Evaluation of My Own Poetry for English 3440

As I look at the collection of poems included in my chapbook, it is obvious to me the changes I’ve undergone as a poet.  That’s right, I said poet.  That in and of itself is a huge change.  But as far as my poetry goes, I feel there’s a definite difference between the poems I wrote last year and the poems I’ve written this year in this class.  While I’m still proud of my earlier work, I think the poems I’m writing now have more subtlety, more attention to language and feel a bit more… I don’t know… sophisticated.  I’m still no poet laureate by any stretch of the imagination, but I am growing and improving and coming into my own.

In one of my earlier poems, “Butterfly,” my writing is for the most part literal:  “His sneakers echo in the empty mall./ Only the theater is open now./ Part of him chickens out.  He thinks to call/ it off, but at this point is not sure how.”  It’s like I’m telling a story—very narrative-driven—and it’s only in the final couplet where a metaphor emerges:  “That first date led to another and soon/ the butterfly emerged from the cocoon.”  And it’s a clichéd metaphor at that.

In a newer poem, “Nothing,” I again explore a gay relationship, but this time it’s less cutesy and less narrative-driven.  I make use of more striking visual metaphors: “You stand, showering./ Naked. A scarecrow/ with no crows to scare,/ no crops to protect.”  Phrases like “your raw skin bleeds… I keep on scrubbing” are less literal and more metaphorical, and I think, more effective.  Comparing “Nothing” to “Butterfly” is like night and day.  Other poems I’m most proud of now included “Wishes” (“girls resembling flamingos/ with long, stiletto legs/ and bright, warm coats above”) and “Helpmeet” (“But then you smiled with/ fruit juice dripping/ from the corner of your/ apple lips, your mouth a/ yawning hollow”)—poems that have definitely benefitted from my professor's stewardship, the workshops with my peers, and my own deepening understanding of poetry.

Villanelle for English 3440

Two/Three Matches

The grass is greener where you water it,

yet bone-dry grass cannot be healthy now.

A burnt out match cannot again be lit.

You are already gone, you piece of shit;

I’m left alone to ponder on our vow.

The grass is greener where you water it.

I told myself a lie and let it sit

upon your lips.  I often marvel how

a burnt out match cannot again be lit.

Another comes along who seems to fit

the space you once took up in me somehow.

The grass is greener where you water it.

Both you and he have left me feeling hit

with bams! and bangs! and one tremendous pow!

A burnt out match cannot again be lit.

I want the flame to burn inside the pit,

but fear that you’ve forgotten how to wow.

The grass is greener where you water it.

A burnt out match cannot again be lit.

Anti-Love Poem for English 3440

Nothing

You stand, showering.

Naked.  A scarecrow

with no crows to scare,

no crops to protect.

You wash your hair

and tighten tired eyes against

the steady barrage of

shampoo threatening to blind you,

if only for a stinging second,

and you consider letting it.

As I wash you vigorously,

sponge in hand,

your raw skin bleeds.

You do not notice so

I keep on scrubbing,

too scared to stop.

Three-Item Poem for English 3440

For this assignment I had to write a poem using three things: red, hippopotamus and whiteout.

Red

She had painted the room.

Like her cheeks would flush

in the cold, or like the

color of her favorite scarf.

Her lipstick still stained

on his coffee mug.

The mug washed clean,

the scarf returned,

her cheeks no longer his.

But the walls—

the walls remained,

as blatant as a

hippopotamus

rising from the mud

under an African sun.

Clay dripping

from its mighty legs

like drops of

nail polish on the sheets

of a once-shared bed.

She had painted the room.

White paint could not conceal it

or erase it like liquid paper,

correcting all the times

she wrote “I love you”

and didn't mean it.

Language Poem for English 3440

First

Touch-tipped fingers fall

touchily on thighs, pleasure-

points, elbow-joints.  Smooth

raking.  Hungry

thirst.  Peel a strip.

Then another bite of

banana.  Taste of flesh.

White and unrelenting.

Yielding away like falling

dominoes, black dots on white

faces, clicking and clacking

and then—yes.

Persona Poem for English 3440

Helpmeet

I only winced a little

when God ripped you

from my side, bloody

and swift, leaving a

yawning hollow.

I watched as you explored

your new body;

a butterfly spreading

her wings and I the

abandoned cocoon.

But then you smiled with

fruit juice dripping

from the corner of your

apple lips, your mouth a

yawning hollow

where I could see our bleak

future.  I cried and, in my

fallen state, tore off

your wings and crippled

the both of us.

Found Poem for English 3440

3.5 Billion Years
(from a Zales catalog promoting the Celebration Diamond)

Nature creates beauty.

Beauty explodes with pride.

Pride took so long in making

man—half the original brilliance

of nature—and beauty is lost.

