Symposium Day Review: "What I Should've Said: Poetry Collections"

During 5th period of Symposium Day today, I went to the session, "What I Should've Said: Poetry Collections," of which Mr. Garces Kiley was the faculty advisor. Six Year 2 girls, who had all both taken Mr. Kiley's poetry workshop and/or did poetry with him as their independent study this semester, read a collection of their poems aloud, and briefly explained their motives and feelings behind each poem.

But to be honest, what interested me more then the poetry itself was the panel discussion that the girls had after presenting. It was wonderful to hear about how much poetry meant to each of them even beyond it being initiated in the realm of school and required work. One girl, I remember, mentioned how poetry is sort of "theraputic" for her, which I've felt before and I think is such a wonderful idea. It almost matters less what the poem is actually saying, but how the poem is a particular way of channelling and expressing emotions, and how each girl used their poems as outlets of expression. Often students do work for school because it's required, but it was so refreshing to see the genuine interest that all these girls had in poetry and in learning more about themselves through writing poetry.

What's special about a poem is that it's often very vague. And because us readers often don't know what's really going on, or what exact experience the poet is honing in too, the poem actually says more about the poet him/her self that about the actual content. This was really evident in the presentation because we got to here from six very different poets. The girls mentioned how when workshopping with each other, they really noticed how they each had really distinct styles, more so then they would've expected. And that was even clear when they were presenting. They each used the poetic form to express something different, to channel in on their own feelings, to explore the past, the present, and a year of nostalgia.

It was really a great presentation, and I would love to take the poetry course that they all did when I'm a Year 1/2.

3rd Draft of Style Essay

***(Insert somewhere) Writing is typically composed of two essential factors or components: style and content. The content is the facts, the material, what actually happened, while the style is the medium, the approach, the technique.

In Junot Diaz’s Drown, he writes ten different short stories whose various themes range from family crisis to betrayed love. Each story appears to have its own plot, its own characters, its own narrator: from “Fiesta, 1980,” which revolves around the tension of family and how enhanced that becomes at family gatherings, to “Aurora,” all about a young man’s yearning for a girl in the midst of drugs and vandalism. Not only do his stories shift in content, but Diaz also uses a multitude writing styles that change from story to story, even page to page: poetic sophistication, intimacy with the reader, the use of objective correlatives, and many more.

Yet, only once we look deeper do we see traces of the same themes pop up in each story. We notice many recurring characters, similar issues, and similar emotions that it seems  Diaz is actually tackling the same themes and issues throughout the whole of his book. But although the content is often the same in all of Diaz’s stories, the styles in which he explores and navigates the content greatly vary, so much so that we almost miss the connection. In addition, his format of short stories would lead us to initially think that each one stands on its own, yet when thoroughly investigated it seems that they’re in fact related. So if Diaz’s styles are so numerous and varied, yet the stories seem to thematically connect, what is the relationship between his style and his content? How do they relate to each other, depend on each other, work together?

One way to consider this is to see that these stories really aren’t isolated from one another, but each one a distinct method or lens that Diaz uses to reflect on and explore the journey of a young boy, Yunior, and his encounters, experiences, challenges, and more over the course of his early life. Furthermore, Diaz’s his wistful form and serious content are so inextricable and intimately intertwined that isn’t possible to disconnect the two, but only to acknowledge and embrace them as one. Evidently, it is not style and content that coexist but rather form and content that fuse together to form a style. Thus, Diaz embodies many styles in his book, because as his form changes from story to story, so does his style. He uses the power of form by using poetry, metaphors, analogies and more to weave together a tale so intricately layered with thoughts and emotions and experiences. So rather than trying to pinpoint or label Diaz’s style, it is more effective to observe and analyze his writing as a whole, and explore how he idiosyncratically integrates his content and his form to reveal and present his stories.

First and foremost, Diaz’s way of introducing details alters our reactions and interpretations of the events within the stories. He has a consistent style of messing with the order of revealing information, both with the order of the stories themselves, and even within the actual stories. In the 2nd chapter “Fiesta, 1980,” he welcomes us into the book by informing us of Yunior’s familial situation in America, and their relationship with their father. So when we read “Aguantando” at the very end of the book and we go back in time to learn about the family’s journey of getting to America,  it makes it all the more heartbreaking to see their family all as one when we know they’ve had all those bumps in the road....

Diaz’s style, if one were to try to name it, is like a chameleon.

Diaz has a way of using seemingly unimportant, everyday details to represent something much deeper (pool table, gingko tree in “Edison, New Jersey”).

Objective correlatives are a prime example of how not only are Diaz’s form and content inseperable, but his form actually effects the content.

Diaz’s ever changing form continues to alter his content in “Ysrael” and “No Face.”

Something interesting also enters the picture when we define style, which is most commonly done by using the idea of genres to classify writing. Because this book is labeled as a “memoir,” we are making instant assumptions about the story, and about Diaz himself. But would it change our reading of the text if it was “fiction,” per se? The effect of the stories on the readers would change, and maybe even alter our interpretation on the content and messages of the literature. As Edna St. Vincent Millay said in 1925, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down.” When sharing any of their writing with the public, authors put themselves at stake for judgment and critique by their audience. And a book is most reflective of the author–or at least we assume so–when it is labeled as a memoir. So as readers, all the experiences that we see Yunior going through, we assume they come directly from Diaz’s life. But how is it fair to place a bounding, limiting box onto Diaz and his abilities as an author? Diaz could very well be exaggerating things, expanding on things, adding things to help create a sort of mood or affect. But does that break the rules and requirements of a “memoir”? Many would argue that it does. And this shows how tricky and restrictive it can be to place a name or category onto a style.

