I, Curtis

Assignment:
Journal Free Writing – Poem for the frustrations of beginning drawing student
Response:
Pencil in hand
Pencil to paper
Image in mind
Image to paper
Delicately textured is the paper
Fibers catch the graphite
Or the coal
Oils also apply well here
Long, slow smooth strokes
These provide an outline of a shape
Short, quick almost erratic strokes
Those provide texture and shadow
Images do not match
Eraser to paper
Line do not connect
Paper to wastebasket

A lot of the things I have posted recently are things taken from my writing journal. For the journal, I am supposed to use about one page of space (sometimes more, sometimes less) to complete the assignment. There are four to be completed each week (sometimes I don’t do that many, because I write a lot in some). The writing journals can be either from a set topics list, assignments from the text or they can just be things of observations, or other experiments with writing. When I place an assignment as “Journal – Free Assignment: %something else here%”, the “%something else here%” portion indicates a self assigned topic.

Assignment:
Journal Free Assignment – Comparing Day and Night
Response:
The day is hot and filled with energy
There are kids playing and lots of events occurring
The sun rises to its peak at about noon
At noon the ground and the air heat
Sweat is shed during the events of the day
Through athletic events and outdoor work
Looking to the sky reveals a glowing ball of gas
The sight bringing with it glare and spots
Day is focused on activity and on getting things done
Everything is rush, rush, rush
The elapsing of time is very present
Every moment the sun is giving us light is precious
The sign of a well used day is the coming of a relaxed night
The night is cool and the world is calm
Children are asleep and events slow to a dull roar
The sun has set but the moon glows vividly in the sky
During the night the air is still warm, but not very hot
At night the occasional chill moves through the air
Causing a goosebump here or there
Laying on the ground, staring at the sky
Planets, stars and the moon, all reflecting a delicate light
Night is the cession of day, it is a time for emotion
Emotions flow freely at night and people companion each other
The time seems to go on endlessly, the clocks go unwatched
While abundant, the time of darkness is special and not to be wasted
The sign of a well used night is the rising of the sun and a new day
/*
feels a bit unfinished and needing work. Symbols aren’t coming through with the level of emotion I want. I feel like I have no structure, and no place to go with the work.
*/

Assignment:
Journal Free Assignment – Computer Science poem
Response:
If, then, else
For, while, do
Variables are set
Constants are too
While is very free
While For is limited to three
If helps you decide
Go this way or that
If the value is true
This option we do
If the value is false
Follow the else, it requires no halt
With Do there is no ifs
Operations happen now, no matter the result
Infinite loops are no fun
They start and they never know when they are done
Increment your counter
Check the counter twice
Upon successful completion
Place the loop on ice
Brackets, semicolons and the like
Found prevalent in the code
When it comes to the language of English
These devices do not hold the mode
With the semicolon we end a line
Concatination with the period is not far behind
The symbol of equal evaluates nothing in this land
If you use two, then you can
For operations we frequent
A functions must be written
Special data type situations may exist
A class will serve to fix em
Lines of code are composed
Then lines of code are compiled
For this to happen, we wait a while
If all went as it should, then the program will run real good

Assignment:
Select a famous poem and rewrite enough of it to spoil the original
Response:
Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening (Frost)
Whose moods these are I think I know.
His thoughts are in his head, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his moods fill up with snow.
My little psychiatrist must think it’s queer
To stop without a pharmacy near
Between the moods and frozen lake
The darkest situation of the year.
He gives his Diagnostic and Statistical Manual a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The moods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—
A Dream (Poe)
In visions of the dark knight
I have dreamed of war departed
But a waking dream of chivalry and right
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That noble dream – that noble dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely joust guiding.
What though that knight, thro’ storm and night,
So trembled from afar
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth’s day-star?

