The "Marriage Benefit Imbalance", among other things

"Hitched", a book review by Ariel Levy for the New Yorker

Comments?

And a fun task!

Here is the poetry assignment we had for today - I really want to read yours, so post it and I'll post mine later this week! We had some great ones in class.

NOTE: DO NOT PREMEDITATE, COMPLETE IN ONE SITTING. Just write what pops into your head and don't try to give it more finesse or style - no apologies, just write.

Without worrying about whether or not your poem "makes sense," compose it by following the steps below:

1. Name one thing you've obsessed about in the past week. Make this the title of your poem.
2. Make an immediate observation about your hair at this moment.
3. Give the reader of your poem an instruction.
4. Make a confession.
5. Give the shortest instructions for preparing your favorite home cooked meal.
6. Contradict what you said in #4.
7. Quote something your parent(s) or friend(s) want to believe about you.
8. Write a word you've never spoken.
9. What did you dream last night?
10. Use a simile to describe how you felt before you fell asleep.
11. Tell the punch line (only the punch line) of your favorite joke. If you don't have a favorite, make one up.
12. Without using a simile, describe a nearby object.


My favorites (when I listened to other people's) were #3, #4, #9 and #11 - I laughed at so many people's punch lines because I was trying to imagine the jokes that preceded them. I had such a hard time finding #8 because (I wrote this at 8 o'clock this morning) I was Googling "SAT words" and the browser kept closing and popping error messages!

At the end of class, our professor said to the everyone, I think this was your first poem. The first poem you wrote for this class.

Cool :)

Writing an angry poem

This is one I wrote in class this morning:

You need to leave
Get out
Or this smile you admire and your lips mimic with spite will be gone forever
Don't coddle me with "It's okay"s or
Tell me it was just a phase
I'm annoyed now, blood flowing like acid through my veins
And when blood boils, humor is the first to evaporate
I like you
And I thought I l
Well, I just lost my train of thought
in the sound of pianos talking and the crinkling of Valentine's Day cards.

I need to revise this into a 19-line poem, so it's not complete yet. The prompt was to write a list of things that you'd lost (see Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art") and then write a poem featuring 1) a dominant color, 2) a dominant motion, 3) no adjectives, 4) no adverbs, 5) direct address, and 6) a refrain. So that's interesting - on my list of lost things I wrote stuff like "erasers," "pencils," chapstick,

Well, I'll just write it out:

Many erasers, many pencils - so annoying
Chapstick
My place on a page
My train of thought
First chair of orchestra in 8th grade - lost it to Ha Eun Lee
Lost my life to Christ
Facsimiles of love, which were crushes taken too seriously
I lost my mind when I tried to take two classes held at the same time, and one of them was Intro to Chemical Engineering
Lost my sense of direction on a highway in Houston
Lost my voice

Writing

This is what I ended up submitting in class this morning, but it doesn't feel finished.

I remember the sound of coffee before the smell.
More soft-spoken than its flavor
Erratic sifting through the filter
Beckoning through dust and dreams and from within my pillowcase
Good morning.
Stir awake and stir "hello"
I stir cubes of Domino and too much store-brand creamer into one chipped China mug
Concentrically intoning the icebreaker between me and this alarm clock that rivals rain
And this morning, She levels her gaze through ceramic, saying
Beware of artificial sweetness.
Because tastebuds and heartstrings are easily deceived,
not recognizing sweetness as a mask for something else
And unable to discern without first cultivating sophisticated tastes for things more bitter.
You wouldn’t trust your judgment without a double-take
Nor would you move forward claiming to be sure based only on a feeling
Would you?
Why then, upon first meeting, would you believe sweetness to be something’s actual taste?
In my time, I’ve learned to question the artifice of sugar and honey,
Who take advantage and presume the last laugh,
And iron woven threads of deceit like the fallacy of fondant to smooth over imperfections.

But I, who lauded “Disney princess” a life calling,
am desensitized by Gene Wilder’s flunkies who preach in choirs bearing technicolor monosaccharides,
cannot pronounce “aspartame” and confuse my Flinstone vitamins with other things high in high fructose corn syrup,
I, who won’t keep count of betrayals and misunderstandings, no matter the enticing or revelatory flavor,
Trust persistently and
Have nothing to fear of artificial
sweeteners

Late-night writer's block PLAYLIST (abridged)
circa 10th grade

David Gray, "Babylon"
David Gray, "This Year's Love"
John Mayer, "Split Screen Sadness"
*NSYNC, "This I Promise You"
Imogen Heap, "Goodnight and Go"
Five for Fighting, "Superman"
Train, "Drops of Jupiter"


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Re:
Haha the video for "This I Promise You" - so much cheesy seriousness and slow-mo. And late 90's/early 00's garb.