My First Poetry-Sharing

*NOTE: For more information on the reading and prompt that inspired this essay please click here.

I was first up. But I had asked for it. I had never been to one of these events, but I still pushed myself to go first. I was sure that other performers felt the same jitters going through their unsettled fingers that held onto little sheets of paper or even journals. Those carrying journals impressed me to no end as I would imagine all the nights and mid-day epiphanies they would scribble onto a page, or even the day dreams and lofty thoughts they would half-way draw and frivolously write in hopes of capturing. These were true poets awaiting their moment to astound us with their words so profound that we would have to sit in silence and feel the urge to resist clapping because we didn’t want to ruin the moment into which they drew us.

I knew, at a place like this, that honesty surrounded me. Words of vulnerability, serious topics based on real experiences, and faces from different places gathered into this single space. I figured, before the windows got foggy from a room stuffed with emotions running, I should go first.

At my very first spoken word event, I decided to open with my original short poem about sharing a bathroom. To ease in, I figured my bathroom humor would shake the nervousness off everyone’s shoulders and hopefully my own. After I shared, the day after the event, people still remembered my bathroom poem and said they enjoyed it. Yet, this was just one of my pieces of the night; I had read and performed three more originals – one that I didn’t even think could be considered a poem. But when taking the risk, people found that last piece to be their favorite. It was raw. It was written in two minutes, but had been thought about and realized over twenty-two years. The experience was amazing.

By trying out this new outlet, a place to perform real pressing material in front of an open-minded audience, I found myself absorbing life experiences that I never knew about. My ears were on edge, my lips at ease from neither wanting to speak nor wanting to refrain from speech, and my fingers a little tingly from feeling the powerful vibrations of the voice. This was a place you could surrender yourself easily, yet somehow walk out with a greater grasp of who you are and the things you care about.

I decided to expand on my challenge from last quarter but in a different form; instead of singing cover songs in front of a crowd, I performed an original piece in the form of a poem. Being in front of a crowd is one fear to overcome, but sharing a piece that comes from your mind is a greater challenge in the sense that you are uncertain if your audience will like your ideas, thoughts, word choice or composition. However, being at a spoken word event, I was more concerned with my delivery. This is similar to my last challenge except greater because I was not only worried if people would like my voice but also if I was communicating my ideas clearly and effectively with the tone shifts and volume of my voice.

Overall, I would say this challenge was a learning experience – one that helped me learn what it means to be a poet on stage; the one who embodies experiences through language and sounds and who brings these tense emotions to life through subtle bodily motions. Something that would have helped me during this first performance is if I didn’t think of spoken word as delivering a performance but rather an outlet for a body and mind trying to relive the moment or subject of the poem and convey its meaning in the best way possible. I think it should be an emotional experience, one where you really have to trust yourself to be so passionate about the subject that you forget anything else in periphery – all bodies, all eyes, all judgments – and you are sharing this moment with one subject, one entity, whether it be slow dancing or yelling over who left the faucet running. To be a spoken word poet means to be in touch with yourself and to be so honest—so raw—that the stage is nothing but another outlet to liberate you.

*

Post submitted by: Christina Trieu.

A Song of Support

*Note: For more information on the prompt that inspired this essay please click HERE

A song of support.

Ashton Rosin

The sterile barrier fabricated a trajectory that could never be stopped,

was halted. A flash of fluorescent light illuminating in scope, stung. It stung.

Frozen and flowing the tears curbed my breath and the inertia of the uncontrollable

Swallowed me. I was drowning.

Sheer disappointment trembled my hands and I could not reach up.

My finger brushed the silver lining of empowerment until a stumble closed eyes and

A fall. Trust in a system in a world of wonder and wonderful and fullness of life

Was robbed and crumbling and destructive hope earthquaked my existence.

It was a construction. It was shallow. It was coping.

A sad soul slipped through the cracks undulating between bridges of faith

Reason robbed relentless loneliness rocking gently as a hum.

A murmur turned whisper was a voice just deeper.

A song of support. I was loved.

a whirling abyss

hollow trickling become

a blink ascend now

Dissatisfaction. This word most directly embodies my raw response to my own process of poem writing. Prior to what some may call a journey of poetry, I was simply nervous. I was anxious to delve into something that I am extremely uncomfortable with as I feel like poetry is a very wide open window into the personal, the intimate life experiences, raw human emotion, and for me an unrefined writing voice. Poetry makes me vulnerable, it makes me feel weak. But mostly it makes me feel fearful of how the words of the poem sometime incite buried emotion I am not equipped to process. There never seems to be the right word at my fingertips. This poem in particular encouraged me to even be vulnerable in my use of punctuation, or lack there of. In the name of creating a fitting sense of flow throughout the poem, I forced myself to forgo mainstream punctuation rules and be reckless in order to truly embrace my vulnerability in the realm of the unknown.

