Call Me Gina

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Get Your English on!!!!!

Monday, February 18, 2008
"Fear makes us feel our humanity." - Benjamin "Dizzy" Disraeli

I know, I know. I've neglected that one thing in you that had the urge to understand weird poetry terms. ME TOO!!! So, just because I love the five of you (maybe there is another person reading this and just won't tell me) sooooooooo much, I came back just to offer this to you. More English!

accent-The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. In the word poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable.

alexandrine-A line of poetry that has 12 syllables. The name probably comes from a medieval romance about Alexander the Great that was written in 12-syllable lines.

alliteration-The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words: “What would the world be, once bereft/Of wet and wildness?” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”)

anapest-A metrical foot of three syllables, two short (or unstressed) followed by one long (or stressed), as in seventeen and to the moon. The anapest is the reverse of the dactyl.

antithesis-A figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other. An example of antithesis is “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)

posted by Evolution of gina at 2/18/2008 12:37:00 AM | Permalink | 0 comments

You Wouldn't Believe Who I Met!!!!!

Saturday, February 09, 2008
"In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice." - Richard Bach

I met Natasha Trethewey!!!! And if you don't know who that is, well, you are not that smart! (It's okay, though. I didn't know who she was, either.) She won the Pulizer Prize for poetry last year! You have got to get her book Native Guard. If you have lost a loved one, you will understand how deeply personal and difficult writing this poetry might have been. The pictures I've seen of her do her no justice--she's drop-dead gorgeous. I've been reinvigorated by her advice and her work.

Going to study now. I have work to do! Google "Natasha Trethewey" and "Monument"--you will understand why she got the prize!

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posted by Evolution of gina at 2/09/2008 03:08:00 PM | Permalink | 2 comments

You Tube--Have You Seen This?

Friday, February 08, 2008
"The difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a person's determination." - Tommy Lasorda

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posted by Evolution of gina at 2/08/2008 09:35:00 PM | Permalink | 0 comments

Exit 185

Wednesday, February 06, 2008
"Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth and Reagan couldn't tell the difference."- Mort Sahl

So I wrote this poem about going home. Wanna see it? Well, here is the first draft. It's going to need some revisions, in fact I'm thinking about making it two separate poems. I'll post the revision eventually.

Exit 185

The mile marker hadn’t changed.

The curve last hiding slope, its median sidled

with man-made forests to the middle

and nature’s wooded barrier

on the right has not changed

from the so many trips—from different cities

away from different reasons—that I had

made before. I’d gun the engine, free

from highway patrol officers, close

to home. The slope becomes

shallower, shorter. The sensations grip

my nerves as my fingernails dig

into the steering wheel: excitement

insecurity, love, separation.

At the top of the hill, the highway meanders

slightly to the right and straightens. The viaduct

before me and the fork with secret intuition

invites me to come home. The world stops

at Exit 185. The raft of concrete connecting

the lands separated by highway

is void of obstacles, yet my worldliness

is imprisoned; the world does not permeate

these borders. Two turns and I’m disturbed

at the most recent capitalist broken attempts

to modernize this microcosm—vivid signs

offering gas, thirty-one flavors, chicken, waffles—

a designer gown on a hooker. I speed

beyond them and, after a combination

of turns and straight distances, measured relief

stills my core before my long ago

dwelling-place of my youth.

When I was a girl standing outside

only the stars interrupted

the navy-violet void

two young trees appeared

as strong weeds towering

over a blend of green and tan fauna.

Tonight those trees separate my view

from the velvet sky. I’m surprised

they came from barely nothing

to exceeding my expectations.

Time did this to the trees

but what did time do to me?

Age lines my eyes and layers my body

weighs my mind and darkens my youthful

dreams with years of forlorn melancholy.

I have lived away from these woods

these woes once entrapped turned

to musings of fear unremembered.

Years interrupt my childhood from this night.

The astral light bulbs sprawl the sky, my

favorite night light casts a translucent sheet

of bright periwinkle about all I see.

The relations between earth and sky

are amiable, on one accord

and I agree with them.

My pupils widen, my vision

bullets beyond the tree limbs

into the stars, all muses of serenity.

No wild gusts of youth to blow away

my still and certain spirit. Those days

have matured to lessons, secrets of a woman.




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posted by Evolution of gina at 2/06/2008 10:06:00 AM | Permalink | 0 comments

That Thing!!!!

Sunday, February 03, 2008
"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." - Alice Walker

I have decided that I was going to talk about how I had lost my groove thing, but I saw this quote and changed my mind.

In lieu (yup, I really know what that word means) I'm going to start you boys and girls in being edumacated! Hee hee! So, as you probably know, I'm an English major with a Creative Writing concentration. I want to give y'all some enlightening terms that might inspire you to understand literature. It may also help me with learning more myself. Okay, I'm using you. Sue me. Here is your first one. Enjoy!

Epic. An extended narrative poem recounting actions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style (with ennobled diction, for example). It may be written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic hexameter, and it may have twelve books or twenty four books. Characteristics of the classical epic include these:
  • The main character or protagonist is heroically larger than life, often the source and subject of legend or a national hero
  • The deeds of the hero are presented without favoritism, revealing his failings as well as his virtues
  • The action, often in battle, reveals the more-than-human strength of the heroes as they engage in acts of heroism and courage
  • The setting covers several nations, the whole world, or even the universe
  • The episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide an explanation for some of the circumstances or events in the history of a nation or people
  • The gods and lesser divinities play an active role in the outcome of actions
  • All of the various adventures form an organic whole, where each event relates in some way to the central theme
Typical in epics is a set of conventions (or epic machinery). Among them are these:
  • Poem begins with a statement of the theme ("Arms and the man I sing")
  • Invocation to the muse or other deity ("Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Achilles")
  • Story begins in medias res (in the middle of things)
  • Catalogs (of participants on each side, ships, sacrifices)
  • Histories and descriptions of significant items (who made a sword or shield, how it was decorated, who owned it from generation to generation)
  • Epic simile (a long simile where the image becomes an object of art in its own right as well as serving to clarify the subject).
  • Frequent use of epithets ("Aeneas the true"; "rosy-fingered Dawn"; "tall-masted ship")
  • Use of patronymics (calling son by father's name): "Anchises' son"
  • Long, formal speeches by important characters
  • Journey to the underworld
  • Use of the number three (attempts are made three times, etc.)
  • Previous episodes in the story are later recounted
Examples:
  • Homer, Iliad
  • Homer, Odyssey
  • Virgil, Aeneid
  • Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered
  • Milton, Paradise Lost
*From A Glossary of Literary Terms
posted by Evolution of gina at 2/03/2008 11:32:00 PM | Permalink | 0 comments