10 Treasures 1

“Collage is really the practice of a theory of knowledge.”

-I used to make collages when I was younger. The type of picture collage with all types of things that I’d cut out from magazines and old books. Sometimes they had words but only a few. It was usually the pictures that meant the most to me. This was my first attempt at conveying meaning through images instead of words.

“Romantic poetry wants to and should combine and fuse poetry and prose, genius and criticism, art poetry and nature poetry. It should make poetry lively and sociable, and make life and society poetic.”

-When I think of romance I can’t help but think of love. But to think of it in more of an outwardly social way leads me to the thought that most of my poetry romanticizes the negative ideas I have.

“Fragments speak to me of hope. They reach out to completion but never reach it.”

-Almost everything I write is a fragment. I never know where it comes from or how it is going to end. So many times I feel like when I write I’m starting in the middle of a thought. I find it hard to reach the true beginning of most things I write; I always feel like I’m chasing an idea and I can only see it’s backside.

“When I was younger, I wanted to write long poems that would hang together, that could be admired for the deftness with which their heterogeneous materials were woven into single fabrics.”

-One day I’d really like to write a long poem. It seems like I exhaust myself at about one and a half pages.

“At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice. “
Maya Angelou

-It is ok to give up on something, sometimes giving up is actually better then dragging it through the mud with you because of pride.

“And then it was day again, all morning
at the office machines, their clack and chatter
another journey -- rougher,
that would go on forever
until she could break a hundred words
with no errors -- ah, and then

no more postponed groceries,
and that blue pair of shoes!”
Rita Dove

-This just makes me think of the daily grind. Waking up, working/going to school, going to bed. Sometimes it is hard for me to find beauty in the things that are looked at as normal or mundane.

“Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.” – Toni Morrison

-This is so true to me. Even when my most open minded teachers talk about black literature they separate it into a compartment of difference. I hate it that we live in a world where it is still important to say, “Such and such is a BLACK author who does amazing work.” As if that’s surprising.

“Form is never more than an extension of content.”- Charles Olson

-The way things are written on a page is an extension of what is actually written. The way you see and experience a piece of writing is often just as important as the piece itself.

“How can it mean anything? The stop & spout, the wind’s dumb shift. Creak of the house & wet smells coming in. Night forms on my left. The blind still up to admit a sun that no longer exists. Sea move.”- Amiri Baraka (from Turncoat)

-I’ve never seen anyone describe the wind as dumb. Reading his work made me get out a thesaurus while writing. Finding new and different ways to describe the things I write about is becoming more and more important to me. People always say that nothing under the sun is new but I’d like to strive to prove them wrong.

“During aerobic and circuit training, the heart and lungs are exercised. But muscles will grow only if they are not exercised or moved, but actually broken down. The general law behind body building is that muscle, if broken down in a controlled fashion and then provided with the proper growth factors such as nutrients and rest, will grow back larger than before.” – Kathy Acker (Bodies of Work)

-I have absolutely no interest in body building but while reading her essays I thought about how clear and detailed each sentence was. I’ve secretly always wanted to write for a newspaper, but I need to work on being more concise and to the point.