Why Don't Men Bake?

Why Don’t Men Bake?

Martha Stewart.

Candace Nelson.

Betty Crocker.

Iconic and influential,

These women frosted the road of

Pastries.

These women perfected the art of combination of

Delightfully white powders and creamy dairy products.

Each women discovering over and over again

The chemistry in which

Molecules perfectly collide with the others,

Which electrons waltz well with certain protons.

Their labs coated, with ideas, inspiration and success

Like thick, damp moss in a swamp.

Baking is science.

Then why don’t men bake?

Why don’t men bake if it really is

Science.

Men are so caught up in science outside of the kitchen,

Like flies in a sugar trap.

Why don’t men invest themselves into this science?

Is it because baking is

“Girly?”

Why don’t men bake? 

Poetry Reading

I went to a “Story Slam” at Kieran’s Pub in Minneapolis. People went up and spoke short stories that had to be less than five minutes and then assigned score keepers would hold up scores from 0-10 and if you agreed with the score everyone would cheer and if you didn’t then people would boo. I thought the overall atmosphere was really fun and enjoyable to be at, but the stories and poems were really bad in my opinion. The theme was “rebellion” so people told stories about mostly college or their first job, people were getting high scores and I don’t really know why. One of the people said, “Half the pit was in the sun, and half of it was in the shade, so the black people should sit in the sun because their skin is used to it while the white should sit in the shade because our skin isn’t” (Talking about taxi driving). Which I thought was so not PC I was embarrassed that he said that out loud. Another part of the night that I thought was uncomfortable was when people talked either really quietly or really loud. One woman went up and read a poem about rebelling against conforming society which I feel like would have been a really great poem but she spoke so quietly my dad and I couldn’t hear anything. The only word I heard was “Wikipedia.”  All the other people were kind of creepy and if I didn’t voice record the entire show on my phone I would have completely forgotten what they spoke about.

The best part of the night easily was the M.C., she was hilarious and in between the people’s stories she would talk about her own rebellion and it was so funny. The best story she told was when she was talking about getting drunk before a Lutheran candle ceremony and she was “sticking it to the Lutheran church because she was catholic,” but she ended up setting her hymnal on fire. She would be the reason I would go to one of those again but otherwise it was awkward and I didn’t have very much interest in the readings.   

Topic Proposal

Sarah Goetz

Mr. Wensmen

Poetry

3 December 2012

Final Proposal

Chapbook: I am willing to submit poems to the gender anthology, but for my main project I want to do a chapbook. I think it would be fun to make it about baking because it something that a really like, or volleyball. And if those are too boring then maybe poems about little things that bother me that probably don’t bother other people but the only concern I have with that is it might sound to “rant-y.” I want to have a focused idea though so it all kind of goes a long and makes sense. 

Lucy & Zipper

Lucy                                                                &                                                         Zipper

Your fur

Is soft like clouds,

The whites, browns, greys, and black

Coat your splendidly large body 

I love

Your fur

Is black like ink

Long but light, it suspends

In the air when you prance towards me

I love

Your eyes

Are green like limes

A bright vivid color

Always catching my attention,

I love

Your eyes

Are yellow like joy

I see your happiness

It’s beaming through them everyday

I love

Your paws

Are big like your

Heart, and soft like cashmere

When they slowly dance up the stairs

I love

Your paws

Are small like shells

Delicate and petite

Playfully swat at bells and strings

I love

Your purr

Is fast like the

Sailfish, speeding away

You’re always eager to cuddle

I love

Your purr

Is quiet like

Your breath, and a gentle

Whispering of a beating drum

I love

Your nose

Is pink like blush

It nuzzles and pushes

Against my face to show your glee

I love

Your nose

Is wet like rain

It’s always glistening,

Sparkling and glittering in the light

I love

Your face

Is perfect like

Snowflakes, so gentle and

And lovely, you glow of beauty

I love

Your face

Is tiny like the

Stars that come out when we

Snuggle till we’ve created Z’s

I love

Your voice

Is loud like the

Thunder you fear, always

Belting out all your opinions

I love

Your voice

Is high like a

Middle school boy, ashamed,

But you pretend like you’re a man

I love

You.

Beloit Poetry Journal

I read the journal called Beloit Poetry Journal which is partly online and definitely printed. Beloit Poetry Journal’s main goal is to expose talented hidden poets which they have done for 63 years now. I read a majority of the poems on the fall 2013 issue and noticed quite a few things. To begin, the first poem in the issue is very heavy, which I thought was interesting because how I would imagine a poem journal to be organized is starting with light, then moving to heavier poem, then back to light, and maybe a heavy on at the end. Then again, this was one of the first poem journals I read so I really didn’t know what to expect. The first poem in this issue is titled “Telemachus” by Ocean Vuong, and seemed to be about his father’s death and how he sees his life past this point, the structure of this poem was series of longer lines separated into twos. The next poem I read was a series of seven, six line poems entitles “Route 9,” “Joss,” “Batteries,” “Dug In,”  “Combat Base,” Museum Pieces,” “Quang Tri River,” all by the poet Fred Marchant. While I didn’t have much interest in Vuong’s work I really enjoyed these seven poems. While at first seemed like they varied in topic, in reality they were all related. I really found it comforting almost that they were written very similarly. The adjectives were all alike in some way where they all were very fluid with each other. Finally the last series of poems I read was by John A. Nieves, once again BPJ provided variety in the style and tone of the writing. This poem was medium length lines in triplets, and each poem has three.  BPJ provided very different poem types and being new to poetry I found it enjoyable because it was easy to tell which types of poems I was drawn to, which in the end helps me strengthen my own writing voice. I also really appreciated that all of these poems were written by aspiring poets. I enjoyed this journal a lot and it makes me very interested in the world of poem journals. 

Neil Hilborn - "OCD"

my heart hurts every time after I watch this :(

Response to Jenkins

After reading and listening to some of Jenkins work I had some questions immediately pop into my head about his writing style. I noticed that when you look at his poem on a page, it almost looks like a paragraph which was very different to Martin’s style. This wasn’t so weird but what really made me curious about his voice, and how he found his voice was when I was listening to him recite his “Fresh Duluth” poem and it sounded very chopped up, you couldn’t tell that when his poems are on paper they look like bricks, but when he speaks it sounds very fluid. Some of the other questions revolved around what his poems want people take away from them. After reading “Foot ball” I was very confused when he transitioned from “I've got a receiver open downfield...What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe” and also to “I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear corn syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they weren't very good.” It was hard for me to find a flow to his poems when I was reading them. This also happened in “the Afterlife” because while it is titled that I found it hard to make the connections to “afterlife” throughout his poem, specifically when he writes “She says, "I was never happy with the way I looked." "The lighting was bad and I was no good at dialogue," he says."I would have liked to have been a little taller," she says.” I found it really hard to see some sort of structure in his poems but maybe that’s because I am on novice level of this poetry video game. I would really enjoy asking him about his voice, style, and intentions of a lot of his poems.