Diaz also blurs the line between fiction and the real when he uses fantasy as a way to reveal information about the characters and there emotions (Aguantando fantasy moment).

Diaz claims he wants to “make some mirrors so kids like [him] might see themselves reflected back.” Although he has the power to create this “mirror,” he portrays himself and people like him in a way that’s seemingly negative, what with drugs, intense family issues and scandals, and other things that would seem to reflect poorly on his culture. But maybe this is the truth. This is his life; this is not a peace of fiction that tries to artificially represent a group of people. Diaz is raw, honest, and truthful, but also poetic, lyrical, and intimate. He uses the power of style not to alter and hide the truth, but to embrace it and get in touch with its reality.

So really, in Diaz’s book there is no raw truth. There are no stripped down, naked facts. There is only what he gives us, which is his own spin on the truth. But is it reliable? Is it the truth? Can content exist outside of style? Everybody, every author, every person, tells their tale in their own unique way. But no matter who claims they have unbiased information, direct records, or the truth, everything we’ll ever see of anything will always have some sort of spin on it. So what can we call the truth? Did his dad really abandon his family the way Yunior claims he did? Did his mom really disappear for a while for the reasons Yunior claims she did? Will we ever know? Does it even matter? We have to treat his story as his own, personal truth. (Does the way Diaz/Yunior write about the events in his life affect our take away from the stories? Of course.)

2nd Draft of Style Essay

For the radical revisions, I worked a lot on my claim, and also my introduction as a whole. I also tried to generate some missing text in some parts, and now know what I have to do to generate the missing text for the rest of my essay.

-

Writing is typically composed of two essential factors or components: style and content. The content is the facts, the material, what actually happened, while the style is the medium, the approach, the technique.

In Junot Diaz’s Drown, he tackles the same themes and issues throughout his story. Yet the ways in which he explores and navigates them greatly vary from story to story, even page to page. So although the content is the same in many parts of the book, the styles in which the content is relayed are so different that we almost miss the connection. And furthermore, when trying to extract his style in order to replicate and mimick it, it became seemingly impossible to separate it from the content. It seemed almost as if they were combined, So what is the relationship between style and content? How do they relate to each other, depend on each other, work together?

Content is a part of style. It is not style and content that coexist but rather form and content that fuse together to form a style. In Diaz’s novel, his form and his content are so inextricable and intimately intertwined that isn’t possible to disconnect the two, but only to acknowledge and embrace them as one. Furthermore, it is not just one distinct style that Diaz embodies in his book, but many. He uses the power of poetry, metaphors, analogies, and more to weave together a tale so intricately layered with thoughts and emotions and experiences. Rather than trying to pinpoint or label Diaz’s style, it is more effective to observe and analyze his writing as a whole, and explore how he idiosyncratically integrates his content and his form to reveal and present his stories.

In Diaz’s book, he explores similar themes repeatedly throughout his story. But although the content is similar/even the same, the styles in which he explores the themes are so different that we almost don’t make the connection. So the way he tackles his themes hugely affects the content of the story: or at least, it affects the effect of the content. The very first chapter of the story, “Ysrael,” revolves around Yunior and Rafa’s encounter with Ysrael, the boy who’s face was scratched and destroyed by a pig when he was very young, as he describes to the reader while he watches Rafa beat Ysrael up. Eight stories later in “No Face, we read about a boy who always wears a mask to cover up his face. And halfway into the chapter, when we start to make the connection from story to story, Diaz, or rather the narrator, gives us a different description of the same event from “Ysrael.” Although the content is the same, the styles in which the content is relayed are so different that we almost miss the connection. (***go further 

deeper into each of the styles.)

Something interesting also enters the picture when we define style, which is most commonly done by using the idea of genres to classify writing. Because this book is labeled as a “memoir,” we are making instant assumptions about the story, and about Diaz himself. But would it change our reading of the text if it was “fiction,” per se? The effect of the stories on the readers would change, and maybe even alter our interpretation on the content and messages of the literature. As Edna St. Vincent Millay said in 1925, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down.” When sharing any of their writing with the public, authors put themselves at stake for judgment and critique by their audience. And a book is most reflective of the author–or at least we assume so–when it is labeled as a memoir. So as readers, all the experiences that we see Yunior going through, we assume they come directly from Diaz’s life. But how is it fair to place a bounding, limiting box onto Diaz and his abilities as an author? Diaz could very well be exaggerating things, expanding on things, adding things to help create a sort of mood or affect. But does that break the rules and requirements of a “memoir”? Many would argue that it does. And this shows how tricky and restrictive it can be to place a name or category onto a style.

Writers often run into difficulty when trying to mimic styles. When we were told to use Diaz’s style to write our own creative pieces, I found myself hesitant and confused out of the fear that it wouldn’t work because our content was so different. My story had none of the heartbreak, family drama, or immigration struggles that Diaz’s stories tackle, and I found it nearly impossible to separate his style, his way of writing, from his pure content.

