Gatsby and Weddings

So lately I have been planning my wedding. The big day is September 12th, 2015. As I have been planning, I have been thinking of the Great Gatsby a lot and what would happen if Gatsby achieved his goal of making Daisy his and marrying her.

The thing that so often brings Gatsby to mind, is that I am marrying into a family that (comparatively) is wealthy and would be considered by my family and maybe others to be upper class. It is sort of weird because they have worked to get to that point, and if you didn't know that you would never expect that was the case. Personally, I think one thing they  like about me is that I am the Gatsby. I am self-made, successful, hard-working, dependable, and able to mingle and mix in with them easily.

How weird that is, because The Great Gatsby is all about achieving the American Dream. Yet Gatsby never achieves his dream beyond accumulating wealth. Now, it seems like the dream is to have it all. The Tom Buchanans of the world seem to respect the Gatsbys instead of finding reasons to mistrust them.

Anyways, I think there are maybe some subtle changes that have happened since back in Fitzgerald's day. Incidentally, the quote we are having at our wedding as part of the "theme" (besides 1940's glam Hollywood) is one by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"I love her, and it is the beginning of everything."

The Storm

I

Leaves so still, going to rain

Somber clouds, rolling from West

They sat within the door,

Bibi, four years old

Bobinot, a can of shrimps,

The storm burst.

II

Calixta sewing furiously

Greatly occupied did not notice

The approaching storm, very warm,

dark.

She hastened out before the rain,

Alcee rode in.

“May I come in, Calixta?”

“Come ‘long in, Alcee.”

His voice and her own,

As if from a trance,

Alcee mounting, grabbed trousers,

Snatched jacket,

carried away by a sudden gust.

He went inside,

Closing the door after.

A piece of bagging,

Alcee thrust it beneath the crack,

Flung himself into a rocker,

Calixta nervous.

She at the window, greatly disturbed,

Alcee joined her at the window,

over her shoulder.

Calixta staggered backward.

Alcee encircled her, drew her

Spasmodically to him.

The contact of her

Warm palpitating body had aroused all

Infatuation and desire.

He pushed her hair back,

Face warm and steaming, lips

Red and moist as pomegranate seed,

White neck and full, firm bosom.

Liquid blue eyes, sensuous desire.

Nothing for him to do but

To gather her lips.

A low voice broken, passion, senses fail,

Free to be tasted, her round white

Throat, whiter breasts.

Crashing torrents, the roar

Of the elements, her laugh.

She was a revelation.

So for this post, we know that “The Storm” by Kate Chopin was about the freeing of inhibitions between two characters that had a sort of “forbidden love” due to societal improprieties and the obligations each character felt compelled to observe to his or her class and gender respectively. I went through the very beginning of the story and started a poem. I didn’t really pick up on much the first time I read this story but once you start to slim it down it becomes obvious.

The words in this story are so sexually charged that I would have thought most people would have found Chopin’s “The Storm” to be smut. It would have had to be sold in a brown paper bag because it is so bawdy. It almost enhances my appreciation of Chopin’s writing to notice how carefully selected her words were. There isn’t a lot of repetition of words, but there are a lot of repetitions of sound, which shows Chopin’s talent even more. Even phrases like “Crashing torrents” seems to reflect the feelings of the characters in a sort of pathetic fallacy. This story would have made a very compelling poem. 

Expansion

Alright, I wasn't planning on doing this but I really love this poem so I kind of want to try something new (after only one post). I know I said I would basically try to condense our stories into poems, and after doing the first half of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" I feel like my brain wants to fall out of my ear because it isn't a small under-taking when you are adding in line breaks and deciding what to leave in or take out…

So this time, just for fun I want to expand a poem that I happen to love from our reading in Pod 4.
Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay".

So I am going to take the lines from this incredibly short poem and stretch them out into a story. Mostly I would just like to keep the same idea behind the poem that the most beautiful things in the world are fleeting and we catch them for only moments before they vanish and we understand how precious those things were in the first place. Also I can't remember the last time I wrote just for fun. points if you can pick out any lines from the poem.

Nothing Gold Can Stay (A short story)

I was only 11 when I learned the value of a dollar. I had spent the summer out of school tagging along with a few older neighborhood kids to the corner store. I didn't have any money of my own. At that point my parents hadn't implemented the chore chart and I hadn't yet asked for my allowance of $7.50 a week. 

It was on one of those hotter than hell July days, where it's so humid even the dog (who is usually off marking everything his putrid yellow stream will reach) won't get up from the spot he's dug in the shade and risk the glaring sun. He'd rather die there wallowing in the cool dirt, tongue lolling, eyes darting around for any signs of bored kids on summer vacation carrying plastic bags or spray cans. Anyways, it was on one of those hot, sticky, wet, Indiana July days when the bigger kids decided to go to the corner store again just to cool off in the air-conditioning for a few minutes. We'd all been kicked out a week ago because we were coming in everyday they said, and we didn't ever buy anything, they pointed out, and we could either buy something or leave.

