"The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,

angry Poseidon--you will not meet them unless you carry them in your soul

unless your soul raise them up before you"

-CP Cavafy, "Ithaka"

What better quote to close out with than the one quote that echoes in my heart the most often? "Ithaka" is a poem about the journey, not the destination, and that for me summarizes this 20% time project.Ultimately, I did not end up writing as many poems as I had initially planned. Looking over the folder of my work, I find myself unsatisfied with the quality of some of my work. Now I see that my goals should have been less ambitious in terms of quantity and more in terms of quality. 

I also see that I was trying for two goals with my poetry: mimicking other styles and sticking with what I was comfortable with in my own. This was the wrong way to approach it. I should have sought to expand my style on the whole, examine it for flaws and try to strengthen what I liked about it. For example, I think I have a penchant for interesting figurative language, so something to seriously work on might have been not mixing my metaphors or writing in a way that is not so idiosyncratic that only I can interpret the end product--both failings of my propensity to skip sideways into the absurdly abstract.

Though I'd seen the results of this, I did not register until very, very late into the project--yesterday, in fact--that writing with pen on paper should be something that I do more often, and not just jotting down notes, but letting the full flow of a poem come to the fore. As wonderful as technology is, I firmly believe that there is something in shaping words with my own hand that helps me write more viscerally.

On the subject of writing more viscerally, I need to work on that. Often, I couch actual events in my life in my poetry in hazy language or attempt to swathe it in generality. To be as genuine and unique as I want to be, I can no longer shy from explicit, confessional writing. I am currently writing a very angry poem that I could imagine being recited with so much more drama than I could manage in performance, and it both feels good and sounds better than some of the flowery nonsense I've been producing.

Before this, I gathered inspiration like picking up lint. Now I have to visualize myself as a sponge, finding avenues to write whenever I can and looking in the most unlikely of places for subject material. Another big idea i gained from this is blogging. I have a tumblr, but I rarely actually write posts.  love it, the rational introspection and the catharsis that comes with it. I generally express myself to my friends, but a private blog would be different, just me alone with my thoughts.

I will definitely continue to read poetry voraciously and attempt my own after this. To continue to push myself, I want to seize the threads of possibility whenever they weave themselves through my thoughts. I have to stop shelving writing for something to be done another day, when I have more energy or more time or whatever my measly excuse may be.

All in all, I believe I could have performed to a higher level than I did, but that this project has been a valuable learning experience nevertheless. 

"My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow" 
-Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

Our research into Milton's time period has reminded me about metaphysical poetry! Starting today, probably through Tuesday, I am going to read metaphysical poetry to get some sense of it, and research it as well. I will take notes and jot down any particularly interesting styles and methods. Then I will attempt to write a poem in that style--I'm sure it will be difficult, since that poetry is vastly different from contemporary in its elevated quality and of course, the conceits.

I'm going to be honest here and say I didn't really get anything done this week. I worked on my napkin poem translation, but that's it. Still, next week, it doesn't look like there's much on my plate, so I will probably be able to extend my project somewhat farther.

I will aim to post again mid-week about the progress of my metaphysical poem.

Where am I getting all these quotes?

If you don't have the patience to Google all of these, here are the poems I have quoted from in my posts so far, as well as some Catullus and others I have mentioned.

"Poetry" is the source of my blog title and heading both, and it really captures how I feel about poetry ("there I was without a face, and it touched me"). If I start on Neruda, we'll be here all day, but check out the very sensual Sonnet XI, the complex love of Sonnet XVII, and the contrast between the achey "Keeping Quiet" and the wrenching "I Explain a Few Things." And if you can read him in Spanish, do it!

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is in my top five favorite poems, and it resonates with my feelings of uncertainty and inaction so deeply. 

"If" by ee cummings

(Check out two love poems from him that I adore, too--"i like my body when it is with your" and the incredibly romantic "somewhere i have never travelled.")

This one's so empowering: "You, If No One Else."

I love, love, love Siken, and if you love me, you will buy me his anthology Crush (not really--it'll probably be my birthday present this year). I quoted "Driving, Not Washing" (you probably can't open that link at school, but I promise it's not dodgy, and it has some of his other poems, too).