Diaz’s way of introducing details alters our reactions and interpretations of the events within the stories. He has a consistent style of messing with the order of revealing information, both with the order of the stories themselves, and even within the actual stories. In the 2nd chapter “Fiesta, 1980,” he welcomes us into the book by informing us of Yunior’s familial situation in America, and their relationship with their father. So when we read “Aguantando” at the very end of the book and we go back in time to learn about the family’s journey of getting to America,  it makes it all the more heartbreaking to see their family all as one when we know they’ve had all those bumps in the road....

Diaz claims he wants to “make some mirrors so kids like [him] might see themselves reflected back.” Although he has the power to create this “mirror,” he portrays himself and people like him in a way that’s seemingly negative, what with drugs, intense family issues and scandals, and other things that would seem to reflect poorly on his culture. But maybe this is the truth. This is his life; this is not a peace of fiction that tries to artificially represent a group of people. Diaz is raw, honest, and truthful, but also poetic, lyrical, and intimate. He uses the power of style not to alter and hide the truth, but to embrace it and get in touch with its reality.

Definitiely explore more how form changes content.

In Diaz’s book there is no raw truth. There are no stripped down, naked facts. There is only what he gives us, which is his own spin on the truth. But is it reliable? Is it the truth? Can content exist outside of style? Everybody, every author, every person, tells their tale in their own unique way. But no matter who claims they have unbiased information, direct records, or the truth, everything we’ll ever see of anything will always have some sort of spin on it. So what can we call the truth? Did his dad really abandon his family the way Yunior claims he did? Did his mom really disappear for a while for the reasons Yunior claims she did? Will we ever know? Does it even matter? We have to treat his story as his own, personal truth. Does the way Diaz/Yunior write about the events in his life affect our take away from the stories? Of course.

Explore more some of the actual “forms” that Diaz uses (objective correlatives, metaphors, poetry, fantasy).

Letter to Riya

Dear Riya,

After reading your first draft, it seems that your center of gravity is that Diaz writes in this messy, unique, intricate, non-traditional style because by doing so, he is able to create intimacy and empathy with his readers. You argue that Diaz wants readers to connect to the characters, and does so by forcing us to "place ourselves into the character's shoes." You have a fascinating idea that because we readers have to take the vague, indirect details that Diaz gives us and piece them together ourselves, that in turn makes the story more personal.

You have a very strong claim, and are on your way to finding some great evidence and support. I want to know more about how we are able to "step into the narrators shoes," as you say. You give some descriptions in your claim, but I want more details, more contextual evidence. One interesting idea that we talked about in class that you could expand on is how Diaz, although he knows what will happen in every chapter because he's lived these stories, still writes as if he's experiencing the story in the moment; he writes as if he's reliving it. Why is that? Maybe he wants his readers to experience the events and feel the emotions just as he did in the moment. He creates this intimacy, this closeness, as if he wants the reader to be his friend, be on his level, if that makes sense. Like we said in class, he seems to recreate the relationship between the author and the reader, in a way that greatly strays away from the traditional role of the author in most stories. Maybe how he writes in first person could be evidence for this.

I would say the big thing for you to go deeper in now is how Diaz does all these things. You have strong start with evidence, but I think you need to go further with "how." Otherwise, just add more evidence, finish your body paragraphs, and you're set! Great work.

-Lola

Raw Draft

Lola Lafia
Raw Draft
Due: May 21^st, 2015

**I am having trouble finding ways to connect my ideas back to Diaz, so if you could keep that in mind as you read this, that would be helpful.

Claims (I think...)

Style changes content

Content cannot exist outside of style.

In Diaz’s book there is no raw truth. There are no stripped down, naked facts. There is only what he gives us, which is his own spin on the truth. But is it reliable? Is it the truth? Can content exist outside of style? Everybody, every author, every person, tells their tale in their own unique way. But no matter who claims they have unbiased information, direct records, or the truth, everything we’ll ever see of anything will always have some sort of spin on it.

So what can we call the truth? Did his dad really abandon his family the way Yunior claims he did? Did his mom really disappear for a while for the reasons Yunior claims she did? Will we ever know? Does it even matter? We have to treat his story as his own, personal truth.

Does the way Diaz/Yunior write about the events in his life affect our take away from the stories? Of course.

(Body paragraphs // supppor)

- In Diaz’s book, he explores similar themes repeatedly throughout his story. But although the content is similar/even the same, the styles in which he explores the themes are so different that we almost don’t make the connection. So the way he tackles his themes hugely affects the content of the story: or at least, it affects the effect of the content. The very first chapter of the story, “Ysrael,” revolves around Yunior and Rafa’s encounter with Ysrael, the boy who’s face was scratched and destroyed by a pig when he was very young, as he describes to the reader while he watches Rafa beat Ysrael up. Eight stories later in “No Face, we read about a boy who always wears a mask to cover up his face. And halfway into the chapter, when we start to make the connection from story to story, Diaz, or rather the narrator, gives us a different description of the same event from “Ysrael.” Although the content is the same, the styles in which the content is relayed are so different that we almost miss the connection. (***go further deeper into each of the styles.)

