I really enjoyed looking for the imagery in the poems housed in The Best Canadian Poetry. I didn’t realize how much imagery did affect me until this assignment or maybe till I started taking this class. Mooring states that “imagery is one of the elements most needed by poets and most called upon in the writing process.” I believe that. We students have been taught to introduce our poems with imagery and most here do like poem 3, “Here are sixteen pearly Buddhas.” instantly they pop into my head. I know exactly what they look like, the image nearly universal. It helps guide me through the rest of the poem, a journey through diminished faith in a barren world but still nocking around in our pockets.

Samurai Suits is steeped in potential violence, using militaristic words to paint the ideas in my head, like “lacquered face guards,” and “helmets bore wings,” to “armoured gloves.” I understand the tradition the poet is trying to convey and that the violence is tempered with rigid discipline and honour. There has to be attention to detail when using imagery, I’m learning. You can’t simply write “the sky is beautifully blue” and expect the reader to feel a connection. That’s too abstract and doesn’t even have “fresh or original language” as Mooring advises, to capture the readers imagination. There has to be a willingness to spend time weaving the detail, sculpting it until even four or five words can encompass a whole stanza’s meaning. For instance the first poem assigned had a great first line and image but I had a difficulty connecting to it because I didn’t even understand what the word “triceratops” was until I looked it up. I think maybe the word you base your first image on, to hook the reader has to be a tad more universal so that they want to leap into the poem and discover it and all the unknown words within.

Instructions for Shrinking Your Enemy’s Head, had some of the most surprising images to me because not only was it disturbing but it coupled fluid lyrical language in contrast to the horror of the images, for example, “slit the scalp from the crown to the sloping neck.” Slit, crown, sloping and neck are all graceful words, but when put in context and that image was playing in technicolor in my head. That’s nightmarish stuff but great technique.

One of the freshest and most beautiful images from Things I’ve Started at Since you Left was “blue ache of sea crystals trapped in white rock.” It’s a different take on the standard and cliche use of ‘her eyes were blue pools,’ that Mooring suggests beginning writers avoid.

The second to last poem Muslin Dress won me over. It reminded me of one of the poems we had to pattern our poems on, Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon. Muslin Dress uses the word “line” as an image or to aid an image like, “ragged line of footprint” or “straight line the gun makes.” By the end of it all your seeing is lines in everything. It’s a great poem.

Okay so in reading the assigned poems for metaphor I felt like a child among wise adults. I had a very difficult time discerning the metaphors because they were much more sophisticated like we in the class were warned. I kept looking for the “Luis is the moon” kind of metaphor exampled in the beginning of chapter 2 in Mooring Agains the Tide. I kept having to go back to it and reread the definition of implied metaphor and controlled metaphor, and looked frantically at the examples because honestly at first I didn’t see any and I was starting to panic. In fact I almost started confusing metaphor with personification in some areas, but after relaxing and holding the two books side by side for reference, I began to see a few.

For instance I believe Dish Bitches is a controlled metaphor poem, a different way to showcase a restless mind, while Say Here, Here has many implied metaphors instead. Corrections has implied metaphor, lines like “some soup spoon snatched and ground against the whetstone of the bars.” The whetstone implies sharpening and honing with a frenzied feel which works really well to emphasize the desperation of these inmates.

The way XRay is spaced apart helped me recognize the metaphors easier, like  “wings of a book,” and “wetsuit of my body.” They made me stop and read again. I wonder if the last quote means that the wetsuit represents something that is meant to protect and aid but eventually fall away to reveal that which is most important in the end. Neat. Okay I’m starting to relax.

Mooring Against the Tide Ch 1
Best Cdn Poetry p3 to p16

I found myself a little overwhelmed transitioning to poetry. Reading the assigned poetry has been enlightening and confusing, inspiring and humbling in turns.

The first one seemed to perfectly match the title becoming a poetic Dali painting. It was Rhythmic without having any rhyme and visually appealing. It begins and ends the same way and celebrates strangeness, individuality and possibility with hints of religion. The second poem was cramped and not as readable without falling into a recognizable pattern. Perhaps the visual discomfort mirrors the subject. The end of the lines feel broken off like a gasp.

The poem Gardening made me realize just because a poem is brief doesn’t mean that is lacks depth. The ability to pack such meaning into something so short has something genius to it. The next poem uses personification beautifully in two lined stanzas and illustrates a complex and longstanding relationship easily.