Assignment:
List and describe your obsessions
Response:
Obsessions, Obsessions
Cared for deep and with impulsions
Often ignoring other emotions
One of my most obsessive is paper
Paper of thin and wispy is not my fancy
Paper in colours of creame and ivory do not suit my taste
Words stand out on sheets that are bright white and heavy
My paper must be at least thirty-two pounds per ream
And shine with no less than one-hundred eight lumen
In recent days, I have strayed
No longer the purist
Now using heavy parchment
Paper made from compressed exotic materials as well
Even as I stray, I still demand only quality of high
Laser printed text stands boldly against the white
Text printed the darkest of blacks
Crisp laser letters never bleed on the page
A difference of night and day
The appearance of the letters is half the message
Paper with clean printed text
Or with neat calligraphy
Weighted with strong resilient fibers
Documents of integrity require obsession

Assignment:
Journal – Describe a dream

Response:
Spinning downward, flashes of light
I can’t determine which directions are left or right
The smell in the wind blowing fast
Seems to be from my past
My grandmother’s bread-pudding
I land on my feet running
The surface upon which I land
Is no land at all
I am on the moon
Near a spacecraft that is unmanned
I walk out across the plane
Dust flies around as I stroll
There seems to be no where to go
As I stand on the pole
I stare down at the globe below
The planet is so round and blue
The oceans are a very pleasing hue
Clouds circle the ball today
I become suddenly scared of the height
I can see down, afraid of a fall
But where would I go?
Which way is up? Which way is down?
The floating station comes by for its daily pass
It is much bigger to me than Earth
I reassure myself that the truth is in mass
Once I find a way away from here, there will be a return of the girth
I wake up quite suddenly to the sun, realizing gravity again
I feel almost as though I am floating to the bathroom
There is a spewing of rhymes, couplets and things
Oh why did I fall asleep reading Butler last night?
The things that man says just are not right
I am physically back in my world
However, Butler’s words still take a toll
My mind still has not had a chance to become un-twirled
Varying parts of self remember their role
I remember little of the world I have just visited
Though experiences of that magnitude tend to stay in my head
Notes:
Butler refers to Robert Olen Butler, the author of “From Where You Dream”, a textbook for the course

