Peer Response 1, Post 6, Week 12

In Response to Tim's "Free Entry, Week 12":

I think the subject of this piece is interesting, especially when it's studied in such a different way than we're used to seeing. However, I will say that some of the questions make it difficult for readers to not answer. I will admit that I answered the question in the first line immediately with "The objects in the way of the sound waves, duh." I then didn't want to hear you wonder about things I already knew. This is not a stab at your intelligence at all. I'm sure you know how sound waves and echoes technically work. I'm just suggesting that you take a look at the questions and make sure they can't be answered immediately and then discarded by a pretentious reader.

The next thing I would like to address begins in line three. There you mention a stubbed toe that causes you to curse near the children's section of the library. It's hard for me to imagine someone stubbing their toe in a restroom (although this might be my dense reader moment), especially a public one. I could much more easily see someone hitting their elbow or something (which plays into funny bone, humor section, etc.).

The section about Tommy and his mother is confusing to me. You talk about the yard, then Tommy's face, then an engine and upholstery. You compare Tommy (or yourself?) to a dead king, and then shift to the mother with grass behind her eyes, and end with "the want for solitude," which is not mentioned anywhere else.

I think this is a good draft, but it just needs a little refining and elaboration. Good luck!

Free Entry, Post 5, Week 12

Leaves

I love to drive over them,

aiming at a large orange or yellow frond,

my head hanging out the window

like a dog, hair-tongue

playing catch-up to my ears,

which are pricked and pointed to catch the crunch.

I stomp on them;

I like to imagine

they’re spiders, tiptoeing on

curled limbs, brown bodies

floating just off the pavement.

They skitter along the sidewalk,

tripping and tumbling with the grass

and the wind.

If the sky calls them,

they take to the air

clumsily, like balloons

only half-filled with Helium.

Gaining speed, they jump

higher and higher until they clear

the building, and there is nothing

left but a dim shadowy circle

against the sun in my squinted eyes.

Junkyard Quote 4, Post 4, Week 12

"The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it."

This was an error message I got today while trying to log in to Twitter. When I hit the back button to try again, it took me to my home page, already signed in. It was really weird, but I thought it was interesting that the server sounds like it has free will and can just do whatever it feels like.

Junkyard Quote 3, Post 3, Week 12

"It's better than a fortune cookie."

I'm sure most of you remember this from last week, but I really like it. Because, in the end, what's better than a fortune cookie? Nothing. It's a little dessert with a mystery person telling you something nice. You don't have to thank them. You don't have to say anything back. You just eat a cookie and bask in fortune's glow.

Junkyard Quote 2, Post 2, Week 12

"Hairy-assed Jesus"

This quote came up in my CNF course today. A classmate had written about changing a tire. In the piece, he mentions how his pants fell down and he showed the world his hairy ass. Later in the story, he calls the lug wrench a "disproportionate crucifix," which made him a hairy-assed Jesus.

Junkyard Quote 1, Post 1, Week 12

"I'm a tree hugger, but I'm a leaf crusher."

I was talking about how most of my poems lately had been about nature, and a friend of mine called me a tree hugger. So I said this in reference to one of my pieces (which will probably be my free entry this week).

Sign Inventory, Post 10, Week 11

Self-Portrait as a Moment in 1963
Jake York

Supper's late, and my mother sprawls
before the console, half-watching Gunsmoke,

Alabama History spread before her,
though school's almost out for summer

and the chicken's almost fried
to that perfect crisp. Then it's over,

credits stamped over final stills,
and the show gives way to news,

a minute of film from Birmingham,
not an hour south, where police

are turning dogs on kids as young
as she, spraying them with hoses

until they fall, the water she isn't watching
curling like smoke in the air.

My grandmother flicks the switch
and they're gone. They eat

in quiet, each cutting a breast
or thigh into steam, forking

beans or macaroni until
the plates' blank faces shine again.

This is years before
she'd meet my father, before

I'd come to that table,
that food, that room.

There's a silence here
I want to scratch away

so I can see what's underneath,
what they don't recall.

I want to turn someone's head,
my grandfather's, maybe, or my mother's,

back toward the TV, where
the tube's still fading,

the ghost of that scene
on the edge of that room.

I want someone there to see
and remember, so I can leave

and go back into the future,
not history. Not yet.



-This poem uses the scene of the police spraying the kids with fire hoses to symbolize something bigger that the family isn't talking about (hence shutting off the TV). Once the television is off, though, there still remains the ghost of the image on the screen, just like whatever it is they're not saying stays in their heads.

-York uses the word "that" quite a bit in this piece. He uses it to bring specificity to the scene as well as to relate to the reader with general concepts. Specificity example: "the ghost of that scene / on the edge of that room." Generalization example: "and the chicken's almost fried / to that perfect crisp."

- It is interesting that he chose to call this a self-portrait, although he is not actually in the scene. He wants to be a part of it so that he can manipulate the details to get more out of it, but he can't. I would have to do much more research to offer an explanation for this, but I still thought it was worth bringing up.