The Breakup of the Ice on Tandish River read like someone was speaking it. There was almost a tangible warmth to it and it seemed almost like a condensed family saga, but there was an awkward break between the first and second stanza that I couldn’t understand the necessity of. It looks like the longest poem of all the ones assigned so far which I suppose it had better be if it’s to encapsulate a saga.

Salvage on the other hand was one long unbroken stanza. I loved the majestic feel to it, but this is another poem where I didn’t understand why the stanza’s broke where they did. Is this method instinctual or a learned scheme? Maybe a little of both? I have to say A Call to Arms confused me. The long block of unbroken text deterred me a little I have to confess but even after I read it twice, despite the internal rhythm and short snappy lines I couldn’t make much sense of it.

The Swan With Two Necks has to be my absolute favourite of all the poems. This one uses end rhymes that flow into each other without seeming trite or juvenile. There was so many references to mythology, fable, folklore, theology my head was ringing by the third read through, yet it never felt weighted or packing with a metaphorical shovel. Instead the poem was textured and powerful. I was in awe. To me this one seems like the most layered and I feel like I could go back and read it over and over again and still find new discoveries. How could an author distill what seems like a novels worth of information and thought and nuance into two measly pages. It’s amazing. I endeavour to harness that skill but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to truly master it. 

‘Hope and Faith Fight Back’ and ‘River Song’ are the last two stories left before we delve into poetry. I have to say I’m going to miss fiction and am a little apprehensive about dissecting stanzas and meter. But hopefully I’ll rise to the challenge.

Mooring Agains the Tide stresses the importance of dialogue in all its facets. How it should always help the flow of the story wether it be direct or indirect and interestingly not always come to the forefront. Sometimes it should meld with the exposition if it’s a rather small scene. One of Diana Abu-Jabar’s student’s attempts to mimic real dialogue too accurately and suddenly that is all the reader can focus on. How jarring it is. But, once Gary the student revised it to help the plot and be “brisk and readable” it receded back into the momentum of the story which helps the whole story flow more smoothly.

I actually found many useful tidbits in this chapter that will happily squirrel away and implement into my writing style but there was one thing that bothered me. Chapter 19 of Mooring states that the use of adverbs to describe the way someone says something should be avoided and I agree with that too a point. I believe sometimes that it works very well as long as its not used as a crutch. There are many books I’ve read that use it well like the popular Harry Potter series. JK Rowling uses adverbs intermittently at moments when it would be helpful for characterization or scene. She uses “said” often but not always.

Keeping these things in mind began reading the stories assigned and found like the previous two I blogged about, one was more full of action and the other slower, quieter and more contemplative but no less powerful. Hope and Faith’s story alternated direct and indirect Dialogue, exposition and scene, while River focused on exposition and minor indirect dialogue. I was immersed in the first and found my attention, no matter the worthiness of the subject, wondering.

After reading all these stories, I found, that while I have a respect and deep admiration for people that can manage clever and beautiful exposition I’m still drawn more to scene. Which means that I’m going to have to buckle down and try and find a way to make exposition work for me. Just because I’m don’t like it as much doesn’t mean I can get away with not being good at it.

It’s interesting how much stories can effect your mood. For the first time since starting this class I read two of the assigned stories from Joanne Harris back to back; ‘Wildfire in Manhattan’ and ‘Ghosts in the Machine.’ I read chronologically, Wildfire first then Ghosts. Through most of the first I was interested, suspense, good guys, bad guys (with shades of grey) a beginning, middle and end, with plenty of action in between amidst interesting mythology. I was hooked.

I wanted to know what happened even after the last word. It seemed very real to me. I made 3 pages of notes on it, only one on the second. Wildfire ignited my imagination not just with its interesting characters but its pacing and action and mysticism but also with how well Harris anchored it all in the setting of New York.

Setting is the focus in Mooring Against the Tides Chapter 18. It mentions how pivotal setting is for a story, that without it readers are thrust into the dark void untethered, amidst a sea of characters and plot. In Wildfire I found numerous instances, on nearly every page, where Harris managed to remind the reader where they were visiting while swept in her story. Her descriptions are very natural, fluid and appropriate for the specific scene. I especially like the paragraph where Lucky is in the back streets, right before his brother finds him, and he is aware of the still streets in the city that never sleeps, watching an alley cat dig in the dumpster, and washouts huddled in cardboard boxes. Those few sentences were drenched in description of a place I could actually see it in my mind. Lucky fit there in the fast and ruthless city. Mooring suggests to it’s students to change one aspect of their story, like the time of day, and they were shocked at how much of a difference it made. I wonder how different this story would have been if it had been set in Colorado in pure daylight.

