Recital Download Link

Here's the link to the poetry recital recording. It should take about 7 to 8 minutes to download if you've got DSL.

http://myplanner.org/kirillium/Rhet124/

Right click on the file "Rhetoric 124 Poetry", hit "save as," select the destination for the file, and save.

*There's a part in Faith's section that was recorded with a slight variation in volume, but it's hardly noticable. Kirill did want he could to even it out. I feel kind of nostaglic after listening to it.... Enjoy!

Poetry Recital Recording

Sorry the recording is taking longer than expected. Kirill (my bf) will need to have the file remastered because some of the voices aren't clear or loud enough, but the minute he has that done, I'll be sure to post it on the blog. Thanks for your patience.

HI HI HI PARTY TIME

Hello fellow classmates:

1160 Glenn Ave
94708



Eunice and Oak

525-4470 Barbara
510-316-8383 Krys

See you all this afternoon.

Rides and Such

Hey all. For those of you riding with me (Farnoosh, Kipp, Isaac, Faith) can you guys please meet me in the police parking lot on campus at 4:30 (in back/to the side of Sproul, inbetween Sproul and Barrows, etc..)? My number is 530.340.2882 for anyone who doesn't have it. 

Party Next week I thought it was clear sorry

Ok So my understanding is the party is next Wednesday the 21st. 4:30 PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG. I will try to go back to my notes.

the Alive Poet's Society eh?

The Alive Poet's Society

I thought maybe we could call ourselves that.

Poets Party

You guys were all so great at the reading!!!

Thanks again Lotus and thank your bf for all his help.

So for our gathering the sign up goes as follows:

Scott-pin wheel tray
Jeremiah-snacks of some type
Chris-paper goods
Gena-dessert or pie
Mikey- may not make it :-(( we certainly hope he will try)
Issac-chips and paper goods
Vishaal-apple cider
Farnoosh-cookies
Kipp-veggie tray
Richard-drinks of some type
Shane-some type of food item
Lotus-fruit
Krys-chicken stirfry (for those who need to know....garlic, broccoli, carrots, chicken, bamboo, bean sprouts, almonds (which can be excluded if there are nut allergies))

Yes I will bring rice too.

I expect people who are bringing similar or the same items will coordinate with each other so we don't have all cups and no plates. If you change your mind -its perfectly okay!

People bringing food trays.....the actual type of food listed....veggie, pinwheels etc are suggestions. Bring whatever you want!!!!! There are 15 Students and the possibility of a few guests so think 20ppl.

Party time

Hi guys so lets organize.

What do you want?

Potluck I assume...everyone bring something?

Things we will need:


tablewear...ppr plates, cups, spoons, forks, napkins

drinks ???

food ???

snack items ????


how long is this gathering going to last?

Please post your name and what you can bring. Think enough for 5 people at least.
I can bring a food item. Spaghetti (turkey sausage) is always easy. but so is chicken and vegetable stirfry. As you like.

Let's try to get this organized quickly. Please post this week

Very Random Haikus (for Krys' entertainment)

1.BEAUTIFUL SOUL

It's hard to explain,
So let me put it this way:
I heart you a lot


2.WORDS

Words are difficult
They often get in the way ...
My eyes never lie


3.TIME

Time is just concept
Life is just light and movement
Beautiful movement


4.TODAY, TOMORROW

Tomorrow: today.
So today is yesterday.
That's right ... you heard me.


5.THE SOURCE

Milk is pretty good
Your mom is my favorite source
Sweet, sweet, milky source


6.KITTY, KITTY

Here kitty, kitty
I love cats, but a whole one
Is just too filling

The next couple of class sessions

4/24 Thursday's assignment: Bring the poems you are considering reading at the poetry reading in their final or last draft. Select 2 or 3 poems you may consider reading to be turned in for evaluation and final revisions.

1 week from today 4/29 we have the room for rehearsal Meet in Room 188 in Dwinelle. This is essentially a dress rehearsal for timing. You can put notes on the poem to indicate if you are having any particular issues with a poem.

Poetry Reading

May 12th.

Do we want wine, snacks, or such? Could be a cool way to end the semester.

