Extra Credit Project: "Mountain Laurel"

Here's my extra credit project. I did go off into the wild and wonderful for several afternoons, but I decided to do a creative project instead of the optional journal entries. So I composed a photobook/poem for my project.

When I was writing this and taking the photos, I was thinking about the Greek myth of Daphne and her transformation into a laurel tree. I came across this photo the day after you gave us the optional assignment, which sparked that rumination:


I was specifically thinking of the way going into nature is a reversion for Daphne, where she steps away from specifics and details and returns to something base and primal. I was thinking that such a process would seem almost incoherent, because it would be grasping a larger, transcendental state that was almost impossible to quantify in conventional language. To that end, I included photos taken while I was piecing together the poem into the final project because they were just as much a part of the thought process as the words themselves.

I had my point-and-click camera instead of the Sony DSLR (which is awaiting repair after beach sand got into the shutter over the past summer), but I think the photos came out pretty good. I'm not an incredibly technical photographer; I prefer to focus on natural images and compositional details instead of light boxes and darkrooms. My poetry is kind of the same way; I think the form should support the function. (Thank god...or Walt Whitman...for free verse.) I'm not sure if the specific form of this poem does that effectively or not, but I think there's something interesting there.

I used a free web photobook application called Picaboo because it creates digital photobooks that can be shared. I think it's some kind of a vanity press thing, but I was mostly interested in the online storage and linking functions. It had somewhat limited design options, but there was enough to make things workable. (The fonts, though...ick...)

Anyway. Here it is. I hope you find some pleasure in looking it over. I enjoyed writing it and will probably continue rearranging and playing with it. Click the photo for a link to the viewer; once there, click each page for a zoom view of the text and images.



(Click on the above photo for a link to the following: http://app.picaboo.com/WebView/Project.aspx?clientID=7e10c4349514e7395447b7c0a4715f07&version=109326&siteID=ViaPreview)

Literary Break #3: Jane Austen's Fight Club

I know Jane Austen is a British author and all that, plus she predeceased Emily Dickinson's birth by more than a handful of years, but she's been on my mind as we read Dickinson's poetry.

Possibly because of the common misconception of Emily Dickinson as something of a weird Regency/Victorian recluse...a fragile hothouse bloom shut away from the world at large under the protective wing of family...traipsing about in white clothing and never leaving the confines of her home...pressing greenery into herbarium albums and living the life genteel...

I think her reputation could use some of this:

Jane Austen's Fight Club - watch more funny videos

13 April // I Dated Walt Whitman...

...more than once. Maybe several times. First there was that disappointing guy in Symbolic Logic, who talked like Kierkegaard but acted like Nietzsche. (All I can say in my defense was that I was nineteen at the time.) Then there was the poet/barista/political activist who referred to himself in the third person in his writing, a la To A Common Prostitute. (Nineteen was a really tough age.)

What do these guys have in common with a great poetic voice of our developing nation? Well, I harbor a lingering suspicion that Walt Whitman was, in fact, very much one of THOSE guys; the ones who suck you in with earthy intelligence and honest creativity, then gradually let you down with an incredibly narrow egotism and self-promotional streak. For this reason I find it hard to read a lot of his poetry without seeing it as America (As Viewed Through The Lens Of Walt Whitman).

I don't know. I guess all poetry is filtered through the perceptions of the poet. And I actually really enjoy most of Walt Whitman's poetry in both form and content. Honest. I really love I Sing The Body Electric, When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer and To A Stranger. There are some things he writes that really resonate with me. I just wonder sometimes if his portrayals reflect more about his own interior world than any deep, universal observations of human nature.

Plus, just like Guy #1 and his philosophy...or Guy#2 and his poetry...every time I read Whitman's writing, I can't help thinking about what a jerk he was.

And in other news...

...someday I hope to be famous enough that my listless secretarial notations will be scrutinized by a rabid team of superfluous academics:

"Walt Whitman: The poet as federal worker" (Washington Post)

"You can clearly interpret from Ms. Clemens' comma splices and haphazard spelling, as well as her iconic 'hanged woman in business suit' figures penciled in the margins, that she was disdainful of the aforementioned 'multiple memo' process; perhaps a subtle commentary on the redundancy and mass production of the standard capitalist model? Additionally, several pages of the financial committee minutes from 2008-2009 have the phrase 'blah blah blah' scattered throughout, which is obviously a very dry Marxist critique of free market economies."

Maybe one day we will have entire think-tanks dedicated to analyzing Toni Morrison's text messages or Jonathan Franzen's grocery lists.

Lit Break #2: Bibliophile Heaven

It's usually at this point in the semester...with only a month left of classes...that I begin feeling pretty stressed because, as always, I've somehow managed to meander away from set assignments and deadlines. I always make the mistake of getting caught up in what I'm studying while forgetting to pay attention to the limitations and restriction inherent in an academic schedule.

Following a line of inquiry or a train of thought to its completion feels very natural to me. That's how I learn, but sadly that's not how college is set up. We study in chunks and excerpts, according to a predetermined guideline. We memorize facts and study generalities we have no frameworks for understanding, then move on to write papers and take tests.

I always forget to move on. I get caught in the details and the complexities. The last month of class is generally the time I find myself turning the last page of the collected works of some forgotten poet, then realizing that I am late turning in that paper on medieval lais. I don't learn slowly; I just need to learn completely and in context. By the time I feel that I finally have enough information to competently comment, the deadlines for tests and papers have generally passed.

So April is a flurry of catching up and activity for me. It's always horribly busy and overwhelming. This is the reward I always keep in mind for completion. I took it one day when I had absolutely nothing to do but read books, drink tea and listen to music. Even though this is from the winter festivities of a few years ago, having freedom to read and learn outside of guidelines always feels like Christmas.