I was an avid poem writer as a child and actively shelved it because, for me it is reminiscent of some of life’s greater hurdles. But as I approach another set of hurdles, different in scope and shape, I may need to dust off my journal and take a deep breath to immerse myself in the vulnerable once again. 

Post Submitted By: Ashton 

The Mender

*Note: For more information on the prompt that inspired this essay please click HERE

-

They cut her open to see what was wrong. Organs there, blood pumping – everything functioned properly. She said she wasn’t feeling well. Nothing was found to be a problem, so they prescribed her pills and sent her home. What was home? Torn plastic hung over the bottom bunk revealing metal springs. Screws over bed felt like screws in her head, and she could not feel safe. What was safe? Like the safe that held a family together, like the safe that money promised, like the safe that felt warm under his arms. Staring at imperfections in the mirror, she took each pill with the placebo effect in mind. She kept living this way.

mechanical grin

eating away at her skin

one bottled story

Because of the blood stains in the sink, they had to hide the kitchen knife. He cut slits in his wrist, created a revenge list, and standing near him, smelled of dead skin. Cockroaches crawled beneath the stacks of pizza boxes as he lay in bed waiting to defrost.

time-ticking living

disconnected from feeling

quantity of life

Wide awake, pillow against his ears to muffle out groans. He could deal with his friend’s depression, but he could not forgive. Not all the doctors, therapists, psychiatric wards could save his friend.

practical distance

furthering the imbalance

body without mind

Cracked door, burdened foot steps, and she awoke finding him slumped in a chair. Talk of being a virus, dragging you down with him. Open mind listened, tried to understand without language. Three in the morning with soft jaws, strained ears, understood fears, she stares at the empty mug.

a forgone slumber

listening to history

sleepless misery

Sharing a slice of pizza, she feels less light-headed. Pages turning, memories returning. Smiles to the passerby because she knows how it feels inside.

no more rushed goodbyes

smiles to the passerby

quality of life

*

Haibun Aftermath:

Writing this haibun was and continues to be a challenge. I’m constantly evaluating and reevaluating my word choice, descriptions, moments, and flow. Are these the right words? Is it more accessible now? I find myself reworking the transitional haikus because they are so simple yet carry the weight of the last image and attempt to shed light on the situation. I found a lot of words mechanical, and I wasn’t sure if this was the best way to go. Sure, perhaps I was going for choppy to convey a sense of disconnectedness, but I also didn’t want to lose the reader. I would want to say the writing process grew easier after creating so many halfway haikus, but the process only grew more difficult as I finished the last line and realized they were terribly incomprehensible. However, on a positive note, if I had to write his haibun over from scratch, I would stick with the same story. I would just try to tell it better, and I am still re-working this first attempt of a haibun because I feel like some of the issues I wanted to share were captured while some need more work, and more significantly, some voices were forgotten. When I started, I didn’t have much in mind but the topic. The images came to me, and I found myself not fabricating moments but trying to capture the details of a moment playing in my head. Mainly empathy allowed me to imagine vividly and really feel for the characters that gained life. Overall, I’m glad I was able to go through the motions and emotions from writing this. People often see me as a happy, laidback kind of person, and I think this poem touches on the brim of why.

haibun by: Christina Trieu

The Sweetest Risk

*Note: For more information on the prompt that inspired this essay please click HERE

The Sweetest Risk

 The piercing cold of November, entangled with the essence that is only you, drew me near. In search of warmth, and love, my soul yearned for you. Yet, sore from lies and pain, my heart shriveled at the ring of your name.

No longer could I deny it

You softened my heart

Yet I tried so hard to hide it

You finally caught me and drew me into your arms. Looking every which way but up because I knew you would see right through me. I was glass. Enticing were those sweet, honey eyes of yours when I could no longer avoid your glare. I was so afraid to shatter, but your embrace assured me that my heart was now safe, yet my mind could not help but ask, “what if?” And in that split moment the winds whispered, “It will be okay.” and silenced that daunting question. Everyone and everything around us seemed to melt; nothing was real except for us. I felt free. A caged bird that finally spreads its wings to fly. Free to love, free to explore, safe from old pain. I held you close and could hear your heart in tune with mine, I savored this moment.

No need to put up a guard,

My heart was now safe.

No longer are my winters cold.

