ENTRY 5: Poem From a Photo

Webpage: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/09/opening-weekend-of-oktoberfest-2014/100817/

Identify the image:　

A man takes a rest in a meadow on the opening day of Oktoberfest on September 20, 2014.

Identify the reality you want to change: 

in this photo, this man was one of member who took part in this beer festival. Under this background, the man should hold a relatively happy emotion and take a nap on the grass after the stirring moments he enjoyed on the festival. But in my poem, I want to transform it into a sad story.

Identify the how you will change:

In this photo, this man lowering down his head on his hands to have a rest. But actually we hardly see his facial expression from our view. So in my poem, rather than taking a rest, I would describe this man is crying for the regret of what he has lost.

Alcohol

by Luna

Life is dipped into the alcohol,

Fuzzy and dazed.

He lowered his head down, alone,

refused the past reluctant to recall.

Looming smile, approaching chuckle  

The definition of happiness was noiselessly stolen.

A life is choosen by himself,

hot, fervent he thought,

cold, cruel he felt.

He postpones all the answers 
already in his eyes.

He hides behind his own back 
to continue life.

He chase after jollification 
once ruined himself.

Luckily, 
he stops the moment 
with a cups of alcohol,

spilling from his wrinkled eyes,

benumbing his face that ever with a smile.

ENTRY 4：Response to the poem "Photograph from September 11."

  This poem possesses a very strong sense of pictures through single word it has used in this poem. In this poem, the burning floors, face, blood, hair, keys, coins, pockets are very visualized and all the things that are very familiar to us and will arouse our emotions of sympathy and regret for these people trapped in the building desperately struggling for life. This poem is very plain in terms of the words but very touchable as it has described a very real scene to us to imagine, to feel and to think. The poet subtly describes very part that will grab the readers’ attention, which just like a description of a static photograph that catches a very brutal moment. However, it is also dynamic with the poet’s words such as “jump”, “burning floors”, “loose”, “fall”, which just resemble the process of life, flowing and fading away. In the last stanza, the narrator included his own emotion of helplessness and lament for those who unfortunately lost their life and indignation and wrath for those who gave rise to this tragedy.  

ENTRY 3: Journal Presentation

Journal Presentation:

Overall introduction and Journal Editors:

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. Each issue features a collection of beautifully crafted poetry, short fiction, and personal essays. This journal was founded in 2005 by its current editor, Leah Browning.

Content: (audience)

It covers poetry, fiction, essay; it also contains cover artworks which are used as a cover for every issue.

This journal combines different styles; it is unique and imaginative. The audience here is eclectic audience, who are willing to try new things.

It has only online versions.

Aesthetic:

Format/Layout

It is quite simple and clean, which shows a very concise beauty. It contains artwork at the top of the page, usually the pictures with painted figures and scenes. This kind of layout let audience easy to read. But it doesn’t have regular sections.

Genres:

Fiction, poetry, essays, artwork.

Publication platform:

It is published on the website where it is easy to read the journal. Also, it is a print journal which published twice annually.

Like:

We recommend this journal because this journal is very suitable for those who prefer the literary works. We like the cover artwork accompanying every issued journal, from which we can learn to adorn our own journal with several pictures to make the page more attractive. Also, we love the layout of this journal. This journal is simple and clean with concise beauty, which grabs the audience attention on the quality of the literature itself.

Don’t like:

Actually, apart from its advantages, there are also some disadvantages. This journal is not rich in the content. The sections of it are very limited. This journal is exclusive of various fields, such as history, politics or science. Also instead of specifically categorize the works by its genres, this journal simply collect all genres in one issue, just like a book. So for our own journal, we suggest that we can contain more things to make the content rich. In addition, though it has pictures, but the meaning of the picture can hardly be delivered as it is simply used as cover of each issue without accompanying text to explain it. So in our journal, we think we should use the pictures which are in accordance with the content of the poetry in terms of its meaning.

Sample piece:

The bees by Grant Clauser
First the bees disappeared
and the apple blossoms failed
to understand, so fell away
blown across the field.

The rivers shrank.  Dry algae
like dead skin, flaked off rocks.
Catfish settled into the mud
crusting over the roots
of weeping willows.

When milk stopped flowing
the mothers cried and everyone
noticed how quiet
the marsh had become.

We gathered the last books together
and told the children
to close their eyes
so they wouldn’t see
what was coming.

(image)

We choose this poem as it has literary appeal through many beautiful images, such as bees, apple blossoms, river, catfish and so on. It is very finely written.

This poem is also very accessible as it not only describes the natural scenes, but also connects the things with our human beings as what last two stanzas have described. It is very thought-provoking.

As we can see, the bees only appear at the beginning of this poem. But with the disappearance of the bees, the emergence of many things follows, and leads us from a very beautiful moment to a thoughtful level. This poem is consistent with the journal and can be a representative among his journal, as it is accessible, beautiful. Just as the name of this journal shows in the words “apple valley”, this poem is also full of imagination.

LABOR DIVISION: I'm responsible for collecting information, organzing the information and  filling in the spreadsheet.

ENTRY 2：Response to Bush "As We May Think"

1.       What’s Bush’s context for research?

--What problem does he list?

This article was written during the time when the world war two was about to cease. During the warfare period, the scientists from all fields conspire to arm the military and develop human through the application of science to warfare. A huge number of new knowledge and ideas emerged in during the war, and it’s a huge work to make more accessible bewildering store of knowledge through extracting and manipulating them.  

The problems are listed as following.

-          The investigators are staggered and confused by the massive research and conclusions from other workers.

-          The records were inefficiently stored which decreases its usefulness in science.

-          Professionally our methods of methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old.

-          Some publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record.

2.       What is the memex? 

--description

Memex is a sort of mechanized private file and library where individual could compress and store all his books, records and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It has powerful memories to help you store all the resources.

--what does it enable the researcher to do?

A researcher can select the research relative to his academic area through memex. Also, he could store all his writings of research on this topic in the memex so that he can efficiently find them. In addition, he can category all the research paper he finds from other in a clear order so that he can easily find them. He can also share all his findings and achievements with his fellow and communicates with them upon his research.

3.       Do we have anything similar to memex today?

I think Facebook is similar to memex. They both allow users to collect, consult and share data. Facebook is a platform where the users can upload picture, videos and also can share those things with others. It is also very flexible to store resources.

ENTRY 1：Response to “Instructions on How to Play the Comb”

Question: what does hair stand for?

  In this poem, though not directly mentioned, we can indicate that the son of this woman passed away from the context. This is a very sad story as it is about lose of the person you love. In my point of view, the “hair” in this poem stands for “memory”. As we can see in the first line, “as big as Mrs. Delilah’s hair”, which refers to that the mom holds the maximum memory of his son as her son was dead and he can never produce memories for her anymore, so the memory was “big”. The line “listen, it’s not true that the hair of the dead continues to grow” explains the dead person will never give additional memories to the people he knows. The words “Grass is the beautiful uncut hair of graves” that means though the person was gone, the memory of the person just like “grass” which would always exist in the mind of his mother, and his mother would always keep the memories where her son was always with her.