AP Lit and Comp-First Post

I haven't written for a year and half! Wow, well now I'm in a new AP Lit and Comp class and back on my blog again. :)  
My Strengths and Weaknesses This Year
 I'm really excited to be starting my senior year of high school! I think in some respects this year will be easier because it's my last year and I've kind of gotten used to being at JDHS and I'm more comfortable in school than when I was an underclassman. I think one of my weaknesses is that because I am a senior, I am ready to graduate so it may be harder for me to concentrate on being in the moment instead of thinking ahead. As much as I'm excited to finish high school I'm also nervous. I definitely don't think I'm ready to be an adult. I just turned seventeen a week ago and I can't imagine being an adult in a year from now.  This school year started quickly, and I can already sense that this year, in particular, will be stimulating and fun and I am excited for the future.  I am beginning to narrow my focus of interests and seriously consider what I want to do with my future. 

One weakness of mine is that I'm very anxious and a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to assignments. If I know I have an assignment due I will mull over an idea for a while until I'm sure it's the right one and then I will edit the essay over and over again until it's right. Sometimes I stay up late working on assignments due the next day, because I have changed them so much.  I know that with writing, one can edit their piece over and over and never feel it is ready, and I am trying to make my final "enough" but it is a habit that I struggle with.

One strength of mine is that I love creative writing and reading good literature.  I enjoy creating characters and developing their personality traits.  The small details are what develop the person and give them idiosyncratic qualities that flesh out their personality.   When I develop a new character, I make sure that my antagonists and protagonists both have their share of  negative and positive traits so they don't have a "Stepford" quality that will make readers stop wanting to read, and additionally might make them more able to relate.  I'm excited to read new books that will challenge me to write better descriptions and dialogue.  I took a creative writing class in sophomore year and it was my favorite class. When I write, I feel relaxed so I know writing is a great stress reliever.  It takes me to another place and out of my existence, and it is almost therapy.

As much as I love writing in my free time, sometimes I get writer's block so being at school and being forced to produce during class time may help relieve the writer's block I suffer from sometimes. Plus, I'm glad to be back on my blog!

Away From The Fall

As the semester comes to an end, I was looking back at some of my past poetry and decided to post one I had written in October.

Away From The Fall

Fear is a fall day,

Fear is leafless trees and their scattered remains,

Fear is the cracking of the leaves you step on,

Fear is the darkness in the sky that comes too early,

Your thoughts race before you, tripping like red leaves on their way to the ground,

The tree you loved to sit under in summer- it's bare,

Wanting to sleep, wanting to burrow, wanting to hibernate like the Alaskan bears,

You find yourself pulled back into the group,

Fear feels just the same,

Just as if your friend had come to play,

And no one answers the door, the phone rings to your message,

"I'm not here right now; I'm not really here when I'm here"

Fear is the autumn days that turn dark before we even have a thought to dance in the light,

Terror strikes through you and it feels like wind,

You almost can't catch your breath,

Fear is unbearable cold that sinks somewhere deep inside,

Fear is forgetting to put your coat on in the morning,

Pink cheeks and blue blue feet,

You burrow inside the month of October, ticking down the moments of your life,

Your pull yourself inside yourself,

And sleep until the snow comes, your sleep until you want to run,

And then you run-away from the multitudes and crowds, away from yourself,

Away from the fear,

And away from the fall...

Mistakes

Here's a poem I wrote. I wrote "forever" on a piece of paper and burned it in my wood stove, here's the picture. :)

Mistakes

A Mistake is made in the dead of night,
As the rain pelts against our souls,
As the milk white moon hides,
As the trees violently sway against the wind,
Where is our sanity?

For we have made a mistake,
Why did I follow you?
For stormy security?
Transparent crystal eyes,
I search for light,
Why did I listen?

Why did I trust and believe
the bitter and broken lies you fed to me?
Why did I follow with such intent?

Where have you gone now?
Where am I?

I drowned in your regrets and mistakes,
You have washed up with a stony heart,
I have washed up with none

Mistake,
I mistook you,
Forced my eyes to see the visions I wanted to
I mistook us for more than a two-letter word on a page,

Mistook power for love,
Darkness for light,
Death for life,

Now I lay in my shallow grave and you in yours,
Now neither of us will live with our discord,
For we are free,
Just mistakes of poetry,

The End

Here's a poem I wrote.
It's dedicated to my mother because she is also a writer and today's her birthday!