- We see this cognitive dissonance (right phrase?) again even within the single story of “Aguantando” (discuss the mom’s anticipation of papi coming, and Yunior and Rafa’s “fantasies.”)

- Something interesting also enters the picture when we define style, which is most commonly done by using the idea of genres to classify writing. Because this book is labeled as a “memoir,” we are making instant assumptions about the story, and about Diaz himself. But would it change our reading of the text if it was “fiction,” per se? The effect of the stories on the readers would change, and maybe even alter our interpretation on the content and messages of the literature. As Edna St. Vincent Millay said in 1925, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down.” When sharing any of their writing with the public, authors put themselves at stake for judgment and critique by their audience. And a book is most reflective of the author–or at least we assume so–when it is labeled as a memoir. So as readers, all the experiences that we see Yunior going through, we assume they come directly from Diaz’s life. But how is it fair to place a bounding, limiting box onto Diaz and his abilities as an author? Diaz could very well be exaggerating things, expanding on things, adding things to help create a sort of mood or affect. But does that break the rules and requirements of a “memoir”? Many would argue that it does. And this shows how tricky and restrictive it can be to place a name or category onto a style.

- Writers often run into difficulty when trying to mimic styles. When we were told to use Diaz’s style to write our own creative pieces, I found myself hesitant and confused out of the fear that it wouldn’t work because our content was so different. My story had none of the heartbreak, family drama, or immigration struggles that Diaz’s stories tackle, and I found it nearly impossible to separate his style, his way of writing, from his pure content.

- So it seems to be that style and content are not counterparts or even on the same level in the hypothetical “guide to writing” pyramid. Content is a part of style. It is not style and content that coexist but rather form and content that fuse together to form a style. Form is the power that we have over content; it’s our only way of altering and influencing it. But form and content are both equal parts of style and come hand in hand: you cannot have one without the other.

- Diaz’s way of introducing details alters our reactions and interpretations of the events within the stories. He has a consistent style of messing with the order of revealing information, both with the order of the stories themselves, and even within the actual stories. In the first chapter “Ysrael,” he welcomes us into the book by informing us of Yunior’s familial situation and his father’s absence in his life. So when we read chapter two, “Fiesta 1980,” it makes it all the more heartbreaking to see their family all as one when we know they’ve had all those bumps in the road.... (wait I just realized this doesn’t make sense because Ysrael actually did happen before Fiesta 1980.... I’m thinking of another example but I can’t remember it right now...)

- Diaz claims he wants to “make some mirrors so kids like [him] might see themselves reflected back.” Although he has the power to create this “mirror,” he portrays himself and people like him in a way that’s seemingly negative, what with drugs, intense family issues and scandals, and other things that would seem to reflect poorly on his culture. But maybe this is the truth. This is his life; this is not a peace of fiction that tries to artificially represent a group of people. Diaz is raw, honest, and truthful, but also poetic, lyrical, and intimate. He uses the power of style not to alter and hide the truth, but to embrace it and get in touch with its reality.

Tree Map (With Center of Gravity)

Text Exploration & Dig In

Btw, I just discovered my deeper question... Does content exist outside of style?


Text Exploration

Since I'm experimenting with style versus content, I chose two passages that seem to be about the same event–they have the same content–but are written in completely different ways–they have different styles.

(Ysrael, Page 19) Rafa has just beat up Ysrael. Ysrael is on the floor, Rafa is kicking and beating him, and Yunior is just watching.

"His left ear was a nub and you could see the thick veined slab of his tongue through a hole in his cheek. He had no lips. his head was tipped back and his eyes had gone white and the cords were out on his neck. He'd been an infant when the pig had come into the house. The damage 2 looked old but I still jumped back and said, Please Rafa, let's go! Rafa crouched and using only two of his fingers, turned Ysrael's head from side to side."

The section ends.

1) Diaz writes this passage as fairly objective and description based, which is interesting because we'd normally expect there to be some more emotion // reaction for such a traumatic event like this, particularly from the narrator.

2) The OED defines damage as "loss or detriment caused by hurt or injury affecting estate, condition, or circumstances." The damage to Ysrael's face has affected his circumstances, but in fact, those circumstances have been created by other people's reactions to the damage more than the damage itself. The OED also defines it as an injury that "impairs its value or usefulness." Wow... this almost feels offensive. Is it even fair to call Ysrael's injury "damage," if that has a connotation of degradation?


(No Face, Page 157) It's the beginning of a new section; seems almost like a flashback? Clearly not from the present moment; referring to something that happened in the past.

"On some nights he opens his eyes and the pig has come back. Always huge and pale. Its hooves peg his chest down adn he can smell the curdled bananas on its breath. Blunt teeth rip a strip from under his eye and the muscle revealed is delicious, like lechosa. He turns his head to save one side of his face; in some dreams he saves his right side and in some his left but in the worst ones he cannot turn his head, its mouth is like a pothole and nothing can escape it. When he awakens he's screaming and blood runs down his neck; he's bitten his tongue and it swells and he cannot sleep again until he tells himself to be a man."

The section ends.

1) Who is the narrator here? It's not Ysrael because it refers to him in the 3rd person, but the story itself is narrated in first person because there are 2/3 times where an "I" is mentioned. Does this mean that Yunior is the narrator? If so, than the analysis of the event here in "No Face" is much deeper and more detailed and thoughtful that the description from "Ysrael." Yunior has matured a lot.