Krys

For your entertainment Krys =)

People You May Know

4 am is a traffic jam.
My clock, out of pity, skips it
When I’m lucky.
Fingers trace a dent in my durafoam nest,
My closet is full of stiff flowers that still reek
a hint of Sensodyne. 
My sheets smell like the song
You used to whistle while scrubbing dishes, 
Perhaps the tune that stood with Audrey Hepburn 
Outside Tiffany’s, but I could be wrong. 
I’m never really wrong.
That car rattled around blind corners
And your fidgeting kept me awake
At the wheel, but I wasn’t driving. 
You make noise on your airguitar
It sounds like nothing, so I miss it more than anything.
Can’t take the kid from the fight, take the fight from the kid, 
Sit back, relax, sit back, relapse. 
The cold dissection of memory drags towards 4:02, and
I’m breathing in milk; it’s supposed to dull the burn.
You hum to Ace while she drives in circles;
We will eventually forget to remember
but not without remembering to forget.
I love you. Fuck you. I’ll change.
Più è quello cambia, più è la stessa cosa.
Your dashboard bobblehead quivers in disapproval,
So I knock it off my nightstand, and pray for sleep, or 5.

Quiz?

Two people have asked about a "quiz". I officially don't know but have emailed Barbara and will post any information she shares.

Note to readers: I post information for your edification. Will you post poems for my entertainment?

My Blog

In case you guys are interested, here's my blog:

http://thekippocrite.blogspot.com

It's... aggressive. Some find it offensive. Don't be offended, it's just my writing style to get people engaged. Let me know what you think!

Syllabus per Prof

Hello again,

Your favorite neighborhood reporter here with news hot off the presses!

3/18 Visiting Poet Chad....ummmmm I lost the last name somewhere but yeah visiting poet.

3/20 Literary Forms. Please bring the Making of a poem to class.

3/28 in class exercises. Please bring the notes from the 3/11/08 class.

after spring break or midterm recovery period as some of us will be calling it....

4/1 Conclude "narrative exercises"

4/3 In class exercises

4/8 3rd Practice of Poetry exercise to be workshopped. Don't forget to bring copies of your typewritten poem.

4/10 Turn in revised poem. In class exercise.

4/15 Class visit from Famous poet(ess?) Elizabeth Robinson. Read her online before her visit. Now, I really was going to locate and post links to her work but I thought I'd let you each experience just how many Elizabeth Robinson's you could locate on Google.


Good luck on your midterms.
I have emailed this to you individually, please email me if you have not rec'd a copy.

miguelk@berkeley.edu

later.

Class Cancelled March 11, 2008

Classmates:

Our Professor is not feeling up to par quite yet.  Please note that
tomorrow's class [Tuesday March 11th] is canceled. (NOTE: the dictionary
told me both forms of cancel(l)ed are correct,verb v noun.  Interesting
eh?)

So on Thursday March 13, 2008 please come prepared with your Practice of
Poetry exercise (please bring copies to be work-shopped).

If it is not too much trouble, please send a reply that you have received
this note as I will endeavor to make sure no one shows up to class
unnecessarily.

Looking forward to the next round of poems.

Krys

Hey Classmates our online notes for todays class

Assignments:

3/11 Making of a Poem- Bring book to class (see syllabus dated 2/21)

3/13 2^nd Practice of Poetry exercise (pp 63-106). Bring 4 copies to class for workshop.

3/18 Wonderful visit by great poet and editor Chad Sweeney

3/20 in class exercise

3/21 Holloway Poetry Reading 7pm

Friday March 21st @ 6:30pm
Linh Dinh
with Marisa Libbon
Poetry that "raids and reinvents the language with an ardor bordering on delirium" from Linh Dinh. More info coming soon!

Per the professor you all should read good contemporary poetry

Good online journals

http://www.octopusmagazine.com/

http://jacketmagazine.com/00/home.shtml


http://www.conjunctions.com/

Written journals she recommends we try to look at:

Jubilat

Verse

No a journal of the arts

Colorado review

Denver quarterly

conjunctions

Jeremiah and Mickey- Today's class

Today is March 4.

Thursday we should read Making of a Poem and come prepared to do an in class exercise.....
we are going to try to write poems with one or no adjectives.

Next Thursday March 13th our Practice of poetry exercises are due. (3/13 is 3/4 on syllabus).

When I reread my notes I will make clear what is due for Tuesday.

Page 66 and Page 80.

