classmate response 2, week 9

Improv Week 9

by Kay Lowery

On Saturday he came back with tulips

That he knew would remind her that he remembered
the little details about her,

& asked her to retitle their relationship,

Again. I told her congratulations with a smile
That I save for grandma's handmade sweaters every year for Christmas

As I ached to remind her that Ben and Jerry’s Rocky Road

Never undid the goodbyes delivered by text message instead
of by the mouth that now kisses her between the words
Baby, Forgive me, and I love you.

My response:

This piece reminds me of some of the work that we did in the beginning of the year with the showing and the telling discussion. The first two lines show the frustration that the narrator expresses through the relationship. I would like to see more about the little details, and you do that with the Ben and Jerry’s line –reminds me of some komunyakaa moonpies- but there needs to be more out.

classmate response 1, week 9

Free Entry "Stench of Settling," Week 9

by Kelsey

I was thinking I might use this for my workshop piece but now I'm not so sure. If I do I will have to revise it like crazy because it deals with some abstractions.

The amount of flowers at a wedding

will never mask the stench of settling.

Like a diamond necklace from Tiffany’s

clasped ‘round the neck of a rotting dog

muffling the odor that is permeating from its hot carcass.

The reacher reeks of snagging the coattails

of someone far above their status,

while the settler’s perfume of superiority and wasted unhappiness

clings to their every conversation, kiss, and fuck.

They are the captain to a lower-ranking officer,

Who can never fully give them what they want.

The comfort in settling is the knowledge they can neverreach for anyone better.

I thought the images were very concrete but at times i feel it is very private, and I noticed you said you had a lot of abstractions. I do think for revisions you could try and play with settling this idea of a wedding you know how some radical feminists believe marriage is a death certificate or thoughts of that nature. Those are some thoughts, but I enjoyed lines 3 and 4 because they provide a cinematic description of the events I could almost touch it.

Improv 1, week 10

Vacation
by Rita Dove
I love the hour before takeoff, that stretch of no time, no home but the gray vinyl seats linked like unfolding paper dolls. Soon we shall be summoned to the gate, soon enough there’ll be the clumsy procedure of row numbers and perforated stubs—but for now I can look at these ragtag nuclear families with their cooing and bickering or the heeled bachelorette trying to ignore a baby’s wail and the baby’s exhausted mother waiting to be called up early while the athlete, one monstrous hand asleep on his duffel bag, listens, perched like a seal trained for the plunge. Even the lone executive who has wandered this far into summer with his lasered itinerary, briefcase knocking his knees—even he has worked for the pleasure of bearing no more than a scrap of himself into this hall. He’ll dine out, she’ll sleep late, they’ll let the sun burn them happy all morning —a little hope, a little whimsy before the loudspeaker blurts and we leap up to become Flight 828, now boarding at Gate 17.

A two pm flight to LaGuardia, arriving midday for a

Nap and enough time to shower before the night began,

Stuck in between two chairs, staring into the back of

Boeing certified safety buckets. The window was stuck,

A chance to witness the blazing blocks of yellow glow cubes

Deterred by some mother from Kentucky, past her bedtime.

My head cocked, wanes in the safety lighting holding on

To husky shadows, graphed midway between Philadelphia and

Trenton. Waiting for the bathroom, another line had by a

Crisp pant leg bent on an incline. But, alas my flight delayed, I

Wander the gates crashing news racks and outlet ports; swollen

Like seasoned quail.

response 2, week 10

Calisthenics 1, Week 10

by KookiePhoenix

In class character development exercise

I think sometimes that you are the most dangerous person in Amerika, yes with a K. Your face still turns reddish pink when I say that. Your supermodel blond hair runs all the way down to your housewife-after-six-kids hips, shedding like our cats Megatron and Pumpkin who are attention-whores. I love you, yet I despise you, because the way to a man's heart is his belly, and my gut is filled with all your concoctions: Indian chicken curry, cornbread casserole, holiday cookies, and that damn cider. Oh! what a wretch I am! The scarf you knitted last December now hides the hickie on my neck. I wish you wouldn't be so rough. I wish I could run away like Pumpkin did last June. I would get much farther than Carrollton Square. I imagine simply sliding smoothly out the section of the door I cut for the kitties. But, I, we, are stuck here in this vertigo. I pull in a deep breath, with the paprika and nutmeg smacking my nostrils, and pull off the red and yellow scarf. This is like my Auschwitz, your Eternal Treblinka. Wow, I am Fred Hampton in his Chi-Town bed. Oh my god, I am in love with a white MILF again.

My Response:

Dude this is really good. I know we aren’t supposed to say good, but I just had to say that straight up. This character makes you want to read on, the spell began after about the third line. The attention to the detail of the character and how you built upon characteristic after characteristic I am seeing how I can improve my own work in this exercise. I do think that this can be fleshed out over a couple of more pages and turn into a short story piece, something like the taco Tuesday trigger but much more unflinching as I see your piece attempts to carry.

response 1 , week 10

Free Entry Week 10

by Tondrika H.

This is a rewrite of the poem I wrote earlier in the semester.

My mother's image

I am the image of my mother.

A woman who’s wrists chafe

from the chains

of those before her.

A woman who’s eyes sting

from the remnants of

pepper spray and tears.

A woman who’s bible

served as her eye wash station,

and its words pulling

together her split heart.

I am my mother’s image.

My Response:

I want more because this is so rich with flexible and concrete images. I think that you should talk about the image of your mother, focusing on some of the mundane things that’s you see in her, or in what the mother represents. I would take a look back to Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem about his Vietnam experience and all the thanks he gave for the times his life was saved or a memorable experience This piece provides a very strong base but some expansion of the image of the mother would provide many dimensions to the work and provide the clearest image of your mother possible.