The End

The end came swiftly,
Over the smoggy summer skies,
The night was dark and uneventful,
Except for the unanticipated demise,

In the ecru slip of the evening,
The breath of a hot August night,
The stilled air was filled with uncertainties,

The first perfect tear, The first shard of glass,
hit the pavement soundlessly, without remorse,
Without regret,

I once dreamed of all the lives I'd live,
Of all the sorrow I could escape from simply being good,
Of all the dreams that could become reality from
Unwavering hope,

But goodness did not save me from pain,
Unwavering hope could not crush the accuracy,
the precision of fate,
From the evil that crept up the canyon one night,

The end was careless,
Threw away not just bodies but souls and lives,
Threw away beginnings,
Threw away expectations,
Defiled hope and all that could have been,

Blog Reviews #2

Poetic Clarity: This blog is amazing! The author is a brilliant writer and always posts the most original and unusual things. The poems are realistic and can be related to. :)

J'adore: The writing is beautiful and sensory. The writing style is like a stream of consciousness. The images evoked are touchable. There is a lot of painful hope in her work. :)

The Third Eye is The Clearest: This writer presents a lot of really helpful human philosophy. Most philosophy is very complicated but this writer has put it out in very understandable terms. There is no pretentiousness in her writing which is very refreshing. :)

Just In Case-Martin Williams

Here is a poem written by Martin Williams, who is serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison.

Just In Case

"Just in case, the worry-heavy world
Should cast a final backward glance
To whimper at what might have been
Before the horror of trumpets
Blown by indifferent angels
Burns and hails and turns to blood
The bone and breath and form
And I am not this
And you are not that
And for a moment, briefly
We all weep the same tears
And forget the too-many names of God
And all the bitter, biting ways
We clip the wings of each others' prayers

Just in case
I don't see you tomorrow
My friend, my friend
I'll see you again
Where we shall be healed
I'll see you again"

Image is from

Riff #2- Sweet Jennifer

Sweet Jennifer

Her porcelain feet on concrete
Her long, thin fingers clenched into a fist
Lost child? Where are you now?

Hidden behind coal-lined eyes
cigarettes and bleached tangles

Sweet Jennifer
School-girl, innocent, so unknowing of the future

Where is she now?

Broken, tall and pale like a willow
a skeleton, stolen, desperate

Will you save her?

Her lace fabric seamstress dreams
are gone
burned
kerosene dreams

Jennifer was betrayed

When the poor and the kind became the rich and the vicious
When the Hyde killed the Jekyl

Where is the Kiss on the Lips?
The Brooklyn loft?
the ravaged girl, a drug run?

Jennifer, where have you gone?
Did his chocolate voice spoil your naivete?
Forever?

Eyes are a snowy blue
from the medicine in her veins
that could save sweet Jennifer
from growing insane

A haunted smile
loss of innocence
Goodbye, Brooklyn girl
Goldilocks, and Dorothy
The Ruby slippers
Have been shattered.

In the night,
the dark prince stole you
The same way he stole his princess

The same game
Intoxicated with cakes and wine

and for the night you are his

But poor Jennifer
little girl toes, walk on sand
dreamed of the golden boy
sister of the lonely boy

seduced by the criminal
the broken and the used
trapped, mistreated, regretting
the child and the man.....

An Affair with The Sky

I wrote this poem a few days ago and I chose it because I thought about the potential dichotomy of the beautiful and dangerous sky and how you can become enraptured with something and yet it can lead to your demise.

An Affair With The Sky

The air is cold and damp,

The whispering willows, drenched in the rain of November, invite you in,

Your breath is an exhausting fog,

And the trees silent voices lure you into a seductive sleep,

Half-awake you wander,

Down the grassy meadow,

Down the winding broken stone path,

Till you can hear the fierce crackle of the sea,

The sand crumbles and sinks under your feet,

The air is salty and so alive,

Your feet falter as they touch wet ground,

dirtied sand,

They cut and and bleed over rocks,

The water trickles over and stings your ravaged feet,

The sky is a luscious violet,

Framed by twisted trees,

Love at first sight,

Your tired eyes glaze over,

Having an affair with the beautiful, untouchable evening,

But the waves, your scorned lover,

Pull you under and you succumb,

Horrified and soaked, you grasp for the surface,

But all you feel is tangled seaweed torturing your feet,

A final breath,

The sky suddenly isn't so beautiful,

It is black and harsh against the soft waves,

It has abandoned you,

You taste the bitter water,

Hear the whispering willows,

Far away,

Above the broken stones,

And grassy meadows,

Calling you back,

But it's too late

Images from

Blog Reviews

Below are reviews and links for other wonderful blogs created by students in my Creative Writing class.

