Chanelle R. Assignment 0: A Taste of Poetry 9/2/08

Assignment 0: A Taste of Poetry 9/2/08

Hello! I am a just-slightly-higher-than-a-lower-class-freshman, an undeclared sophomore. However, I did plan to be an English Writing and Economics double major with a Japanese minor. Due to constraints of time, mainly my wanting to go to Japan my entire junior year, it would be near impossible to get all the required credit in time (as it was, I would have had to over-load a class every semester from second semester freshman year straight until senior year). I planned on the English and Econ majors, which are on two polar opposites of the subject spectrum, because, well, quite frankly, I don’t know what the hell I want to be when I grow up. I figured one of the skills I learn in Econ would help in case I get into business, and I think every professional need to know how to write well. As for the Japanese, that is my passion. I have loved the Japanese language since I was a kid. It started as a love for the Japanese anime, and later, I wanted to learn Japanese so that I may be able to watch anime without having to read the subtitles. Of course, by now, that love has matured to wanting to learn of Japan’s history and culture.
Shusshin wa nyuuyouku shi desu (My hometown is New York City). I guess St. Lawrence is “big” in that there is so much space that I’m not used to having. In NYC, unless you are walking parallel to a building side, you couldn’t walk 100 feet before bumping into something. Unless you were trying to walk across a highway, in which in that case, an eighteen-wheeler would plow into you just before you could reach that 100th foot (the City is alive and loves to screw with people, you see). Now in this fabulocious city, I’ve taken up the habit of roaming around Times Square and Broadway trying to get theatre tickets to musicals. This summer, I fell in love with a musical called Wicked. It’s the “untold story of the Witches of Oz” so the tagline goes, and I’m going to stop myself here before I truly begin to ramble on about the best thing man could ever hope to create with his own hands (did you know that the Wicked Witch of the West, named Elphaba, was never really wicked)? Besides all that, I like to listen to the Wicked original Broadway cast recording, YouTube-ing videos of Wicked (so fun to hear the Tokyo cast in Japanese!), playing video games, watching anime, and reading.
Some influential/ favorite authors include Angela Knight, Nalini Singh (as I write this I remember her new book should be coming out soon… must go to amazon.com), Sunny, and Katie MacAlister for my main romance authors, and John Grisham, Stephen King, and James Patterson (LOVE his Woman’s Murder Club series) for when I need my law-creepy-mystery fix. I’d love to write as hilariously as Katie MacAlister does (if you are a fan of romance, I recommend her Aisling Grey, Guardian series), but I'm not so funny. I’ve only really written poetry, and most of the more recent poems were from last semester in my Techniques of Poetry class. I loved that class because I was finally able to visit poetry writing again after so many years. I find that I don’t have/make time for writing poetry even if I have ideas floating about. My style seems to range from being funny (though I fail) to serious and maybe dark. Apparently, people didn’t really get my poetry in class, so… I don’t know what that should mean about me and poetry writing. I suppose good writing is when your readers can actually understand what the author is trying to say.
Anywho, I’m going to have to be lame any say “I want to learn to write better” because as I have stated above in the first paragraph, that is the main reason why I am making English Writing one of my majors. However, it will be fun to try to write like MacAlister, or perhaps not so fun if I Fail with a capital “F” and have 18 other people tell me so. So, here is one poem I wrote in class, one that no one really knew why I bothered to write it; tell me what you think!

My SLU Freshman Dorm Room Has:

142” x 113” x 94” cubic inches of space,
2 flags, 2 gifts of magenta crocodile clips, 2 posters, 2 poles, 2 used skis,
9 jeans, 4 slacks, 13 button-down shirts, 57 Tee-shirts,
2 carry-ons, 2 maletas,
undergarments, 6 white wifebeaters, 1 green, 6 pj's, 20 pairs of socks,
5 kinds of shoes (all of them black), 3 standard sets of bed sheets,
3 towels, 1 shower cap, 1 bar of soap, 1 toothbrush,
1 tube of toothpaste, 6 bottles of various hair products,
1 jar of cashew butter, 1 pack of shattered Pop Tarts, 1 banana for breakfast,
1 laptop, 2 ten-watt speakers, 1 stapler, 1 pair of scissors,
11 books for class, 91 personal novels, 22 manga,
1 Nightmare Before Christmas Christmas ornament,
1 Queen Elizabeth the II's Diamond Wedding Anniversary tea cup and saucer,
2 SLU wine glasses, 3 SLU plastic cups, 1 half-empty SLU “free” bottled water,
1 Happy Halloween ‘basket’ from friend’s mother now filled with 192¢ small change,
1 handle-chipped unsellable Hallmark mug, 1 Bretagne traditional bowl,
1 Jack Daniel's® Chaser Jigger, 24 displayed shot glass cups,
1 pewter black dragon figurine, 1 Nene Thomas fairy,
1 Presidential Diversity Scholarship,
Much less material items than most,
1 young woman carrying her entire room,
Her life’s collection, by herself.

Chanelle Rolon
2/6/08