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mood |
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 confused |
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music |
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Dan Bern - I'm Not the Guy |
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fitting music for this mood.
this was one of the more ridiculous evenings in recent memory:
So two-and-a-half hour poetry class, 3:30-6. We're reading our sestinas written for this week (well, about four people got the chance to read theirs; I didn't). Everyone loves Shalonda's poem, which contains the following lines:
I just wanna be alone in my own zone
Cracking your ear bones, leaving your mind blown,
And fuck your microphones, cuz sucka I got my own.
So get the hell out of this zone
Leave me the hell alone,
Before liquid poison is blown
Through your bones.
The fault will be your own
Cuz I told you not to touch my microphones.
This poem is a piece of shit. The rest of it is just like this. All but one of her poems have rhymed in this fashion, and she always receives class and professorial acclaim for them. This poem says nothing but "Fuck you, and step off!". I made the comment that while I thought she used inventive phrasing (only partially true), I didn't feel that the poem said anything worthwhile. Her response was that there was much more to the poem than the perceived message, but she just didn't have "time to sit down and explain it to you". OK, fine. But a poem should stand on its own.
This wasn't dropped, though. My professor asked me to explain what I disliked about it, so I said that I disliked the accusatory nature of the poem, feeling that I didn't deserve the insulting, sassy tone taken with the reader. He informed me that I had a "guilt complex" which I apparently need to deal with before I can appreciate such poetry.
BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT
*ahem*
So, after trying to explain my feelings about this, Shalonda says something like "oh, but it (our dispute) goes deeper than this". She makes reference to my comments on her other poems (we get copies of everyone's poem each week and 'workshop' them for the next class session), particularly one that I compared to Maya Angelou and stated that I felt all of her poems were similar (they are, in both form and theme). After being berated further for my "guilt complex", matters were allowed to drop..but no!
After class, Shalonda hands me a paper she had apparently written for another class (grade: A-). Despite its being an essay, it rhymes every line too! She says, "OK, I'm gonna give this to you, and it's over. K?" I say that I don't dislike her, I just don't like her writing. I get a "whatever". Later on, I read this paper, and I discover that it's all about how hurt she was that I implied she was copying Maya Angelou. Here is an exerpt:
I was choked up by the words. I couldn't believe what I heard. How could his response been so absurd? The reference to my sassiness stung like needles of nastiness. What would he askmenext? He asked if I move my neck when I talk, and switch my hips when I walk, if it's cuz my style had maya angelou's stalked. Actually, I move my neck cuz my head is too big for any hat, I switch cuz my ass is real real phat, and I saw your eyes peeping through your curly hair, so you must like that.
Jesus fucking Christ. I wonder if no one has ever given this girl a word of criticism before, because apparently she can't handle it. For instance, I never said anything about her personality or about her "phat phat ass" let alone "peeped" at it. She's blown up my dislike for her hip-hop-centric poems to imply that I'm both an asshole and a racist.
Should I also point out that it makes no sense at all that she cares so much that one person out of the 25-some in the class thinks? Could I really be the only person that has ever dared criticize? I am not going to workshop any more of her poems for this class; this reaction (both holding a huge grudge AND writing a paper for another class about how much she doesn't like me!) is WAY out of proportion.
I hope that you can begin to grasp how ridiculous this is and what a threat to freedom of opinion it poses. I know that I might seem to be unduly vile about this situation, but I've been pushed too much, past the limits of reason.
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stressed
crushed
