Strategy Response Week 8

As in many places within the collection "Native Guard," Natasha Trethewey's Miscegenation manipulates the larger poetic tradition of recycling language by recycling one word especially: Mississippi. This word calls attention to itself as it appears in each stanza and carries throughout the collection. The word "Mississippi" itself recycles letters and the double-consonant sounds, allowing the word to behave as a symbol for what the work as a whole is performing. The word "Mississippi" stands as a geographical symbol, which further implies cultural and historical meaning, adding to Trethewey's focus on the Civil War in the text overall.

Strategy Week 5

Eric Smith’s “Crows” works to display recursivity by repeating and repositioning the word “noon” from the first line and images of crows as the title introduces to build a rhythm and also a reference point for the rest of the poem. By recycling noon, an allusion to day or lightness, and crows, an allusion to night or darkness, the poet continues blending the two contrasting elements together throughout. In these lines “It’s just effortless to burst/ into the white shiver of early/ afternoon, open-mouthed,/ and expect someone else/ to do the work of crows” (217) the mention of noon in “afternoon” and reminder of the imager of crows create a harmony as to suggest both must exist. This recursivity works so that the sounds repeated give the poem value.

Strategy Entry Week 3

Edit:// I accidentally posted this as private yesterday... not that the strategy entries are the most riveting to read I imagine but.. you know.

Throughout "Mixology" Adrian Matejka employs references from various cultures and musical traditions including hip-hop, rap, "prog rock," jazz, and even nods to folk. This blending and cautious inclusion of dialect succeeds because the different elements are in conversation, rather than competition, with each other. Specifically in "Green Jeans" Matejka combines a more classical form with contemporary language. Matejka blends words in a clever juxtaposition in the lines “There is a plastic/ spoon pressing down this state’s/ tongue that makes dat from acrobatic” as “dat” that next to the rest of the poem could seem out of place, but Matejka’s word choice is so delicate as that one word helps tie this piece to the remainder of the collection. That minute detail is key in what makes this piece function as a part of this collecton. In this piece, Matejka mentions musical artist Beck, introducing rock references into this specific poem. The phrasing of Beck’s lyrics here, despite not coming from a directly hip-hop or rap source, adhere to that same speech style in “to get me some pants.” Although many of the Texas poems in this collection differ boldly from the rest of the pieces, generally including less rap and hip-hop style diction, delicately chosen diction keeps the cohesion of the collection while still providing a different taste of the Matejka’s style.

Strategy Week 2

First of all, I would like to say (again, apologies for my incompetence) that I guess I went in the wrong direction with last week's strategy exercise (which is a shame because it was my favorite entry of mine from last week. thank god for bad reading - sometimes.) but I got it now, I think.

The strategies Gary Jones incorporated to create the piece "Run of Weld Before Lunch" rang as some of the more valuable in the work discussed thus far. By sorting through his natural junkyard and freewrite phrases, Jones found an unexpected direction to follow; his intention was not to write a draft about "machine-shop workers" but as that seemed to be the main subject of his freewrite, he found a topic of interest and researched it further as to create a new conversation between the poet and the past. Instead of just being satisfied with the images Jones's free-write summons, he searched for more real-world images to create a historically accurate, more rounded topic which gives his draft more depth and meaning. Being aware or having a "historical consciousness" illuminated a new path on which Jones could travel to make interesting and meaningful poetry. Another vital factor Jones incorporates in the creation of his later draft was the expansion, contraction exercise explained earlier on in our text.

Strategy Entry Week 1

He was born on the shores of the Bay, under the Golden Gate
Bridge and California sunsets after twenty-three years of breathing in
Thank-You Ma'ams and Nana's sweet tea. Yes, he screams in the face of the filth
drenched bums on the corner of Haight and Valencia, because he can, says he’ll die happy
if he never sees another god damned Waffle House again.
His new body falls into Mexican restaurants in the Mission
and he, like the newborn he is, cries because the air tastes
different. He wanted to run away but he ended up here. All he wanted
to see was anything but red clay and exit 24. He died on that plane,
he says. He died after the complimentary Coke crossing over the Rockies,
sunk his hands into the thirty degree salt water when he got
there, just for the hell of it, just to say he did.

This is using pages 40-42ish.