2) What is the point of this story? If it's not literally about Yunior, what can we learn about Yunior from reading this? Is Ysrael and his condition a metaphor for something deeper?

3) This style/form of conveying this information, as opposed to the style in "Ysrael," has a unique effect. It makes the reader more sympathetic towards Ysrael not only because it is more detailed, but the depth and the seriousness and the intensity of the details have increased. It also causes us to think solely about Ysrael himself, as opposed to the constant need for a comparison to Yunior that occurred in the description from "Ysrael."


Dig In

Self interview:

1) I am thinking about the relationship between style and content. I'm thinking that content cannot exist outside of style; the two come hand in hands.
2) Why? Because it's impossible to have one without the style. You can't have a style without any content to work off of, and you can't have content without implementing a style in the way you relay that content.
3) & 4)  In Junot Diaz's "Drown," his stories reflect consistent and repetitive themes–after all, it is his life, and similary things often pop up. But further more, in each story, and sometimes even within each story, the content is relayed in a unique style. You may see something on page 6 and then on page 181 read something and then come back to it and realize, huh, I read about this before! But you almost missed the connection of events because the style and form in which the content was portrayed had a completely different effect on you.
5) Clearly, not only do the two work together, but style influences // affects content. In fact, I think style is actually a much broader idea. I've been referring to it as being simply the means, the medium in which content is relayed. But I think content actually falls under the category of style. Content is a part of style. There is form and content. Those are the two factors. And you can't have one without the other. So together, they form a style. Style really means form and content. They have constant and vital affects on one another.

Instant Writing:

I did this in my notebook so it could be more of a flow chart, but it turned out to just be ideas all floating on a page. I think it was very helpful though, because as soon as I thought of something, I just wrote it down. It's a bit messy because I can't write as fast as I think!

Due 5/15/15

1) Stop, Reflect, Gather Leads

Firstly, here is some of the writing // brainstorming I've done since my proposal.

 

**Leads are in bold.

After writing for a bit, I now see that I'm interested in writing about the relationship and interplay between Diaz's style and his content, which makes me want to understand how they work together to create, alter, effect, and influence his writing. One way to consider this is to acknowledge the repetitive occurrence of themes like family and friendships, for example, yet to also see how the different styles//ways these topics are explored and written about have different effects on the content of the themes.


2) Dialectical Notes

Proposal & Idea Web

I'm really interested in writing about the relationship between style and content. I want to more deeply understand what "style" really entails, and if content is a subcategory of style or even its own category. What effect does style have on content? Can style change content? Can content change style? Are style and content separable, or must they come hand in hand? One way to consider/approach this is to explore these ideas through the lens of Diaz's text. I've noticed that Diaz actually uses many different styles even within his own writing, so I want to explore those various styles, see where content is similar, and notice if the style has some sort of effect on the content.

I used to think that style and content were completely separate, but now it seems to me that they are in many ways tied together. One way that I've realized/noticed this s though writing my own story while trying to use Diaz's style, and running into the problem of not knowing how to mimic that style with my very different content. So ultimately, I want to investigate the relationship between style and content.

Homework for 5/13

Rough Draft

Creative Nonfiction Story: Rough Draft

Note: the format of this looks very different (better) on word // & printed out. This looks like it's a lot less than it really is.

1.

We walk off the Luna 360 with our heads spinning and the world before us still blurry. Kane rubs his eyes and bends down to whisper something to Roman, who tilts his head back and laughs. All around us kids shriek and giggle as their moms hand them purple plush dinosaurs and buckets of popcorn. Little boys and girls fly in their rockets and swing in the air and splash into water as their hair blows in the gentle wind and their parents snap pictures for the scrapbook.

Kane bounces around and does his usual abstract dancing. Nearly 21 years old and he still doesn’t think twice about how others view him.  

We’re close to the bench and I can hear Mama’s voice as she tries to convince John that he has do something, he can’t just let things continue the way they are but she cuts of her sentence when she sees us walking towards them.

The Wonder Wheel is open, she says, more of a plea for us to leave then a genuine suggestion.

Kane brushes his long brown hair away from his face and his warm almond eyes stare at me.

Putting my arm around Roman, we all walk over and get in line.

2.

On a Thursday in December I walked down Mangin Street with Eamon and Shelli to find Dr. Lerner handing out flyers in front of the big red doors. Each taking one from his hand, we go inside and walked up the stairs, reading the paper as we climb each step.

News reports of Ferguson and court cases and jury decisions. Overheard conversations of adults frowning as they murmured about Mike Brown and Tamir Rice. Names and places and events that all seemed so abstract and far away.

11:58 in History of the Americas. Ironic. We turn in our readings on the Civil War, with attached FFW responded to “How did the Civil War reflect contrasting views on racism?”

11:59 and Ms. Riviere pauses for a split second and looks around. I glance at Henry and Maya and Stephany and when 12:00 hits we get up and walk out.

100, 200 students gather outside the school and start marching. Whose streets, Our streets; Whose streets, Our streets.

What do we want? Justice. When do we want it?

Now.

3.

(Wh-asian) Kane hands the (black) lady 21 tickets and (white) Roman and I push through the turnstile.