I react strongly to physical cues and at first I didn’t think there were a lot of them in Wildfire, but looking back I realized that the rain god Author, or Thor as Lucky calls him, is very physical, something that wasn’t touched upon in his own story Rainy Days and Mondays. Here he is described as tall and large with hands that too big for the tea cup that Sunny gives him. He is grabby with a face like thunder and rain coloured eyes. Lucky, I notice, always likes to look his best and when ruffled, likes to smooth out his clothes again, like the collar of his coat. Sunny glides across everything like a ballerina and emanates light.

Ghosts in the Machine was more a contemplative journey rooted in isolation and melancholy. Though there was that positive lift in the end throughout most of it I could feel whatever thrill I had reading the first story begin to fade. It wasn’t exactly bad. Just a different mood. Softer, sadder, more attuned to emotion. I don’t think that there was supposed to be much physicality in this story because they were supposed to exist mainly as Phantom says “as avatars, words on a screen.” The setting is mainly the radio station at night and Lady of Shallot’s room. I don’t know in what city, I don’t know their nationality, I don’t know what is on her desk or what clothes he wears. I am in a void. But that serves the claustrophobic loneliness of this piece. I feel like once they meet, the tone would change. Perhaps Harris would have started shading in the colour of Shallot’s hair and how much she had to reach up – or down to give Phantom a kiss on his stubbled cheek.  

Harry Stone and the 24 Hour Church of Elvis is a completely different type of short story from Harris the the ones I’ve been reading since September. For starters is funny. Really funny. And it seemed a ball to write.

So basically we start with Jim or Elvis or Harry, a man who is far from ordinary, who impersonates the “king” but is really a PI. The hilarious part is, as the story moves forward, quickly and it become clear that no one takes takes him seriously in any way. He, on the other hand thinks, that not only is he a star but that criminals shake in their stolen boots when they hear the name Harry Stone. He can’t even see that Lily is in love with him, or at least rather heavily in ‘like.’ Though it is never explicitly said it is blindingly obvious to the reader that she is head over heals which makes it simultaneously heartbreaking and funny whenever he turns down her attempts to ‘help’ him, which is only a thinly veiled attempt at spending time with him. This story has movement and more action whereas in Harris’s previous stories we’ve looked at there has been a slight feeling of stagnation despite the emotional depth we’ve mined.

The other story I read in companion to Church of Elvis was the Ghosts of Christmas Present which start in medias res. This seemed more like an interlude before getting to the rest of Harris’s short stories. It was much shorter that her usual pieces. The same narrator from Bedford Falls returns as the protagonist, this time as a ghost. He comes back every christmas the hour before christmas, along with other forgotten and lonely ghosts including Jim from Church of Elvis, in the hopes of reuniting with his beloved Phyllis. It was melancholy, with little humour and no resolution.

Within Mooring Against the Tide the teacher sequences the scenes and exposition of the story she is using as an example. In Ghosts there is only exposition but, as far as I can tell, the sequence in Harry Stone goes –– Expo scene expo scene expo scene expo scene expo scene expo scene expo scene. It seems to me that generally, faster paced stories have more scenes and use the expo as a baseline for the story. But even a scene can become boring. It’s usually shorter scenes interspersed with expo to help the reader understand that keep the sense of excitement integral to keeping a present day reader’s interests. Perhaps thats why Ghosts was so short, because Harris was aware that to make a completely expository story any longer would lose the reader’s interest.

I had a hard time finding the conflict, tension and denouement in both stories. They don’t follow the typical pattern. For instance if I was reviewing the plot of River Song those aspects would be easy. The story is more straightforward, it follows an easier pattern. For Ghosts, I suppose the conflict or problem would be death itself and how the ghosts only feel real for one hour every year and only if it snows. The tension for the old man is the fear that his ex wife might not want to come to him again. The denouement is open ended. The Ghosts drift away and we are left with the feeling that perhaps Phyllis has decided to come to our protagonist after all.

I had hoped that Jim’s fate from Church of Elvis would be more happy but it seems even he died ever obsessed, deluded and alone. His story while alive was about proving to everyone what he was so sure of, that he was a private investigator; a great one, as well as a fabulous impersonator.

