Haiku Blog

I love short poems. Love them. That's why I was really glad that my friend Greenpinga started a haiku blog. Her haikus are very good. I love haikus that either make me laugh or that break my heart--and she has plenty of both. She wrote a whole series of haikus based on The Book of Bunny Suicides, and since I've read this book, these poems make me laugh. "Bunny meets Aliens", "Acid Bunny", "Flood Bunnies", "Sitting Bunny", and "Helicopter Bunny" are my favorites of this series. The book is so perverse and the poems match it nicely.

Some of Greenpinga's poems are heartbreaking an mysterious. I don't know eactly what the poem "Swan" means, but I can see the swan lying broken and beautiful on a road. The poem "Gray Haired Woman" has so much personality to it. I know this lady--and sometimes I'm afraid of becoming this lady. Perhaps Greenpinga is too. But I know that my fear is one reason I respond to this poem.

Anyway, click some of the links. They are quick reads (unless you get involved in thinking about them.

the smell of new rain

a building viewed through a rainspattered window
stones heavy with dirt and time
and erosion

Beloit afternoon

Beloit afternoon

brief moment building in the blue-gray sky
i don't know if you are solid or a memory
and through the window of the car
i'm unable to tell for sure

"55"

This poem is amazing. I'm always amazed when an artist of any kind can portray love or desire without sounding sappy or without sounding dishonest. "55" does that for me. Joshua Dodson uses well chosen images to convey powerful emotions. Yet there's a vagueness to the images. What does it mean to have a tatoo that is "still provocative"? I've got an image in my head of a fresh tatoo with vibrant colors, but I'm not entirely certain that that's what the poet intended. But I still like the image immensely. Also, any poem with the word "library" in it usually wins with me. :)

don't bother reading this poem unless you really need to waste some time

(I don't have a photo to accompany this poem. I just feel like writing it.)


Red Bull night

eyes cemented open
a caffinated beverage coated
superglue on my eyelashes
there's nothing I can do anymore
except wait out the sleepless night

managing my music files
writing this poem
visiting my online communities
managing my music files
visiting my online communities
--I push the reload button

a sleepy drive prevented
as well as a sleepfilled night


(Argh! This is an aweful poem. But I feel like I need to post it since I wrote it. Sorry folks.)

"MERELY SO MANY FORMS OF TORTURE"

Okay, I know I've reviewed Zack's blog before, but I really like his poetry, so I'm going to comment on one of his new poems. "MERELY SO MANY FORMS OF TORTURE" is a poem that he recently wrote. One of the strongest aspects of this poem is the ambiguity of it. Because it's so simple and so brief, this poem still has unanswered questions. What's the point of reading a poem if it does all the work for you? I also feel that the line breaks are in the perfect spots. Sometimes poets can produce good poems, but the line breaks are in the wrong place--at least for me as a reader (perhaps I wouldn't agree if I heard it read out loud). "MERELY SO MANY FORMS OF TORTURE" doesn't make me think about the way the lines are broken up. It just makes me think.

Spring Break

I'm leaving for Spring Break. Posts will be infrequent. Check back next Thursday and I might have new posts.

Another analysis of a photoblog

My friend Jacob is a chemist. Yet even within his "conventional scientific thinking" (I poke fun), he's got an artistic side that he can't really hide. It's especially difficult to hide when he plasters it onto the internet in the form of his photoblog: 10, 60, 200. This photoblog contains the photos he's taken of things under the microscope. Many of these pictures are beautiful on their own without the intellect that is sparked by the science involved in them.

