Frank O'Hara

     After reading Second Avenue by Frank O’Hara I came into a few obstacles. For starters, it is one of those difficult poems that I've heard so much about. In fact, the first time I actually read it I had absolutely no idea what was going on. While I tried to understand everything most of what I read went right passed me. There was a lot of hallucinating imagery, and a few more swears than I've been used to in a poem. There was a lot of anger that I sensed, and a weird amount of eroticism that I found tense and awkward. However, after the analyzing it in class, and spending a good 45 minutes looking at a few more than a dozen lines, I can say some things about this poem.
     I couldn’t tell you what was going on in the entire poem, I read it twice, and it kind of sounds like jibber jabber to me, so for that I failed. However, I did get something out of the second stanza after analyzing it to hell and back. After I tackled that, I was able to look at it in a different light. However, there isn’t enough time in the world to look at the whole thing.

     There was a lot of talk about anger in nature, and a loom at a dead opossum (at least I thought it was dead). The anger is vapid, as it’s description is dense. I liked to think that essentially this poem is a reflection, after seeing road-kill, the speaker of the poem looks at nature, god, and himself of the cause of this, and how it’s impact is as negative as positive. One line in particular “Is it a triumph?” had me questioning the whole stanza for a decent period of time, as I look at as a question whether or not this poor possums death was a good or bad thing.

The poem ends on probably one of the most beautifully clichéd sentiments, “laughter at desire, and disorder, and dying”. This is something I must have heard in a poem before, but nonetheless it is thought provoking.

     The poems not bad, but it’s not for me. I don’t like playing games, I like being told what’s what, and this poem does anything but.

difficult poems

            I am not a fan of poetry. I never have been, and don’t think I ever will be. My biggest problem with poetry like most people is “difficult poetry”. I don’t know if I accept it as an art form, I look at it more as busy work given by English teachers that have as little idea about what is going on as I do. I bet you know what I am talking about when I refer to these difficult poems, the long poems with random words that may or my not rhyme. These poems tend to contain words I have never heard and never will hear, skewed English that apparently is apt within poetry. However, I know I am not alone.

            Bernstein’s “Attack of the Difficult Poems” shed light to how I feel about poetry. I like how it told me that “Difficult Poems are normal” (4), and how I shouldn’t be ashamed or angry when I encounter one. Rather, I should accept it, as who ever is writing the nonsensical poetry isn’t doing it for the sole purpose to piss me off, even though that’s what it generally seems like. No, they are just writing their poems, and I have the options of either accepting for what they are or getting angry and throwing my laptop.

            I don’t really consider difficult poems to have much value, contrary towards the article. No one really writes a poem just to be difficult. Honestly I’d rather tackle a 250 pound bodybuilder than a 250 lined poem of words I can’t comprehend, but I have to accept that I am not the only person who hates reading them, lots of people hate reading them, or at the very least have difficulty with them.

            I will try to keep this reading in mind when I am forced to encounter some of this difficult poetry. Hopefully, I will be able to handle it masterfully, or at the very least with a brief amount of grace. One of my biggest fears within the creative writing program is spending the entire time analyzing poetry, then going into a world where that is probably the farthest thing from my mind to actually pursuing. However, contrary to what I said earlier, I do acknowledge poetry as and art form, even if it is a frustrating one. I want to write for a living, I have a lot of good ideas and stories in my head even if they don’t come out so great a good deal of the time. As redundant as it is, I’m using this blog post to remind me to not over react towards poetry, rather use it to become a great writer.

Blog entry one

            Hello, Jeremy here. As of now I am a senior and a triple major with creative writing, electronic media and film, and communications. I have essentially completed all the programs except the creative writing one, so for the next few semesters I am going to have quite a time essentially having only writing classes. My other programs were a lot of fun, but I am a little excited as well as nervous to get into this major, I know there will be a lot of writing and reading, and am hoping for the best.

            As far as what I want to do with the writing, I want to write screenplays (and hopefully direct them). I'm hoping all my majors come in handy, but I'm willing to do a lot of other things aside from just writing screenplays. I am relatively new to the creative writing program, I have taken the intro class, playwriting, and early American literature, so I've got a little ahead of me. So far my experience in the creative writing program has been positive, although it hasn’t been as intensive as it is about to be. I have a lot of stories to tell, and I want to tell in different ways.

            I am a movie lover more than anything, so this may become an asset as well as a problem throughout the creative writing program. I am not a fan of reading poetry and prose style material, so, again, this may come to be an issue, of course I do what needs to be done so hopefully it’ll be as painless as possible.  I did enjoy playwriting, scriptwriting, so entertainment mediums are my favorite things to work on. I admit I am not a heavy reader, so I’m hoping to improve my reading skills to a degree. I was a heavy reader a long time ago, so I feel like I could become one again.

            I personally define genre as a category defined by specific themes. I took a film genre class, so my views on genre might be distorted as film and literary genre to differ, but for the most part, genre is there to differentiate different art works to allow us to concentrate on the ones that we would find most entertaining.

Genres generally have ongoing themes. Science fiction usually has some sort of social message imbedded within the story, and it usually takes the world as we know it and warps it in a realistic fashion (unlike fantasy which takes an unrealistic fashion). These themes are generally ongoing, and carry throughout the story within the genre. They help us to narrow down what we like, if you like suspense, read a mystery, if you like romance, read a romance, the combinations are infinite.

            In a broader sense, genre is the overview, for example, fiction is something that isn’t real, poetry I define, as writing with some specific pattern or prose, and a biography is a story about a specific person that does or has existed.

            No matter what sort of genre I write in, I am a big fan of black humor and use it to massive extent. I have written a play (for the play class) and it was a comedy suspense, I have been writing a screenplay (forever), and it is a dramedy. No matter what the overview is, I like humor as a subgenre. I don’t think I’ve ever tried writing anything outside genre categories, but I am wiling to try. Hopefully, everything will work for the best within this class.