Thursday, April 12, 2012

ummmm...


Yeah...

I am not really sure what we were supposed to write about for this weeks blog so...here is an excerpt from a story I started...


A boy crept through the reeds, pushing aside tall stalks to clear a path before him. He hid in a clutch of papyrus, obscuring him from his pursuers.    The water was cool against his skin as it moved slowly toward the sea.  The water from the river fed the kingdom, it flowed through canals and irrigation ditches.  It brought nutrients from Nubia, giving the wheat of the area a special heartiness.   He spent most of his time by the river, playing or working with his father’s servants.  They would bind groups of reeds together in bundles.   And those bundled would by lashed together to form boats and rafts.  They also made bricks from the soft mud on the rivers banks.  Their homes were made from it.  When he thought about it, the river gave his people everything they needed.   It gave them bricks and fish, it fed their crops, even provided paper for the court scribes.

His mind wandered, he dreamt of chasing jackals into a crowd of buzzards.  Something about watching the birds scatter in fear of such a small creature amused him.   With their numbers, the buzzards could easily overwhelm a lone jackal, but it seemed that they had manners enough to know their place.   The jackal would always eat first, taking what little meat remained.  The buzzards, however, seemed perfectly content with the remains.  Their sharp beaks could easily strip the last bits of connective tissue from a cattle carcass.  The jackal, with his little teeth, can only pick away at substantial meat.  He felt like a jackal, sometimes.  Skittering around and hiding from the bigger children, picking away at whatever he could get.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Akira Kurosawa and More

I found Goldberg's writing on The Samurai was the most interesting of what she wrote.   At first I was like "What does this have to do with Samurai?", then it hit me...Slice and dice some shit when you write.  Keep only the good stuff, the rest can be chopped up.   That is a pretty good idea.   Sometimes when we write, not everything is gold.   So, cut out the stuff that isn't.  It's a way of purification or enrichment.

I wonder you do go the way of the Samurai, chopping up and cutting out the good stuff, does that mean that you will eventually come up with a Kurosawa Samurai masterpiece?  I don't know.   I don't think you can just cut and dice arbitrarily.  I think you have to take the time to really look at what you are writing.

I was also intrigued by her view on "Claiming your own work".  Maybe it is because I am somewhat of a braggart, as she claims we shouldn't be.  I just don't have any problem accepting when my work is good and claiming it.  Even when my work is bad, I still accept that I wrote it.  I don't understand what the problem is...Maybe I am just proud of the things I can do.

As for Fluorescence...Goddamnit, I was under the illusion that we were done with poetry.   I really didn't find many of the poems to be compelling.   Though, I did like one of them...Well, half of one of them...Four on page 37.  I like it through the bottom of page 38.   I liked the flow and the talk of all these shitty and ironic things.   Then, when it changes from the continued paragraph form, it loses something for me.  I don't know why.  Can't explain it.