Classmate Response 1, Week 5

In response to Taylor's Original Prompt, Week 5:

I like what you're doing with the verbs here, just in the first sentence alone: release, unlatch, shrink. “Prevent” doesn't seem to do as much as the other verbs but it still keeps from being too flat, too predictable. Perhaps something punchier, something more exact?

I think some good ol' fashioned enjambment might do this draft some justice as well. For example: "I stand in awe of this halo" is such a great line and could probably stand on its own, but the line that follows it is something too abstract. Tie it to something physical--halo of what? Giotto frescoes? Imagine this:

I stand in awe of this halo

of Giotto frescoes, seeking and blue

Perhaps not that, but at least it illustrates what I mean about the lines.

After that, it gets a little muddle. Who is telling you of everything bad in your life? Francis? So much has happened in between that line that I  have to read back to understand what I am being told. "Everything bad in my life" sounds tired, cliche and abstract. Be specific if you can or else just take the line out altogether.

Who is the "you?" I like this idea of being built and I think it could be the draft's center. As a sidenote, Sydney is introduced a little too late and pretending to be a reader who doesn’t know Sydney, I would be so confused by her sudden and specific appearance consider she pretty much brings you the ending.

Original Prompt 1, Week 5

Finished improv of the Beth Ann Fennelly calisthenic. Think I'm going to tighten this a great deal for my portfolio.

Untitled

Though we stood, delegates, in the red spot, though I

boxed under the weight of glances, those glassy eyed saints

penetrating soul and skin from frescoes, and later

traced the golden arches that interwove

every crevice like a great seeping parasite—

still I never found God.

Ten minutes in Saint Ignatius, stoked in glory

and I couldn’t stop comparing it to the Duomo.

When, in our Spoleto town, the spiny pins

punched holes through the stony skulls of cherubs

and the tiles danced in dimmed red, echoed song,

even in the glare of Lippi’s guilt, I watched

a hand of intimacy unfold.

Living for five weeks in the old country,

where every soul has grown and known the quaint

qualities of Christ etched in concrete walls

and crumbling bell towers, I wonder, recurring,

if it could be my spirit missing.

In Gubbio, every street doused in a majestic

grayscale, I tugged my empty knapsack closer

and drifted, hotel-bound, to wait out dinner.

The bedroom, neat, but the bathroom drowned

in clean white tile, soap dish to bidet while the ceiling:

a top-turned wave of sterile seafoam.

After dinner, covered in the thick beads of paint

poured from the still swirling, still dark sky,

I longed for color. The pop of bright. That open

amenity where, if I sprawled out along the floor,

I could stare into the endless churn of steady ocean.

I showered, and just before climbing out I glanced

out the sliver of window grooved above the spicket,

that tumbling expanse of Gubbio that offered, bold-faced,

the all-seeing presence of God: a cathedral cross

that peered, omniscient, into the bathroom.

In another church, this one sporting the pickled carcass

of Saint Ubaldo, I took a pew and traced thought

to yesterday, that bathroom: the blue-green like a filthy

well, water lined with algae, mold. What a vision then,

that cross that broke through, vast and pure,

from the bottom of that roiling hue, encased in glass,

a shrine and me, half-naked in a bath towel—

the sole attendant. A man lifts beside me, crosses himself

before he picks through the aisles to pay respects.

I shut my eyes, afraid to meet his gaze, and in the wooden

seat I bow my head to remember how to pray. 

Memory 1, Week 5

My friends and I huddle around the dining table, snickering and glancing. I look behind Meagan who gives me this careful smile over the rim of her coke, one eye closing slightly in what looks like a frozen wink--her version of scrutiny. I spot them, two boys, not even all that good-looking but available, nodding heads and sinking big bites into their burgers. "I feel like such a creeper." Megan giggles, tossing her hair in just a way that she can glance back at them. One of the boys brushes crumbs from his blue shirt and we all bend our heads together again, fight laughter. Kyleen then takes to texting, her dad I think, and it gives me the idea to pull out my own phone. "I'm going to do it," I tell them, feeling proud in my own slickness, "I'm going to take their picture." They look at me in wide-eyed surprise, then Megan tilts her head slightly. Her way of giving me the go-ahead. They were now completely cleared for the shot. I don't know why I took the picture. As I said, I didn't find them attractive, not even remotely. But there was something thrilling about it, the idea of capturing someone, of stalking someone, without them having the single bit of hint. I lifted my phone casually, pretended to text while I opened my camera. Kyleen chewed her straw and waited, disbelieving. Megan tried not to move her head and thought pumped through me like a transformer. I hit the capture button. I made them mine.

Reportage 1, Week 5

I had to dig up notes from my journal for this:

The train station pulses with some mechanical heat, diluted sea air nips at our sweaty necks and disappears. My shoulder groans under the weight of my carry on. Beside me, a man studies the even off-white of the concrete, his ear pressed against his phone. Though whispering, his voices bounces before it drowns in the emergence of an oncoming train. We wait as the tires screech to a halt, some noise I've remarked sounds like souls being ripped apart and then train stops and gives like releasing the great sigh of its burden. A conductor or attendant emerges, sharply dressed in a black jacket, red blouse. She approaches but her eyes are dancing across the spill of her passengers, tired and quick. We stop her, hold out our tickets and it unfurls in her hand. She gives us a stiff smile and a glance, studies it, nods and asks us to follow her. She stamps over to the departure sign and her heels rebound from one side of the walkway to the other. Her hand reaches out and her finger trails, following the quick though still exhausted gaze of her eyes. She points, looks at us and mouths the word, "oveste," west, and hands our ticket back to us. We thank her and she offers us that same tense smile before disappearing in a clack of shoes and a blur of dark clothes and hair.