Roman and I have lived in New York for 10 years and we’ve never actually been on the Wonder Wheel. It’s like the Eiffel Tower or the London Eye, one of those things that really mean nothing to most people but you have to do anyway. And it’s less about even experiencing it than making sure you have a smiling picture in front of it to show to–

Who?

But still, thousands of millions of people come every year to do these things. They’re classics. They’re just one dimensional, scrapbook events.

But like many other things I do while arbitrarily/sheepishly contradicting myself and my own beliefs, excitement still rushes through me as the three of use sit down in the benches of our own, neon pink spray painted compartment.

The ferris wheel starts to move. We’re on the outer ring moving up, while the inner ring moves down. Slowly, the world below us shrinks. I see Mama’s waving hand down below. She gets smaller and smaller.

I turn my head to the right and gawk at the massive blue blanket in front of me. The ocean is taunting. It’s endless, in depth and width and color and everything.

It looks bigger and bigger as we go higher and higher.

4.

I swear I never thought about race as an issue until this year, really.

They can call me ignorant or stupid.

But I know I’m respectful and I know I'm not racist.

Every year in social studies or history of whatever they want to call it, we learn about the United States and slavery and racism and segregation. Every year, after reading the textbook and watching the videos and dropping my jaw at what I’d see, I’d look down at my own skin and feel terrible and ashamed and helpless.

I’m told everyday now about my white priveledge and how it’s okay for black people to be make racist comments to white people but not okay for white people to make racist comments about black people because we have priviledge.

Not that anybody should be making racist comments about anyone.

And people throw around “black” people and “white” people as if it means something definite and important but when I stop to think about who I am and my skin color and how I as just born this way my fists clench and my brain tightens and my head aches because I just don’t know what to do because I was born with white skin and you were born with black skin and that’s just the way it fucking goes.

I’d say that the biggest part of my growing up has been seeing how much bigger the world is than what I know. I’m still learning everyday.

But I continually feel powerless and guilty and terrible that I’m a part of this race that has a huge history–and a present, really–of racism and I can truly tell you that, as a young, liberal teen that really just trying to get some sort of grasp on what the world is, it’s hard to deal with yourself.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry a million times over and I know I will never ever understand what it’s like to be a person of color and be mistreated by society, I will never know because I am white and that’s just the way I was made so if someone can please just tell me what to do to get rid of all this bullshit that would be fantastic, thank you.

**notes... this isn’t finished, as I changed my story format a few times and this is finally one that I’m pretty sure about, but... here are some more things I need to do:

-Figure out what exact styles I’m using of Diaz’s and add some more in.

-Find a way to either get away with my bits (mostly streams of conciousness) that stray away fom Diaz’s style, or find a way to incorporate them using a style.

-Find a way to have the stream of conciousness connect to being stuck on the top of the Wonder Wheel // add that part in.

-whew wow this is hard to write.

Creative Nonfiction Story: Raw Draft

**I added the prompts into my story after writing it.

Ahh.

We walk off the Luna 360.

My head is spinning.

I look at my cousin, who looks at my brother, who looks at me. And we all laugh.

The world before my eyes is still a little blurry; we’re all still dizzy from the flips and upside down spins of that last ride.

Kane bounces around and does his usual dance of excitement. People turn and stare, their eyes and scorns full of judgement, but my brother and I don’t care. He certainly doesn’t. Almost 21 and he still lives in the moment. We just look at each other and smile.

“The Wonder Wheel is definitely next,” I say.

We all walk over where my mom, dad, and uncle are sitting. I hear sentences cut off as we approach them; something about my aunt and how she just doesn’t understand–

But Kane doesn’t seem to notice.

We tell them where we’re going, and they smile and tell us to have fun. The sun beats on my face, ***promt***

As we approach the massive, colorful, rusty ring, spinning round and round and round, we see the huge the sign in the center: “Wonder Wheel Ω.” Kane giddily takes out his phone to snap a picture for instagram. Not that Coney Island really means anything to us, but to someone from Los Angelos, it’s the greatest thing.

It’s one of those classics.

Everywhere you travel, there are classics.

Paris, the Eiffel Tower. London, the Big Ben.

Those monuments, those buildings, those structures that really don’t mean anything to the average tourist.

Most people know nothing about them.

All they know is that they want a photo with them. Because it’s a classic.

But it’s not like it really means anything. It’s just a scrapbook event. A scrapbook picture. A scrapbook memory. Meaningless.

We’ve lived in New York for ten years and we’ve never actually been on the Wonder Wheel, so as Kane swipes the “Luna Credits” card for the three of us and we step into our own little compartment, even though I don’t want to admit to the tourist attraction, I can’t help but feel excited.

The ride has two rings: one of the outside, going one way, and one on the inside, going another. We’re on the outer ring. As we move up, everybody in the inner ring moves down.

***The world gets further and further away from us; the people get smaller and smaller; the benches and the buildings begin to look like pieces from a toy train set.

Higher and higher.

More shots for instagram.

Roman is quiet. A sort of quiet that I’ve never seen from him before. A peaceful quite–something so extraordinarily rare for 9-year-old.

I turn my head around and suddenly, instead of the amusement park, a vast, naked sea lays before my eyes. How wonderful is that: at the turn of a head, suddenly the urban world becomes the natural world, just like that. We’re so close, yet so far.

Higher. Up and up an up.

