Author Archives: sowala24

Ms – Week 9 Log

May 27th

2 hours Reading Neuro (Ch. 8)

2 hours Reading Perloff

2.5 hour writing term papers

May 28th

2 hours writing term papers

1 hour gathering/editing poetry for term papers

2.5 hours Writing, editing term papers/poetry

May 29th

.5 hours Writing week 8 reverie, editing and posting

1.5 hours Student artist lecture series

1 hour writing term papers

1 hour Reading Poetry and the Fate of the Senses / Proust was Neuroscientist

May 30th

2 hours Transcribing notes from “Scento” experiment

3 hours reading Proust

1 hour writing poetry

1 hour editing poetry

3 hours writing term papers

1 hour arranging poetry for term papers

1 hour reading online articles for term papers

May 31st

1.5 hour reading online articles / books for term paper

1 hour writing poems

1 hour journaling prose

2.5 hours reading Proust was a Neuroscientist

June 1st

4 hours writing term papers

1 hour writing poetry

1 hour editing

June 2nd

3 hours writing term papers

1 hour editing

1 hour writing poems

Totals

This week: 45 hours

Cumulative total: 165 hours

Reading List:

Remembrance of things past

Proust was a Neuroscientist

My Poets

 

Ms – Poetry of Smell – Of Coffee and Candles

No cheaper way to start the day but powerful and wakes you. u

Smokey rooms, bars, and dark hallways,

vapors sliding past each other. ©

Alone, with loved ones,

bitter lingering. ¤

Memories of wax and warm chocolate nights. ῼ

And a fruit-like perfume my mother sometimes wore. ¥

In comes the scent, out goes the stress. o

Playing chess, being comfy, and an old coffee shop,

in my hometown. ⱴ

Naming: Coffee, Coffee, Candel (First off I can’t spell), Candal,

late night TV benders. Ѭ

Agitated, nervous. Reminds me of walking into Yankee Candles in the mall,

I hate malls. Ю

Cruddy coffee scents tingle my dry nose hole,

other people’s breath. EW. Ҩ

Like a small business opened by and indisputably ‘perky’ woman,

post-sorority, one part coffee shop, one part scrapbooking boutique. Ѿ

Home on 45th street, hanging upside-down on the couch,

I realized then how hard she worked to take care of me. ҉

 

u-Rhys

©-Marisa

¤-Gabrielle

ῼ-Liberty

¥-Siproena

o-Mike

ⱴ-Nat

Ѭ-Jon

Ю-Joshua

Ҩ-Alayna

Ѿ-Mary

҉-Andre

 

**This poem is a cento created from the brilliance that is our class. Many of these lines were powerful or spoke to me in some way. Thank you all for sharing your poetic abilities to create such an interesting patchwork. **

Ms – Poetry of Smell – Happiness

Cashmere Perfume

Undertones of cigarette smoke

delicate butts

rimmed with pink lipstick

Diet Pepsi … the gold can

with a straw

The consistent smell of Christmas.

I could so easily be a chain smoker too …

her constant inhale/exhale

Too hot in the winter

Too cold in the summer.

Bridgette the dog’s slobbery tumble

across the lawn.

Gramps shows me the sprinkler box

-sometimes you can catch a frog

plopped in for a drink- he says

They quit smoking when gramps got cancer.

But every now and again

I still smell grams’ perfume

and undertones of cigarette smoke.

 

Ms – Poetry of Smell – Nervousness

Tide Detergent + Compost

Tipsy knocking on your door

(Dreadful) dread inoculates my veins

I whine drunkenly

for you to help me

I want to vomit

not from the alcohol

but because you’re not alone.

My face flushes

in embarrassment

I wish it could always be

you and me

and that this icy hot flushing dreadful dread

would go… some place else

Because every time I kiss you

it feels like my soul is weeping

and it won’t stop

until time does.

 

 

What good is this clean room?

these taut sheets?

a swept floor?

If you can’t be here

with me.