"Shoulders" is the sweetest poem ever, touching a chord of universal empathy. Naomi Shihab Nye is lovely in general.

"Termites: An Assay" is very different, short and punchy, but contemplative rather than provocative. I'm definitely not biased because I've got (MERS Coronavirus) assays on the brain.

Seamus Heaney is awesome--you may remember him from Beowulf. "Blackberry-Picking" is vivid and grounding in an ephemeral moment.

"Those Winter Sundays" made me cry. Something to remember around Father's Day.

"The Fish" reminds me of my own more immature style, interestingly. Not to say that Elizabeth Bishop is immature in any sense. It's a cleverly-executed poem with plenty of buildup. It's just the accumulation of detail that I feel is similar. The difference? Her closing sticks with you.

"Howl." Oh boy. Ginsberg. You beautiful mess.

To be edited with next week's! And hey, if no one looks at this (likely), it is at least a useful personal reference. I get broken-up bits of poems stuck in my head sometimes, so it's nice to have a list of likely culprits.

"angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night"
-Allen Ginsberg, "Howl" 

As always, Coffeehouse proves a font of poetic inspiration. For example, I have been enticed to revisit "Howl," (read aloud by Gowan) which I had disparaged upon my first reading two years ago (blasphemous for a lover of modern poetry). A warning to anyone who looks the poem up--the Beat poets were shocking for their time and still obscene today, so tread carefully.

Hello to my three commenters! I'm very flattered. I might try to put up some of my work on here by next Friday, but I have to confess that I'm cripplingly shy about it, so we'll see how that goes, I suppose.

Poetry is never predictable for me, and two days ago, I was struck by a bolt of inspiration and of course, I was electrified and captivated and the bell rang far too soon. So this week, I will aim to finish that poem. And return to my napkin-thief poem translation as well, doubly egged on by the reminder of a friend's napkin collection. Who collects napkins, anyway? Catullus and Amy Pan.

Next week will also be a week for a hundred visions and revisions (I go back to "Prufrock," always, always). I want to dig up a few old poems from last year and rework them with my new knowledge. One of those will probably end up being posted up here. I am also going to refine a poem from a month ago and flesh it out more thoroughly because it ties back to Friday's theme--I am writing out my feelings of inadequacy in the face of towers of demanding college applications.

Also inspired by Coffeehouse, I want to do a lighthearted little monologue sort of poem like two people (Arohi and Brendan) shared, just a snapshot of what a typical day is like. My poems last week were a lot more serious, as is the current one I'm working with, so this will be a change of pace just to keep me on my toes and not sinking down into the mire of artistic angst.

"Victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge to where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels--until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go" 
-Elizabeth Bishop, "The Fish"

Having finally polished up my Catullus 8 translation, I came up with a new idea for my response. While I am finishing up the Latin advice to myself, I am also writing a direct response to Catullus's poem from the perspective of an exasperated friend. I would empathize with that theoretical friend because it feels like I am all too often in that position myself, advising them to stop moping and get a move on with their life! "Wretched Catullus..."

I went to Fall Forum yesterday, a day-long event for Latin students from all around Georgia, and so I am even more fired-up about Latin than usual. The namesake of a year-long team I have in my AP Latin class is from a Catullus poem complaining about his friends stealing his napkins (they are very nice napkins), and I'm thinking it's about time that I turn to that one. That will be part of my project for the week.

The other part of my project uses an unintentional burst of inspiration from this past week as a springing-off point. After a tiny, family Diwali celebration, I wrote a poem that was very much about the senses, the sights and the feel of the ceremony. I will once again create a poem a day like I did a few weeks ago for my project, but this time, I will focus very much on the outward physical experience of the day and extend it back to my emotional state. I will write in the afternoons, as I am expecting a more relaxed week. I will likely do a mid-week blog post on Wednesday.

