More Examples of Creative Projects

Hello All,

Here are two more creative projects from last quarter.  Needless to say, both students earned As on the assignment.

Hello All, Your assignment for this weekend is to take a photograph inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short stories. Here are two photographs (starring my son) inspired by the short story "The Sea of Lost Time."   The story features characters who travel to the bottom of the sea and visit a version of the afterlife. The ocean is a strange and holy setting, and I tried to capture the same feeling in these photographs.

Song Lyrics as Poetry

Can song lyrics be poetry?  Like many questions regarding whether "literature" is "Literature," the answer varies.  From my perspective, we can discuss the literary merits of a song's lyrics in the same way we can discuss the literary merits of a poem: does it use literary devices in an insightful, creative, thought-provoking manner?  Or does it fall into the trap of cliche and generalization (and thus be something other than Literature)? 

For this blog post, find a song's lyrics that you feel can be accurately described as poetry, and provide a brief justification of your choice.

For example, David Berman's "The Wild Kindness" is poetry.  It is packed with symbolism and metaphor (much of it ambiguous).  I especially like the metaphor of the title: kindness is not an act but a living creature (and a wild one, at that).  This theme continues with the image of the "evergreen altar," which equates nature with the sacred.

The Wild Kindness

I wrote a letter to a wildflower
on a classic nitrogen afternoon.
Some power that hardly looked like power
said I'm perfect in an empty room.

Four dogs in the distance
each stands for a kindness.
Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar
I'm gonna shine out in the wild silence
and spurn the sin of giving in.

Oil paintings of x-rated picnics.
Behind the walls of medication I'm free.
Every leaf in a compact mirror
hits a target that we can't see.

Grass grows in the icebox.
The year ends in the next room
It is autumn and my camouflage is dying
instead of time there will be lateness
and let forever be delayed.

I dyed my hair in a motel void
met the coroner at Dreamgate Frontier
He took may hand and said I'll help you boy
if you really want to disappear

Four dogs in the distance
each stands for a silence.
Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar
I'm gonna shine out in the wild kindness
and hold the world to its word.

April 14-15

Hello All,

For this weekend's post on your blog, find a poem about spring that you like, and explain why it caught your attention/interest.

Robert Frost

Hello All,

For your first (required) blog entry, choose one poem by Robert Frost from his collection titled A Boy's Will.

Briefly explain why you chose it, and then analyze Frost's use of one literary device that we discussed in class.

Recommendations: Winter 2012

Hello All,

Here are your recommendations !

Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields by Charles Bowden
Fight Club by Chuck Palahnuk
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Prince Among Slaves by Terry Alfred
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
"Life of a Salesman" by Yellowcard
"Eyes Wide Open" by Gotye
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Saving Rachel by John Locke
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Blue Moon by Allison Noel
"Just My Dog" by Gene Hill
The Apology by Plato
World War Z by Max Brooks
"Because You Love Me" by Celine Dion
The Velveteen Rabbit by Marjorie Williams
"Better Way" by Ben Harper
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer (Two)
The Watchmen by Alan Moore
"A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns
"No It Isn't" by Plus 44
"Be Drunk" by Charles Baudelaire
"To Realize the Value of" by Saffron
Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss
"Dear Mama" by Tupac Shakur
Striking Thoughts by Bruce Lee
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
"Southbound Train" by John Forman
Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chboski
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
The Yellow Boat by David Saar
"See it Through" by Edgar Guest
"Living Dead No More" by Moreau and Yousafzai
The Inferno by Dante
The One You Love by Paul Pilkington
"Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Myself by K. Miller

The Full Moon

I take my son to see the full moon.  One of his favorite books is Goodnight Moon ("In the great green room, there was a telephone..."), and tonight he gets to hang out with the moon a bit before going to bed.  We wave and try to count the stars.  I ask him the moon's name, and he replies, "I don't know," which is the answer I would have given as well.  If it weren't so cold, we'd go for a walk, but it is cold, so we practice our howling.  He's got good pitch, but he needs to work on his volume.  I, on the other hand, can muster the volume, but my tone is a bit crooked . . .  We'll both work on our howls, and someday the coyotes--those masters of the serenade-- will ask us for advice.  In the meantime, I tell my son to say goodbye to the moon: "Goodnight, moon, goodnight."