Poem in the Negative for English 3440

Wishes

It's not in the vast expanse
or darkness kissing the white
luminescence of winter snow
nor in the smoky puff
of laughter; not the
lungs filled with cold or
girls resembling flamingos
with long stilettoed legs
and bright, warm coats above,
disappearing into pubs.

It's not in the rings left
by martini glasses and beer
bottles nor in the lonely
olive thoughtlessly swept
away by a waitress's
gin-soaked hand, the same
hand that sweetly wipes
away an eyelash from
her child's sleeping cheek
—a wish waiting to be granted.

She watches it float down,
lost in cream carpet,
and somehow she knows.

My Chapbook Came In! Yay!

My sister Renee sent me a photo much like the one here, holding my little chapbook.  "Wow," I texted. "You got yours before I got mine!"  "I must be important," she replied.  But a few hours later, while at work, I got a text from Brian.  Guess what it was.  Yep, another photo of a hand holding my chapbook, this time the hand belonged to Brian.  "Your book came in!" he said.  I was pretty excited to hear it.  And when I got home, I was finally able to get my own hands on my little book.  I can't believe so many people got to see it before I did!  It looks great though.  Blurb did a good job with the printing.

"But then you smiled with fruit juice dripping from the corner of your apple lips, your mouth a yawning hollow where I could see our bleak future."

Prose Poem for English 3440

Burritos and Coca-Cola

Jack Garcia

His arm pressed against my arm, Zeek says, I’m just about as white as you, although he’s a true Mexican. He plays fútbol and wears cleats and isn’t even a citizen, although he’s lived here all his life. Speaks Spanish fluently, not the gringo Spanglish I utter. My father, brown as a Reese’s peanut butter cup, folds my potato burrito a certain way and I follow in his footsteps. Hispanic women have a chip on their shoulder, he told me once, while sipping Coca-Cola from red- and yellow-striped straws. Perhaps that’s why all his wives have been red-headed and fair-skinned, including my mother who once attended a cooking class for Hispanic women with my Aunt Rachel—I call her Tía Loca and she calls me J.J. or sometimes Joaquín. My mom felt out of place in that class, garnering glares like wasp stings from the coffee-colored mujeres until my tía told them all to fuck off. She’s my sister-in-law, she said. She belongs. I remember once in high school, being called at an assembly to receive an award for academic excellence. A white kid named Brody jokingly said, I bet you’re the first Garcia to ever win an award, and I laughed. Mia Medina, overhearing, did not laugh. Her beautiful brown eyes turned black and her eyebrows furrowed so close together she looked like the Mexican artist Frida. That’s racist, she said, don’t ever let me hear you say something like that again. On stage I accepted the award, but instead of pride I felt shame.

Blank Verse for English 3440

Pride

by Jack Garcia

 

I look upon the tree which proudly stands

with orange lace and bright maroon cravats,

bedazzled, dressed in jewels of autumn; gold

upon his fingers stretching out to me.

I wonder where the sycamore retreats

as winter’s snow invades his closet there

and throws his precious costumes out the door:

a crimson handkerchief, a hat, a glove.

Invading spaces that were never hers,

the winter wind has stripped the tree of pride.

Work-Inspired Tanka for English 3440

 

My First Poem for Class

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm taking a class called Creative Process and Imaginative Writing which is trying to mold a poet out of me.  My friend Michelle insists that I already am a good poet, but writing silly rhymes about coworkers at the movie theater is not really a definitive example of poetry. The poems I'm reading in class are all so artfully crafted, and there's really so much about the form that I don't know and don't yet appreciate, that calling myself a poet just seems ludicrous.

That being said, I am enjoying the challenge of writing poetry for a more critical audience... especially my teacher who is not afraid to point out all of the many faults that my poems seem to be full of.  He equates harsh criticism to telling a friend they have spinach in their teeth.  While workshopping the following poem in class, he found the entire first stanza to be full of spinach.  Mostly he thought it was too vague, which I can see now.  He found the imagery in the second stanza to be more concrete and he enjoyed how "of heat" was mirrored with "burned."  He also liked that those two lines broke the form of what is otherwise an exercise in accentual-alliterative verse .

Some of you who've been reading the excerpts from my novel might recognize that this poem was mostly pulled from the first paragraph of Chapter 2.  It might sound like cheating, but one of the suggestions for writing poems is to write your ideas in prose and then mold them into a poem.  Besides, what my professor doesn't know can't hurt him!

Summer
Jack Garcia

Summer’s stay,

                                with sexual fervor,

Soaked her body

                                with sun-kissed sweat.

Radiant rays

                                of resplendent sun

Warmed her

                                in wild waves

Of heat.

Summer’s stay,

                                surprisingly fleeting,

Steps aside

                                surrendering to Fall.

Living leaves

                                are left to lie

Dead and broken,

                                decaying in dirt.

Burned.