Kelly Vargas ENGL 340-2 Fall 2013 Professor Ramey Patch #1 My Evolutionary Progress

I brought to class my review of a play called the "Imaginary Invalid" written by JeanBaptiste Poquelin aka Molere. This was an assignment from my English 101 class that I took in the fall of 2001 at Glendale Community College. I feel the most interesting thing about it is that I made an effort to analyze the play. Although my analysis was crude and lacked sufficient details, I am surprised that I did some analysis. I left out a lot of details. For example, I did not describe the clothing that one of the characters was wearing when I stated that, "Beline was dressed like a whore in a bar." I did not use the MLA format when I typed it single spaced instead of double. I am surprised that I do not remember how I felt when I first saw the underlined words "Rewrite." My recollection is sparse to nonexistent, which leads me to believe I must have looked at it in a positive way and did my rewrite. I must have had a good attitude since I do not remember being disappointed about my mistakes which is to say that over the last recent years I have taken a disappointing grade out of context by not understanding that I am a work in progress. I also recall that this play sparked my curiosity and love of literature. I enjoyed the complicated plot of this particular play and have since enjoyed the way authors give you subtle clues about the plot or the structure of the story. I must begin to acknowledge this piece of my writing was from a long time ago. I had to have evolved over the course of the last twelve years which I would like to compare to Darwins Theory of Evolution. This subtle change occurred within my writing through repetitious writing assignments of various genres. I can compare my evolution in writing to the way John Turney explains Darwins Theory of Evolution in Darwin Now, "The variations, and their effects, can

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be very small. Repeat the cycle thousands of times, and the results can be dramatic" (13). I have not actually taken a step back to see the subtle changes in my writing over time. Yet I am sure it has changed quite a bit, maybe not dramatically, because I have repeated the writing process multiple times for my college assignments and work related projects over the years. I am for the first time asking myself how much change has occurred? I have never really taken a hard look at my progress over the years. I have been content with the minor criticisms I received. I am grateful for the opportunity to rewrite a paper so I can understand my mistakes and try to implement any suggestions to perfect my work. I wish my evolution were documented in a photograph so I could easily see the changes that I have embarked on. I am reminded of Natasha Tretheweys poem History Lesson which makes a beautiful concise poem containing layers of information about the past and the present. Instant imagery is conjured up with an image of a 4 year old girl in a photograph and her smiling grandmother. At first glance it seemed as though a photograph made it easy to identify that segregation of African Americans existed because they were once confined to an isolated thin strip of a Mississippi beach. Trethewey eases the reader into learning how it was back then describing her grandmother smiling and enjoying the moment captured in the photograph. Some of the information about segregation was given to us easily but her deeper meanings are echoed within and carefully revealed along the way. Tretheweys use of diction is important. In lines five and eight, The sun cuts and glinting like switchblades describes the fear of racism that continued to exist even after desegregation (5.8). It portrays the idea that, while African Americans were no longer segregated from enjoying the entire beach, they were not always safe to do so.

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I want to explore the evolution of my writing to learn and fix any lingering bad habits that I still have. I want to learn how to write in a concise and meaningful way to accomplish my task and snag the attention of my audience. I simply want to discover my weaknesses and channel my strengths. I will take a closer look at my prior and current work and note the good and the not so good things in order to improve. Then I will compile a running log much like a timeline. If possible, I would include some sort of visual representation or a form of writing that creates a visual picture that anyone could relate to. I disliked poetry at one time and find that I am growing to appreciate it and perhaps love it for all of its creative and complex possibilities. I struggled to understand it and I could not create it. Michael C. Ford visited our class on October 15, 2013 and mentioned something to the effect that he initially did not like poetry because of how he was taught in school. My first experiences were awkward and negative in similar ways to him. I hated feeling as though I had to create rhymes or put my poem in the form of a haiku or sonnet. Imagine all the words that describe your thoughts and feelings for your poem are like a bunch of long stem roses. You are asked to put your roses into a tiny square box where none of the stems or petals are allowed to protrude. You cringe when you bend the stems and wince when you cram each rose inside. All you see now is a clump of bruised rose petals and mangled stems. You started with something that was beautiful but now its obliterated because the box was not the right vessel. I know it is important to learn about traditional poetry because Contemporary poetry evolved from it. I can use whatever style or genre I decide in order to express my feelings. There is complete freedom to take a traditional style and change it a little or a lot.

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I was inspired by the youtube video where Tony Hoaglands Articulate Deformity: Poet as a Wounded Citizen and have written my own poem of my evolution in the love of poetry or at least enjoyment thereof.
Poetry Then and Now Then: I hated poetry because I did not know how to read it I hated poetry because I could not feel it I hated poetry because I could not replicate others unique forms I hated poetry because I just could not create it Meanwhile: I read poetry because it was an assigned reading I read poetry because I was a tad curious to understand it I read poetry because I heard a poem that sparked my curiosity I read poetry because I started to like it So: I think I might love poetry

Vargas 5 because a Poet can say anything I think I might love poetry because a Poet does not have to follow anyones format I think I might love poetry because a poem gives me freedom of expression I think I might love poetry because poetry can be indiscriminate Now: I love poetry because no one can stop me

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Works Cited Articulate Deformity: Poet as a Wounded Citizen. Perf. Tony Hoagland. YouTube. YouTube, 07 Jan. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqantlF-FgY>. Trethewey, Natasha. "History Lesson." Literature: A Portable Anthology. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 699. Print. Turney, Jon. Darwin Now. Manchester: British Council, 2009. Print.