I saw the wave swallow him,
despite the fact my eyes were shut
and I shuddered inside and out,
even though it was still- June.
It was summer. It was hot
somewhere. The ocean front
was full of children playing,
breath held spectators,
boards, like toys, abandoned.
He didn’t surface.
Although, I thought he would
because we waited for him,
and waited, and waited some more
(his breath ours) suffocating.
Until a figure rose,
limp, pale, supported, carried out
dead. I saw nothing else;
Maybe, I heard someone cry
or it could have been a scream
from far, far in the distance.
Finally, my sight gone
and sound selective at best,
my heart ceased to beat
for poisonous spirit Neptune ,
who took him from us
now wants my consolation,
the last of my belief in God
The prayers from memory
resurface fresh in this moment;
and that second , an hour.
He didn’t surface.
Although, I thought he would
because we waited for him,
and waited, and waited some more
(his breath ours) suffocating
Mayhap, the board is cursed.
The damned sea! I hurt.
It is the one your father rode
twenty-five years ago,
the day you were born.
The day he died.
-Cassandra waits-as I
waited for something
to happen; she for you and I for him
her moniker a boding for doom
She shouldn’t see this. You should have seen this,
but you entered the world
on heels of death and destiny.
May the next breath she takes
not be a scream,
not be a cry uttered from
an impossible place of pain.
No baby will be born this day
The wedding was only yesterday
the playing children stop
so I know you have surfaced.
Limp, pale, and wrapped in a blanket,
you lie still while they wipe away the blood.
“Damn, lucky I had my dad’s board”
and you smiled the smile
I would have died to see
twenty-five years ago today,
the day he died.
The day you were born.
Today, my heart stopped
as you resurfaced,
the sputtering specter of your father,
reborn- the day your
mother died.

New poll at bottom of page.

Hi. I hope you are enjoying this class as much as I am. Feel free to add whatever you'd like here. IF you don't want to deal with the details of interacting with this site just send your content to me via email. This is the class I chose for my personal pleasure before I graduate so it is a labor of entertainment, so to speak.

Do you have a theme in mind when you start a poem? vote in the poll below!

10 Lines

The sly reeds whisper to the night
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
Her hardest hue to hold.


police cars cockroach through the tunnel streets
Whose backs are scorched by the flames of the shining sky
I shall not see the shadows,
she crawls, it flies …

And into ashes all my lust:
Beauty is not enough.


[“Her hardest hue to hold” – Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay
“By the secret smudge in the back of your soul” – John Ashbery, Just Walking Around
“Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air” – T.S. Eliot, Morning at the Window
“The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name-- her name-” – James Joyce, Alone
“When she crawls, it flies, and when
she crawls, it flies …” – Kobayashi Issa, A butterfly, a child
“police cars cockroach through the tunnel streets” – Dennis Brutus, Nightsong: City
“Whose backs are scorched by the flames of the shining sky” – Po Chü-I (translated by Arthur Waley), Watching the Reapers
“I shall not see the shadows,” – Christina Rossetti, Song
“And into ashes all my lust:” – Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
“Beauty is not enough.” – Edna St. Vincent Millay, Spring]

Favorite Poem?

Dunno if this is my favorite poem, but it's short and easy to memorize, and also, it's awesome.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
--Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.


p.s. not too sure of the punctuation ...

p.s.s. "Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold" (where's that from? come on, how many Ponyboy's are there in the world)

Black Mountain Poetry

http://www.poetspath.com/transmissions/messages/funkhouser.html


Interesting. LAYERED EFFECTS IN MULTIPLEX POETRY SINCE BLACK MOUNTAIN

Tell Me What’s Wrong with Society

This bitter earth
land of the thief and home of the slave
blood on the leaves and blood at the root
our freedom of speech is freedom or death
murder was the case that they gave me

heaven is under the earth
like a prisoner tied over alligator waters
hell is still overburdened
anger and agony are better than misery
sometimes they tell lies and put ‘em in a truthful disguise



Crazy-Simple Plan (Title)
This Bitter Earth-Dinah Washington
Uncle Sam Goddamn-Brother Ali
Strange Fruit- (Lewis Allen as sung by Billie Holiday)
Fight the Power-Public Enemy
Murder was the Case-Snoop Dogg
Get UP Stand Up-Bob Marley
Dragon Days-Alicia Keys
Overburden-Disturbed
Pain-Three Days Grace
Message to the Messengers-Gil Scott Heron

My effort

Fill me, fill me ‘til I choke


Of the uncounted kisses

intellectualism

like salt boiling in the sand.

The earth and heaven are one,

Pancreatic, visceral

How does it diminish me!

First vague shadows of surmise

Dawn enters with little feet

even of oblivion.