There didn’t seem to be much conflict but if there was I guess it would be the mystery of the lovers, and if the coaches wife was actually cheating. The tension was if he would be caught and also if he would ever realize Lily’s love. The denouement is relatively happy. Jim is outed by Lily (even though he’s not actually gay) and he escapes a beating from the coach. He ends up with a better job which makes him a more famous impersonator. Jim and Lily’s relationship continues with note of potential for more. If I hadn’t read Ghosts I would have thought things would continue with that happy vein.

But isn’t that the same with all stories. Just like in real life, It’s not ‘happily ever after’ period, its ‘happily ever after…until.’

P.S. It took me a full five minutes to realize the irony of my title and perhaps the hidden mirth in Harris’s the Ghosts of Christmas Present. I got a laugh out of the story after all.

I had a hard time deciding if the secondary character (or I suppose since she is the focus of the story she could in fact be looked at as the main character) in Dryad was driven insane, or if there actually was a mythical element in this story.

On the one hand the entire tone of the story is almost dreamy, a hushed moment of storytelling suspending time and belief. Mrs Clarke’s description of the tree and her personification of it and subsequent love for it so strong I almost believed her. But then I thought to myself, aren’t most people who are crazy so immersed in their illusion that to them and anyone they told their madness too, the pure truth?

There doesn’t seem any other supernatural part to the story so then I came back to my original thought of her mental instability. It seems that she never really fit in anywhere and married her husband because it was expected of her not for love. She was always in nearly every way disappointed and disconnected with her life. She couldn’t even seem to find tie to her child. I don’t know why she seemed to pour all her hope and dreams and love into a tree, but perhaps it was because it was inanimate, though organic, living and breathing and able to grow, that she convinced herself that she felt a romantic love and alarming dependence on it. A person or even a pet can hurt you, fall short of expectations, or leave. A tree on the other hand unless taken from her by an outside force would always be with her, remain constant no matter what she did, a solid pillar of strength.

I feel like there is so much more meaning hidden in the depths of this story, like nuggets of gold beneath shimmering distorted water. Perhaps this story is also an allegory, the tree and her dependence on it a symbol for something else. What I do know is that this story could’t have been told with this level of depth and detail without the use of first person POV. In this case, detached observer, first person point of view from the specific definition in Mooring Against the Tide. In fact this is the firs piece that I’ve come across these past few months where I felt unequivocally that another point of view would have been detrimental to the flow of the story and disturbed the truth of it somehow.

Chapter 15 of Mooring, mentions the difficulty in maintaining the distance necessary in differentiating yourself as an author when saying I, and when you say it as your character. In a previous post I said that I have little persona experience with first person point of view, so I wonder, reading through the story again, if maybe its possible to lose yourself entirely in a character. Even for a short time. Did Harris for the amount of time that she spun this story out, feel just a little unhinged? Did it help? I could use all the help I can get in my writing, so what’s a little madness in exchange for true inspiration. As the Cat said “we’re all mad here.”

Usually when you think of a god, however minor, you think of them as all powerful, but in this instance the rain god doesn’t seem to be very happy. It’s interesting that Rainy Day’s author, Harris, doesn’t have him revelling in his powers, sitting on a thundercloud commanding storms. Instead, he lives in the world with us mere mortals, being rained on with the rest of us. He seems more resigned to his fate, trying to find a measure of contentment, and longing a little for the glory days of being worshipped and feared. After doing a job for too long, especially one you never asked for in the first place, might cause it to become mere drudgery. I suppose 5000 years hits that mark.

So this week in Mooring Against the Tide’s chapter 15 we focus on narrative points of view.The older I get the more I enjoy first person point-of-view. Maybe it was the sort of material I read when I was younger, which was usually third person POV, that made first person feel clunky and awkward when I came across it. Regardless, I find it the opposite now, though I still feel that it depends on the story, the amount of characters in it etc, for first person to be appropriate. For instance this piece just works with first person. Like with a previous story, I went back and tried mentally changing the POV and it wasn’t quite as smooth without the intimacy that first person provides. It feels like I’m walking with the god under the same rain cloud as he’s telling me his story. I like it.