Image Junkyard 1-4, Week 5

1. Three dogs--shoulders and bodies bent in a mock cycle of man, the progression and regression of evolution--how one dog sits, staring beyond shack-tops and red tile, beyond leafy sprouts of grass into the great split of sky defining horizon. A thin-wire gate runs needles across his back.

2. She peers over the wooden fence, its criss-cross bars creating a gestalt of landscape--a break of tree tops, dark green and trembling, and the promise of some hidden cow whose bell assault the airway, that thin bit of space between the leaves.

3. Clouds branch, fingers breaking off and forming crowns, the mountains resting like heaven's thrones and the whole thing cracked by the crumbling promise on concrete walls and a rumble and groan of distant thunder. The mountains, first green, disappear into shades of violet and mechanical blue.

4.The rhythmic clack of train tracks, the hum and metallic tires pulling forward some great weight like an abstraction, love or truth, which bursts forth from the gravel and wood chips like a single flower, three orange petals spread in some elusive trinity, the slight wave of the train's pass and the only glow of color near the train tracks.

Reading Journal 1, Week 5

Well, Gomorrah. What has this story accomplished using Italy without making me paranoid of every train ride and motorcycle or without putting the fear of God (and Naples) to mine? It's a hefty read, jam-packed with a great deal of information. I guess what I'm drawn to is the inevitable distancing the book provides while still expecting me to be engrossed and invested in its details. In fact, Gomorrah almost asks me to take a closer look at my own involvement in the criminal developments and that could be the most intimating and dissociating factor. For example, the first chapter investigates the shipment and creation of illegally-produced clothing goods and how we, as Americans seeking out Italian name-brands, add to the demand for these familiar and luxurious, though often false brands. It brings a bit of self-inquisition to light--am I buying these clothes? How many of my jeans and shoes were made in the heart of the Italian crime center? It's a little disconcerting, and the constant heart-breaking details only add to my guilt--Pasquale's suffering, the death of Emmanuele, and so on. In a sense, I feel just as much condemnable and involved in the lives of these people as I feel like I do not want to know them. If that is what's going on in Naples, I surely don't want to be a part of it. Sad, but true.

Classmate Response 1, Week 4

Response to MacKenzie’s Reportage, Week 3:

I’m pretty sure only you could write a bit about buying panties and leave me so engrossed. I love the idea of an experience transcribing discomfort across language barriers. So far, we’ve all delved into the difficulties of overcoming our inexperience with Italian, but I like that this time you tackled something that’s just as difficult in our own native language as it is in Italian—a sort of equality of experience. I think the opening paragraph could move a little more quickly, just a few cuts of unnecessary words or phrases. (sidenote: I love the verb “waffle”. I could also be severely missing waffles, but that’s another story). I’d like to see more about the shopkeepers. What makes the tall one intimidating? Her spiked heels and her height? Doesn’t seem enough. I’d like to see more interaction between these two ladies, between these ladies and you? And I realize the experience makes you feel alone and alienated, but Megan’s presence drops so thoroughly from the piece that I wonder if it really needs her at all? Some places for expansion: that moment where they are watching you outside the store, I’d like to see more on that. Why do you think they are watching you? What does that feel like? What are they thinking and how does that change once you come in the store? Or does it change at all? I’d like more investigation into why you feel so compelled to gather the nerve to go into the store in the first place. What does the green bra do for you? How does Megan feel about all this? The end seems kind of abrupt and I don’t quite understand the triumph. What was really accomplished here? What was the big goal, the big battle? And what happened to the others?

Original Prompt 1, Week 4

Been hoarding this assignment for a while because I have no idea what to do with it. So I'm going to approach it in the same manner of Didion's On Keeping a Notebook and see what happens.

Last night love entered my dreams, the slip reads, and then was morning. Wrinkled Bachi chocolate, blue foil, English translation, an after dinner treat pocked with hazelnuts, Bar Duelle. 
This is my epigraph. It has been assigned to me and at empty times, I toss the words back and forth inside my head. Vague trails form--like a stick trailed through the sand of my thoughts: love, I wonder, or dreams--those heaving and intimidating abstractions that seek definition, the trained focus of memory--some example of maternity or relationship--the sticky touch of lovers or the starry-eyed lens of night as I wrap and toss in a blanket not my own. What do I talk about? Those nights, heavy with sleep beside Taylor, who, never faltering on her source of energy, rises from the bedsheet and mumbles in her sleep. Or how the sun, those slivers of golden-white, always find some way around the curtains to tickle at my lashes. When was the last time I dreamed? When was the last time I felt the sonic textures of the mentally formed dance along my fingertips? And why, whenever I see the word morning do I keep thinking homophones, that distinct salt of sadness--the kind you feel in foreign countries when all the world presses in with vowels and sounds, reminding you of your loneliness?

Reportage 1, Week 4

On a train car, Bologna-bound, the cart churns and rocks with the sound of tracks meeting high-speed metal. The seats, mostly empty, so that the sounds of progression are the only things filling our ears, almost melodic and rhythmical now, so that some of us allow the noise to lull us toward sleep. In front of me, one of my traveling companions allows his head to fall backwards, stretch along the mouth while his lips form along the trail of his own breath. Something about the slack pull of his jaw reminds me of pillow folds and comforter sets--soft and down. The train makes another stop and moments later a man pulls through: tall, skinny, and a body that bends when he walks. He glances across the empty seats and spots us, me and my friend, and seems to momentarily debate the idea of taking a seat beside us. Instead he chooses the row directly across from us and plops uncomfortably close to a man with three other seats available. He stares, unabashed, into our sleepy faces, seemingly interested in the concept of slumber, as if naps on a train ride are foreign to him. He catches my eye and looks away, instead taking to sidelong glances, the lines along his face creased with curiosity.