This poem was a little difficult to write because I have not done any creative writing since high school, but it was a lot of fun to write. While I was deciding on a topic, I finally chose to write about a moment that meant a lot to me. At first I was really nervous about my wording and finding eloquent ways to express what I wanted to say, but it was just holding me back. For me, it was best to just write out what I wanted to say and then piece it together as beautifully as I could afterwards. If you ever decide to sit down and write a poem or any creative piece for that matter, my advice to you would be not to let wording hold you back. You can worry about those small details afterwards, once you’ve freely expressed yourself. Also, I think that if you write about something that means a lot to you, the ideas and words will follow.

It was really nice to think about the moments when I fell in love, especially because at first I was really scared to love again. I had been hurt in previous relationships and even though I met my boyfriend and he seemed like a really genuine guy, the pain I still carried with me did hold me back from pursuing another relationship. Although I feared that this relationship could turn disastrous, I took a risk because there was also the possibility that it really could be a more positive experience. I think that when it comes to love when you do experience hurt and pain it can be really difficult to trust someone else with your heart, and just you in general. However, sometimes it can be worth it to look past the fear and pain so that you can welcome more positive feelings and maybe even true love, especially if becomes evident that the only reason you are avoiding a person (that you do have feelings for) is because you are afraid of being hurt. I’m not encouraging you to jump into a relationship after leaving a terrible one, but if someone genuinely cares for you and wants to help get rid of that pain, you should not turn down the possibility because you fear the same thing may happen. Who knows? It could be different and you can’t judge the rest of your experiences off of a few bad ones. Sometimes taking that risk can be very well worth it in the end.

Post by: Alexandra Barba 

Tuesday Title: “Sunday Morning”

Today is May day, which has images revelrous images of proliferation and vertiginous stirrings mingled with the pungent floral scents which sometimes drifts through campus making me feel restless and sighing towards a vaguely mythological time.  For me, there is no better poem that encapsulates such a poem as Wallace Stevens’ Sunday Morning — at the same time an Ode to paganistic joy, orgiastic interminglings, rebirth, and mortality.  Here it is in full:

Sunday Morning (Wallace Stevens)

1

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.

3

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

4

She says, ‘I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?’
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured
As April’s green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

5

She says, ‘But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.’
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

6

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

7

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

8

She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, ‘The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.’
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Posted by Lee.

Lauren’s Haibun: “Barrier to my Heart”

I stare blankly into confused eyes. Syllables form in my head, but only garbled noises reach my ears. I press my toes into the ground, clench my fists in my pocket and try again. The air stills and blood pumps in my ears, hope welling up within me. Will she understand this time? Muddy confusion make way for clear clarity. A smile lights up her face. Yes she understand. The gap between three generations begins to narrow.

Language barriers

walls waiting to be broken

an anxious heart waits.

 

Post submitted by Lauren

Lauren’s Sestina: “Friends Forever?”

You always yearn for that group of friends

that can fill the night with laugher

ones that will stick by you forever

whether you act immature or loud

wishing that time can stand still

as the sun comes up over the end

A chapter of life must end

as you wave goodbye to your friends

hoping that next time you can still

smile with love and laughter.

You hope that the loud

fights of yesterday will be forgotten forever.

Real friendships are meant to last forever

that turn and twist without end.

You wonder if you can ever be as loud

as you were with your old friends;

those who just sit and laugh

at you for being so silly still.

You move on with life, wondering still

if you made the bonds that last forever.

You no longer spend every day in laughter

since you know all good things come to an end.

Life isn’t all about fund and friends

or acting impulsively loud.

The demands of life are loud

and clear as you stand still

in this harsh “real” world without friends.

You feel like the path stretches forever

hoping that at the tunnel’s end

you can finally give way to laughter.

Struggles have no time for laughter.

But as you live on you hear a loud

call in your soul to let the monotony end.

You realize that you can still

count on the bonds you made forever

ago with the people you once called your friends.

So in the end you realize you can still

spend each day with laughter without end

with those you made a pact to be “forever friends.”

Post submitted by Lauren

Lee’s Poetry

This first poem is a Shakespearean sonnet.  Having read most of Shakespeare’s sonnets this quarter for a class, I decided to write a response piece, taking Shakespeare’s common theme of admonishing his addressee (a virile youth) to give his beauty to the world to enjoy through procreation and address it from a modern perspective.

—

To husband nature’s riches is to waste;

Thine eyes should feed those which do need expans’n,

O thee that for the World’s splendour she madest.

So turn from self-wrought theme and unto son.

Of thy fine points your shadow cannot handle

As can the robed hand of un-eared dame,

Who need your spear to fortify her mantle

And yield t’you with crops and plenty game.

