Tag Archives: Poetry

Non-fiction

A Dream About English Class

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I struggled to get out of bed this morning. The bed felt feathery, and I was at the right level of sleepy. I didn’t want to get out, but I was forced. It was after five, and I would’ve stayed if I’d given myself permission, and I would’ve overslept. But who cares? I don’t even feel like writing. I don’t feel like doing anything. My job has me handcuffed. I’ve lost interest in everything.

I had a dream where I was taking a night class in a classroom with the best quarterback in the world: Mr. Patrick Mahomes. The English teacher assigned us a poetry assignment and elected Patrick to give us the subject.

He said he wanted the poem to be about 1960s women’s fashion in Norway and how it affected women’s culture. What a tough assignment, Mr. Mahomes. Poetry is difficult enough. Why must you make it harder with the subject you’re giving us now? I would have to research women’s fashion in 1960s Norway and find its impact on women’s culture in the decade.

I raised my hand and asked the teacher, “Why must we write about such a difficult subject, let alone have it be poetry?”

Mr. Mahomes turned around at his desk to face me and said, “There are two types of people in the world. You’re a ‘me’ person and I’m not.”

He turned back around in his desk to face forward and everyone applauded his statement except me. After all, he’s Patrick Mahomes. He would be applauded of course. Whatever he says is like a quote from Gandhi.

So everyone began the assignment, but not me. I was lost for words. I couldn’t come up with any in the context of women’s fashion culture in the 1960s in Norway.

Patrick turned around once more and smirked at me after his light jab at my personality. He bothered me to the point where I couldn’t start the assignment. Good thing I brought my smartphone, and I could look up the subject on Google. Lucky for us all, Norwegian women’s fashion reflected the American fashion of the decade. Women wore like late sixties Bohemian floral and paisley prints, mini skirts, turtlenecks, headbands, large sunglasses, knee-length dresses, bodices, beaded necklaces, wool coats in the winter with scarves and gloves, low heels or gogo boots, and shirt designs of checks and polka dots. It added enough flair to my free verse poem. I forgot what it was, but of course Mr. Mahomes wrote the most popular poem out of all. He’s the best quarterback in the world.

I woke up and never got back to sleep. The morning was still dark, the fan blowing against my tired body. Now it’s Wednesday. It’s going to be another struggle full of mistakes and pressure with my job. I want to quit today, but I can’t. I’m not a salesperson. I don’t wish to sell products, so when am I going to write to human resources? Should I wait until next week or do it before the week is over? Maybe I’ll spend eternity wishing I was alive. Death will suck as much as life. Somewhat of a humorous take on both.

Fiction

Poetry

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I need to read more poetry, such as Cummings, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Frost. I’ve read Milton’s Paradise Lost, which was a difficult read. I had no idea what it was, but I respected his use of verse. I also read The Preludes by Wordsworth, which was another difficult one, but not as much as Milton’s.

A young woman interviewed Billy Collins on a show on Youtube, and he was being rude to her. I’ll paraphrase him. He said young poets today haven’t read the essentials like the works I mentioned above and that they needed to devote 10,000 hours to reading poetry, which sounded a bit excessive to me. He also said they needed to learn iambic pentameter. They write bad poetry and post it on Instagram.

I can agree with what he meant by what they’ve posted there. It’s not the best poetry, and it feels rushed, kind of how I’ve rushed these blogs, but at least they’re trying.

I’ve tried my hand at poetry by writing a sonnet every morning, but I wouldn’t dare show it to anyone. They’re like my journal entries…just for me. It would be pompous and careless and irresponsible to post those poems. I’m better off keeping them private than upsetting the masters, dead or alive, by showing them on Instagram or some other social platform.

What is poetry anyway? I know it’s expression, but there are so many types of it. Most poetry these days is free verse. Contemporaries said to hell with verse. “We’ll break the rules and make our own.”

That’s lazy to me.

Then again, I prefer classical paintings over impressionistic paintings. You can’t convince me that Monet did better than Da Vinci.

I remember memorizing Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” I forgot it because it was too complicated. It was a villanelle, a form that was invented in Italy during the Renaissance. The rhyme scheme is intricate, not the simpler ABAB, CDCD, et cetera. I’ve written a few villanelles, but like I said, I won’t show them to anyone. They’re too embarrassing. They’re stashed somewhere in my piles of legal pads which I journal in every morning. I throw those legal pads out after a while, although it’s painful to do. It’s like throwing old clothes away that I might need later. They hold a sentimental value, but those villanelles were just something I was fooling around with.

I wanted to take a poetry class at a community college but couldn’t find one. You would think they would offer them if they offered arts and crafts classes. But oh well. I guess I’ll have to learn on my own like I have with everything else.