Memory 1, Week 4

I had been asking for a dog for a while. Renting a room from a middle aged spinster, whose redeeming qualities were her bipolar meltdowns and unnatural clinginess, I thought a dog would be that perfect anchor of sanity, something that would keep me from reaching that pinnacle of the too far beyond that I tiptoed near every time I woke up in that house. It was almost 1am when she called me. She worked with me and I had just gotten off the late shift myself. Still in my uniform, I made it back home in time to unload my groceries before my phone sang out from my work pants pocket. I answered it and she asked me, amused, if I wanted a puppy.

I cannot begin to explain how quickly I returned to the store. A ten minute drive, no more than a minute or two in the hot-red speed of my sport Escort. I pulled through the parking lot and dashed to the front door, where she stood with a puppy in her arms. The dog was small--smaller than I had ever seen any puppy and when I held her she nibbled my fingers, the triangular collar of my work shirt. We called her Chewy, paraded her through the store as I bought her shampoo and dog kibble. When I got home I fed her in the bathroom and bathed her in the sink. When we slept, she crawled into the corner of my neck and stayed huddled there the entire night.

I've always grown up with dogs. My mother, gushing after we bought our pure white German Shepard, told me she loved the puppy smell--something like hot milk and the sweetness of a new coat, at least, from what I could tell of it. I never understood until I had that puppy climbing on my shoulder during car rides, panting the moist mist of her breath into my face.

Image Junkyard 1-4, Week 4

Thick rolls of noodles whose dips and ridges give from the press of my tongue. Oil, the nutty, faintly salty taste, hesitant to the sharp crisp of peppers and onions. Ceramic bowl glazed with gold, the translucent glow of sauce that catches the streetlights and reflects like sweat.

Rows of bottles, the tops: piano keys, some pressed, some poised--a kaleidoscope of liquid and glass, the shrug of their labels and names that cradle and slosh in the mouth--Malibu, Dartwin, Montefalco. Twin shades of brown, green, white--like rolling the mountains flat with a pin.

The lopsided pack of his hair--a brittle mesh of black and gray, that hangs tight, brash curls, too far on his right ear but just far enough to wrap him in something ethereal--the alien fold and flow of hair.

A basket of citrus--lemons and oranges, swollen, bursting with possibility, the idea of juice--the blood-tinted pulp and the fragments of seeded fruit floating and swirling in the glass. The sharp hint of scent, pins of the familiar, faint and brushing as if brimming from the pores of their thick and rubbery skin.

Reading Journal 2, Week 4

There seems to be something compromised by Italy as the source of the supernatural here with the constant presence of the two Scottish sisters--not Italians, but Scots, and repeatedly described as such. I recognize that, despite accents, these two foreign(ish) sisters allow for linguistic communication, but for a great deal of the piece Italy doesn't function as anything other than a background of absolute, excruciating tourism. Well, I suppose that isn't true. There is, in fact, this idea of Italy as healing--a metaphorical womb, one might say, that is meant to rebirth the relationship between John and Laura, a sort of strange juxtaposition of motherhood, where Italy is to fix where Laura has "failed." How Italy is meant to return maternity to her, to restore her relationship with child-bearing despite the fact that she is clearly suffering from the loss of her child. What seems interesting in that idea is that it is not Italy, often feminized, that serves as the source of her repair, but those two Scottish women. I suppose the story is constantly trying to play on some left-field option, for example: John is in trouble, no the son is in trouble, no John is in trouble, SURPRISE, it's a midget lady! I suppose that the fact that, rather than the foreign, it is something more familiar to the British couple that provides the source of relief. Not to mention that the entire trip to Venice, rather than repairing their relationship, ends up destroying it--leaving John dead and hinting at the radical potency of the Italian setting.

Classmate Response 1, Week 3

I figure I am going to take it the one sentence at a time method, though I find this tidbit of memory adorable.

First, I like the idea of generations of family. I don't really have any great-anything in my family, so the idea of family at a distance seems unfamiliar and interesting, especially when one considers the connotations of family as familial closeness, bounded by blood.

There's always a possibility of addressing one as the head of the table--a place of authority. How have you established this authority in your family? I think this could tie in with what seems like a sort of grouping thing happening at the end, as you past notes to your mom, therefore alienating as well as condemning the others.

If the Thomaston balls are so famous, how come you've never seen them? Just something that I think would, in a story, need a brief sentence of elaboration.

I love the idea of using butter balls to quell the kids. That is just great, expand on that. As well as this sort of mock intimacy with the butter-ball smeared children and the dad, who has to put a napkin between him and child.

Memory 1, Week 3

Not finished. I think this will be a lot longer but for the sake of time I need to post what I have so far.