"Until the tinkling bottom had been covered with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered with thorn pricks, our palms as sticky as Bluebeard's"
-Seamus Heaney, "Blackberry-Picking"

More than any other Catullus poem thus far in my reading, I connected with Catullus 8. I do not think we gain anything from taking the classics too seriously--they hardly took themselves seriously--but I do sometimes laugh off Catullus's impact. Some of his poems are silly and borderline childish, but 8 is not one of these. While maudlin, it struck a chord with me.

This poem's economy of expression is amazing. He conveys so much with a few words arranged in a lovely rhythm. English is considerably clunkier. I have been researching other translations, and in the process, I came across a translation by the poet Louis Zukofsky. He played with the Latin and added in literal English to fill in the cadence of the words. At first, I was insulted by how he ran roughshod over the Latin. Classicists often have this pitfall where grammar is held about everything, perhaps because grammar is what we have the most information about in regards to Latin texts. Latin is not a modern language. It is a series of ancient, fixed points that we study to align. 

Zukofsky's Latin knowledge is rudimentary, but he knows so much about poetry, and in reading his translation the second time through, I was charmed. He takes "Miser Catulle," literally "Wretched Catullus," and turns it into "Miss her, Catullus?" This fits the theme of the poem perfectly, insulting as it is to the proper structure and as much as it seems he is a clueless English speaker mangling the language. It made me think about my translation a lot. In the end, I have decided that I will still stay truer to the Latin than he did.

The line in particular that gave me the most trouble was the beautiful "quod vides perisse perditum ducas." It is impossible to convey it in English with the same slick structure. I spent nearly twenty minutes on Friday shaping and reshaping my translation. The best I have come up with so far is "that which you see to have been lost, consider to be lost" (Catullus refers to yet another woman who has left him, telling himself to recognize that she is truly gone).

I have been so caught up in reading and rereading and translating that I have not met my goal of writing my own Latin poem based off of this yet. Therefore, I will let this goal carry over into next week from where I have progressed from this week. My other poem next week will be about my parents, inspired by Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays." My aim with this poem will be to make it a little longer and more drawn-out--I want to expand my style to be able to write a poem that is more than twenty lines long.

"So far the hairline cracks wandering the plaster
still debate, in Socratic unhurt, what constitutes a good life"
-Jane Hirshfield, "Termites: An Assay" 

I'm sitting right now with my dog Timber curled up over my feet and I'm trying to shape everything I feel for this little ball of fur into coherency and it's not working, it's really not. I know exactly what I want to say, but I'm unable to match the tone properly. 

The best solution to this? More puppy cuddles.

In all seriousness, though, it has been an engaging, challenging process in trying to write this poem. I have been exposed to so much love poetry of the romantic nature and while, yes, those feelings do bubble to the surface and pop in neat poetic turns of phrase, there are so many other kinds of love that make you crazy enough to want to write about them, aren't there? Still, condensing instinctual squishy feelings into orderly lines continues to be difficult.

Yesterday, trying to write this poem in class? I got halfway stuck on a sentence and nearly cried. Not because it was hard--though it was (trying to find serious poetic synonyms for fluffy-snuggly-cutie)--but because I was struck by how much I love this silly mutt. And I found myself thinking of Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, a book that entranced me as a kid without a dog who wanted one so, so badly. I said last week that I was aiming for a universally heart-string-plucking kind of poem, but now I realized who I really want to do justice to is that kid.

The poem is still dragging its feet a little bit, and I am currently switching back and forth between editing and re-editing it and typing this post. I expect I will be struck with more ideas for its improvement tomorrow morning, as that is usually how it has gone over the course of this project.

Next week, I will be getting back to Catullus! I will be translating this lovely little poem, Catullus 8, which consists of advice--to himself. To follow this up, as soon as I'm satisfied with my translation of his work, I will write one of my own, advising myself. And yes, I will attempt Latin, though of course I barely grasp poetic meter in writing and have no idea how to go about constructing it. Towards the middle of the week, I will probably consult with my mentor on that. If that proves to be too much of a mountain to climb, though, I am fine with producing something that follows the constraints of Latin prose instead, albeit with some of the freedom of structure of English (a highly hybridized animal).