Maps to Anywhere- The House of the Future

In the book Maps to Anywhere by Bernard Cooper, there is an essay called The House of the Future. It is one of the last few creative essays in his book and it is really intriguing and creative. In this particular essay, there's different sections  that are all over the place and out of order but still has a message that sticks together. By this, I'm referring to his titles, such as Dream House, Dog House, House of Cards, and a few more.

All of these short essays create this bigger essay about how Bernard was a child and the memories, good or bad. Bernard talked about trips with his family, his very ill, older brother and what he hoped for the future. I really like this book and enjoyed reading it; I got a better understanding of this when we discussed it in class and hearing my classmate's thoughts on how they interpreted what Bernard was telling to his readers. It was really interesting reading of what he thought was cool in the 1950s, as far as the "futuristic house" and his love he proclaimed for his brother when he became sicker. A lot of his futuristic thoughts were of what could have been and a better life for them and his sick brother.

In class, we discussed different parts of this creative essay and I see that I should add Bernard Cooper to my list of next reads. I enjoyed reading this book in class and at home and I plan to read more from him. I enjoyed his work and the way he connected with the audiences.

Maps To Anywhere- Leaving

Leaving is one of Bernard Cooper's short essays in his book, Maps to Anywhere. This short essay sticks out to me in a way that I am unsure of. It talks about an average, typical family, a father, mother, and two and a half kids. Yes, two and a half kids. This is what stood out to me the most. 

This part stood out to me the most because it is unusual to be a half. In the essay, he doesn't state whether that half-child is male or female, nor the age. But, he does explain some of that half-child's features and possible future. Cooper tells us that the half-child is "isolated, half a figure, balanced on one leg, one hand extended..". He tells us that maybe his hand is extended as if to touch the world that he's leaving behind and everything that he's giving up in the world and leaving behind.

In class, we had an assignment where we had to imitate one of Bernard Cooper's short essays. naturally, I did Leaving and I tried to have fun with it. I kept the concept of your average family and instead of a "half-child", I made it into a pet, dog. I changed the title to Forgetting with the idea that instead of leaving everything behind, he's forgetting everything behind for that one special thing, no matter what it is. I did this because I recently met my friend's new dog and he was the most adorable dog there is! Playing with him, I learned something new about dogs; they have no perception of time. Whenever one of left for the bathroom or to go in the basement, he would get worried that we were gone forever. That made me come up with the title Forgetting, because the dog wants to show you something and forgets about everything else at that moment, leaving it behind.

     In class, we looked at two interesting poems, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by  Wallace Stevens and And What Do You Get by Heather McHugh. Both poems were very well written and I liked both of them, they were different from poems that I have read in the past.

     In Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, Wallace Stevens gave us different ways to view a blackbird. Most people see a blackbird and think of life and death; Wallace had the same image, but he also had other views as far as the beauty of them and how we are all alike as one. An example of that would be;

"A man and a woman

 Are one.

 A man and a woman and a blackbird

 Are one."

     Although, the poem written by Steven was very well and intelligent, I believe What Do You Get by Heather McHugh was my favorite, in my opinion. I love the use of wordplay and how she did hers. She took words apart and added others together and asked: "what do you get?" In her poem, it focused on wordplay and how taking away a letter or adding a letter can change the word and meaning completely to something completely different. One of my favorite examples for this would be;

".....take the the from

therapist, split accent with an id---"

If you look at what she wrote, you can tell that by taking the the out, it changes therapist to rapist and splitting accent with an id changes accent to accident, which is seemingly correct seeing how therapist can change to rapist instantly, changing the word and meaning.

     The poem that I chose to respond to was one of Shakespeare's sonnet, #130. I always refer to this sonnet but it's my favorite one and I enjoy the work of Shakespeare among others' disagreements. I wanted to look deeper into this poem and it's meaning and how he used his words to the audience.

     In this sonnet, Shakespeare is putting the focus on his mistress and all her flaws that he finds beautiful contrary to others beliefs. He gives us an imagery of what he sees when he looks at her by telling us how red her cheeks are if you imagine roses or her hair being like black wires and etc. In class, there was a big "debate" about how well he did this poem. One of the topics that was brought up was the fact that he brought out all her flaws to the world but when you think of it, he's also letting us know that, to him she is still the most beautiful girl in the world.
   
     I felt as though he did a great job with this sonnet. And, it will probably be one of my favorites. Although, all of this is my opinion and what I interpreted from this sonnet, I feel as though it's a small portion of one of his great works.

In class, we continued going over the poetry packets. Although, I was a week late to class because I registered late, I caught up with everything that was going on. We went over language: detail, imagery, sensory, and concrete versus abstract. We learned spotting the difference between concrete and abstract with examples like this:
Abstract:
"I'm mad." "I'm angry" "I love you"
Concrete:
"I'm so angry, I just wanted to punch a wall!" "When I look in your eyes, I can see the moon."
These examples helped me realize the difference between the two and how to spot them.


We also went over cliches and the amount of cliches and abstract context in the poetry packet. It was interesting to see the many creative ways authors express themselves in their work. Although, some things were repeated and heard of long ago, it was still amusing and exciting to me. Many of the poems stuck out to me and some was hard to catch on.


A few poems had very concrete writing, a lot of those were my favorite and I enjoyed reading them. Some lines in the poems were very cliche, an example would be, "Her cheeks were as red as roses." This is quote is very concrete in stating the color of her face and gives an imagery of red roses to see as you look at her. It is also cliche because there's been numerous times where red roses is used as a imagery for red cheeks. But, even though that is the case, I still like that quote no matter how overused it may be because it gives us an image of what he is seeing through his eyes of the love of his life.


Jazz Spencer

Introduction Blog

Hello class and professor, my name is Jasmine Spencer but, I usually just go by Jazz. I am a sophomore here at EMU, I'm 19 years old and I am going into Sports Medicine- Athletic Training. My birthday is at the end of September, I am Libra and everything that my horoscopes say is extremely true and very on point with my life. I live in Farmington Hills, MI which is about 30-35 minutes from Ypsilanti. I have two younger brothers at home and we are all 5 years apart.

I went to a school called North Farmington High School and it was a great experience for me. I was involved with the pom team which is like a combination of dance and cheer. I also worked alongside of the athletic trainer at my high school, she is an EMU alumni and she has taught me a lot- from taping ankles to taping fingers. She helped me realized that athletic training is something I want to do.

I'm hoping to gain a lot from this class as far as opening up and being able to work on my writing skills and also expanding my mind on being creative. I am a very shy person so I'm looking forward to taking this class and gaining a lot from it.