#3 (a beautiful picture)

So, when asked to pick a beautiful picture (just one), I found the task to be more daunting than I originally expected. This is not because I don't think anything is beautiful, but because I think too much is beautiful. I have realized that I am constantly in awe of the world and its beauty, and picking one picture to analyze just doesn't seem to do it justice. So, this being said, I chose to analyze this picture because of its natural beauty, and I realize that this beauty would be described differently by each person viewing it. I'm not a photographer, but I would imagine that my photographer friends would surely comment on the angle or lighting of the picture (or perhaps other more detailed elements that I know not of). Needless to say, I don't see this when I view this picture. I see grass, water, and Sun. Yet, somehow this simple summary does this picture no justice. The beauty lies within the contrasting elements. I enjoy the three stark stages of grass, water, and then Sun. They seem to embody the transition between land, sea, and air. The colors of the scene highlight the inherent beauty quite literally, with orange hues illuminating the background and the exquisite and intrinisic shadow at the forefront. The Sun is what allows the transitions of the scene to truly show and the beauty to arise. In addition to the simple visual attractions of this work, I think it is beautiful because it seems to represent to me that there is hope. It can be seen as a highly symbolic photo about overcoming darkness, or life's journey into the Sun, or the sky. This beautiful picture can be interpreted in a thousand different ways based on the individual personality of the viewer, but I think that very few would ever interpret this as ugly. They say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" for a reason, but sometimes beauty can even surpass viewpoints. (Credit to Jillian Moomaw for this picture.)

#2 (free)

Places I want to go/ Things I want to write about:

India/ riding an elephant, the jungle
Central African Republic/ poverty, how to find hope, smiles
Kenya/ recovering from war
Uganda/ children soldiers
Budapest, Hungary/ my ancestry
Rome, Italy/ innovations ahead of history
Juneau, Alaska/ sleddogs
California/ surfing and tattoos
Chile/ mountains
Amazon Rainforest/ life in a forest, nature, animals
Vietnam/ rice
Tokyo, Japan/ technology, lights
Israel/ Jesus, faith, journeys
Egypt/ pyramids, market trade
Istanbul, Turkey/ art, architecture

I know this is a very sporadic and random list, but I feel that it never hurts to dream. This list is by no means finished, I would love to see every part of the world if I could. Realizing that this would be hard, and that a certain amount of time in one place is required in order to truly appreciate it, I have compiled this elementary collection. You will notice that most of these places are not typical tourist destinations. This is because I do not long to go to a location that is designed for visitors. I want to go somewhere that presents a unique point of view. I want to write about the people that live there and their experiences and learn from them. Currently, my poetry really only expresses my personal experiences from the United States. Leaving the country and learning about new cultures would be truly eye-opening and would definitely allow me to create many very interesting poems.

#1 (a rebel yell needs to know what it's screaming at!)

So, in class today I was told that this Intermediate Creative Writing class would be studying the forms of poetry and that we would write a poem each week in one of these forms. To those of you less familiar with poetry, you are probably wondering what is wrong with this statement. After all, it makes common sense, right? However, my professor last semester spent most of his time metaphorically beating the form out of my poems. My first submissions were usually returned with the comment "you sound like you are 200 hundred years old." Now, I had never really studied poetry prior to last semester, so I assumed that all poetry had a distinct ending rhyme scheme and a general structure that had to be followed. So, after being told that a strict end rhyme was not necessary, I am now being taught to learn it again? You can imagine why my first reaction to the news today was an instinctive kicking and screaming. However, upon reflection, I am quite excited about studying the forms. I was never given formal training on them, so most of the time I just winged it. My high school education pretty much glossed over the specifics- poetry wasn't considered nearly as important as the novel. So, even though my poems started out with a strict rhyme scheme and sometimes other boring elements as well, I relish the idea of actually studying where the elements come from and how they could be used in a set form. I may not be the most excited person about having to write in those forms, but I am excited about finally understanding the history of poetry, basically. Studying how poems have evolved over time will allow me to put these techniques into practice in my own poems, free verse or not. So, even though Ezra Pound insists on "Make it new," or defying the canonical tradition with free verse, the understanding of the traditions will allow me to fully appreciate the freedom I currently take for granted.