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.