"Fucking terrorists", he said.
"Yeah, who's got a rag on their head", another one asked.
The group laughed.
I didn't.
I was busy, choking on what seemed like cayanne pepper
Others were coughing. Some sneezing. My friend Keri, in tears.
I stood there, quiet, listening to others shout about the terrorists.
"They're not fucking terrorists", I wanted to say.
But I kept my mouth shut.
The only muslim guy there that night, stayed put.
He's a good guy.
The guy with the pepper spray? I think he was a saints fan.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAsha,
ReplyDeleteBorrowing the workshop techniques that Thom reviewed in class last week, I’d like to give you some more specific feedback re my reactions to this particular poem. As you read through my comments, you will encounter some praise as well as polish, some pure encouragement as well as more critical feedback. However, regardless of what it is that I say about what you have written, realize that I am one of many readers and that the unique way that I have interpreted this is by no means universal :)
To begin, thanks for taking on such an emotionally charged subject for this assignment. In addition to ourselves, I think that creative writing is one of the most productive / constructive (however you want to conceptualize it) ways to process issues that we might disagree with and / or even find appalling. Where we / our student could simply retort “Oh yeah? Fuck you ____(insert additional derogatory here)____” I really think that creative writing slows us down and gives us the opportunity to critically process what we experience with our heads, as well as our hearts. And the beauty is that we can get our frustrations out, but we can chose not to get “stuck” there. Instead, we can further explore how / why our experiences illicit the responses they do, and hopefully critically uncover / expose the hate behind the words that our so casually spoken. I’m beginning to rant… But, I just want to say that I think you’ve done a really nice job of this critical “slowing down” / processing of some sort of experience that you were repulsed by. This is a lesson that I think many of us need to get better at.
I also really, really liked some of the finer details that you grounded your poem in. For example, you didn’t just tell me that the narrator was chocking, but showed me the narrator choking on “cayenne” pepper. In addition to providing me some specific sensory details (taste of the pepper, sound of the person choking, and so on), this sort of detail also held some implied connotations for me (e.g., potential cultural values, potential region that the action is taking place in, and so on). In short, I encourage you to keep utilizing such fine, specific detail in your writing.
However, (and this is really less of a “however” than something I think we both need to practice), I’m having a tough time clearly understanding the larger context(s) that the action of your poem is unfolding in. Although both Thom and our course text explore the idea of balancing context creation with explicit vs. implied detail, I really feel as though I’m at a loss at specifically where the action of the poem is taking place, who are involved, why they are feeling the way(s) they do, and so on. As you re-read your poem, do you pick up on the same confusion? Or am I missing something? (Which I assure you is more than possible). In short, my critical feedback takes the form of a question; how can you further clarify the larger context(s) of your poem by utilizing explicit and / or implicit cues for the reader? In other words, do you feel as though more expository introduction to this specific scene would be beneficial? Would more specific details be beneficial? What do you think?
I hope you found my feedback helpful for you, and again, I really enjoyed reading through this poem. I look forward to seeing more of your writing throughout our course and hearing your perspective on the different issues that I imagine we’ll explore:) Thanks again, Asha.
See you in class on Tuesday.
-Rick Filipkowski