and THIS, this is Romantic poetry

My poetry professor stresses the importance of reading poetry aloud as it is an audible art meant to be heard as much as read unlike prose.  Sprawled out on a cold cement bench underneath a shady fir tree, I was catching up on the reading before class and came upon the poem, He Remembers Forgotten Beauty by William Butler Yeats.  As I was reading it aloud I had to pause periodically because I was overwhelmed.  It truly embodies William Wordsworth’s definition of Romantic poetry: “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.  I read it aloud then read it again and again.  I read other poems then came back to read it again each time as touching as the last.  When you read poetry the way it is meant to be read, it’s a emotionally powerful feeling like an out of body experience.

Speaking of reading poetry the way it’s meant to be read… there’s this girl in my class who pauses at the end of each line regardless of whether it’s a run-on or an end-stop line.  How difficult is this concept to get your head around?  If there isn’t any punctuation, then keep reading to the next line!!!!!  Misreading a poem is like hitting the wrong keys when playing the piano.  It’s a cacophonic travesty!  There’s another girl in my class who reads too long when we’re doing class-readings.  Typically, we’ll start on one side of the room and snake along with each person reading a stanza or a few lines coming to an appropriate stop before letting the next person take over.  This other girl just keeps on fucking going!  How fucking inconsiderate.  She’s like the Kobe Bryant of poetry readers.  Pass the fucking ball, Bitch!!!

He Remembers Forgotten Beauty – William Butler Yeats

When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God’s eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew.
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,
Throne over throne where in half sleep,
Their swords upon their iron knees,
Brood her high lonely mysteries.

I’ve been advised…

The ten-year trek through the junior college system officially came to an end earlier this month.  Finally.  I used to joke about the “10-year plan” when I was younger sealing my self-prophetic fate.  I’ll be wiser next time around.

I’m at Long Beach State/Cal State Long Beach/The Beach — whatever you want to call it — and even though it was actually my third choice of schools (UCLA rejected me, UCI was too far) I think the curriculum actually fits what I was looking for in my undergraduate studies.  I’m an English – Creative Writing major, and the typical questions I field are: “why?”, “what are you going to do with an English degree?”, and “do you want to teach?”.

Why not something practical like engineering, business, or something with computers?  It’s a question I’ve mulled myself.  It all goes back to an eighth grade field trip to the Torrance Superior Courthouse where we visited with Judge Ben Aranda (RIP) in his chambers.  A precocious and forward-thinking classmate asked him what to major in college to become a judge.

He replied, “First you’ll have to go to law school, but before that you should major in English.  It isn’t just about reading and writing — you’ll be doing A LOT of that — but studying English equips you with the necessary analytical tools to perform my job.  Luckily, you guys have an excellent English teacher”.

My eighth grade teacher, Mr. Wibberley was keen on teaching the mechanics of writing and grammar.  Sure, anyone can string a subject, verb, and some modifiers together and call it a sentence, but I had to diagram sentences and memorize definitions of all the parts of speech, lists of prepositions, verb conjugation charts for the different tenses and moods, pretty much a lot of stuff I wish I remembered today.

9/11 was a watershed moment to me on many different levels.  Most importantly, it became a catalyst for me to do something with myself as my life was languishing at the time.  I was bouncing around from job to job after dropping out of school a couple years prior.  I was treading water in a period of arrested development.  I became invigorated in politics during the fallout of 9/11 and set my sights on fulfilling my father’s dream of becoming a lawyer.  I remembered Judge Aranda’s advice and felt a natural inclination toward English.  In high school, I scored the highest in the school on the annual English Rubric Assessment — whatever that meant — so I thought I should pursue something I might have a sliver of talent in.  I re-enrolled in school for the Fall of 2002 part-time and slowly but steadily began the journey toward a goal.

A lot can happen in the span of six years like my dwindling drive to pursue law.  I began thinking that a particular personality was required to flourish in Law and believed that I didn’t have it.  Doubt made a reappearance as I began to wonder if I had the necessary fortitude to hack it in law school.  I say I don’t like getting ahead of myself, but I have a tendency to disqualify myself for a lot things.  I wish it wasn’t so, but no one limits me more than myself.

While my Law aspirations began to diminish, my inkling to write emerged.  It kind of had to because I do not like reading.  In fact, I’m probably the least well-read English Major in the history of higher learning.  Did you know that James Joyce used 29,899 different words in his tour de force, Ulysses?  Do you know how many of those words I’ve read?  Zero.  I called it a “tour de force” because Joyce is one of the most significant Modern writers and Ulysses is his landmark literary work.  I SHOULD have read it.  Will I read it?  Are you fucking kidding me?  If he used 29,899 different words, imagine how thick that doorstop is!

When deliberating between UC Irvine and Cal State Long Beach this summer, I decided that I had enough of theory-driven studies.  I didn’t want to try to get into the heads of long-dead writers and extrapolate what he might have meant with this word or that phrase.  I want to BE the writer.  Now, don’t think that I have delusions of grandeur of me becoming the next great American novelist, essayist, or even columnist.  People might not think that an English degree is practical because it’s just reading and writing.  I can agree on some aspects.  An English degree alone will not get you anywhere except maybe a teaching position (the third typical question), but it’s a great launching point for an advanced degree.  I believe your undergraduate degree says that you’re able to complete the rigors of higher education, but it’s your advanced degree that trains you for your career.  A degree in English is paradoxical in that you can do nothing with it yet do anything with it.

My back-up plan should I lose all desire to pursue Law is to get a Master’s Degree in Counseling to be guidance counselor at the high school or junior college level.  I would like to help people achieve their goals.  In actuality, at this moment I have no idea where the path I have chosen will take me.  It’s exciting and exhilarating as well as daunting and scary.  I’ll have a day job while doing the writing thing on the side.  Some people have their calling or special talents that they cling to for their dreams.  If writing is my mine, then I have to work on it.  I have to write as much as I can, which means no more writing a post then deleting it.  I’m going to be updating this blog as much as possible because now, more than ever, I have to write for myself.

In Memorium

I’m a little late in submitting this.  I didn’t forget, but I didn’t know what to say to mark the 7th anniversary of 9/11.  I’m an emotional mess when it comes to 9/11.  Don’t ever forget.