I particularly enjoyed the mythology. It’s not that it’s extremely detailed but it gives the feeling that it is as old as time and permeates every aspect of our lives in all corners of the world. There’s a melancholy tone to the story as well. All these deities well passed their prime, using their powers half heartedly for a generation that has nearly forgotten them. But it’s what they do, what they are. At least we mortals can change who we are and our path in life. No matter their power they are ever still and ever constant, locked into a way of life for eternity. At least with Sunny we see a different picture. She is almost like an amnesiac patient, on the cusp of of remembering who and what she truly is. There is a purity to her that is almost childlike. A figurative and literal ray of sunlight falls on people whenever she crosses their path, and a momentary happiness and relief washes through them. The rain god felt it too and clung desperately to her for as long as he could, but rain and sun can’t mix forever.

It’s strange, the difficulty he had restraining the weather when he was with her. Like a violent and painful sneeze he had to suppress. Earlier in the story it seemed he had full command of his power, stating that he, and consequently rain, was staying in New York much longer than usual, because he fancied the city. Then after he meets Sunny, he is out of control, barely able to deny his nature for even a few hours. I found that a little contradictory. Despite that minor hiccup, the story was a lovely way to pass my own rainy Monday.

Usually when you think of a god, however minor, or a deity, you think of them as all powerful, but in instance the rain god doesn’t seem to be very happy. It’s interesting that Harris doesn’t have him revelling his powers, sitting on a thundercloud commanding storms. Instead, he lives in the world with us mere mortals, being rained on with the rest of us. He seems more resigned to his fate, trying to find a measure of contentment, and longing a little for the glory days of being worshipped and feared. I supposed after doing a job for too long, especially one you never asked for in the first place, might become mere drudgery. 5000 years definitely hits that mark.

The older I get the more I enjoy first person point-of-view. Maybe it was the sort of material I read when I was younger, which was usually third person POV, that made first person feel clunky and awkward when I came across it. Regardless, I find it the opposite now, though I still feel that it depends on the story, the amount of characters in it etc. for first person to be appropriate. For instance this story just works with first person. Like a previous story, I went back and tried mentally changing the POV and it wasn’t quite as smooth without the intimacy that first person provides. It feels like I’m walking with the god under the same rain cloud as he’s telling me his story. I like it. Maybe one day I’ll give it a try.

Wow. This story is heartbreaking. I can’t imagine losing a child. They seemed incredibly close, which makes the loss that much worse. I’m trying to find the the reason for this story. Is it that social media is a positive tool that helps you instantly connect to the ones you love no matter how far away they are? Or is it that it can become a crutch for grief or any emotional problem? When the real world seems too painful, the virtual one beckons. I can imagine that a real funeral would be suffocating, the physical, present grief or synthetic sympathy would be exhausting, especially as a host. An online memorial, on the other hand, constantly being rejuvenated, would be so easy to get lost in.
In, “There’s No Such Place as Bedford Falls”, though the first person narrative worked well it could have been just as good in third person. I went back and reread it, changing the POV in my head and realized I didn’t feel jarred as much as I thought I would be. Whereas in “Would You Like to Reconnect”, the reader is right in the mind of the mother, feeling her shock and subsequent, drowning sorrow as she feels it. I felt like I was watching the scene unfold in front of me, as if I was peering out from a closet that was ajar. In this case the POV drew me in deeper and cut me all the harder. Perhaps the intimate subject matter had a hand in my preference but I believe It was very effective for this particular story.
The voice, though believable, didn’t seem particularly strong. The mother was more of a blank canvas on which others who have similar loss could paint themselves onto. The idea of the story was more real to me than the actual character. I found myself sympathizing with her but I didn’t feel like I knew her. It actually is a point that was raised about the story I posted for class and I’m beginning   to see that unless a reader feels like they really know a character, there wont be a true connection with the story no matter how good it is.
After reading Mooring’s: Workshopping A Story in the First Person, I’m trying to think how I would workshop this story. The edit of the story in Mooring’s workshop, eliminated a character to create more tension. I don’t think “Would You Like to Reconnect”, could lose it’s bare bones cast but I do think that perhaps adding a little more dialogue could help us know charlie better, and through Charlie, his mother. Giving the reader that perspective would make the mother a more rounded character. Thinking on it now I can’t recall the mother’s name or if it was even mentioned. Which brings me back to the idea that she is a blank canvas. Unless that was Harris’s plan. But, that argument leads me to intention. An authors intent with a story. I like the fact that Harris introduces all the stories in this anthology with a paragraph of intent. It gives me a sort of framework for my reactions. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the intent on my own as I movie to other stories and classes in and out of university. Most importantly I’ll try to keep that, my intention, in the forefront of my mind when I write my own stories.