Aileen's Blog: Aileen's blog is great! It's fun, very positive, and uplifting. For her first post about remembering she wrote about the people that truly inspire us. Not necessarily the big names we always associate with but the people we loved as children (Dr. Seuss).

Fan Fiction Gamer: This blog was created by my table partner. For his first post about remembering, he wrote about remembering not only things from the past but he also talked about dealing with things in the here and now, and preparing for the future.

Traffic Cones On Churches: This blog is artistic and creative. For her post about remembering she chose a memorable song by Jimi Hendrix, "Castles Made Of Sand," and shared a painful and very personal story.

Remembering

For my creative writing assignment on remembering I chose a poem by Sylvia Plath
entitled "Last Words". This poem makes me think of what a human's last thoughts may
be before they die.

Last Words
by Sylvia Plath

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already -- the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over --
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.

I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can't stop it.
One day it won't come back. Things aren't like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.

Princess Sophia

This story is of the coastal liner, The Princess Sophia. It is a true and tragic tale about the loss of more than 343 souls.The SS Princess Sophia was one of four ships built between 1910-1911 built by a Scottish shipbuilder. The sister ships were, the SS Princess Adelaide, the SS Princess Alice, and the SS Princess Mary. Starting in 1901, Canadian Pacific Railway ordered the production of this line of ships to serve the west coast of Canada and the Southeast Coast of Alaska. This marine highway was called The Inside Passage, because it was a protected waterway from the Pacific Ocean.

On October 24, 1918, The Princess Sophia grounded on Vanderbilt Reef in Lynn Canal, just north of Juneau, Alaska. Although initially this grounding could easily have allowed rescue but poor weather prevented any assistance. While would-be-rescuers watched from a safe distance, they were horrified to see the passage of time obliterate any chance that they could save any of the people on board. This wreck was the worst maritime accident in the history of both Alaska and British Columbia.

The details of the grounding, wreck, and eventual sinking of this ocean liner became extremely controversial, with many believing that a successful rescue could have been launched. Below is a letter from a young man aboard who lost his life that stormy October evening:

"Shipwrecked off coast of Alaska
S.S. Princess Sophia
October 24, 1918
My own dear sweetheart,
I am writing this my dear girl while the boat is in grave danger. We struck a rock last night which threw many from their berths, women rushed out in their night attire, some were crying, some were too weak to move, but the lifeboats were swung out in all readiness but owing to the storm would be madness to launch until there was no hope for the ship. Surrounding ships were notified by wireless and in three hours the first steamer came, but cannot get near owing to the storm raging and the reef which we are on. There are now seven ships near. When the tide went down, two-thirds of the boat was high and dry. We are expecting the lights to go out any minute, also the fires. The boat might go to pieces, for the force of the waves are terrible, making awful noises on the side of the boat, which is quite a list to port. No one is allowed to sleep, but believe me dear Dorrie it might have been much worse. Just here there is a big steamer coming. We struck the reef in a terrible snow storm. There is a big buoy marking the danger but the captain was to port instead (of) to starboard of (the) buoy. I made my will this morning, leaving everything to you, my own true love and I want you to give 100 pounds to my dear Mother, 100 pounds to my dear Dad, 100 pounds to dear wee Jack, and the balance of my estate (about 300 pounds) to you, Dorrie dear. The Eagle Lodge will take care of my remains.
In danger at Sea.
Princess Sophia
24th October 1918
To whom it may concern:
Should anything happen (to) me notify, notify Eagle Lodge, Dawson. My insurance, finances, and property, I leave to my wife (who was to be) Miss Dorothy Burgess, 37 Smart Street, Longsight, Manchester, England
J. Maskell"