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Kubla Kahn

The idea of reading is so strange. The idea that when you sit down with 100 pages of paper in your hand you will know nothing of that content but after reading 100 pages you will have another story in you database. When does the transformation happen? The one where you go from reading to living? When you go from simply in taking the content to suddenly smelling the aromas, feeling what they feel, living their emotions, basically escaping your mind. That's what I felt with this poem, "Kubla Kahn" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one minute I was so bored I was falling asleep and next moment I was pouring my voice into it. I went from not understanding one part, to grasping the concept in my hands within 1 second or was it 10; that's the thing behind this concept about escaping. You don't realize when it happens just that it is suddenly there. When I try to go to sleep at night I never can but then I focus my mind and suddenly I wake up in the morning; how does that escape become created? When I play my music all I see is notes at first, the challenge ahead but then somewhere between my second hour of practicing suddenly it is a melody, a whole story, a pattern within my head. Or like when you first meet someone new all you have to go on is their body language and look but after talking to them for awhile you suddenly see so much deeper. 

My poem is about a drug paradise. His 'dome of pleasure' when he is high. I didn't get it at first, all the things he described to me were ugly and weird, "like why would that be beautiful?" but then my mom asked me to describe to her something beautiful and I couldn't at least not in a way that made it beautiful in words. "A garden bright with sinuous rills," was supposed to be beautiful but without the words beautiful and amazing I couldn't see it as beautiful. Now I can understand, when I recite the poem to myself I see lush gardens, a happy river, I imagine mineral caverns, and beautiful greens of all shades in the forest. I see the authors wish to create this place in every ones mind, it was all a dream both literally and figuratively. In my mind the author created this so that everyone who read it could have a shiny hope of perfection. When the author writes "Beware, Beware" I feel like he is telling everyone the troubles of perfection. How it is amazing but it is so easy to get used to it and to take advantage of it. That perfection is perfect because it isn't real, because in our dreams it can be everything but in life nothing is truly perfect.

When I recite my poem I talk with a lot of varied tones, throughout the first paragraph my tone is soft and gentle in an attempt to convey the beauty of the paradise the poem describes, in the second paragraph I start softly and grow louder, bolder, and faster to convey the urgency yet laziness yet everything unrealness in the poem. Then in the the second half of the second paragraph  I go lazy, calm, and serene trying to convey to the tone of a "lifeless ocean." In the fourth paragraph I become more alive, more there, I am not in my paradise anymore but want to create it, at the end I talk with a condescending air trying to convey the power of drugs, the danger but also the exhilaration.

URGENT! EX CR BL

In my first 5pp I felt that flow was really an issue. There is a fine balance between to total choppiness, perfect flow, and way-over-the-top flow. I felt that in my second 5pp I hit a lot closer to good flow. I feel like flow wasn't only accomplished in the writing and the ways the words sounded when spoken out loud but that there was also a flow between points, in other words my transitions also had flow. In general, nonetheless, and additionally all worked very well in the context much better than my first transitions: First, Another, and Unquestionably. Besides writing my recent 5pp with a more trained eye I also incorporated a new writing technique that I heard about on Good Morning America. They had this famous writer on the show and she was sharing her secrets; she said that what she often did was spend a day or two getting out every idea every tangent every speck of information out onto paper and writing the whole story. She leaves it for a few weeks and then comes back with a fresh mind and starts editing it and searching for flow. On my essay I wrote in one hour, left it for a week, and then came back and edited. I feel this really helped me because when I looked at it again I didn't remember it and I could easily and freely critique it and make it better. The other reason I think my most recent 5pp has a better flow is because I connected more with what I was writing about. A strong message is conveyed in my 5pp, "Lobsters." Where as in my 5pp on "To Kill A Mockingbird" a nice but weak theme is conveyed. I didn't fully connect in "To Kill A Mockingbird" but in "Lobsters" I feel like I was 100% there and was very inspired to get my point across in a clear way!

poetry out loud

1. To My Dear and Loving Husband  - Anne Bradstreet
2. Life - Edith Wharton
3. Solitude: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
4. After working sixty hours again for some reason - Brad Hicock
5. Dancers Exercising - Amy Clampitt

I liked the poems "After working sixty hours again for some reason" by Brad Hicock and "Dancers Exercising" by Amy Clampitt. The reason I was drawn to these poems is that they both had meanings for me. The poem by Brad Hicock is all about working all day long for no reason, going through life in a pattern and realizing it. The poem by Amy Clampitt entranced me and made me feel alive, I wanted to jump out of my seat and dance.

I didn't like the poem "Life" because it bored me. Life is supposed to be exciting and fun but I felt a dismal sense of dread as though I was sitting on a cold rock.

I'm most interested in studying my two favorite poems because they are the most interesting and engaging to me. I would choose "Dancers Exercising" because I felt full of life as I read it.

1. The two criteria that will be the easiest for me is speaking in a loud voice and eye contact.

2. I will have the most trouble not fidgeting because I naturally fidget a lot. I will have trouble memorizing my lines.

Stanley Andrew Jackson
Writ on the Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem
by Gregory Corso
This is a successful reading because he is confident and speaks with clarity an great articulation.
Jackson Hille
Forgetfulness
by Billy Collins
This is a successful reading because he really captures the essence of this poem and related it to the audience. I felt as though he clearly understood and grasped the poem.


I have no idea what to expect. I want to win but it doesn't really matter to me. I haven't found any poems I feel I truly connect with yet and therefore my mind has entered the excited stage of this project. I think it will be interesting watching others and seeing what they connected to and how they relate it to the audience. I have no idea who will be good. I think their will be some surprises but then others who I already feel will be good. I think I will memorize "Dancers Exercise." I chose it because I have always loved the idea of dancing but suck at actually dancing and so I can get closer to dancing by reciting a poem about it. The website is very nice looking. The layout is clear and easy to follow and I enjoy the color scheme.