Wake me up with your touch

fuck up

with me

destroy this room

with me

where perfection lies

grounded by my side

with me

Be here

with me.

Ms – Poetry of Smell – A Darkness

Artificial Cherry Hand Lotion

The house, the key

my body, broken,

Heart

a nervous beating.

I am a child

so scared

her nails dig into my arm

Why can’t you be pretty?

like your sister

You look like a boy.

But I’m not a boy.

no

Her perfume…

chokes me.

I fantasize about her death.

I would wear a beautiful sun dress.

Everyone would cry.

But I would smile.

And spit on her face.

asking her why, why

she’s not pretty.

like me

**Punctuation and spacing are huge for me in terms of how the poem looks aesthetically and reads. This one has been in the depths of my mind for awhile… maybe that’s why it’s so dark.

Ms – Week 9 Bachelardian Reverie

“For, as so many ethnographic studies of laboratory life have shown, the laboratory is not a ‘non-space’: it is itself a real configuration of persons, devices, and techniques, which imposes its own characteristics on the data generated, as well as the interpretations made of them, and all the more so when the subjects are individual living creatures, be they human or other animals” (Rose & Abi-Rached 228).

This about sums up how my views of laboratory science have been changed. Laboratories are not a blank white page that – well, here is a poem:

LABORATORY

white lab coats and

beakers.

that’s what I see

in laboratory.

what have those

white coats done…

in experimenting on the brain?

the brain was like a spirit

before I could see

that experimenting

is precise

it is not a game

(or at least it shouldn’t be).

Now I understand what

laboratory

means.

Because even

a blank

white page

is still made

of something.

 

Ms – Week 8 Log

May 20th

2 hours Reading Neuro (Ch. 7)

1.5 hours Reading Perloff (Ch. 7)

3 hour Writing poems, posting on eAlphabet

May 21st

2.5 hours Morning class discussion of readings, thoughts on readings

2,5 hours Writing, editing, posting reveries.

May 22nd

.5 hours Writing week 8 reverie, editing and posting

1.5 hours Student artist lecture series

1 hour Reading Poetry and the Fate of the Senses / Proust was Neuroscientist

May 23rd

1.5 hours Morning class

2 hours Guest Lecture

2 hours Transcribing notes from “Scento” experiment

3 hours reading Proust

1 hour writing poetry

1 hour editing poetry

May 24th

1 hour reading online articles / books for term paper

1 hour writing poems

1 hour journaling prose

2 hours reading Proust was a Neuroscientist

May 25th

4 hours journaling prose

1 hour editing

May 26th 

3 hours journaling prose

1 hours editing

1 hour writing poems

Totals

This week: 40 hours

Cumulative total: 120 hours

Reading List:

Poetry and the Fate of the Senses

Remembrance of things past

A dirty smell of mangoes

Proust was a Neuroscientist

My Poets

 

Ms – Week 8 Bachelardian Reverie

“This individualized inwardness, with its interiority and its continuity, is both unique to each and common to all (it was not always so, consider slaves, women, ‘primatives’, children, idiots, the mad): it grounds the claim of each individual to membership in the human race and to the consideration that such membership implies” (Rose & Abi-Rached 202).

As a drift myself inward in reverie, I dream of revelry.

This dream consists of me

encapsulated in a crowd

clinking glasses

confetti

in celebration of

…who cares.

It’s just a party.

No one can see me.

Most dreams are like this one.

I can see everything,

but no one pays any attention

to my body taking up space.

It’s like being high

without the daze.

So, I fold inward once more.

Now I am staring at my self

not myself but my self.

They look,

different.

Blissful, but not happy.

My self does not believe

in happy.

In the dream state,

there are no words

and no need to vocalize.

There is only thought

everything is thought.

Smiles and frown and tears

and joy

and just thought.

Me thinks my self

knows more than me.

Perhaps she

knows better

than me.

In any case,

she says,

this time you watch

me,

watch your self.

Do not drift here

or there.

Just watch and see

look and feel

how you and me

are a part of something

bigger.