I should be doing homework!

and instead, I write poetry. Here is my brief moment of peace before the test material madness...

Fleeting moments of peaceful exhalation

Intermittently interrupt my quickstep days

I pause

Peering past the plaid crowd

Into the towering cumulus drifting low

On the horizon, previously unnoticed

And quickly passed over

I quicken my step to keep up

With the general public

Passing over the moment

The billow drifts

No longer unnoticed, but forgotten

Until the next fleeting moment of peaceful

Exhalation

Intermittently interrupts my quickstep day.

CELEBRATION!

It was a beautiful thing to click "submit" as I turned in the paper that has consumed my life this past week. It's never a good thing when my teachers say "we're expecting you to spend 25-30 hours on this assignment." Those are the times when I kick myself for being an English major. The assignment? To write a historical/biographical analysis about one of the texts from this unit. The text? "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It included a YEAR of research, I spent hours swimming in the depths of the BYU Library website. But all that matters now is that it is DONE!!!

So what do I feel??

So now I can enjoy five minutes of peace before I start studying for my two tests that I have this weekend. What else is on the agenda this week? Melville, subjunctive Spanish, sentence parsing, 1 Nephi, and more. Oh, the life of a student!

Stick It to the Poetry Professor

Towards the beginning of this semester, I wanted to add a "writing poetry" class. Since the semester had already started, I had to contact the instructor in order to add the class. I received an email telling me that I would be able to add the class on these conditions:

That I was aware that this class was an INTERMEDIATE poetry writing class. That I regularly read contemporary poetry in collections or anthologies, and that I have written 5 or 6 poems that a published poet or professor of poetry deem to be "promising." Also, I would need to be able to recognize imagery and help other students recognize if the images and poetic devices in their poetry work or not. If I was not up to this level, I would find this class VERY difficult.

Wow. I like to write poetry. But that was about all the qualification I could claim. I was discouraged; I have taken a basic creative writing class from BYU, which I really enjoyed, so I was excited to be able to further my interest. But apparently, there is a jump from basic creative writing to the official "writing poetry" class that I wasn't aware of and I don't know how to make. At first, I thought of just bagging the whole poetry idea - I mean, I don't have to have credentials in order to write poetry, right? But as I kept thinking, I enjoy it enough that I would really love the opportunity to continue learning. So whether it kills me or not, I WILL be taking that poetry class at some point. Take that, Professor Susan Howe.

Shocking Lack of Prose

After a good amount of time as a mainly poetry blog, I decided that what it lacks is a little less melodrama and a little more of my life. I will be posting the occasional poem, but I want to be able to write more about what is happening in my everyday life. So..... here you go!

My first topic of conversation is this:

I am currently enrolled as a student at Brigham Young University. I am an English major, due to my love of literature. Although it seems like I'm a forever student, there is finally a light at the end of the university tunnel - I am a senior, and I should be graduating sometime next year. Yay life!

With the start of classes this semester, I enrolled in an English Grammar class, mainly because I was exploring the idea of doing an Editing minor. After less than two weeks of class, I am sure it will become the bane of my existence. Let me explain by first giving you an exert from the preface of my "Grammar for Grammarians" book: "Grammar for Grammarians covers four distinct approaches to English grammar. Prescriptive grammar emphasizes questions of usage. Descriptive grammar categorizes the parts of speech and sentence types in English. Generative grammar attempts to discover more abstract underlying regularities in syntax that apply to all languages. And contextual grammar explores the way that sentences and larger texts are actually processed by readers and listeners..." Falling asleep yet? At this point, the course content has failed to intrigue me, and the only redeeming quality is that the professor is entertainingly crazy and reminds me of Dwight Schrute. And who knows? After parsing sentences for a whole semester, I might actually be converted. But it's not looking promising!

Good thing I have my 6 credit Transcontinental Literary History class to save me. :)

The Last Chapter

The last few moments
or hours
or days
go by
like leaves of a book
caught in the wind
rustling
you want to read
and cherish every word
but come to"the end"

entirely too soon

and you are left
stunned

but thanking God
that in memory
you can reread
the whole thing
over again.

stained glass

disjointed flecks
of shattered glass
tainted from reflections
of what is
grotesque reality, mirroring
yet distorting life
shadows of truth darken
the door
of an already
black
night

Resistance

Ricocheting off the walls
of my inner self
beating, temptation
finally finds no place
to settle in
swept away by a
long breath out
I am at peace, today

But the page turns
and with tomorrow’s sun
despair dimly
Seeps in, soaking
into my veins
but the heart
always beats, and
ever beating, the constancy
wins.
and I rest.

Until a time
when in a moment
frustration finds me
weak. Gripping muscle,
resistant tension
almost triumphs,
yet I find a
strength. A strength
that is almost
not my own
the moment is gone,
and with its leave
comes hope

Withstanding, overcoming,
persevering.
Tiring.

June 2008 (sky series) :)

Dawn Fights

When the sky wakes, morning
breaks. Strobes of colored light
interrupt the night
dawn fights, piercing
with purple lights
rays of red
make the head
way
yellow front line
goldmine
rosen rays attack -the battle
against black. An array of
shades
finishes the raids and
morning stands
triumphant.



Gradual Descent

With gradual descent
horizon cloaks
brightness of
sun, light whispers
goodbye
colors masked
by sweet shade
inky fingers,
stealing
sly
darkness creeks in
smooth persuasion
twilight shrinks
subtly seductive, night
falls.

closure

rivers of unfinished conversations

run their course over

unended phrases

splashing along with 

unspoken words

emptying

unterminated thoughts

into oceans of

immense possibility...

The End of October 4, 2009

The following poem was quickly scribbled on the back of an envelope in a bus, as I was observing the wonder of the sun sinking into the ocean.

Just moments after the sun
is swallowed by
the endless stretch of sea
a few shreds of light
hold onto the darkening sky
the water, colored with an odd
but brilliant shade of blue
glimmers as if lit beneath
by the sinking sun
the last murmurs of day
whisper up
through the water's shield

Subtly the brilliance fades
as the sun makes her way
to the other horizon.