The Jabberwocky

I enjoyed The Jabberwocky. Not just because of its wonderful lyrical nature that was incredibly fun to just speak out and the fact that its wording actually made sense in the proper setting that Lewis Carroll had: Wonderland (for instance, Brillig meant 4:00pm) but moreso because it was a brilliant example of how you could take poems your own way with no "true answer". What all is being said in The Jabberwocky is mostly nonsense in our world so we are left to read it and imagine it on our own. We, ourselves, create the tumtum trees and we can define brillig our own way allowing us to illustrate our own Wonderland to fit the poem.
With so many poems focusing on the message or talking about the human condition it was very nice to have a poem that is just there to spark your imagination again.

When Men Were Men

Joseph Cooper
Mrs. Polly Watson
English 113-111
Formal Blog
May 1st, 2011


Now there’s no mark of men of such wisdom and might;
a rite of passage to manhood, endowed onto all.
The coarse hair hung from a jaw with height,
A mighty forest, a most rugged wall.
Amongst the great Romans and Greeks akin,
and the fearsome Norse, the Viking men,
The beard was respected, a gallant tradition,
With every man bearded, none of them clean
Only women and children, and those hid in the womb,
Dared to go beardless and avoided the tomb.

Rice, Adrian. Creative Writing Class. Catawba Valley Community College. West Wing, Hickory, NC. June 2010.

What I Talk about When I Talk About Poetry

It hasn't been too long since I too felt poetry to be in some lofty domain above me. Shown only joking poems and Shakespeare poems themselves were always a strange beast for me that I never wanted to understand - I was always more one for prose - but my Creative Writing class last semester changed that for me. After my class with Adrian Rice I began to see the potential and the tremendous wit and skill within poetry and since then I've eaten up all the collections of poetry I've gotten my hands on (which sadly isn't many books).
The collection of highly toned wording to portray an idea or an image while still remaining lyrical is a skill that I see for even poets takes incredibly long amounts of time and I admire the respect that amount of thought and attention being brought to their work.