Suddenly we’re at the perfect point: the very top, the very center at the very top.

And then the motion slows down, just slightly so that we don’t notice it until we come to a full stop: right at the perfect point: the very top, the very center at the very top.

My brothers face drops, but Kane reassures him that it’ll start moving soon.

I faintly hear their voices talking but my eyes shift downwards as I lean over the edge of the compartment as I process the 150ft between me and the ground.

So much could happen in 150ft. (run with this!! Use the distance as a metaphor)

A few minutes pass. Roman’s body starts to tense up, and he rubs his hands together and covers his face, not wanted to admit his fear.

I’m still captivated by the sea.

What if I jumped.

Would I fall.

Would I fly.

Would a bird pick me up right before I hit the ground and swoosh me up into the air.

Would....(add more!)

I check my phone and realize that it’s been 7 full minutes.

That’s a long time to be stuck.

I look at the other people on the ride. There must be over 40 people, each with their own family in their own compartment.

Each getting nervous.

Suddenly, I hear a scream, and I jolt my head to face the sound. Somebody right bellow us in the inner ring; an old man, all alone.

Everyone turns to stare at him.

His eyes look as if somebody’s in control of him.

He screams again.

“Please sir, remain calm. You’ll all be down very soon.”

I look even further down and see the ride manager speaking through a megaphone.

And all at once, everybody starts talking.

“when are we getting down” “this is ridiculous” “are we stuck” “this is insane” “absurd” “atrocious” “please get me out of here” “right now” “WHEN ARE WE COMING DOWN”

The voices, the fear; it’s as if a bomb has suddenly gone off and everybody and everything just explodes.

I move my head ever so slightly and see the man who’d just screamed with one leg over the edge of his compartment.

“kane,” I whisper, squeezing his hand.

My breathing gets heavier. My heart races. I hope Roman doesn’t notice.

I shut my eyes, and pray to the god that I don’t believe in (write more about god and religion) to please, not let this crazy man jump from 100 feet in the air.

Please.

No one else seems to notice the man but I can’t keep my eyes off him–

The wheel starts to move again, and the man falls back into his compartment, jolted by the sudden movement.

I let out a deep breath.

We go down, just as we came up. Slowly.

The world gets bigger and bigger, closer and closer until we reach the bottom and realize that the world’s still there.

The door opens, and we step off.

(I’m not sure how to end it)
(Word Count - 1025)

Exploratory Writing for Creative Nonfiction Story

I guess I wrote a lot for this assignment, even though you didn't have too, but I actually found it really helpful: I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write about for the creative memoir and was honestly really scared and nervous, but this has really helped me find some sort of thread // topic that is interesting to me.

Part A

Ahhh I’m so stuck.... I’m not sure what to write about because I don’t have any tragic, life-or-death, winning the lottery kind of experiences... and I feel like that makes me discount all of my other feelings and experiences..... because they don’t seem “meaningful” enough, whatever that means.

Hmmm. I guess that might be a struggle in itself... maybe I can write about that.

One of the biggest and most eye opening experiences I’ve had this year has been through the protests against police brutality. It’s really made me open my eyes and realize that the world is so much bigger then my little bubble. My own world is really all I know, so it’s hard for me to really believe the reality of all these awful, absurd things that are happening around me.

I also recently read “I Am Malala,” the autobiography of Malala Yousafzai, the girl who was shot by the Taliban and has been an advocate for women’s rights and education since. Her story is so powerful and intense and scary and riveting and heartbreaking and unbelievably sad. Once again, it’s hard for me to not see this as simply fiction but to acknowledge it as being completely real.

I guess on of the biggest struggles for me as I am growing up is the realization that this world is so big and so crazy and so illogical and in many ways so messed up.

It makes me feel guilty for my happiness.

This morning I got all upset because I didn’t know what outfit to wear. Yet I own a million clothes. How pathetic is that? So many people in the world don’t even own clothes, and yet here I am, a privledged little white girl living in 
Park Slope who can’t chose what outfit to wear?! Pathetic!

But, that’s also not fair. It’s not fair to denounce and diminish my own feelings and experiences by comparing their level of tragedy to other people’s stories.

AH. I don’t know what to do.

Another thing that’s been concerning me lately: truth. Lies. Rumors. Myths.

Doctors are always telling us to not put computers in our laps for too long, not to hold our cell phones to our ears, not to keep them in our pockets. Why? Because there’s radiation. And what does radiation do? It causes cancer.

Or so our doctors tell us.

And my physics teacher told our class the other day that this is a complete myth. Evident from one simple scientific fact, it’s obvious that cell phones and most everyday electronics don’t cause cancer at all.

How insane is that?! That these doctors–these doctors in whom we put our lives, these doctors that we go to to heal, to get better, to survive, these doctors whom we trust to heal us, they haven’t been telling us the truth! But the most convoluted part is that many of them probably know it’s all a lie. Yet if they admit that, they run the risk of jeapordizing the whole medical community, whom could all get sued for promoting something that’s false so 
widely.

This makes me so mad. And an example of this in my own life: welcome to high school! Where rumors spread like 
wildfire. Where you hear things, hear things about your friends that seem absurd, where you then ask your friends if these things are true and they deny it, and of course you want to believe them because they’re your friends but you 
really don’t know whose telling the truth.

