Anyway, I'm excited for the class--the class description for registration is what sold me. I think, though, everyone has the "same" reservation (one mentioned in class): since the class is so anti-product, what "use" is it for a workshop?
I know, for me, I'm just interested in play...maybe the only thing I'll get from this class are cool starts, or I may even further refine my voice. I see only upside.
In a sort of weird running theme, other classes' readings are informing dialogues in very deliciously intertextual ways--just read Duncan's essay/page "Pages From a Notebook" for
What, really, is the state of/use of MFAs--is a class like this really conducive, especially for those who want to teach where a premium is placed on having an in-store product in a book? Again, this was touched on in class, but the term workshop seems to have so much gravitas in the creative writing field (probably as a result of Iowa).
Anyway, to make less ramble-y: excited for this class; interested to see what I will produce (even though that has to be the wrong word--maybe "what I will create," but that seems too god-complex-like).
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For the change/rock your world book, I'm not sure what to read yet. I bought options Friday: A coffee table book of human anatomy/systems, a book about being down low in the black community, Shit My Dad Says, and Jon Stewart's Earth. Also got Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, but that is kinda unrelated. Anyway, I'm so torn because I'm unsure how "monumental" the change should be--I know each book interests me for different reasons, and I think each can "change" my life:
The anatomy book is (I think) self-explanatory--I'm a science dork (it's what I always test highest in), and I think it would give me more language/ways to engage poems. If I do pull in something anatomy-y in my poems, it's usually very base and surface: a heart, brain, reproductive organs. With so many systems and so many interconnected functions of those systems, I think the horizons will brighten tremendously.
The book about being down low is personally interesting because I'm black, and it's an interesting dynamic concerning homosexuality in the black community. This is a bit reductive, but down low means being "down low," on the hush, creeping, and specifically, it means pretending/fronting/acting like you're heterosexual in public and carrying on homosexual (whether pure sex or beyond) relationships in private. At times, it seems that it's more rewarding to be criminal minded or any other sort of immorality save homosexuality, and this is especially notable in the rap community, or with the phrases pause/no homo. Thinking about it, it seems that being homosexual makes you a less than even more in the black community than other communities, and I'm really interested to see how deep these issues go and how I can further enrich my understanding of my own community. As it stands, I feel like an English-major black guy. We grow up speaking English--why take classes about it, why get a degree in it, waste of time? In the same breath, being black is not just a black and white issue--there are many facets that unfold deeper complexities, and beyond socioeconomic advancement, the "burying" of nigger, one of the issues that seem to be picking up steam is how to "deal" with this issue, with the main problem being that down low brothers tend to contract stds from unsafe practices that stem from them not wanting to admit they're doing the acts, passing it on to wives/girlfriends, and those diseases being passed to others/children.
Somehow, this feels more disjointed on screen than head--hope this makes sense.
Shit My Dad Says will probably give me another perspective to consider--a way to view the "same" relationship differently--what can I learn, literally, from the shit Halpern's dad said to him?
Earth may give me a way to re-engage serious subjects/concepts in a subversive way. I like wit/satire/sarcasm, but my poems tend to turn into serious things, fast. I'm trying a way to work in seamlessly black/dark humor, so maybe this will help.
Eh. Again, I don't know why things start coming out as blurs.
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For the poem of the world, I would really like to take a sewing class--the nearby Hobby Lobby only seems to offer jewelery classes, and since I'm not a big jewelery guy...well, you know where this is going.
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That's it for now--as customary, music--I'm in a very...restrained mood currently.
James Labrie - Coming Home
Sylvan - On The Verge of Tears
Jamie Foxx ft. Drake - Fall For Your Type
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