User:NicolePatterson

Response
Response on Sethlene Elliott’s Work: Cool Cat in the Hat

Wow, just wow! The fact that you practically wrote a book is amazing. Your rendition of The Cat in the Hat is much more amusing for readers our age then the actual book that is for sure. Although in some parts I found it hard to understand the first read around. Yet it still flowed well and made me want to read it until the very end. I think this piece could really use some imagery though, to help it flow along even more. I remember when I read the actual Cat in the Hat book the pictures really helped with the word play. I found myself a little confused when “Old Fish” was brought into the story, I wasn’t sure who or what it was at first, I don’t know if or how you would be able to make that easier for the reader to understand. Overall it was a funny and twisted story that, I could tell, took a lot of time and thought.

Style
Enter the end. Every end ends even. Even teens enter the empty end. Empty bells beg the Belle. The Belle never betters between cheeky cheers. Decembers creepy trees beg the Belle deeply, tend me! Creepy cheers end the Belle between the trees. Tend me, Tend me! The creepy trees beg. Belle ends between the creepy trees’ cheers. The deed deems her. Defy the deed. Defy the deed. Belle feebly descends the end. Enter the end, the even empty end. Belle never deserves the end. Expected, Belle descended the end… the empty end.

Oulipean styled writing. I only used the vowel "E" in this writing. The story is about a young girl name Belle who is ready to end herself under the trees that she tends to. While she is nearing death she realizes she doesnt want to die but it is too late for her. Somewhat morbid I know, but its all I could come up with.

Other Media
Main Character, Jessica Monroe from Love @ First Site by Jane Moore

Ekphrastic
Metal Tree how do you grow so tall and proud? You bare no leaves and so much weather

How do you stand so tall and proud? You don’t move in the wind you don’t grow in the sun In the fall you are unchanged In the spring you do not blossom Yet you stand so strong through the tests of time You may never hit the ground

Your branches twist and turn so wild You heat in the sun and you turn frigid in the cold You have no kin I’m sure you are lonely

No living thing dwells upon you You have no moss, no birds, no squirrel You are bare as a babies bottom The winds you cannot even feel

Metal Tree you must feel terribly lonely But you are strong Nothing can bring you to your knees

You spark my interests though, standing so brave I wonder how long you have made this place your home How long you have been alone.

Metal Tree you glisten in the sun, like a wisper to my ear You are very static but you have so much to say Perhaps one day I will too become a metal tree Standing up to all that time can throw at me

You are very brave Metal Tree I hope to become a fraction as strong People always pass you by You must be so alone But you stand still and unchanging To everything that the world has thrown at you

Metal Tree how do you grow so tall and proud?

Analysis
When I first read the twenty fifth sonnet of Shakespeare I believed that it referred to how the fame and fortune of one person can die through time and dwindle into nothing but dust. While in a normal person’s life they live happily because they are loved for who they are and not for their fame. This is similar to how celebrities are in our time. We love them for their movies and looks and nothing more. Compare that to people who married and are married because they love the person for who they are and not for how famous they are. It was the fact that at a flick of a switch a famous person can lose their following. They are subjected to the public eye and the public eye is a very fickle being. I then looked up some information on the Marigold flower. I learned that it opens regardless of whether or not the sun is shining upon it. It, in a way, represents the continual passing of time. I then researched what the term “razed quiet” meant. Razed quiet means that something or someone is completely erased.

After which I read the sonnet through again and I had come to understand it more correctly then I had done so previously. Shakespeare had been referring to the word of the prince. How the prince can instantly take fame away from warriors and leaders, and turn the public against them. Which is why in turn Shakespeare preferred that he was only a poet because a poet would never have fame thus such could not be taken away by the royalty. Time will still pass but he will never miss fame because he had never had it.

Personal
A few Christmas’s passed the snow had not fallen but rather there was a wind storm unlike any other that I had experienced. The storm had crashed itself into my home town, it did not know of mercy.

The winds made my home creak for what seemed like years. Constantly I worried of a tree falling upon my bedroom in the night. I did not sleep that night, I had wished I did, it was the last night I was going to be warm for an entire week. The small town of Woodinville had been torn apart by this intense storm; I have yet to see any damage like the damage I witnessed that year. Trees had fallen every which way, laying where ever they pleased. Houses were smashed, people were displaced. Some people were trapped. Others were lucky enough to be out of town for the holidays. The power was out for over a week in some parts of Woodinville, others for only five days, no one could leave home, the streets were gone. We had been one of the unlucky houses that went for a week without power, and were trapped. We couldn’t travel the roads and there was no way around. Some of the roads were even flooded.

Many people were trapped in their driveways because of the fallen trees; others because of fallen power lines that were blocking their ways. We had no heat to keep us warm in the freezing temperatures. We were trapped in our own frigid house that we had once called a home. We were forced to wear our winter coats and blankets to keep us warm, although even they did not help. We had tried multiple times to start a fire but the wood was damp and wouldn’t start, after multiple tries we finally had gotten a flicker but even then the fire could not warm our frozen bones. I could no longer tell if I had fingers anymore, my face and feet were cold to touch. There weren’t enough blankets in our home to keep us all warm; we had to switch between us. Our Christmas was halted; no family gathering was going to happen that year. The house seemed even colder without our family around us. We were cursing to ourselves for we had no generator to at least keep the newly purchased food fresh. We set our frozen food outside so that the night would keep it frozen.

The neighbors were taunting us with the hum of their generators. We could see that some of them had lights and were not affected at all by the power outage. We resented them, we became uncivilized. Only caring about survival, even though it was just a week we feared for much much worse. Once the roads were cleared, about three or four days after the power had first gone out we were able to escape, and we did as quickly as possible. We drove by all the tree smashed houses and were wary of the fallen power lines. We saw poor families standing outside their homes waiting for their friends to help them. We made our way to our friend’s homes after hours of driving in traffic from the other families that were trying to escape. We stayed with our friends until the power had gone back on in our own home. We were finally able to thaw out, after such a long frozen week we finally got feeling back into our faces. Since that storm so many Christmas’s ago I have never been that cold, I’m thankful that I have not yet had to endure a situation like that again.

Memorization
If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know one thing.

You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land.

But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine

Self Assessment
In this class I have learned about interesting and enjoyable writing styles that I had not experimented in before, such as the oulipean and visual poetry styles of writing. I have also learned that my vocabulary is very narrow and if I want to become a better writer I need to broaden my horizons by reading more books. I did well in the writings of poetry in this class, which makes sense considering that I enjoy writing poetry, but I also would like to learn how to become a better story writer. I have been off and on, more off than on mind you, writing a book since I was in high school and it is very bland, I have yet to be able to write an intriguing book because I can’t seem to describe what I imagine in my head.

It is also obvious that I am a major procrastinator and it has become such a bad habit as of late that some of my classes are suffering. I hope that this coming vacation will clear my head and I will study harder for the coming quarters. I feel more prepared because I have pin pointed exactly WHY I procrastinate so much, so I will now be able to deal with the problem and get back into the “groove.”

I have also learned that I have trouble meeting the six hundred words minimum… because I don’t like to write fluff in my pieces if I myself believe that the piece is finished. I don’t know if I have actually contributed to the experiences of the other students. I’d like to say yes, at least for the students who have written what I have posted on my page. I hope that some of my writings had possibly inspired them.