I like the explanation on this post. It's very sciency but also well written and interesting. There are some posts I like because the photos are very beautiful. Anyway, Jacob's blog is pretty cool, so you should check it out.

road trip wishes

road trip wishes

I want to drive------

freeedom of the road
dotted lines blurring behind me
each line is further
landmarks
the arch
the river
calling me
and I will respond

church poem

sunday school

dried, twisted ivy
sucks hungrily at the side of the church
but no nourishment is found

blankets

keep you warm during
cold winter nights
create homes in terrifying uncertainty

St. Helens Waterfront

docks in rainy winter
humid breeze
dew damp face
and swaying platforms
give me the power to walk on water

a poem i wrote during lit crit tonight

Wordsworth's passing shadows

drinking gets rid of shadows
of consciousness keeping in check;
ethanol molecules pumping brainbots away
with each heartbeat

An examination of a photo blog

I find photo blogs most interesting under certain circumstances: I know the person "writing" the blog, the blog tells a story, or the photography is really beautiful or well done. The photo blog of Christine Lebrasseur has a lot of really well done photos. I'm particularly fascinated by her use of color. So many of her photos have an amazing vibrancy to them! I can't imagine how wonderful it must be to take photos like these every day.

There are a few photos in particular that I'd like to discuss. 6 a.m. has a brilliant orange train stop contrasted with the almost black and white one. Somehow the camera didn't pick up the colors in the left side of the train station. The reflection and shadows in this picture are very pleasing to look at.

Christine also has photos that hold a story. The photo Pure tendresse makes me wonder about the girl playing the violin. How long as she been playing? Is she any good? Does she like taking lessons? Or even I wonder if she likes to play in the rain wearing red rain boots. This is definitely a photo with an inner poem--a poem I'd very much like to write.

magnetic poetry

purple moon dream s
almost cloud wild want ing
that leave s you
only summer journey ing
and a whisper of autumn thunder

analysis of analysis

One of the cites on my blogroll is neither poetry or photos. For the most part, g r a p e z is a poetry analysis blog. I tend to enjoy the analysis on this blog, but it's also a good source of interesting and discussion driving poetry. The post for today includes analysis of "Dear Jim" and "If You Cannot Be True"; I agree with one analysis and the other I disagree with.

"Dear Jim does indeed have some promising moments. There are certain lines that beautiful and well written. As a whole, however, they don't make sense together. The lack of coherence makes the poem difficult to enjoy the whole way through (a serious issue for a short poem). g r a p e z's analysis was brief and very fitting.

g r a p e z also analyzes "If You Cannot Be True," a poem that I rather enjoyed. Sure, the title is a little weak, but titles are hard to write, so I don't fault this poet too much for that. Also, the imagery in this poem is very well done; the use of "golem" in the first line gives the reader the necessary mental image to prepare them for this poem. This poem also has an interesting sound particularly in lines four and five ("thumb's inkprint" and "pupil's pinprick").

Even though I disagreed somewhat on "If You Cannot Be True," I still think g r a p e z is a great blog with interesting analysis and links to discussion-worthy poetry.

"cruel velvet drapes"

--for Zack

"cruel velvet drapes"

i remember that line
you said
you stole
but it's beautiful and i'll steal it too

hold yourself to royal purple
lush and entrapping
don't ever escape from the violetpalace of words
with weeping or gnashing of teeth
memories of academic conquest
improving the world one art (please) at a time

alone in the car

alone in the car

whether wandering highways or empty streets
starry nights or sun glared days
music always blasting
(unless CD batteries are dead),
I sing my aloneness to the windshield
cracking from pebbles or cold--

a cold aloneness

warmed by blasting engine vents
ugly cello sounds
spiritlife melodies
emotional connections made on my own

songwriting

I was just listening to one of my new CDs--The Ugly Organ by Cursive--and I realized that I usually assume the characters in songs are referring to the songwriter rather than being fictional. This realization troubles me somewhat because I have been trying to move away from this assumption when I read poetry. I should try to work against that assumption for songs as well because poems are just as likely to be about their authors than songs are likely to be about their authors.