To enter the center of Perugia, one is always climbing. Rocking and surfing on the metrobus, one hand on the bright red railing above my head, the other looping through the headrest of some short-haired woman’s chair, the bus climbs up looping hills to the escalators. And even the escalators, located in the belly of some stone-walled castle, brick after brick creating a dimly lit tunnel of steps  and escalation, one climbs that tunnel-way until finally, Perugia bursts free, open and cool in the steady movement of its shop-infested streets. But before that, we have to make a stop first. There, in the tunnels, postered off by a large sign punctured with Superman legs—Perugia Comic Con, an opportunity to nerd away from home. Slipping past glass doors and a group of heaving cosplayers smattered on the stairwell, I first notice the heat, that seems, like another person, to also climb: up the stairs, through the bodies, existing everywhere at once. Once up the stairs, the heat breaks off into a tangible passion—embodied by the shuffle of people—shoppers, dealers (distinguishable only by their wary, suspicious glances) and the glossy array of colored comics, lined up on the shelves and taking the walls as if it was their own. We pay our fee and branch off to some less cluttered section of the con, a passageway dotted with frames of James Bond movie posters, that winds backwards until it empties into a tunnel, dark and shrinking, almost separate from the noise and tussle of the convention. We decide to turn back, but before we go we capture the moment: all of us, posed and smiling while some great darkness looped behind us, and we ignored it, unabashed and never fazed.

My first time entering a convention shook me, core-bound, until everything in me was displaced enough to refill with an indiscernible thrill. Unlike in Perugia, this was a large convention in America, lasting a span of three long days and offering a lot more than tunnel space and a small group of sweaty, satisfied cosplayers. 

Reading Journal 1, Week 4

I would argue that the Italian space functions, primarily in the first half of the work, within Daisy Miller. Italy, thus far, has been embodied as this place of the sensual and bodily. Daisy has obviously embraced something more physical about her self, not necessarily a sexual need, but obviously some inner tendency to gravitate towards gentleman callers. She's empowered in the sense that she is not inhibited by social constraints. Yes, Daisy might differ from Italy in that so far she has never been truly conquered, often wafting in and out of the grasp of man's interest, but do largely in part to the physicality and physical beauty of Daisy, and how repetitious it is, it's hard to ignore Daisy's potential to be Italy. Not to mention her misunderstood attraction to the ancient. In Vevey, she is the only one who wants to see the castle. Again, before her final demise, she wants, desperately, to see the coliseum by moonlight. Of course that brings one to the question that why her own beauty and stubbornness lead to her death? But I once again wonder that if maybe Daisy did not undergo a conquering by the end of the work--by two men. Winterbourne, who, it seems to suggest, had stolen her heart, and Giovanelli who I suspect might have brought her to the Roman Coliseum in an attempt to kill her, a sort of: if I can't have her, no one will effort, so to speak. For he admits to Winterbourne that he knew he'd never have Daisy, and it explains his peculiar, guilt-ridden disappearance as Daisy is slowly dying. But it seems that Daisy, as the false Italy, is incapable of taking on the real Italy and therefore suffers the consequences.

Original Prompt 1, Week 3

We rounded a corner, that's what Gubbio is--hills and corners, and we, exhausted, worked our way to the truck where the man chopped slices of pork for one of his customers. Taylor slipped in line behind her, asked for a pork sandwich, and I, tired of the salted smell of slivered ham, took a couple steps back to stare into the wide, cobbled hills of Gubbio sunshine. Taylor held her lunch up, the thin traces of pink darted in and out of the crispy promise of what I knew would be delicious bread. She asked me if I wanted a bite, but the prospect of eating another bite of a meat I never really cared for, even before coming to Italy, didn't settle well with my stomach. Instead I walked under a narrow archway where a small market worked in the Saturday wind. "Let's go there?" I suggested and we disappeared under the shadow of the marketplace. Fruit stands: small swells of peaches, the tempting mystery of pears that I recognized but knew so little that I wouldn't know if they were fresh enough to eat even if I wanted them. A farmer, grizzled and smelling like the grit and bite of dirt, a sort of layered brownness that clung to his skin and clothes, finished with another customer and approached me, sort of rushed and breathless in his Italian. I've learned, as a sort of pre-excuse for stupidity, to hold up my hands, vaguely waving the fingers as I tell them, sheepishly, "Non parlo Italiano." I still try, don't get me wrong, but that way, as I butcher the pronunciation and try desperately to pronounce foods (that, as I've learned, often euphemize some personal aspect of the body) they won't get offended or otherwise hate me for my queer, ever-present Americanness. He presses in closer and I'm grateful, despite the soil-smell sifting from his shoulder, that he has excused me from butchering his language at high volume. He points to fruits and in steady but solid Italian he names things I might be interested in: una mela, una pesca. I finally settle on bright red dots, rattled in a crate container and he points at the and repeats their name twice: ciliegia, ciliegia, cherry, cherry? I nod my head and he asks me how many I want. I stare at him strangely and look to Taylor, lost, afraid to say something stupid. He asks me if I want a kilo. I ask him how much? We keep our sentences short, to the barest, most successful punch. After a couple moments of back and forth debate, mostly between Taylor and me, because we are, at this point, inherently baffled but desperate for the taste of cherries, we decide on a mezzokilo, 3 euro and 50 cents. I do not even wait for lunch before I dip my hand into the brown paper bag and sink my teeth, ready and willing, around the ripe give of fruit and the hard, promise of pit. 

Image Junkyard 1-4, Week 3

Our voices fall in the cathedral, settle on the wooden floor rests before sliding up the bench and tugging, gently at our shoulders. I whisper: what's that smell? The answer: the vindictive scents of Roman Catholicism, like thick and aging paints, hidden dust, and bodies--crated and propped for display, one saint so old his face sinks like rusted bones, as if the river ran through him too long.

The sound of the children here does not remind me of laughter, full-bellied squeals. Rather, something violent: their mouths swell, produce voices that kick the sky, do not resonate or hang there but pop, puncture the ears and leave holes in your hearing. They run, and their voices pound beside them.

