Tyson: Journal 5

First I want to say that I really enjoyed the readings.  I feel that either; we have all grown as poets, or; something about standing in front of everyone and reading a piece brought out a better reading for most everyone.  Maybe a combination of both?  With that said, I enjoyed most of the pieces at the time and it is going to be hard to pick 2. Looking back I wish I had a copy of each of your poems because my notes and memory SUCKS and won't do any of them justice! 

Anyway, I think the first poem that really stood out to me was Sam's "Dear Muse".  The reading was done very well and a couple of the lines just popped.  "Foolish heart wrapped in a beautiful body".  I don't know why but that line sounded elegant as hell.  My 3 favorite aspects of the poem were;  the title.  Loved it.  Second, was the speakers signature.  "Your favorite torturous bitch".  That was punchy and a good closer to remember the poem by.  Lastly, at some point in the midst of the poem the lines about lying were so ear grabbing since the flow of the way they were read changed dramatically.  I lied... you know I lied...."

The next poem I feel might be easiest to talk about is "Unifinshed Thoughts". Maybe I have more written about this one because of the fact Chris read it out loud twice and that gave me a better opportunity to absorb it. Plus it was short.  Or maybe I just really want summer to be here?  Haha, either way, he starts it off talking directly to summer and begins listing things that are associated with summer.  Birds, "bright" smiles.  People do tend to smile more in the summer don't they? The remembering of something tied in with the "fragrance of summer" was effective as when I think of memories sometimes I think of smells.  This brought it to life early on.  On the second reading it was as if it was almost an entirely different poem.  I'm lost for why this is.  Chris, did you freestyle some of the words or change them in the second reading? 

I know I'm only supposed to do 2, but screw it I'm doing 3.  While I seem to fall into the camp of people that don't like emotional readings much, admittedly it feels a little awkward to me and is distracting, but I do totally 110% understand that when writing about something like death, depression, and things that hit home it is damn near impossible to hold back emotions. Call it a personal hang up of mine but I get distracted sometimes when emotions get too intense.  I think this would be the same for anger in a poem.  Recently I've seen a few slam poems where the speaker just goes ballistic!  Suddenly, I feel myself not paying attention to the poem but I'm focusing all of my attention on the face and body language of the reader.  Maybe I'm just weird for this?  But that's the blunt truth from my perspective.  But that isn't why I wanted to point out the poem.  Though I did miss a lot of the more emotional lines for the reasons stated above, I think the last line was phenomenal and one of the best endings to a poem we have seen yet.  I loved the way it was read, in a sigh, in a "all this stuff about the lights and what it supposed to be about but you know what, I never did like them..." That was pretty epic for me.  I caught a few lines in the beginning as well.  The talk of the colors of the lights not gaining or losing.  Molding peach.  Gray funnel cloud.  The personification and symbolism in this piece was palatable.  Thanks for sharing Coral. Mr. Lohre was right about you being brave, and I think most of us really appreciate that.