Category Archives: JM13D

For my digital essay and paper #4 I believe I will be focusing on John Donne’s “The Flea,” It falls under the subtopic of metaphysical poetry, which is poems that uses elaborate conceits, and expressing the complexities of love and life. Metaphysical poetry has always really fascinated me because it was a way of how the highly intellectual people of the seventeenth century communicated issues without being public about it. This poem is about how a man was rejected sex by his lover. Specifically, I will attempt to tackle the idea of how sex is linked to happiness. Why is the character in this poem so attached to idea of sex? Is it because he thinks he needs this to be happy?
As for my digital essay, I will be illustrating a series of situations where a man is not happy after being rejected sex. Specifics are not known at this point but I will keep you posted definitely. It will be very captivating. = )

At this point, I’m still relatively lost about what I want to do for the final paper. I’ve been looking through a lot of poems, but none of them seem to strike me as anything I’d want to devote an entire paper to interpreting. It’s likely that I’ll end up doing something with a theme of childhood, or growing up and becoming an adult, because I found a lot of the poems categorized under that theme to be particularly interesting.

The one thing that I’m completely set on though, is the idea of doing a stop-motion animation video for the digital essay portion. It might be a bit ambitious given the amount of time we have to do this project, but since I’ve already done a film project before for another class, I wanted to try something different this time around.

As I begin thinking of which poet and ultimately which poem to write my final paper for this class, I feel sort of torn between Audre Lourde and Gertrude Stein. Both have such unique writing styles and the subjects of their poems are completely different. Lourde, as we learned, is the queen of writing excellent sentences with just few simple words. However, Stein is the queen of repetition which brings such power to what she is writing about. I now understand what Professor Kaufman meant about her comment of being very Gertrude Stein when we had to write a speech in Ehrenreich’s voice and use a literary element from “The Birthmark” which my group had repetition. I think I might be leaning towards working on a piece from Stein because I have been learning and experiencing much repetition in my own writing due to analyzing “Hills like White Elephants” and understanding the power of the message that stays in your head.

In thinking about the digital essay part of the paper, I admit I am still a little frightened by the notion that I have to create something so visual that snapshots what my thesis will be. I have only recorded short snippets on my six year old camera no longer than thirty seconds. I have seen YouTube videos with collages of pictures, music and short movies and I have never really thought that I could accomplish something like that. After seeing the sample ones in class, I feel somewhat more assured that it is possible to create a masterpiece and that we can interpret how we want to show our thesis in different ways. As of now I guess I might be working alone but that might be subject to change of course after we find out what people want to work on and if there are similar topics. As for ideas of the video itself, I like visuals a lot such as artwork and words that really stand out. I also really appreciate music because that helps videos to flow and also I have always listened to music more for the lyrics then the actual rhythm and beats. I would like to incorporate some of these aspects into my final masterpiece.

These past few days the word “creativity” has been on my mind a lot. I want to creative.No doubt the digital essay will give me the chance to be creative and so i am eagerly anticipating it and looking forward to it.However, one problem I encountered was that i find it extremely hard to grasp and connect to poems. I read many selectios from Audre Lorde and Gertrude Stein but still did not like any of them.Ithought of reading a poem about something I like. Prof Kaufman provided a link to poets.org and so i decided to checked it out. I was amazed at how it immensely helped me in my quest of creativity.I searched for a poem on a subject i like “the gym”.Fortunately I found a poem entitled “At the Gym” by modern American poet, Mark Doty. At a first glance at the poem, it looks like the Doty is talking about his general bobservations at the gym. However, a careful look at it shows that he is talking about people’s quest for perfect beauty. He writes:

Power over beauty,
power over power!
Though there’s something more

tender, beneath our vanity,
our will to become objects
of desire: we sweat the mark
of our presence onto the cloth.

Thiss is my favorite work out at the gym

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/AUZYeTbyzzQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Hello everyone! 🙂 Over break, I’ve been thinking about this project a lot..and to be honest, I’m not sure how to even tackle it. Concerning the poem I will use, I haven’t really thought of one yet. Although, I have a huge appreciation for Pablo Neruda’s poems. Neruda is such a great poet, and I would love to write and make a video on one of his poems. I have studied “Sweetness, Always” which is a great, but long poem in my opinion. I’ve also read “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII” which is such a lovely and straightforward poem. Most of the poems that are in the book “One Hundred Love Sonnets” are very well-written and straightforward. I think I connect with Neruda’s poems more than any other poet’s work because his poems are translated from Spanish to English, and I feel comfortable reading them in Spanish. I think there’s just something so special about reading a poem in its original content and intended language.

I wouldn’t mind working with anyone, and I have a digital camera. My thesis would most likely revolve around the idea of love if I do choose to write on one of Neruda’s poems. The idea of love can very easily relate back to happiness, as a lot of people seem to believe the two go hand in hand. If anyone is familiar with Pablo Neruda or likes the idea of “love” for their project, don’t hesitate to talk to me. Neruda has many poems, and I wouldn’t mind showing anyone a few. His writing style is beautiful and straightforward, no fancy gimmicks. O:)

Look at him, he was so cute~~

–Update:: April 26th–

Once again, I’ve been thinking about this project quiet an awful lot. While thinking about what poems I should choose, something struck me. I have always been in love with “Drummer Hodge” by Thomas Hardy and have never had to opportunity to study it. I think if I studied it for this project, I would be very happy. The poem talks about an unforgotten soldier during a war. “Drummer Hodge” is also known as Hardy’s most celebrated poem, and I think it reads beautifully. I like to read it out loud sometimes because I’m just so captivated by how it sounds.

This is the poem:

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined – just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew –
Fresh from his Wessex home –
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
His stars eternally.

Thoughts are always welcomed. 🙂