The bathroom: even with the door closed the light still hints color, the sea foam the tile floor is meant to mimic, an opposite as all the upper walls and ceiling glisten with the vibrancy of the color white. The sink, toilet, bidet all glitter in their, muted color--bowls of the blank. Even the small glass above the shower lets in the purity of a large, white cross. The only break from the glaring sterility is the artificial age provided by the window, a large wooden arch, bricked, lined close with dark, wooden shutters.

Railing forward, hill side, from a bird cage, we climb to the basilica. My foot heaves under the weight of my stress--behind me, a great unfolding: a crinkled spread of greenery followed by the clattered brown and orange rooftops of Gubbio. Directly below me a tree bursts wooden buds of pine cones, dotted haphazardly through its dark, deep branches. The sky, not so far now, rattles in its haze of gray.

Reading Journal 2, Week 3

Wrapped in the constraints of the gothic horror, these stories presented Italy as more of an element of atmosphere than an actual setting—rather, the settings functioned rather diminutively, and instead of pulling on Italy’s stereotypes for allure, operated on such a level that the bare facts of one particular environment alone did all the work in which Italy and Italy’s connotation usually create. For example, in Rappacini’s Daughter, majority of the story takes place in the ethereal and almost haunting location of the garden—a place not generally associated with a source of horror, but in its description of the almost unnatural beauty and allure of the plants, creates a sort of self-sufficient foreboding not supplied by the brief mentioning of Padua (primarily in the beginning of the piece). Of course, there is the idea that only these sorts of things happen in crazy, overtly passionate countries (i.e. Italy), but the lack of foreign attitudes and architectures seems to suggest an universality to the plot. After all, the garden is a place created by the constructs of science rather than the power of Italy’s history. As for Poe’s brief Cask of Amontillado, Italy seems to work only as an anchor—in fact, I am not thoroughly convinced the story even took place in Italy. Though the opening hints at an Italian setting, especially in addition to the continual mentioning of the Italian vintage wines, there really is no definitive descriptors save for the “Italian-ish” sounding names to leave me settled and confident. 

Reading Journal 1, Week 3

Reading The Italian, I am reminded of Shakespeare, and how the English preferred to use Italy as a place of scandal—a place taken by passion and distance, just foreign enough for all the madness and all the supernatural to seem normal and every day. This is what I think The Italian is emulating here. For example, in the opening, the Englishman is both shocked and outraged with the church for keeping and aiding an assassin, while the Italian friend smiles knowingly, naturally. And again, in the story supposed to constitute pure fact: a tale of a boy who denies his filial duty and throws himself, headlong, into danger and dishonor, taken by his passion for a girl the narrator admits Vivaldi barely knows, captured instead by the appealing features behind the veil, the sweet notes of her voice. And again, embodied in the elements of assassination and the almost inhuman qualities of the covert monk who consistently propels into the shadows, evading, The Italian uses Italy for its heightened sense of mystery and the reckless emotion still tied to the country as a whole. That being said, the only purely Italian architecture included (in specifics) are instances of a dock and shore, the constant presence of water, and the Roman arches—which serve less as a setting than as a place almost separate from the plane of reality, a realm of darkness and the potentially supernatural.  

Classmate Response 1, Week 2

Response to Thomas's Image Junkyard 3, Week 1:

So I'm going to pretend like Davidson didn't totally steal my moment to shine and comment on this. I think there are some interesting moments for delving into, which is one of my favorite things to look for in writing (remember when I said your friends will generally help you find what you're writing about--hi, I'm your friend). So yes, up the specificity a la Davidson, but now it's my turn. So I think you have two primarily interesting moments (and I imagine these two things go hand in hand) but these particular moments, I think, bring the greatest opportunity for depth in your work, the first being the phrase "cobblestones used for centuries" and the next being "American Viking." It's always a great deal of fun padding your awareness with the grandeur of history, which I recognize could be cliche, but the idea of narrowing that down to the streets, which have carried not only your feet but the feet of so many ancient Roman men and women (not to mention the sort everyday musing of where those feet were in a hurry to be—the market, the bathroom), it’d be a great deal of fun. Not to mention the amount of repair these buildings and streets go through, so the idea that where you're walking might be only partially real  (and "real" is a whole other can of worms, the idea of real, what defines real, so I obviously need to move on at this point). I also like the idea of combining Viking history and Roman history--a compare and contrast of their similarities, differences, and how all these things work together to create, as you put it "an American Viking". Also investigate how one might Americanize said history. Anyway, not necessarily all outlets you want to take right now, especially in one shot, but all of which are potential expansion possibilities.

Original Prompt 1, Week 2

I'm sorry, I'm really not following the instructions for the Original Prompt like I'm supposed to, but I find these I'm a little more interested in doing. I'll do better next time.

For this one, I wanted to dance around Anthony Hecht's A Hill, and improv it as if it was a formulaic process in order to see where I end up. So this is me trying to follow A Hill intimately. It was harder than it looks (even if it does follow Hecht so closely).

Love, as everyone already knows, only happens
in Italy, nothing at all like the Italian Affair or the whimsy
of the oppressable spirit. Perhaps not love at all.
In a bar with friends, more table than empty space,
in the cool grasp of late evening--a pummeled presence
of bodies, like rocks cast and abandoned in the livid rush
of men in bubble jackets and women whose dresses clasp
by the reluctant cooperation of a single bedazzled ring,
they all drink. The faded light and music
like the cathedrals around us swelter praise,
so that even the small shots of liquor taste
like mouthfuls of Heaven's soluble ferocity.
And then, where it happened, the dancing spun out
and the lights gust upwards, belly rings and alcohol stains
swiped away and all the bar collapsed, grounded
to particles of stone walls and splinters of wooden
flooring and in its place, sky--open and blue
and the flat consistency of well ground pavement
bouncing its tarred heat off apartment buildings
and empty lots--the quiet tension of afternoon
in summer, where, somewhere in shadow the brush
bursts with points and fat, bobbing heads of blackberries,
the sound of grass dives under foot as we climb
on the grassy section of hill to lay
the cardboard, a foundation beneath our bellies
and propel downward into the rush of grass and scene.