Akua Lesli Hope – Songs They Could Sing #789 Erotique Noire

Bessie N. Price – Pin-up Poems

Nikki Giovanni- Intellectualism

Nancy Morejon- To a Boy

Edward Dowden –The Secret of the Universe
Robert Peters- Sea-Fire

Kahlil Gibran- Soliloquy-Tear and a Smile

Ralph Waldo Emerson- Give All to Love

Ezra Pound- The Garret

DH Lawrence – Ship of death

Poem that is other poems

The alphabet of
The illustration

A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble, the old
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
Among the pickled foetuses and bottled bones,
My dazzling Spells into the spongy air

Do I dare

For to articulate sweet sounds together
I could break a tree.
In red weather.

~*~

SPECIAL THANKS TO

1 W.C. Williams, "The Botticellian Trees"
2 Marianne Moore, "To a Steam Roller"
3 Gertrude Stein, "Susie Asado"
4 G.M. Hopkins, "I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day"
5 Ezra Pound, "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley"
6 John Milton, "Comus"
7 T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
8 W.B. Yeats, "Adam’s Curse"
9 H.D., "Garden"
10 Wallace Stevens, "Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock"

~*~

"That poem rules"
-William Carlos Williams

Please post your favorite poem

Soliloquy-Kahlil Gibran (A Tear and A Smile)

Where are you my love
Are you in that little garden watering the flowers
That love you as infants love their mother's breast?
Or in your little room, wherein you have raised to
innocence an altar
And sacrificed upon it my spirit and my heart?
Or mayhap amidst your books
Harvesting the wisdom of men--
You who are so rich in the wisdom of the gods?
Where are you, companion of my spirit?
Are you in the sanctuary praying for me?
Or in the meadow calling to Nature--
Or mayhap in the houses of the wretched
Consoling those of broken heart
With the sweetness of your self,
And giving of your bounty to fill their hands?
You are in all places, for you are the spirit of God,
And in all times, for you are greater and stronger than time itself.

Remember you the nights of our union
And the light of your spirit that was as a halo about us?
And the angels of love that hovered above us
Singing and chanting in the things of the spirit?

Remember you the days when we sat beneath the boughs
That cast o'er us a covering
And concealed us from the sight of men
As ribs conceal the sacred secrets of the heart
And the paths and the slopes we trod, our fingers interwoven,
When we leaned our heads one against the other
As though to take refuge from ourselves within ourselves?
Remember you the hour I cam to say farewell?
You embraced me and kissed me the kiss of Mary
And I learned that where the lips embrace
They utter divining secrets the tongue knows not
A kiss it was, the prelude to a sigh,
As the breath the Almighty breathed into clay--
And made it man.
Thus is the sign that goes before us to the world of spirits,
Proclaiming the glory of our twin souls.
there shall it remain until we and it are joined
For eternity.
Again did you kiss and embrace me,
Saying, with tears flowing from your eyes:

"In truth we have earthly bodies desires unbeknown
And must the ofttimes separate for earthly purpose
And remain apart for worldly reason.
But all spirits abide in safety in loves' hands
Till Death do come and bear them aloft to God.
Go, then, my darling, for Life has made you her delegate
Go, obey her.
She is a comely woman, giving them that obey her
To drink from the limpid Kauthar of joy in full
As for me, your love has given me a waiting groom,
And your memory, an eternal wedding."

Where are you now, my companion?
Are you awake in the still night,
Waiting on a breeze
That shall carry my heartbeats and innermost thoughts
Toward you?
Or seeing the picture of your young love?
That picture is no more like the pictured,
For sadness has cast its shadow
Upon a face yesterday rejoicing in your presence,
And weeping has withered eyes your beauty did not anoint.
Grief has parched a mouth moistened by your kisses.

Whither are you, beloved?
Do you hear my call and lament beyond the oceans?
See you my weariness and abasement--
Know you of my patience and enduring?
Are there not in space spirits
To bear the last breath of a dying one?
Are there not between souls hidden strands
To carry the complaint of a lover in sickness?

Where are you beloved?
Darkness enfolds me,
And mourning is victor.
Smile into the air and I shall be refreshed;
Breathe into the ether and I shall live.

Where are you , beloved, where...?
Ah, how mighty is love,
How it does diminish me!

Welcome to some social class space

Hi All,

I created this site: a) because I could b) to provide space if we want to share works c) to socialize d) because I am nosy and want to ask questions out of class about your processes of creating.

So I will send invitations to the class mates but by no means is this classroom sponsored, although the professor is aware it exists.
It is my considered opinion that technology has afforded us some luxuries, one of which is the ability to save a tree or two. For this I am grateful.

So in the name of trees, if you want to post poetry or nonsense here feel free. This site will be moderated only to maintain the integrity of the communique.

No flames, no insults, all the profane, all the sacred, all the jokes ya want.

Have at it.