Impeach, and I excoriate you false;

Desires beget traditions beget desires

In ring-round way, a ritualized valse,

Our hand in ritualized hand to mire.

Men made Narcissus out of self-obsess,

So do your will and no man let possess.

 

My second poem is a haibun — a form particularly useful in conveying moments of dense internal movement:

He lay down in the grass, its texture and smell, and the heat of the day and its circling flies, reminding him of Saturdays in his youth, spent in reversible soccer jerseys and itchy shin guards.  The sound of children chattering drifted from the neighbor’s yard. “Pizza!” he heard them say. A paternal voice responded with something about “tonight’s party.” He remembered those sprawling summer days, seemingly interminable, spent in the sun reading, lying on the cold floor staring at the plaster ceiling, running around the kitchen as his parents prepared food, anticipating the deep afternoon that would surely bring groves of mysterious adults and their older children who would play hide and seek with him, after which he would end up on the couch in an unoccupied room, the day bitten off by exhaustion. He envied these kids and the sense of wonderment that still struck them in their daily lives, their compulsion to anticipate things (and their incredible inaccuracy at it) — the time between the anticipation and its resolution seemingly endless, kinetic with excitement. Then, the children’s voices stopped, replaced by silence.  It had been the TV.

Crushed grass under cleats

Turns to vapor upward bound—

Lingers, dissipates.

Posted by Lee Jasperse.

Free Speech Fridays: Broken Open

Heartbreak opens onto the sunrise, for even breaking is opening, and I am broken, I’m open… Breaking is freeing, broken is freedom, I am not broken, I am free.

Earlier this quarter, I had the opportunity to see a moving indie film called Pariah, which deals with being lesbian as an African-American in the intercity, the branding associated with it, and how one is cast as a pariah both by being a lesbian and not conforming to stereotypical expectations of either your racial or sexual identities.  Poetry as a form of empowerment figures prominently into both the style and plot of the film, making is relevant to what we do here at WSP.  Towards the end, the protagonist Alike delivers a stunning original poem which transforms the disintegration of her life into an unburdening, liberating experience, allowing her the independence from claims of identity to forge her own identity.  This poem is excerpted in the following trailer, which itself is a work of art.  I encourage everyone who has the chance to see this film — support emerging artists representative of minority voices!  (Also, there has been talk amongst the LGBT orgs on campus to get a screening of this here at UCLA.)

Posted by Lee.

Lines of Beauty and Life: A Sestina

Streetlamps flicker on around the block

To drown the scintillation of the pricked star,

While powdered faces queue up in line

To throb away the memories of those they miss,

To dance across their heart’s break.

It’s miraculous they even can.

Sound shivers through them like the walls of an aluminum can;

Magnified images enter, occlude, and block.

A couple in a dark corner’s hearts break

Under the vibrata of a populist star

Whose name was once known in margins, but who’d missed

Her chance, devoted now isntead to the powdery line.

The ogee curves one way and another, is a line

That arches against itself, that can

Hit across all boundaries, then suddenly miss.

Its purposeless ornament dissipates, even as the sturdy block

Remains under that same glistering star

Beneath which all will link and all will break.

“Hey man, life’s shit and times are hard: cut me a break!”

But the dealer doesn’t forgive when you’ve  cut a line

Too many, even if you feel so much you burst like a star.

It’s not a matter of whether one cannot or whether one can,

But merely whether you threaten to block

A mister from having his miss,

In this case a tittilating white lady whom you can’t miss,

For to do so would be to break

The mechanized flow of chopping the block

And ordering the line

And huffing from the bottom of a can

And sharing a momentarily equal existence with a star.

Above her ass is a black tattoo of a star.

This is the image that haunts me when I miss

Her most, when I close my eyes and feel I can

Reinster muself into the break,

That I can reinvent our lives with in the white wedding line,

Until eventually the star is gone and all is black behind the block.

If this is all we can do, we must jumpt the break

Into the star that illuminates the cheek of that miss,

When we will be another streetlamp in that line on that block.

[Written by Lee]

Tuesday Title: Rapture

Rapture is Carol Ann Duffy’s seventh collection of poetry centering primarily on personal accounts of love and euphoria. Her poems, many of which are entitled by a simple noun such as the poems Hand, Rain, and River, convey extremely relatable themes to the modern day lover and are unique because of their sheer yet impressive simplicity.  From passion to longing to infatuation to companionship, the poems found in Rapture tell of the many variations love may embody.  Winner of the 2005 T.S. Eliot Prize, Rapture surely deserves to be read by all those seeking to reconcile with love and those in search of a poet capable to materializing love in all its forms on paper.

Post submitted by: Crystal Maranan