A journal entry: Sea-Fever (post recitation)

It's interesting, the difference between reading a poem and reciting it for others. At first I found myself dreading the whole thing, so I picked a date several weeks after the assignment of the poems so that I wouldn't ave to deal with it (for a while, at least). As it came down to just a few days away, I began to really practice. I was amazed at how the poem really came alive to me. I watched videos of it set to song, and lost myself in the rhythm of the words. Some poems, I think, are better on the page, where the sounds only truly make sense in the imagination of one's own mind. Not this poem. "Sea-Fever" is a song to be sung, a story to be shared, a lyric to be held in one's heart. I'm glad I picked it, because it has become a part of me. I can't think of it without hearing crashing waves, smelling salt air, and feeling the ghost of a wild rush in my chest. It's almost like carrying sunlight, knowing this poem. It's a good one to have memorized.

A journal entry: Never Let Me Go

Mr. Frankum handed me Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro yesterday morning, and I didn't put it down until ten o' clock that same night. One of the great things about that book is that it was so deceptive in its presentation - the cover gave nothing away, and neither did the title or the description on the back. It was all very vague. In fact, the entire novel was so controlled that I did not even know really what was going on until I was nearly two-thirds through the novel. What was truly going on crept up on me slowly, like a chill that starts at your feet and seeps down into your bones until you can't stop shivering. I'd say more about it here, but what made the story so beautiful and harrowing was the fact that it was so controlled. Each scene unfolded with such deliberate precision. When I read writing like that, it remins me so much of what makes literature a true art form. There's real patience there, and stark intelligence. One of the recurring pieces of advice I often hear in my experiences with creative writing classes is to take something you admire from each book/short story/what have you and copy it. Not plagiarism, but the technique. The precision with which Ishiguro unleashed each chapter of Never Let Me Go was so powerful. It was deceptively simple in style, and it wasn't until I turned the last page and broke down in tears that I truly appreciated it for everything that it was. When done right, writing can be so moving. This was a masterpiece. I'm not sure what else to say beyond that, just because I'm still in awe over the whole thing. After I read a particularly affecting piece, it takes a few days for everything to sink in, and often a couple weeks to mull it over even more, examining parts that still stick out in my mind, seeing them in new ways and deriving meaning from them. I think this whole ability a good author has, to change a person in this way with something they have created, is what makes writing such a powerful tool. This book asks the questions we hesitate to say out loud. It explores, so gently, the blurred ethics of science and medicine in a way that took my breath away. It's a world not too far from our own, one that is entirely possible. And in a way, it made me realize how much I love the people that I do, and miss them for reasons I can't really explain.