Shakespeare 2006

During one of my summer school sessions, I worked with two 9th graders from Kingston, NY, who I'll call "James" and "Kyle." The boys were assigned to put one of Shakespeare's sonnets into their own contemporary language. Shakespeare's sonnet and the...er... modern interpretation follow:

Sonnet 130

MY mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,	5
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:	10
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

(9th Graders' Modern Interpretation*)

My girls eyes aren't bright like the sun
Her lips look like the ashes that come from a blunt
If snow is white why is her breasts mad black.
Hairs tangled like cable wires like trying
to find a way through a brain on crack.
I've seen torn apart roses red and white
Then I look at her cheeks the comparison is
like she got stalled on in a fight.
And in some perfumes is the more delight
its like some exocist junk when she breathe
you lose your sight
She talks a lot to much to ignore so
I put on da music because talking to
her is like doing your chores
She walks like a monster
this must be a mistake
I thought she walks straight
But people think she from The Planet
of Apes.
It must be god because this love
you cannot find this must be what
they mean when they say love is blind.

*Original spelling, punctuation, and grammar retained.

Revisiting Bukowski

To shine some light on Charles Bukowski's association to the Beat poets (from this previous post), here is another Bukowski poem. Thanks to Josh for bringing this to my attention!

(Incidentally, a movie based on Bukowski's novel, Factotum, starring Matt Dillon, recently opened.)


The Beats

some keep trying to connect me with
the beats
but I was vastly unpublished in the
50’s
and
I very much
disliked their vanity and
all that
public postering.

and when I met most of them
later in my life
I still felt that most of my
feelings toward
them
were the
same.

some accepted
that; others thought that I
should change my
viewpoint.

my viewpoint remained the
same: writing is done
one person
at a time
one place
at a time

and all the gatherings
and tenderings of
proclamations toward the
flock
had very little
to do
with anything

and they still
could
instead of bitching about
the changes of the fates and
the ways

even
still
now:

from the sad university
lecterns
these hucksters of the
despoiled word
working the
hand-outs
still talking that
dumb shit.

Dorothy Parker trio

Dorothy Parker was an American short-story writer and poet known for her witty remarks. Early in the 1920s she had been one of the founders of the famous Algonquin Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan and was by no means the least of a group of dazzling wits that included Robert Benchley, Robert E. Sherwood, and James Thurber. It was there, in conversations that frequently spilled over from the offices of The New Yorker, that Parker established her reputation as one of the most brilliant conversationalists in New York. Her rapier wit became so widely renowned that quips and mots were frequently attributed to her on the strength of her reputation alone. She came to epitomize the liberated woman of the 1920s. (Encyclopedia Britannica Online) A firm believer in civil rights, she bequeathed her literary estate to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Upon his assassination some months later, the estate was turned over to the NAACP. (www.poets.org)

Here are a few of her poems, taken from The Portable Dorothy Parker, New York: Penguin Books, 1976.

General Review of the Sex Situation

Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?


Observation

If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.


Fair Weather

This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine, that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds

Writing Workshop #1 - Short Story

The following is a brief excerpt from Justine Haemmerli's short story, "Expulsion!"
You can post your feedback as a comment. A good way to get yourself started on feedback is to name one thing you liked and thought worked really well in the story and one thing you thought didn't work so well. (Note: Of course, you don't have to focus on this excerpt.)

Markus, with a K, doesn't get it. Today he walked up to me. No, he loped towards me, gangly and excited, and put his hands on my shoulders.
"Hey Rufus! How's it going?"
I stared at the wayward stubble over his lip, and the dark downy hair on the underside of his chin, where he thought no one would notice if he didn't shave. How's it going? Violently! It's torture! Why am I here! Why haven't I slayed you yet! I didn't say any of this; it wouldn't have made sense. Anything I want to say now is totally out of context for everyone else. The story's gone far along enough in my head that it would take years for anyone to catch up. I gave a little smile and shrugged.
I asked him why he was loping around, floating aimlessly down the hall like an amoeba. I don't know why I said that; it just came out of nowhere. He grinned wildly, with an appetite.
"Whoa! Man, that was, ouch man, that was harsh. But I liked that, Rufus. I liked that. It sounded written."
I nodded for a long time, and then desperately returned to picking the gum off the windowsill, which I'd been doing before he sauntered towards me. But Markus with a K just wouldn't get the drift.
"Do you write, man?" he asked, leaning on the doorframe.

*If you do not have a copy of this story and would like to offer Justine some constructive feedback, let me know (bridge.ryan@gmail.com), and I can send it to you.