I discovered that my slippers bring me a close substitute to love, comfort, affection and companionship. Whenever I think about the way they make me feel, I am at ease and relaxed.

Poetics 1

The selection of my object was quite simple. On Saturday night, I was lying in my hammock thinking to myself, "I need to get started on my object poem". I was hesitant to write about such a large object because it was suggested to write about something no bigger than a face. However, what I attempted to do to counter that issue was to write a fairly small and simple poem about a larger object. Lying in my hammock is a simple pleasure, it brings a sense of calm. While I am in it, life is easy. My stress does not follow me there. Cradled and swaying in my hammock watching a thunderstorm that night compelled me to write my poem about it. I felt that lying in my hammock was, in and of itself, poetic.

Interestingly enough, I got out of the hammock to write the poem. It simply came to me as soon as I sat down with the paper in front of me. I have never written a poem by typing it; I always sketch out my intentions by hand, usually in ink which makes for a messy starting page. I have a tendency to avoid writing poetry because I think too much about it. I wrote a lot of poetry when I was younger, before, I believe, college forced me to look so deeply into everything in front of me, including my own work. For the first time in years, I was able to write a poem that simply came to me. The revisions came after the basic skeleton was formed on the page, and it began to really take shape. I don't think it's a coincidence that I was in "hammock mode" -- calm, open, easy -- when I was finally able to write a poem in this organic way again.

Poetics 1

I found the object poem to be harder than I originally thought. I sat in my house looking around me and found nothing interesting really. I moved to a new room and again nothing that really stuck out at me. Finally I said, "Hey Mom, give me an object I can write a poem about." To which she replied, "How about an eraser." And I went on from there.

When writing this poem I actually didn't look at an eraser at all. I found it easier to think of one in my head and the different aspects of it that I remember. It actually brought me back to my childhood because I hadn't really used one of those block erasers in a long time. I think it was easier to write the poem not looking at the eraser so that I didn't get all caught up in just the outside of it. I hoped to talk about the interior and exterior in my poem and thinking about it in my mind made this easier.

I discovered that there is a lot more to an eraser than meets the eye. I really thought I was just going to write about what it looked like but when I got a little deeper I realized how important an eraser is really and how it has so much power that it can eliminate mistakes. I tried to model my poem like the one we read in class about the oyster. I wanted to be creative with it and end with a strong line like the one about the pearl. My favorite part about my poem is the last line. If I left it out, you would just think,"okay cool eraser." But the last sentence gives it depth and a new perception of how the eraser can actually erase itself.

Mint poetics

I wanted to pick an object that had meaning to me, which was something simple yet original. I thought about how Mediterrean's rave about olives or olive oil, or even garlic. But I had to think about something that is just as valued and meaningful so that is when the fresh mint idea came to mind. I had it all set, to sit this stalk of mint down and write about how its used in our salads, in our foods, and our beverages. It's one of the those items that every Palestinian household would not be caught without! So, being that I was out "fresh" mint, and needed some for this assignment, I asked for some from a cousin which I had visited over the weekend after she presented us with some herbal tea with fresh mint in it. I just asked her for a stalk of it; not much, just enough for the assignment. She gave me a skeptical and I told her, "I'll tell you about this later!" So I go home with my mint and begin hashing out these thoughts about the mint until I recall the story she told me about it, and how she had a cousin of ours bring it over from our countryside town in Palestine, and how she replanted it and how it's grown wildly all over her suburban garden. I was struck by how they did this and how the mint made it through the travel and in this soil and how it's flourished. That is when I was compelled to turn it into a metaphor about the mint equating to the Palestinian people. Creating a dual identity, I tried to embody the mint as the diaspora of the Palestinians forced to flee their homelands, now as immigrants in a land which is unfamiliar to them, and how they have struggled to adapt, like most new immigrants coming to the US. So form this parallel in the lines describing the mint, to also describe the immigrant, who may be "darker", and "spiky edges" perhaps referring that they may not be so refined as the American standard. I add in the line about "adoring Jasmine" and "speaking to the butterflies" to show a gentle perspective to the uprooted mint/uprooted immigrant in the sense that they were kind and different than what you see now since they are busy striving like the rest of society in the US. Yet, perhaps the Jasmine could symbolize the floral essense of their mothers, or sisters, or loved ones, and the butterflies indicates the close relationships with kin they had in their native land. It goes without saying that many of the immigrants have soon adapted and "all the way to make time fly" just embodies all the ways that immigrants come to the US and are so wrapped up in succeeding and working, and playing that often, they forget how it was so simply and beautiful where they came from.However, by being busy, they can use it as a coping mechanism to forget the sorrow and loss they have lost as a people. The last stanza signfies how some flourished and made in America, while some have just broke through their customs and traditions to become "stubbornly wild"-same as the real mint in my cousin's garden. Those who have "withered" pertain to those who will never forget their struggles from being exiled and have not done well away from their beloved homeland.

Poetics 1

I wanted to write a poem about an Iphone because when I was thinking about an Iphone there was a lot of imagination that comes with it. I had many ways to try to be creative with the Iphone because there were a lot of applications in it. While writing, I wanted the readers to get a sense of how fascinating an Iphone really is and that is why I compared it to heaven. I tried to be very descriptive with this poem because I thought that being descriptive would help readers imagine the Iphone in their heads without having the object in front. It was a challenging assignment because I had a hard time connecting heaven to the Iphone. I wasn’t sure how to make the readers see the connection between the two. It was also challenging because I had never written a poem about an object nor do I write poems in that type of format. It was hard to write about an object because an object is empty and poets have to fill in the emptiness with their own creativity, by using words to make the object be seen as something of great use. On another note, I discovered that there are different formats of writing a poem. It was interesting to see what other student’s object poem was about. Overall, the assignment was different and definitely unique.

Museum Day

For the museum day assignment I went to the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill. The museum is mostly a collection of artwork made in Philadelphia and is small compared to most museums. The building is an old mansion that was turned into a museum. There is a field in front of the museum that has been made into a large sculpture garden. A memorable sculpture is of pigs in mud sculpted out of tar. Thinking about it now this sculpture stands out the most as being my favorite work of art at the museum.
Inside there are a few different exhibits up including: a wood cut display, a children’s art show, an American landscape show, an art show of local artists work, and upstairs paintings from their collection. I took notes on a nice little still life of a melon and beats by Stewart Shills. I have never done free writing as an exercise, it helped clarify what I was seeing and felt natural.

Museum Visit

I've taken many trips to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and having an assignment that required me to visit was a great opportunity to enjoy the museum. What was strange this time was "scouting" for piece of artwork that was moving enough to write about. Considering that this was a criteria, it became very hard to focus on one thing. It became even harder to realize, amongst the many jewels of the museum which piece would be "the one!".

I swiftly passed the Flemish works, the scultpures, the European Art, the Contemporary Art and still did not find it. Somehow, looking to find something was more difficult than simply admiring Cezanne or the Renoits.

As time passed and the museum was going to close, a scultpure struck my attention. One I've never seen before! It was the sculpture of Diana, The Roman Goddess of the hunt by Saint-Gaudens located on the 2nd floor by the stairs. How many times as I child, did I play on those stairs that led to the upper galleries, even admiring the stairs that led to so many rooms full of splendor, could I miss Diana??? I could not believe that it had never struck me as something so facinating, and not because it was on my way out! Really, it is a special sculpture that depicts woman grasping her bow and arrow, with one foot poised upon a sphere as she focuses on her prey. Her elongated nude body depicted strength, femininity and beauty, which I appreciated much. Only after I convinced myself that this is "the one" that I realized I would be focusing on such an explicit piece!