Assignment:
Free journal assignment. Reinterpreting textbook concepts into a story form.
Response:
[Journal] – June 6, 2007
Exploring the White Hot Core
The room is quiet and dark, the air cool and dry. For a brief moment that is all that exists. The click of a button press resonates throughout the room and then a dull glow violates the darkness. The glow is emanating from a soft liquid crystal display. The host body takes its seat in front of the display, as both the conductor as well as the audience for tonight’s performance. Upon the host body taking its seat, the orchestra begins to play. A very soft melody reaches out across the room and fills the space with life. Trumpets, violins, the cello and the piano, all singing their own way to be part of the whole. The slow waltz feels the room, but there are no dancers to be seen out here in this vast space. To find the dancers we must dive deeper into this experience.
Follow the music until it reaches the space where it ceases to be vibration and is instead turned into electrical signal. Follow that canal deeper and deeper into the mass. Halt! Ahead there is a massive storm, an electrical cloud, this is our stop, the main event is about to begin. The world outside these walls is irrelevant. The outside world contains logic, details and a lot of opinion. In here is the world of yearning, of characters and most importantly, the world of the dreamer.
You are here for one reason, to try your key in the lock on the front gate of the subconscious. There will be no time to take notes if that door does open, the thoughts fly free and fast, catch a dream if you can, ride it to its heart and never look back. The storm is slowing and the environment in this space is becoming very still, so absolutely still that motion seems eminent. The space goes dark for a moment, then a spotlight comes to point out the front gate to the subconscious. A confident, deep female voice with enough authority to be a self proclaimed deity speaks “Approach the gate and its subordinate channels, attempt your key, dreamer.” You move slowly to the main gate, and press your hand to the plate, nothing happens, all is silent. You move to the first subordinate passage and place your hand on its door, same result, you are denied entry. You attempt the second subordinate entrance, the entire door shakes and a trumpet fanfare rings throughout the space. The door is gone, replaced by a blinding yellow-white light, radiating from within the chamber to your mind’s eye. Stepping through the passage, your body shakes with anticipation of events to come.
Inside the chamber you see things you’ve never seen before. Creatures that do not exist in the world of the normal and the rational. A bright red mustang with hooves of gold, and a mane of the finest silk. A turtle with a shell of steel and skin of velvet. Anything is possible in this world. You begin to think of the impossibility of it all, and the light in the room grows dim. You feel as though your access to this special place is being threatened, and you focus really hard to eliminate the thoughts of the logical. You circle the thoughts in red and blink twice, the thoughts are removed and the illumination restored to the room. When the lights come back up, the room has changed, different impossibilities exist here now. Rivers are running from floor to ceiling, boats are too. You see a young woman across the forest, she waves to you and then signals you to come to her. She made no visual signal, but you know she signaled for you. Her face is fair and even, her hair straight and blond. Her physical features are so perfectly proportioned, more so than anything you have ever seen in that other world. You look into her perfectly blended blue-green eyes and realize immediately that she isn’t a whole person, she is just the most beautiful shell you have ever seen. She has no name, she has no purpose, she doesn’t even have emotion. As you think that last thought, she creature has emotion, you willed it upon her. She has received your sadness for the situation she is in, and she blames you for not giving her a name or a purpose. She yearns to have revenge upon you for this horrible thing you have done. How could you not give this being a purpose in your plot? You begin to feel guilty for not thinking to give her depth, or a family or even a lover. You look around the room for more inspiration, you see the boats going up the river. Her clothes change, she is in a white uniform with a white hat. A glossy name badge appears on her chest, “Captain Jane Nautical”. She introduces herself “Hello, I’m captain Nautical, but my crew calls me Captain Jane”. She aspires to command a large naval vessel and make her mark on history by traversing the seas.
During your journey through the chamber you meet many other characters. Some are characters you know from your past, some are characters belonging to other dreamers who you know, some are characters you don’t know, but yet seem oddly familiar and others are characters that are foreign to you, who you will get to know in time.
In the middle of the festivities and fun, the sound of an antique clock striking its hour rings through the chamber. The voice returns, “Dreamer, your time is up, you must now leave, but if you return promptly at the same time tomorrow, I will show you more of my world”. You are swept as if by a great wind from the chamber, back to the ‘lobby’ and finally, like a blast of air from a trumpet you are blasted from the canal. You are back in the dark room. The liquid crystal contains a large amount of text, none of it yet making sense to you. The music ends and the lights of the room turn on slowly. You rise from your seat and exit the room, remembering the promise of the great voice, with the words “return tomorrow” staying most clearly in your mind.
You survived your first trip to the core, tomorrow is another day and you must rest for your return. Awaken dreamer, you are ready to begin.

Assignment: Journal free assignment – Poem about ceramics, without using the words “clay”, “vessel” or “wheel”
Response:
Cold, damp, firm
Spinning faster, and faster yet
Hands wet, touch it
Smooth, creamy to the touch
Press in hard, it reacts
It bends to the will of the hands
Press in, its tall
Press down, its fat
The reactions are exact
The movement is fluid
As if pushing water,
Captured without gravity
Only two dimensions
Height and Width
Up and Out
What one side does
The other respects
Press the thumb into the center
Pull towards you
The space opens
Negative space is created
Thumb and index finger together
Pinch a lump from the bottom
Unroll the lump up the wall
Feel it stretch beneath the fingers
Swift, smooth motions
Graceful pulls
Gentle curves
Easy touch on
Easy release off
Open further
Shiny surface
Glistening body
Stretching further
Almost about to burst
Standing rigid with soft tension
One more pull will collapse
No more spinning
Curves like rolling hills
Color of light chocolate
Standing tall and wide
Smooth rounded lip
The work is done
Strike below on the steel head
Fingers beneath the foot
Twist and lift
The world holds its breath
No machine creates that reaction
Throwing lines are still visible
A million finger prints
Identifying creator of this bowl

Assignment:
Write a poem using 4 of the following: A simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, 2 symbols, a paradoxical statement, or hyperbole.
Response:
A single candle
Lit with the intensity of a thousand suns
The flame jumps and dances
Quietly speaking to anyone who will listen
Like a quiet mourner in the night
But the existence of the flame is life, not death
The flame persists throughout the night
As the glow of morning approaches, the candle is short
The dew falls, the flame grows weak
As the sun rises, a new life gives birth to death