And that was all, the heat of adolescence
left abandoned forever, as time often does.

And then the twirl moved through as my clumsy feet
twisted around the shuffling legs of another dancer
and for the entire night I wrap myself in tendrils
of sweaty intimacy, which sprouted faint rings
as natural as fingerprints into my palms
and all that dancing so unlike me, but like that hillside,
I grasp for the glittering glass behind the bar
and let its cobbled streets and creaking chairs
weave wrinkles into me.

Memory 1, Week 2

Following on the tangent of horrible genius memories.

It was report card day. While the rest of my peers sat anxious and hot in the almost naked concrete classroom, I twittered with anticipation--a sort of self-satisfied haze at the successful achievement of my good, though ultimately meaningless, grades. When I made it home, my sister and I, always desperate to please (which was a seldom occurence--my stepmother often ruled her home with this ravenous scowl, always seeking satisfaction but never truly achieving it, which creased her cheeks with pulls of failed desire) we went immediately home to show off our report cards. My sister was especially jittery in her excitement (she always has the biggest smile, my sister, which expands the narrow length of her face strangely and almost severely when she's happy) because she had brought her failing science grade up to a C, which was a major accomplishment that my parents drove her to agony over for weeks (if I remember correctly, they took away every scrap of technology until she brought the grade up). I chose a level-headed coolness at the success of my own report card. My stepmother is a tiny woman, but when she's judging you, which is almost all the time, she seems to grow somehow. She took my sister's report card in her hand and scrutinized it with the same hungry folds, teetering and towering. Her mouth grasped satisfaction as she congratulated my sister, showering her with praises and congratulations. My sister glowed in the rare praise. She set down my sister's and I handed her mine. She looked at me and the smile left her face. "What did you get, all A's and B's again?" I nodded. All A's. My accomplishment diminished. She didn't even look at it as she set the paper on the countertop.

Image Junkyard 1-4, Week 2

1. A bubbled array of grafitti, glimpses from the window where the bright pinks pop and the blues blister their shape into the wall--barely recognizable words: Shake, Vortex. Scratches of paint under rooftops.

2. The deli counter of an Italian gas station--the slight musk of sweating meat and salt as the cashier pops her tongue against the butter yellow backdrop, existing between stacks of Japanese snacks and hulking thighs of pork.

3. Branches outside the train car, straining their arms over terracotta rooftops and veined power lines. They break and an alleyway of water yawns, full-bodied and green, stagnant but in a way that's awesome predatorial, waiting to smother the man and his bike that teeters on some muddy embankment staring towards the train tracks, dots of red and blue.

4. Coolness of Spoleto's stars grinding against the bar's heat. Trampling off-beat in a clumsy circle, the music took my sweat and swelter. Grinding air. Jerking hips.

Reportage 1, Week 2

Wrinkles zig zag down the back of his berry-colored shirt as the waiter weaves in and out of my vision, setting down tall glasses for the prosecco. His arms fling backwards, spread like victory, as the rush of his excited Italian climbs into a squeak and wheeze. His company spreads her already wide, pink mouth with understanding, though her eyes reveal nothing in the gradated lens of her sunglasses. She brings a manicured hand up to the large waves in her hair and the nails glitter bright as poppies. The fingers curl and wait there in the tangle of her tresses while her other hand works a fork over the appetizers. Again the waiter dives in, prim and dark in a perfectly pressed suit. He sets a plate of bread down on the edge of the table. The man with the berry-shirt calms slightly, reaches for a napkin and wipes his face. His feet shift just as the waiter disappears again, and then, almost as if timed he balls his napkins and his arms take up bending and swinging, like a dance or a sort of scale battling release. His companion tightens her lips and looks down at her plate. Her eyes remain unseen, but from the tilt of her head and the slow, pronounced way she chews, she no longer looks invested. 

Reading Journal 2, Week 2

I have a difficult time embracing the second person, so I will refer to the protagonist as “Laura” rather than myself. However, I will say that, in terms of setting, I greatly enjoyed the centrality of Italy to the work—it was literally like a snapshot of all the great things Italy had to offer without the tourist-heavy “must see the sights, seek the experience” feel. Laura actively struggled against and avoided tourism, and through this displayed a knowledge of both her Italian surroundings and people she met there that made the story seem a great deal more intimate and genuine. Fraser’s version of Italy, from my experience, is more real than any version of Italy we’ve met thus far down to the friends and characters we meet (Nina, Lucia) to the locations we see (Naples, Florence); Fraser is unafraid to examine all the beautiful, the ugly, and even the stereotypical aspects of Italy. I rarely know how Italians feel about their own culture and the representations of it. I imagine it would be like me witnessing American representations—like there is always that trace of something that is not quite right, just a little off—but based on my own experiences I feel that Fraser’s setting is so lush with understanding and appreciation for the highs (it’s beauty and attractions) and lows (its occasionally shotty construction, its heavy crime) that surely even Italians can look at this story and recognize some small part of their own Italy. 

