Response to Murphy and Hejinian

After continuing to read Letters in Unfinished J, I saw much of what I read earlier: random memories and random ways of writing about it. I did still enjoy this reading because many of the lines carried out the author's thought process. I could understand most of the time what she was thinking, although the style she wrote was still different each line. I felt that this writing tended to be more descriptive than the first section of pages read. But that could seem that way to me because I hadn't read the first section since last week.
Lyn Hejinian's "My Life" was pretty good. I liked the use of color in the begining and the many references to her childhood and remember moments with her father. I think her piece was a little easier to read compared to Letters in Unfinished J. I felt the stream of thought was more consistent and understandable in "My life."

Murphy and Heijinian

Sheila Murphy’s reading seemed to ramble on about different thoughts, one after another rather just stay for awhile on one subject matter, especially on page 34, where she writes about bungee jumping then goes on to write about work and what to wear to sleep. I wasn’t sure what to make of her writings other than random sentences no connection between one with the other. On the other hand Lyn Heijinian’s reading was more thorough and she wrote about her father and childhood and she was very descriptive and I could comprehend that this is about her memories of her life and what she recalled as a young child. She was more detailed and didn’t just ramble on randomly.

Response to My Life and Letters to Unfinished J.

     In My Life, Lyn Heijinian describes memory after memory in a stream of consciousness as one image or occurrence leads to another. To the reader, the direction of the excerpt may appear difficult to follow or lacking connection; however, when Heijinian reflects on this work, I am sure she takes pride in seeing where it ends. Therefore, I see this style as being extremely personal with unpredictable outcomes; it allows the writer to discover suppressed or long forgotten memories.

         Though written in a similar fashion, I have a difficult time determining the method Sheila Murphy used in Letters to Unfinished J. Her transition from sentence to sentence appears unclear; however, as stated above, to Murphy, her shifts may make complete sense. In poem 66, I do recognize the connection between the line talking about a lie versus the following the talks about truth, but still, much is unclear.

I remember

Reading I Remember actually reminds me of a notebook I kept in high school. I called it my list notebook. Every page or every few pages contained a new list. One of my lists included all of my favorite memories for each year I was alive - so, about 17 lists at that point. After reading Brainard, I dug out that old notebook and had quite a trip reading all my old entries.

And as for reading the other article, clicking on the link downloaded the Brainard excerpt. So I don't really have much to say except I didn't read it.

10/4

I love the Joe Brainard excerpt, simple as that. Even though I'm fast to admit that I don't like people very much, I love learning little things about them. Especially his accounts of his sexual experiences, that sort of clandestine knowledge really interests me. I'm also pretty nostalgic as a person, so that also appealed to me with all the "I remember's."

Sheila Murphy's pieces were interesting to read. It made me think of the little phrases I write and edit inside my head. Maybe if I wrote a lot of them down and just put them all together they would look like this. I like the vocabulary she uses in her passages.

I Remember

Joe Brainard’s “I Remember” was, to say the least, interesting. What struck me most was the feeling that it was more a confession than a poem about his fragmented memories. It seemed as though he was focusing almost primarily on his memories as a young boy that had something to do with his sexual orientation and his becoming aware of his homosexuality. It was a finally nice to read something that actually was readable – beginning to end. My impression of this piece was like walking through a dark room that is some one’s life and intermittently taking flash pictures – capturing only instances that remain imprinted in your eye for a few moments after the flash. I really enjoyed it.

Sheila Murphy’s “Letters to Unfinished J.” was a hard read. There had to be some kind of message or method used but I just could not decipher it. My best guess as to what she was trying to accomplish was to work with word sounds and rhythms – I’m pretty sure, although sometimes there seemed to be some meaning from one sentence to the next, there wasn't much of an attempt to create a meaningful monologue. “City afternoon’s reason for being.” (?) I’m not sure if I’m right or wrong and it’s frustrating to try to close read poetry and not be able to come up with anything…it is what it is I guess.

Murphy and Brainard

I enjoyed Sheila Murphy’s Letters to Unfinished J. Though many of these poems or letters didn't always add up to me, I did actually like reading these compared to some of our recent reading assignments. I find that sometimes she writes very fluently and then sometime adding abrupt lines. However, in many of her poems I felt that the lines she used could be a poem in themselves without knowledge of previous or future content. From time to time I did find myself looking up the definition to some of her vocabulary. But overall, it was easy to read. One of my favorite lines comes from letter 10, page 21."We held our eyelids open toward the coming of unnamed birds lingering with stranded melody."

Joe Brainard’s I Remember was a very entertaining read. He uses a really simple and repetitious way to structure his poem. I too found it a bit long at times. Some of the content shocked me or maybe just threw me off. Reading about an author's recollection of painting with his penis was..... unusual. Nevertheless, I thought it was a really creative and amusing way to compile random memories from childhood to adulthood, to smells and sounds, to feelings and emotions.