Someone brought this up, and the question was asked as to weather or not anybody had any money. But one of us had a little money. David Heckner had gotten money for his birthday a month or so back and he still had a $5 left. Then one of the other kids, his name was Billy Shaw, got the idea in his head that Dave was going to use that $5 as a decoy. We'd all go in like always, and when the man behind the counter got all over our asses about not buying anything Dave would strut up, pull out his $5, and slap it on the counter. In the meantime, we would all scatter in groups of 2 (there were 5 of us that day) and while no one was looking we would take something from the store. It was agreed that each person would take one thing and we all spit shook and swore that whosoever didn't take nothin' would get beat the hell up by everyone else, right hand to God. 

As you can imagine we got down to the store and walked in and it pretty much played out like a tick in the very beginning. Dave walked up, slapped his money on the counter and we spread out like we were looking for something in particular. I headed off alone towards the far back of the store because I was the only kid without a partner and I didn't want to get caught. As I passed the refrigerated coke cases, I stopped for a second to size up the Nature's First all-natural juice in a green bottle. I didn't think I could get it out of the case without being seen so I passed it up. Rold-gold pretzels stared at me from the shelf to my right as I moved quickly, trying to catch glimpses of my friends to see where everyone was. There was a bathroom 10 feet in front of me that I could maybe run into if I got in a tough spot. I stopped in front of the beef-jerky section, turned around to see if there were any employees watching from the front of the store and paused a split second before I quickly stuffed a long skinny stick of processed seasoned meat down the front of my T-shirt. I didn't even see her come out of the bathroom that was now behind me, and that was probably because I thought the hardest part was over so I didn't bother to look back. When I did look around and realize she was standing right behind me, I turned a sickening hue of green and tried to hold my composure. 

It was obvious that my mom had seen me by the way her face was contorted into a mixture of fury and incredulity at the situation.

Clearly she had left work early, but only so an hour, and on her way stopped for gas and cigarettes. I immediately wished the floor would swallow me up and never let me free again. At least until I could figure how to talk my way out of this mess. Of course the floor didn't oblige and I found myself at home grounded for the next month and I wasn't allowed in the corner store again because I had embarrassed myself my mom said. By the Fall though she had relented and as leaf subsides to leaf she found new things to be upset at my older brother about so it wasn't such a big deal for me to go back to the corner store with my friends (as long as I left out that they were going too). 

Now whenever I'm in a gas station I still think of that day and how quickly Eden sank to grief when mom wouldn't let me back out to play with my friends for a whole month. I was heart-broken and mad and ashamed back then. Now, I'd give anything to take off this suit and tie and to trade in my Subaru sedan for my old dirt bike and Chuck Taylors. Life is sort of funny beautiful that way, you remember the silly, crazy things you did at the beginning and lose the boring stuff in the middle. So dawn goes down to day and here I am mid-life realizing as I check out with my pretzels how short-lived that summer really was. I never knew how quickly things would change after that summer I was 11. I didn't understand it at the time, but nothing gold can stay.

Ultimately this ended up longer than I thought and it isn't that easy to just work lines back into a poem without changing the tense so that is sort of interesting to find out. It isn't too terribly bad to work a story into a poem… hope someone was entertained by this and not bored to tears. It is completely fictional… okay see ya later everyone! New blog post tomorrow!!!!

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

The Outcasts of Poker Flat (revised)

Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, the twenty-third of November, 1850, a change in moral atmosphere. Two or three men, conversing, ceasing, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air, ominous.	1
Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face, Whether he was conscious was another question. “I reckon they’re after somebody,” “likely it’s me.” whipping away red dust from neat boots, He quietly discharged any further conjecture.	2
Poker Flat was “after somebody.” the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. a spasm of virtuous reaction, lawless and ungovernable. A secret committee determined to rid the town. Two men were hanging  from the boughs of a sycamore.	3
Mr. Oakhurst was right, A few of the committee had urged hanging him.	4
Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence, none the less coolly. He was much a gambler not to accept Fate.	5
A body of armed men deported wickedness of Poker Flat. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, a coolly desperate man, a young woman “The Duchess”; another, “Mother Shipton”; and “Uncle Billy,” sluice-robber,  confirmed drunkard	6
feelings found vent in hysterical tears, some bad language, a Parthian volley of expletives. Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, With easy good-humor he insisted, exchanging his own horse for mule. The young woman readjusted draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry.	7
The road to a camp that seemed to offer invitation, over a steep mountain range, Distant a day’s severe travel. The party soon passed the moist, temperate regions into dry, cold, bracing Sierras. The trail narrow and difficult and the party halted.	8
The spot wild, impressive, wooded amphitheater surrounded. Naked granite, sloped, precipice overlooked valley. Undoubtedly suitable spot. But scarcely half the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished. furnished with liquor, in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience.	9
Mr. Oakhurst did not drink he gazed, the loneliness, his habits of life, his very vices, oppressed him. He looked, gloomy walls a thousand feet above pines. The valley below, deepening shadow.	10
A horseman slowly ascended the trail. New-comer Tom Simson, guileless youth.	11
Not exactly alone; Piney Woods. remember Piney? a stout, comely damsel, fifteen, blushing unseen.	12
	13
The air had grown strangely chill the sky overcast.	14
Shadows crept, a slight breeze rocked, The ruined cabin, patched for the ladies.	16
Mr. Oakhurst awoke benumbed. The dying fire, the wind, blowing strongly, brought to his cheek —snow!	17
I have chosen to take Harte's The Outcasts of Poker Flat and edit it down to a form that looks more like a traditional poem. Something that I chose to do was keep the words identical and not change them even though I removed a lot of the stuff in between. I found that many of the words are active verbs and the descriptions are sort of ominous. At the beginning of the story I chose to leave lines and stanzas longer because we are sort of building up the story by describing the setting and characters. This takes a lot longer and requires smooth transition. As we move through the story and it begins to unfold with little to no explanation I discovered that there were naturally shorter lines that occurred and led to more couplets for stanzas. I think this is because we get a lot of fore-shadowing in the longer story with filler in between like words and descriptions of what people are doing or their facial expression. The beginning seems to drag but the middle seems to start to pick up some sort of speed on it's own. I think Harte's story is set up much like an epic and lends itself very well to being shortened into a more traditional poem instead of being what some would consider prose.

All about that Blog, 'bout that blog, no problem

      So for the first time ever I went to a ball last night with my fiance´ called "Unmasking Domestic Violence". It was a big-time black tie event with all of the who's who of Lafayette and West Lafayette in attendance. Halfway through the keynote speech by Purdue Professor Marcia Gentry (her speech was incredibly moving, and I suggest watching a speech by her daughter on Youtube if you want to know more about their event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFJ69V7LRaA), I was really inspired for my blog. Professor Gentry chose to give the details of her assault in a stream-of-consciousness style that both fit the way the mind works during a traumatic event and expressed her experience in a direct yet profound way that allowed the audience to connect to what was a horrific and unwarranted assault on her life. Being a creative writing (poetry) major, I especially appreciate stream of consciousness as a form of poetry that is similar when read aloud to spoken-word and evokes a lot of physical and emotional response from readers and listeners alike.

      Because of this speech, because Professor gentry was able to communicate a particularly emotional message and depart great import to her audience (to help garner donations and spread awareness), I realized that I can do the same. After all, a short story is really just a long poem. Often in class at Purdue I have engaged in group exercises which seek to stretch our brains by truly analyzing the importance and significance of every single word. Each word is valuable, and each combination of words even more valuable. That being said it ought to be possible (with an abundance of deliberate concentration) to slim our stories down into poetry, even going as far as using direct words from the stories.

      Another example of how this will work is the Bible. I will not identify as being part of any particular alignment in terms of my own spiritual beliefs, but I will acknowledge that a great deal of people have spent their lives studying the Bible as a guideline, and a very large number of people have spent their lives studying it solely on the basis of literature in the context of culture. It is widely accepted that the Psalms of David are indeed poetry, as it is also widely accepted that many forms of musical lyrics are poetic. My point is this: I can take short stories and slim them down into poetry if thousands of people over a long span of time are allowed to take the poetry of the Bible and turn it into sermons and parables (this view coming purely from a literary standpoint and making no assessment either way about the validity of anything to do with the content or how it is perceived by anyone in and of itself).

      So hence my blog. Over the course of the next month or so I will make some shaky but enthusiastic attempts to turn our stories into poetry while still retaining the key points and the original author's voice. I will do this by using their words, by focusing on the themes that were originally intended, and by writing as if to the original audience intended (I will be doing more research on these authors and their time obviously). Each poem will be followed by my own challenges and thoughts as I processed through the stories. I will make sure to speak about why I kept things I did and why I think those things were important, and I will attempt to gain insight into the way the author processed things when first writing the original story.

     I will also talk a bit about why I chose not to include other items. I may elaborate upon the poetic styles I use and why I chose that specific mode to carry the story, and how I think it contributes to what the original author was going for. So maybe if poetry is your thing you would find it interesting and see how we compare and if poetry is not your thing then you will probably learn a couple new ideas. That's all for now, I have a cat begging for my love and attention. Until next time, dear readers!

Au Revoir,

Julia