{"id":264,"date":"2011-03-29T20:41:30","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T04:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/"},"modified":"2011-04-02T19:23:48","modified_gmt":"2011-04-03T03:23:48","slug":"undergraduate","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/student-work\/undergraduate\/","title":{"rendered":"Undergraduate Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a Teacher\u2019s Assistant, I give lectures on poetry writing for the class Introduction to Creative Writing 202 at UBC<\/a>.\u00a0 In every lecture, I stress the need for concrete langugage\u2014language that evokes the senses, paints vivid pictures, uses metaphor and simile etc.\u00a0 It is always a joy to receive my students’ assignments and see that these words have fallen on the ears of active listeners.<\/p>\n

My Comments<\/h3>\n

Richard\u2019s poems are bursting with talent\u2014great lines, clever images and metaphors, and their structure is sound, understandable.\u00a0 Often, young writers use poetry as a place to pour out their hearts (and so it should be!) without concern for the crafting, the fine-tuning of poetry writing.\u00a0 I think the premise of Richard\u2019s piece\u2014trying to understand national identity\u2019s intersection with personal identity\u2014is well communicated by the scenes in the poem: moving across land by bus while drawing the land you\u2019re moving across. \u00a0\u00a0Notice this fantastic line: \u201cAnd the morning creeps in \/ like a bad idea.\u201d This is a great simile for ocean swallowing islands: \u201cLike a clown\u2019s mouth to the rail cars at the fun house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northern Light<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the column of the national newspaper,
\nI sketch a map of Canada.
\nLong provincial borders,
\nwide territorial boundaries.
\nBlots of my pen for the lakes,<\/p>\n

drifts of my pencil of the prairies.
\nThe soft black press of memorial services smooth against my hand,
\nas I work the ink of the national narrative into the canvas and columns.
\nI listen to the juddering of my bones,
\nas the bus\u2019s engine whines and rhymes beneath me.
\nThe road wraps itself through the pass,
\nas the serpent through Eve\u2019s ear.
\nThe northern skies merge from the off-ramp onto the highway,
\nwhile the modest sun rises through the radioactive mist of the mountains.
\nAnd the morning creeps in,
\nlike a bad idea.<\/p>\n

I have trouble with Quebec and Ontario,
\nbut everything south-west of the Hudson comes with ease.
\nManitoba as a grasping hand with amputated fingers and varicose veins,
\nSaskatchewan as an amoral cinder block with ambushing aneurysms.
\nAlberta…oh Alberta,
\nmy face is pressed so firmly against your edges that I have lost all sight of you.
\nBC as a scraped knee buckling under the weight of the Yukon,
\ncross to the Maritimes as shrapnel blown off in the Somme.
\nI try to remember the islands of the North,
\nbefore the Soviet Ocean swallows them up.
\nLike a clown\u2019s mouth to the rail cars at the fun house.<\/p>\n

Out the window the tree line builds and then breaks,
\nbuilds and breaks.
\nThe rock face cradles the road,
\npast prison poles of dynamite holes.
\nI push my skull against the thrilling condensation on the glass,
\nthe scent of the upcoming day hints upon clairvoyance.
\nI can smell nothing,
\nabsolutely nothing.<\/p>\n

I haul the Trans Canada across the entire page.
\nCutting through photos and dates and decisions of funeral homes.
\nThe ribbon of tarmac and ink slices through it all.
\nThe steal pen drags like a nail across the script.
\nIt is the cruxifictory sound of our past failures.
\nI sit and look at the scarred body of the country,
\nAnd I wonder if I can come home yet.<\/p>\n

By Richard Kemick<\/p>\n

———————————————————————————————————<\/p>\n

My Comments<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

This poem is the shadow of a loud literary voice and its potential is in the line \u201cHello stranger\u2014have something to tell you \/ I want to be Ariel after she died.\u201d\u00a0 What a fascinating idea, immediately arresting.\u00a0 Everything that follows from this line is quite lovely.\u00a0 In counseling her on this poem, I told her it was my favourite of all her pieces. For revision, I suggested she paint a better image of the scene around this girl at the coffee shop, make the setting cleear. Though the poem is not cohesive, wholly understandable, I know she\u2019ll revise it.\u00a0 She\u2019ll grow into her writerly boots.<\/p>\n

caf\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

If your lips sit roundly upon your face
\nand there are lips on plates
\nand your footsteps aren\u2019t really your feet
\nand the people that you meet
\naren\u2019t really their smiles or flickering eyes
\nCan you hear the silence? in the space
\nbetween?
\nthe rising foam, unseen?
\nCan you hear it? saying
\nsssssssssshhhhhh
\nthen you shake my hand, and it is hushed.<\/p>\n

Hello stranger\u2014I have something to tell you
\nI want to be Ariel after she died
\nand join the children of the air
\ncolourless
\nWe do not have to cut off our hair
\nAnd the prince can be left to his sleeping
\nCan you hear
\nHere
\nat this table and this chair
\nhear the sound<\/p>\n

of waves<\/p>\n

~Alyzee Lakhani, March 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a Teacher\u2019s Assistant, I give lectures on poetry writing for the class Introduction to Creative Writing 202 at UBC.\u00a0 In every lecture, I stress the need for concrete langugage\u2014language that evokes the senses, paints vivid pictures, uses metaphor and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6554,"featured_media":0,"parent":171,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-264","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/264\/revisions\/272"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/nataliethompsonfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}