A try at tanka

driving in winter
racing the plow to keep speed
slip and slide on snow
hands clenched in silent prayers
cars spun out litter ditches

headache

headache

pillow damp with sweat
shapes blur from watering eyes
plastic vomit bag

the grease of time

the grease of time

smell of latex, dirty underwear, and feet
grabs an my nose hairs.

he groans and rolls away from me.
I glance (for a moment) at his neoned silhouette.
stand up--
grope in unfamilar dark for soggy panties.
I find his t-shirt
and put it on instead.

i fall asleep

wake up to rustling
the lamp glow filmed by dust
and the grease of time
"Oh. There's my undershirt," he says.
"Do you want it back?"
"No keep it. It probably smells like you anyway."
bends over to tie his Nikes with a
stabbing glare from the gold band on his left hand
illuminated by the light filtered through the aging
lampshade and flickering bulb

after his headlights fade down the deserted street
I try to inhale the remainder of his scent
but only smell sterile hotel sheets

Analysis of 38

The poem I'm analyzing today is a haiku. I generally like haikus because they are brief and simple, and when done well, they are incredibly beatiful. I also prefer haikus that are about subjects other than nature since haikus were traditionally about nature; an urban or indoor subject matter tends to challenge the form.

Anyway, I like "38" because it merges the indoor and the outdoor. Also, because I enjoy rain and often miss Oregon winter moments, this poem speaks to me. Even without the poet using any smell imagery, I can still smell new rain and moist air. The sound mentioned in the poem carries the scent to me, so that even as I sit in my increasingly cold bedroom, I remember rainy winter evenings on the West Coast.

an artist's deception

an artist's deception

staring at the sea
dear oceanmoments
sharp rock teeth bite gray sky
and bare feet
salt stinging skin and lungs
surf sloshing

I am there again.
Transported by a painting
in the IKEA Superstore.

My first piece of analysis

(When I'm excited about my new project, I'll post more than one comment in a day. Today, I am excited about this blog!)

Today, I read a poem posted mr. zack schwartz on his blog. This poem is almost bare in its details--stripped down so that only the important words remain. I prefer and respect poetry like this, vivid yet simple.

Something else that mr. zack does (that I actually might try doing in my own poetry) in this poem is combining two words to make one descriptive word. In "THIS IS THE LAST TIME?" the word "manyloved" says more than "many loved" would. By combining the two words the reader is forced to use many loved as an adjective describing heart rather than only using loved to describe heart (changes the meaning, yes?).

I have to say that I don't know what the last two lines mean and I don't know how they relate to the rest of the poem. I think they fit (at least they sound right), but I'm not sure what to make of them. But I do like the poem and I really want to understand these lines. Perhaps I'll return later to see if I can understand these lines better.

A Haiku and a New Beginning

childhood dreaming
reading The Secret Garden
crisp pages turning

I have been approved (and not just my credit card)

My project has been approved. Starting later today, when the computer with my pictures on it has internet access, I will be posting a poem. Roll up your socks, roll down your sleeves and prepare for Tiffany's poetry stylings.

driving drunk

driving drunk

illuminated pathways of drunken paradise
swirling shapes of snowflakes like Star Wars stars stretching past windows
like the words tipping off the edge of the screen
thoughts aren't fully formed--
truncated like a mock turtleneck--
unfinished phrases slip through drunken fingertips like my youth

poems when?

This blog is about to become my semester project for blogs & wikis. Right now I am trying to take lots of photos (preferable ones that will be "decent" for online posting) and so it might be awhile until I post another poem. But after I get started on the project, I hope to post almost everyday. I know you're waiting in antici...pation.

another rant about poem persona confusion

Today at my FRV meeting I had discussion about poetry personas. Someone, without thinking about it, I'm sure, assumed "facts" about a person's life based on smashing two of their poems together to draw a conclusion. Okay, so a lot of poets actually do write about their lives. They've got to have something to draw on. But it's very annoying to me when people make these assumptions (as I ranted about in this post) . So I got loud. I think I scared some of the people on the board.

It's possible for someone to create prose without having this difficulty about persona/writer confusion. Why is poetry like this?