Classmate Response 1, Week 1

In Response to Megan's Original Prompt 2, Week 1:

I really enjoy the sort of heightened approach you take to this rather matter of fact moment, and I appreciate the incorporation of Italian imagery into your narrative. There's a wonderful dreaminess to this entry and I think the challenge here is finding a balance between the vivid and the concrete. There are moments when my understanding falters. Also, before I unpack these moments, is the spelling of Marlboro as Marlborough intentional? I see it as a sort of play on Luca's accent, his tongue's understand of English, and I like it a lot but I feel like that needs to be either pointed out or played out more. Now, going back to what I said earlier, let's take St. Francis for instance. There seems to be a lot of comparisons going on in that first sentence. The cigarette in his (Luca's) hand is like a pigeon in a hole--which is quirky and I like it. But then we talk about nonsensical perches, and St. Francis preaching--is he preaching holes? Is he preaching to the pigeons? I get a little lost there. And again in the wonderful image of the Mary fresco, where I get lost in the exact details but I enjoy the idea of the fading life in her, where the artwork is supposed to represent this eternalness. In fact, I would say that of the two similes, the Mary one works best. Also, at the end you write that you and Luca are both getting what you want—I’d like to see a connection formed between how you are both getting what you want in that moment and how that ties in to the idea of art, in which what you take out of it is what you want to take out of it kind of thing. 

Original Prompt 1, Week 1

Rather than being inspired by a reading, I decided to rework the "a place in Spoleto calisthenic" we received last class because I was disappointed in the result I got.

La piazza Girabaldi--where the low hang of caffe clutches the passing spin of exhaust. Le machine, ballerinas in arabesque, twist on their tires, hit the sharp corner and bound in a spin of wheels. We discover safety at a patio table near the Gelateria and tongue a sound much like the soft mumble of a gelato spoon scraping a cup--that small shovel digging for pleasure. We mouth Italian words, try to imitate the twirl and lull around us. Mi chaimo...di dove sei... Here, no one notices us--no one stares or wonders, cares what we whisper across the table, "sono Americano." A fat fly dunks into a splatter of fragola, drinks the creamy beads before lift off, wavers--a hefty bob around the maze of chairs and tables topped with espresso cups and napkin balls. Your fingers work the curtain of your forehead, smoothes, crinkles, bubbles up a slight groan. Why did we come here anyway? The art of the tongue, the taste of something foreign is so hard to detect as it begins in your mouth. He dives, perhaps loses control, and scrapes his wings on the wisps of your brunnette neckline. Traipses, recovers, then dodges as your hand nearly finds him there. You sigh, no longer caring for speech, instead your hand brushes where the fly once was, scraping the fading traces of Italy from your neck.

Reading Journal 1, Week 2

In “A Room with the View” the characters and their shortcomings are the most central addition to the conflict, but Italy does function as a prevalent setting in which its surroundings distort and later misconstrue Lucy’s perceptions of the ancient “civil/barbarian” binary. Of course, Lucy (the protagonist) is only able to tackle this altered reception of civility via a facilitated approach through the characters George and his father (the British tourists), who view the world rather bluntly and through less socially (and religiously) acceptable spectacles. Italy, rather than functioning as the sole place of her change, instead operates as a sort of charting mechanism that illustrates the steps and different approaches Lucy undertakes in seeing Florence and all its sights—she progresses from the Baedeker toting tourist, to the active engager, and later, to the lone traveler—an incident that resulted in, perhaps climatically, the moment in which everything changed for her; Lucy faces death and in doing so, exchanges a degree of vulnerability and youthful understanding with the Other, George. As well, the sort of agreeability she displays with the more snub-nosed presences of her cousins and the prim people around her falters as her intimacy with Italy and the plight of the Italian people progresses.  

Reportage 1, Week 1

There’s an inherent coolness to Spoleto, different to the typical rainy day in the States. The sky, a puffy shade of gray, twirls, as it always does, with the promise of downpour. The birds twitter somewhere far off while a man gargles a microphone, even farther. To my left, a flock of old people (balding men with heads like cul-de-sacs, women with faces that collapse on their cheeks) bunch on patio chairs waiting for a mass bike ride. They talk to each other as one of the elderly ladies falls back into a chair with a groan straight from the movies.  I wonder what the man on the speaker is saying, his voice sounds hollow, grumbling but serious. I think of old war movies, the disastrous man on the microphone—I dream of emergency, while the old people laugh, brushing their knuckles on their bare knees, smoothing the hem of their shorts, while the sky continues swirling in its endless layer of gray, and the birds continue trying to out-sing the microphone. The maid sweeps by, a small pail of dirt in her hands, the bucket as green as the hills somewhere behind me, in front of me. She bends over and her black dress chokes her thighs. She dumps the gritty flecks over the branches of a freshly potted bush, and I’m reminded of Umbrian rain again. 

Junkyard Quotes 1-4, Week 1

On the plane.

From Frankfurt to Rome.

1. Land like tiny knit squares--symmetrical rows of neutrals, browns, beiges and reds.
2. Grazing through cloud heads accented with gray--like white light cut through by the plane's wing.
3. Mountains, like great waves crashing through the clouds, frozen under the weight of their icy caps.
4. The clouds dabble and reveal some small blob of metropolis--all house tops and metallic cars.

Memory 1, Week 1

It sounds egotistical, but I never actually wanted to be smart. Back in the 90s, when everyone still decked themselves in denim coats and shoulder pads, my teachers would bend around the midriff of their zigzag print dresses to whisper, as if the shock could be too much to handle, that I was (did I know it) “gifted.” Looking back, the word "gifted" sounds like telling a child that at any moment their parents could return them for store credit, which was highly likely, since I was a child who liked to stain my mom's expensive white couch with tubs of vanilla ice cream. So, I was gifted. I was "something special," and once every year my school's counselor would take me from my classroom to place me in a concrete-brick box for ten minutes. A room sectioned off with a small table and a couple chairs across from one another, color indiscernible, everything tinged with the orange-red of a shotty incandescent bulb. It was in this room that they would make me read the same paragraph every year and ask me in multiple choice questions about the domestication of camels, about the history of the Middle East. And I, probably no more than seven for any of these occurrences, couldn’t help but think that domestication must was some code word for torture, boxed in the administrator’s eyes, circling my answers, hoping for any sign of approval in her never-budging smile. I never got one, and when I finished, they would take my test, envelope it, and send me back to class, lost in some crazy, burnt-orange dream.

