Free Food and Pure Poetry

Sometimes, when I am off-track, I spend the day at a carnival. Not on purpose, really - I always mean to go to UVU to go to classes and study with my friends, but I always wind up with my arms full of cotton candy, popcorn, a free necklace or two, and fliers. So it would appear that I went to a carnival instead of a university, like I meant to. 

And if you know me at all, you'll know that that is just fine with me.
And I'm sorry if this gif gives you a seizure.

Anyway, I might as well just admit that I know it is going to be a carnival before I even pull into visitor parking. I know that I will be offered food, and I know that I will graciously accept. So when I walk in, and the library is to my right, I breeze on past it and wander down the hall in the opposite direction until somebody feeds me.

This works out especially well when my best friend, being a model citizen, wants to eat healthy, but she still takes a bag of popcorn and hands it off to me so I can give it to a certain perpetually hungry boy who is studying in the library. Hashtag, Caitlinisthebestfriendandiamthebestgirlfriendever.

(Sorry for hashtagging but I don't think it's quite as bad if you write out the word hashtag so everyone knows you're being ironic even if secretly you kind of like it but you just know that it's frowned upon because people overdo it so you don't want to be one of those people so you write out the word hashtag so people think you're being ironic even though secretly you kind of like it but you just know that it's frowned upon because people overdo it so you don't want to be one of those people....really sorry)

So anyway, while planning lessons in the library today, I decided that I want to teach my kids about cinquain poems for Valentines Day. Google was surprisingly unhelpful, so I just went ahead and wrote my own cinquains to use as examples. Here is what I came up with:

Cupid

 Sneaky, Romantic

Hiding, aiming, enchanting

A cherub of love

Matchmaker.

 Cassidy Jane

Silver, Adorable

Revving, singing, racing

My cute little automobile

Carbaby.

Brad Rudolph

Flashy, Squiggly

Darting, swishing, bubble-blowing

A fish like no other

Betta King.

Stephen

Intelligent, Hungry

Chomping, disrupting, kissing

Getting A's on all his tests

Boyfriend spaz.

In other news, Stephen loved the free popcorn I gave him. And I'm sure everyone in the quiet section of the library loved me for bringing it.

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Hullabaloo about a Haiku

I went to a poetry reading on Thursday. Some guys in my ward here like writing poems, and they organized an open-mic night at a place called the Coffee Pod. One of the guys who organized it is really good friends with Caitlin, my roommate, so I went with her.

I was excited because it was going to be my first poetry reading. I couldn't wait to snap after each poem while drinking hot chocolate and contemplating the complexities of life to a sort of jazzy cadence. I would probably meet lots of interesting people, creative people who wore scarves and mocassins and ate organic foods for every meal. I could practically hear the uneven pulse of the bongo drums as I carefully tied a scarf around my own neck, hoping I would fit in with the other poets. My perception wasn't totally off, but there were some things that I got wrong.


There was actually a pretty good turnout, considering how lonely and misunderstood poets are often depicted to be. I saw several scarves, and a few mocassins, but some of the people were dressed in more mainstream clothes. There were no bongo drums, and only about half of the people snapped (the other half clapped, like uncultured laymen). Don't worry, I was definitely a snapper.


There was a variety of poems presented. Some of them I liked, and some of them I really did not like. My personal favorite was an original piece about a food fight in a grocery store with an old lady who tried to cut the speaker in the checkout line. It was cleverly worded, rolled smoothly off the reader's tongue, and entertained me a good deal.

My other favorite was written by one of the girls about a phone conversation she had with an old crush. It was so cute and described, very accurately, how we feel when we don't want to like someone, but somehow fall for them every time we talk.

The majority of the crowd was college students, but there was one man who taught at UVU and was ecstatic to see so many people from the younger generation getting into poetry. He did something called "performance poetry" and performed a few poems he got from some event called "The Howl." It did not sound pleasant at all. He yelled into the microphone and glared at us and made me quite afraid.


I thought that many of the poems were thought-provoking and interesting, but some of them made me feel like I was getting in trouble because I disagreed with the message they were promoting.


For example, one of the poems was about how the people who steal are those who say "don't steal," and the people who tell you not to be mean are the meanest people of all. I think that is completely untrue. There are some people that are hypocritical, but to say that everyone is seems like a sweeping over-generalization that I have observed being disproven more often than not.


The problem with poets (not all of them, but many of them), is that they seem to feel superior to others. I realized, as I was leaving the poetry reading, that I probably appear very shallow to my more poetic peers. I don't sit around philosophizing, but I don't think that makes me inferior to them. Their poems sometimes came across as condescending, and gave the impression that they felt frustrated with our generation's lack of interest in those things that they hold in a place of utmost importance.


I am more of a Dr. Suess poet than a Sophocles, I think. I have a mild interest in life's "big questions," but I feel like they have already been answered to my satisfaction in my religion. I don't worry about them. I like writing poems to entertain people. Here's one I wrote for Dahl, Kelly's fiance:


Dahl, Dahl Dahl.
He's my pal.
He's my chum, my FRIEND!
Friends until the END!
Dahl-licious and Dahl-lightful
Will you be my Dahl-entine?


You see what I mean when I say I'm not all that deep. I kind of want to share one of my poems at the next event, but I worry that if I did, the other poets would think I was mocking them.


Do you think I should??


At one point, Caitlin and I went and got some hot chocolate. I got a hazelnut steamer and she got a Mexican Mocha (sans the coffee). They were nice to have on our walk home, which was almost as fun as the reading itself. We made up poems about everything the whole way back. As long as it rhymed, we were happy.

Soliloquy

For my History of Creativity class, I had to write a soliloquy in the style of Shakespeare. It could be about love, university life, duty, or something else. I chose love :) We also had to include two words that we made up. I put the new words at the bottom of my soliloquy. Here's what I wrote:

Here

It’s so comfortable now, right here in his pocket
I’m snug and I’m warm right here in his palm
There’s a picture of him right here in my locket
I’m feeling excited, nervous, and calm.

Wrapped up in his arms, I can’t help but shiver

I shimmy and dance right here under his thumb
I see bursts of light but the moon is a sliver;
I’m happy and full from just one little crumb.

How quickly he thinks of these calliverbations

That all at once serve to excite me and soothe

And slow down my reckless heart’s quick palpitations –

My thoughts are all jumbled; his speech is so smooth.

If I could, I would stay right here in this bubble

I cannot be free if not trapped by his gaze.
I’m dizzy and breathless—I know that he’s trouble
But life makes so much sense in his beautiful haze.

Here with him I say things without even thinking

Words born in my heart still sound new to my ears

Each statement of love feels familiar as blinking
This continued amoralogue stifles my fears.

The sun in his smile is clouding my vision –

I’m all tangled up in his mystical art;
I cannot avoid this oncoming collision,
So I’ll pull up a chair for him, here in my heart.

Calliverbations = beautiful words, eloquence. (calli = beauty, verb = words)

Amoralogue = expressions of love. (amor = love, logue = speech)

I really wish I could play the guitar. I would put this to music and feel totally legit.