Blog 10/26/08

Class on Friday was a bit of a surprise, not only did we have a guest student (the potential graduate dude) but we also had a actually poet laureate read to our class. Maybe the best thing about that poet was the fact that He was your (Lee Ann Roripaugh) dad! So that was pretty cool. I wish he would have told more stories about you growing up, I really enjoyed the “icebox” poem story. That is a great way to get into poetry and it is a even better way to be able to acknowledge that you’ve been published. In particular i enjoyed his Yellow Willow poem, with his great explanation that the willow looked like it needed a poem written about it. At least I think that is how he got his inspiration for the poem. I first thought that maybe his book title “Learn to Love the haze” was a bunch of poems about the drug culture (60’s maybe?) but upon actually hearing some of his poems I think I will have to change my mind about that.
The modeling poem is due this Monday. I at first was fairly hesitant as what type of author I was going to emulate but after looking at the two separate styles, John Berryman vs. Frank O’Hara I had to go with the lunch poems. I don’t know what it is about O’Hara and his poetry but for me it seemed really accessible. The pacing of the various poems seemed fluid, and he didn’t seem to have any weird pauses or breaths in his writing. For me that is a deal breaker, if I can’t read the poem and “hear” the pauses it throws me off and I end up reading the poem five more times trying to figure out the breaks and pauses. I have found that if I am struggling with the pacing of the poem, that it helps reading the poem out loud either to myself or to the potted green plant I have in my room. He never complains about the poems so that is a plus. One of the things I enjoy most about your (lee ann) teaching methods is the excellent control you have when you read the poems out loud in class. I always feel like I am butchering the poems when I read them out loud, and for me it can ruin the poem if it is being read in a particularly bad way or in a way that doesn’t utilize the pauses as well as you do. Sometimes the loudest part of a poem can be when nothing is said. Pretty deep stuff.
Seriously though, your dad was awesome, and it was great to be able to listen to him and his particular style of poetry. I think you definitely should bring in outside readers as often as you can, that is just the best way to experience the different types of poetry in my humble opinion. Oh yeah, and I lost my cell phone downtown on Saturday night, so if anybody finds it (it is a cell phone with buttons on it) please don’t try to call me, instead just mail it to me.

Ps. Do you think we are going to touch on or look at Charles Bukowski at all? He is one of my favorite poets and I am pretty sure he could be considered confessional.