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Chris Taylor
Professor Budris
Writer’s Mind
12/16/14
Final Analysis
Writer’s mind has been a fruitful experience. I feel as though I have learned more about
my habits, which, has helped me to better learn about myself and the choices I make while
writing. While most classes have had me run through the motions of producing pieces, Writer’s
Mind has made me figure out my voice and why I write those pieces the way I do. In this class I
think I have further defined my voice as a writer and improved my ability to write things that I
can be proud of.
Calibration Assignment
This was without a doubt my worst piece that was written in the course. It was very stale
and robotic, and I was basically going through the motions, trying to complete each step that was
required. It was one of the first things that I had written in a while and I although it didn’t have
much thought put into it, it took me a decent amount of time to churn out. Looking back, this
assignment is very fitting for the beginning of the course: I totally ignored my writing process
and just churned something out because I had to. Reflecting on this assignment makes me realize
how much more caring I’ve become about the process since then.
Parody Assignment
I was very proud of my parody assignment. I poured a lot of hard work into the pre-
writing stages of this piece, because I wanted to pay close attention to my style choices. This was
the first parody piece I had ever written before, and I remember making sure that my language
was exactly the way I wanted it: pretentious, but air headed. The only thing that wasn’t perfect
about this one is that I feel as though I could have added more. After not getting much feedback
from my peers, I tried adding to the piece but ultimately not much improvement was made.
Momento Assignment
This was my least favorite to write I think, but I really enjoyed the final product. It took
me a long time to churn this one out; writers block took hold pretty hard. I think the problem was
that I supposed to be looking at myself from an outsider perspective, which is something that
I’ve never done before and was not used to. But, what ultimately got me through it was
remembering our talks in class about writer’s block, and how the best way to combat it is to just
keep plugging away without judging what you write too harshly. This method ended up working
for me, and although I wrote some pretty bad lines, I could go back and edit them out and still
end up with a good product. I definitely feel like next time I have to do something like this, I will
be better equipped to do so.
Final Project Revision: Shadow Poem
I chose my shadow poem to be my final revision for a few reasons. For one, I feel as
though poetry has always been my weakest form of writing. I never write it unless I have to, and
even then I really don’t ever do much with them after writing them. I felt as though that taking
this and working on it extensively would be a great learning experience for me.
My first draft was written fairly quickly which was a surprise to me. Considering what
the topic was supposed to be, I used my recent breakup as a starting point and considering the
amount of passion behind it, I was able to write something that sounded decent but drew from a
pretty emotional place. It was sloppy for sure, but I wrote down what felt right emotionally and
figured that my peers would be able to help me pick it apart from a more objective stand point.
The workshop experience for this poem, however nerve racking, was a great. I
appreciated being anonymous because more often than not, you get an experience similar to the
one I had when going over the arody assignment: your peers are typically a little nervouse when
critiquing a piece, and although they mean well you usually end up with a lot of compliments
and not much actually revision. I got a lot of good feedback from everyone about crafting a poem
that I didn’t know before, and was able to use that in my revisions. The big one was my stanza
structures. Because I did not know much about writing poetry, I pigeon holed myself into a very
static structure of four lines per stanza. This took what should have an emotionally piece and
made it more robotic; my poem did not flow very well. Another big critique was my failed
comparison between the smell of “Tide” laundry detergent and my own unchanging tide since
the breakup. My first round of revisions pertained mostly to these problem areas, which included
paying around with line breaks and word choice to make it flow more naturally, and cutting out
that entire stanza completely, replacing it with some less ambitious word play. Beyond that, I
went through the poem with the proverbial “fine toothed comb” and fixed some problems with
tenses and word choice.
Once I got my poem back the second time, I got some more feedback with some notes
about some potentially confusing sections, namely some overly abstract phrases like: “meditating
on reassurances I did not mean”. I realized that in my first two drafts, the poem was really
directed to be written for me and my personal thoughts on everything. What I did to combat this
was give the poem to a friend of mine who did not know what the poem was about, and had hime
critique it. What I found was exactly what I had predicted: I had left my reader mostly in the
dark. What my friend suggested was to elaborate on what the main focus was: getting a package
from a girl that was given to me as a girlfriend while at the she was actually my ex. He had also
given me critiques, including that my first stanza was very repetitive, and that I had a tendency to
rush through certain images that I should expand on.
With that in mind, I went back into my poem and added more elaboration, getting rid of
some of the more rushed, abstract images. I took a closer look at what I felt while I was reading
her dated letter, and made sure to bring my readers along this time instead of talking strictly to
myself. This definitely made the poem easier to understand as well as redefined the emotion for
my readers. Having them understand the weird situation I found made it much more interesting
for them. I’m very happy with how it’s come along so far. I plan on taking this and continuing to
make it better, also using it to help better hone my skills in this style.
Conclusion
I plan on taking what I’ve learned in this course and apply them to my future endeavors.
Learning about why I make the choices I do will help me to better understand myself and help
me avoid simple mistakes in the writing process. I think that before taking this class I didn’t
often have a reason for the things that I did, which although they weren’t detrimental to my final
product, definitely led to some poor decisions and carelessness.
Professor Budris
Writer’s Mind
10/5/14
Underwear
An unwelcomed guest sits on my desk
Weather beaten, sun dried trash, waiting to be unpacked.
I took a knife, gutted the tape, and tore the case,
but paused, meditating on reassurances I did not mean.
Reaching in the dark of the carcass I pulled out a letter
And read.
My eyes averted themselves from the lies before I
Allowed myself to go back to that time
When you would have been truthful.
My arm goes in and quickly pulls out
A pair of my boxers, laced
With Tide that matched my
Own unchanging one.
I planted my face in the fabric
Feeling every fiber cling to my nose.
I felt you there, your sun washed
Hair in my face, but when I opened my eyes,
All I saw was an old pair of my underwear.
Great first draft. You have a lot of clear emotion on the page. Your careful treatment of the scene, specifically the sparse detailing, gives this piece a great tone.
There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with the poem, but it needs a lot of work. I recommend playing with it, trying different structures, images, adding and removing elements, and generally trying out different styles.
I noticed that in your first stanza, the box was trash, and then later, a carcass. Just to consider while you’re revising, here are two things you could try:
-Making the poem an extended metaphor. Focus on a single metaphor. Gutting a carcass, potentially.
-Make each section a different metaphor. Or even maybe write a few different sections with different metaphors.
Watch your punctuation. You’re writing complete sentences, so they need punctuation. End sentences in periods.
Capitalization of first words every line is a stylistic choice. But you use enjambment (ending lines mid-sentence) a lot, so, just because it’s more visually symmetrical, it’s worth considering making the first words of lines that are mid-sentence lowercase.