The people who you think are your friends really aren’t your friends. You tell a secret, the next day everybody knows about it. You even find yourself doing things like this, which makes you mad and guilty and awful and just confused and angry on how fucked up all of this is because YOU DON’T KNOW WHO TO BELIEVE ANYMORE.

(Other bits?)

My biggest struggle this year was honestly going on the double black diamond when I was skiing with my friends.

Protest

Black lives matter !

Being on the subway, encountering people.

What Diaz Does–

-flat

-descriptive

-deadpan

-about external events

-trying to describe stuff without an excess of emotional charge

when I sat in class today, Theodore gray made his speech in three words

three words.

-following a person

-

-diaz’s style is a way of observation.

-in the metropolitan museum of art

-looking at paintings

-the observer creates the event

-overhearing my uncle john talk to my parents about wanting to leave his wife

-hearing the sadness in his voice over the phone when he arrived home

-guilty about my happiness

Junot Diaz:

-uses the narrator to critique, comment, and describe other characters in the text to actually reveal things about himself.

Part B

Dear Junot Díaz,

            Hello!

We have been reading // closely exploring your book, Drown, in my literature class at school, and I’ve greatly enjoyed doing so. I’m very drawn to your style, which is a wonderful mixture and beautiful blur of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and more. You write in such a lyrical, poetic, flowing, surprising, intriguing way that I honestly think it will be very difficult to imitate your style in our own creative memoirs, which is what our assignment is for the class. I think your style actually seems pretty simple when you take a quick glance. But when you look closer, it’s filled to the brim of so many sharp, tight moves, loaded metaphors and similes, fascinating parallels, eery echos. I think it will be hard to mimick this without having the same content that you do, but it’ll be interesting and fun to try.

I would have to say that the most intriguing part of your style is the way you, almost secretively, layer in all these situations, per se, that repeat in almost every story, yet with something slightly tweaked or changed, enough so that we almost ride right past them unless we dig and explore deeper. Something we’ve noticed talked about in class is how you constantly use the setting of people sitting on a couch in nearly every story. This would be a really interesting thing to explore, I think, because it seems easy to say that it could be simply a coincidence, or just an unimportant occurance, but I think there’s something deeper to it. Also, many of your themes, especially ones revolving around familial relationships, repeat from story to story. It’s interesting to see how they morph and change over time, since this is a memoir and roughly follows certain characters.

Another fascinating–yet puzzling–thing that you do is the way you arrange the sequential order of your short stories. They jump all over the place... we think we know something about a character but suddenly we read the next story that actually takes place years before the previous story and we realize something totally different. Although this isn’t something we can really mimick in our own stories as we are only writing one, it’s something worth exploring.

To be quite honest, I can’t really relate to many of the exterior themes that you explore in your book. I have no experience with parental tension, nor poverty, nor immigration and uprooting//completely changing (my) life. But there are more internal themes, like relationships with your parents, siblings, friends; feeling like an outsider, someone who doesn’t belong with the crowd; wanting things that you know you simply can’t have. I resonate with many of these ideas, and the more I closely analyze your text, the more I see connections between myself the characters/situations within the story.

I really have enjoyed reading your writing. I’m a little nervous and even daunted to take on the task of attempting to mimick your writing–especially as I feel that I haven’t experienced anything as dramatic, life changing, heart wrenching, or tragic as the characters in your story have had. That will be something I struggle with as I write: finding a way to write about my own experiences as they are and not feeling like I have nothing to write about because I lack those experiences. But, it will be a good challenge.

I can’t wait to read more of your books!

-Lola

Part C

Things I find interesting while looking back at my notes:

-       The idea of Style vs. Content; how style can completely transform content. I think this is really interesting especially for me because I’m already having some difficulties around what the content of my story will be. It’ll be even more interesting to see, for myself, how I use inspiration from Diaz’s style to transform // create my content.

-       Just as important as what Diaz includes in his writing is what he leaves out. He says VERY little, especially about what the narrator is feeling. We have to piece together the few clues that we get along the way to reveal something massively important about the narrator. I think this aspect of Diaz’s style will be immensely challenging to mimick, as we are often taught that the best writing has the most details, description, analysis of the situation, yet this is not always the case. Often, saying little actually says a lot more.

-       Diaz’s use of seemingly casual, simple, everyday things/items that may represent bigger themes and ideas: i.e. Yunior’s vomit (in “Ysrael), Papi’s green Volkswagen, the names “Lucero” and “Aurora,” the pool table, the ginkgos.

-       (kind of connects to the last one) How Diaz uses certain things to represent things that are much much deeper, like “How to Date...” which may very well not be at all about dating.

-       Yunior’s fantasy

-       The objective correlative; how in fact this whole book, or at least each story, may be an objective correlative in itself.

Part D:

Common Thread(s) [does anything coalesce – I really like that word ;)))]:

-Themes of style vs. content : how do I use style to perhaps enhance the content; how can I focus more on style than on content.

-Time hops; idea hops; no order // random order such that it actually creates its own kind of order.

-Growing up and seeing how much bigger the world really is than I know // than what I experience daily.

-How to give credit and acknowledgement and respect to my own experiences even though they may be less high stakes than others.

-Feeling guilty/mad at myself when constantly comparing my life to others out there.