Reading Journal 1, Week 1

In "Two in Campagna," Rome plays a role that initially appears minor, but because of its architectural significance, sparks in the narrator a sort of metaphorical yearning--a desire to obtain something, but a desire always eluded. In this case Italy is characterized by its nature's tendency to overthrow as well as to blanket the past successes--in this case, to grass over empirical greatness with natural dominance, to emphasize and become "Rome's ghost since her decease."  The speaker appears to grappling with his need to love the "you" in the piece, but ends up turning away--though I am unsure if that is of his own agency or through reminder of a sort of previous denial set by the "you" prior to the piece. I will say that there seems to be some sort of blame placed in the metaphorical image of Italy. The spider web for instance, some phenomenon marking the Italian landscape that the speaker notes for its elusiveness: "I touched a thought, I know, / Has tantalized me many times, / Like turns of thread the spiders throw" (6-8). And again he returns to that spider's thread in the closing stanza: "Where is the thread now? Off again! / The old trick!" (61-62). Thus likening his disdained heart to the Italian countryside, suggesting both a trickery and slipperiness to Italy's brilliance. 

Shelley, on the other hand, seems to take a more heightened approach to his portrayal of Italy. Italy is not unobtainable, but sinful, a place ruled by Sin and Death. It leads the narrator to a state of disgust, as he states that the only way for the Earth to be restored is by wiping it away. I can't help but to wonder how Italians approach Shelley, considering they lumped him into a museum with Keats; his disdain for the Italian community and landscape seems so overwhelming, it confuses me why they would even celebrate him in that fashion. 

First Impressions

Boxed cars zip through car lanes, weave and dodge in a dangerous race. Lush green hills and rows of gold tumble through the bus window. Something feels warm inside, like the wide faces of the red poppies dotting the ground--otherwise everything, all at once, seems foreign and familiar--car lot after car lot, like some great automobile machination, spewing rows of square cars, the ever-present bright blue graffiti traveling roadside on the medians. But different--a language I can't quite understand so that I grasp the big, bubbled letters of "Hot Boys" plastered over and over like something sacred, written across the concrete bridge and along glass panels marked with three black bird stickers. This will be home I realize. Home, which sounds like a sharp-tongued cashier, tapping my card on the countertop, grumbling about how I used a card for 90 cent acqua. Tastes like the rocky-taste of bubbles popping from my gassed water, how it settled warm and unappreciated on my tongue. Strange, unfamiliar, but then the smells, the feel of the cool, honest air rolling through the open window, coupled with the clang of Italian laughter and then the smoke from the pizza restaurant--about as American as a barbecue pit--if barbecue cooked in partially open courtyards and was prepared behind thick glass windows.

Italy Cliches, Pre-Arrival

When I think of Italy, I see pizza, spaghetti, the leaning towers and coliseums. I see blocks of fabulous people dressed in Italian leather shoes, guys brushing their fingers through their thick, black hair. I see years of being told what to expect, what I might find--piles upon piles on Italian-ish media and Giadda de Laurentiis-style cooking. I think that I can't wait to eat, that the streets should smell like olive oil and tomato sauce. I envision grape vines and hillsides. I envision accents, heavy with hands.

And speaking of hands, I remember my aunt, sitting me down to watch some terrible reality show in which a woman gets her ass pinched by an Italian man. Why? It was a compliment, she told me. It was because he liked her rump. My aunt swears this happens all the time and that it might happen to me too, though I have informed her many times my ass is less than impressive. Still, I would like to go ahead and throw this into the cliches for the pure hilarity of this situation. 

Expectations, Pre-Arrival

My first time being acquainted with Italy was probably in some angsty, children's book--Bloomability, I think but that probably isn't right, where one of the characters was Italian and would talk about the duality of the word "ciao". It was unrelentingly romantic and I feel like, somehow, that book has embedded itself so deeply into my childhood psyche that my adulthood self expects something romantic out of this visit too. Not necessarily in the emotional, loving sense--despite what everyone at work keeps telling me, I do not plan on getting impregnated in an Italian fling--but something beautiful instead, something, and though I dread to say it, magical. I want to walk into Italy and be inspired. I realize that's a sort of American tourist-y thing for me to expect, like I'm entitled to be wowed upon arrival--but everyone around me sets Italy up to be this fantastic, gorgeous place full of life and love and I can't help but to want a piece of that to take home with me.


I suppose I'm expecting Italy to impress me where my own experiences so far have not. When I try to write, I often feel like my own emotional experiences are rather lackluster and the setting is often irrelevant and absent. I want a setting. With that said, realize my standards have been set up as pretty high for Italy so far. We grow up hearing about this place in books, movies. I can't help the ideas I have about it. I suppose my greatest fascination with Italy derives from my interest in art--Florence, home of the Renaissance. I want to see a Caravaggio so bad I would willingly pinch a baby for it--and I hate hearing children cry; it hurts. So I guess as far as physical expectations go, that's what I aim for--a Caravaggio, in my face, immediately. I want it to confirm my worst fears and I want it to make me feel inadequate.