2nd Quarter Poetry Journal Reflection ｷｬｯ♪o((〃∇〃o))

Cake

I am half a sparkle on the gilt edge,

the flesh of a living charm.

We knit our warmth with needles,

the sweater that wraps

around the circle of our touching shoulders like a shawl.

 

I live in a land

of three-letter acronyms

we juggle back-ack and forth-orth like a game.

 

I am zapped to life by the swish of the baton,

jitter-itter and chug like a wind-up toy,

but the gears and springs inside me,

they’re silver and gold.

 

I used to be one of Them, sputter-uttering,

on the outside,

pointing, dry cracked lips,

faces tinted chartreuse,

pounding bloody cracks in the fiberglass windows

wail-wailing-ing please let me in-in--

 

But the sweater muff-uffles the voices of Them now,

sympathy drained.

It’s warm and snug in here,

No room for more.

Jitter-itter-chug, it’s all that matter-atters.

 

Let them eat cake.

This is kind of a weird poem. I forget what it was inspired by. (Of course it was inspired by me. *round of applause*) I do remember I pulled the lines "knit warmth with needles" and "wraps around shoulders like a shawl" from a poem we read (I don't quite remember which one), and "they're silver and gold" from a Lorde song, because, Lorde.

I dreamed up the idea for this poem during orchestra class (because, we all agree, I never pay enough attention when playing violin wrong notes WHAT ARE THESE WRONG NOTES YOU SPEAK OF). I was thinking about how people who get what they want (or are in the upper crusts of society), being content and unconsciously self-absorbed, pay no attention to those below them, who would give anything to be in the same situation. People are so blinded by the fulfillment of their own wants that they do not realize that there is a world outside of that little gilt edge, that little inner circle in orchestra where the conductor waves the baton into their faces, when that outside world is where they themselves had previously been. I was am was guilty of this too.

The last line is an alleged quote from Marie Antoinette, spoken when a herd of irascible peasant women stormed into the Palace of Versailles wail-wailing-ing for bread. I thought this would tie in well, because she showed indifference for the peasant's suffering, much as the elite in society (or school) today are indifferent toward the suffering of others who get it rougher. (I crossed that out because I think it's self-explanatory but Mrs. Leitsch wants me to elaborate on specific decisions-isions I made during the writing process so I'll spell it out.)

Something else new I tried during my revision process with this poem is I added a bunch of repeated syllables in selected words, set off by hyphens, such as "back-ack and forth-orth" and "jitter-itter-chug". These were meant to be kind-of-but-not-really-onomatopoeia, like we saw with that one poem called "Interchange", except a little differently. I guess what I wanted to show was the constant, repetitive nature of the cycle of nonchalance, and plus it sounds cool, so I decided to go with it.

2nd Quarter Independent Reading Reflection

This quarter, I finished 4.5 books (2.5 books more than last quarter, that’s a 125% increase) *fist pump*:

The Color of Water by James McBride

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Scarlet Letter, although pretty rigorous, was not as difficult as I had expected it to be! I understood basically all of what I read, and found it pretty interesting too. A lot of the language and sentence structure in classics is really different from modern YA novels, so it was kind of tough going (and that’s GOOD because I wanted to challenge myself :D), but I think I grasped it well enough.

I decided that I was working very hard gnawing my way through Hawthorne, so I sort of binge-read Wintergirls and Room, two books I would not normally have indulged in, because I thought, after all those aerobics with a classic, I deserved a treat. Rationalizations tsk tsk tsk *shakes head* 

However, I’m actually super glad that I gave myself such rationalizations because these two books turned out to be two of my favorites (I kind of have a lot of favorites but still. They’re awesome.) Wintergirls is a heartwrenchingly vivid (and, strangely, relatable!) story of a teenage girl struggling with anorexia, along with grief and guilt from the death of a close friend. The story is one of strength and recovery, but I particularly loved the beautiful writing style and haunting metaphors, such as:

“The voices swim around her insides and multiplied, charred, tinny echo voices that made a permanent home inside the eggshell of her skull.” 

I JUST LOVE THAT. Why can’t I write so beautifully??? Or actually maybe I can. I need to start doing that.

Room is an equally dark and potent story written from the perspective of a five-year old boy, Jack, whose mother was kidnapped and confined into a one-room garden shed seven years ago and finally explores the outside world for the first time in his life. Jack’s innocent and childishly positive outlook on life and his dependence on his Ma are what make this story so warm and sad at the same time.

The battle for my favorite book this quarter is tight between Wintergirls and Room, but I think the gorgeous writing style gives Wintergirls the final tug on the rope.

Many of the books I read this quarter (namely, Girl, Interrupted; Wintergirls; and Room), while not all that challenging in terms of comprehension, were very eye-opening and disturbing. Yeah, disturbing more than anything else: I met a suicidal girl in a mental facility, a girl who starved herself to the brink of death and sliced open her bag of skin and bones, and an adorable little boy with his aching mother who lost seven years of her life. I’ve grown to have a big sort of empathy for the characters, and learned that, these people actually do exist, and they are so incredibly strong. I need to read more such disturbing books in the future (I LEARN SO MUCH MORE THIS WAY). Also I need to give myself more rationalizations to read books that aren’t necessarily that challenging, like the two I binge-read this time. Because look how much I’ve learned from and enjoyed them!! (wow, was that a rationalization FOR a rationalization? *gasp*)

I read so much (125%!) more than I did last quarter, met my goal of four books including one classic, AND pulled myself through half of Hawthorne. *really swaggy motion that guys do after a sweaty workout* I’m proud, right there. (My friends are also proud of me because they’ve started getting annoying Goodreads notifications from me again.) I think I met my goals this time because I binge-read really hard WITHOUT the guilt. I loved it. I picked pleasurable, disturbing (was that an oxymoron? *gasp*) books, and I loved it.

My goals for next quarter’s reading are (1) finish The Scarlet Letter, obviously, because it’s challenging and I’m already halfway through so there’s no turning back *mwahahaha* and (2) read FIVE books, so I can read MORE than I did this quarter, especially with winter break and plenty of binging time (except still being realistic since third and fourth quarters are when most Science Olympiad competitions are so I need to mete out time for that too). *thumbs up thumbs up*

Oh and also, I can't figure out how to add a Pinterest button widget to my blog (it's been a long day), but nevertheless follow my Pinterest!! (It's actually good, I promise. Followers, this is the part where ALL 9 of you testify.)