>>>>Jane Through The Seasons

On Monday, a classmate asked if I were an MFA student. I get this a lot. I didn't tell her about how I applied to Brooklyn College's MFA program and got into the MA program instead. However, waiting for the train back to my missed stop on Tuesday (I was reading on the train and missed my stop so I had to double back) I found myself thinking that it was incredible that I got into an MA program. I wouldn't have thought I stood a chance because I am better at creative writing than I am at research papers. It didn't take very long after my enrollment, for the realization that I didn't enjoy writing research papers to find me. But I have gotten much better at writing papers. My discipline in doing so has immensely improved. I really enjoyed the last research paper I wrote on Alain LeRoy Locke's The New Negro . I felt very proud that I didn't force poetic language into a paper which did not want any——no drama. I stuck to the point——as best as I could——and d

I found this poem in the current edition of the New Yorker (February 3, 2014 edition) and I liked it a lot on my first read. After a second read, I felt the urge to memorize it. I'm not one to try to memorize poetry; as I am very bad at it. I'm trying very hard to not say why I like the poems I share——no, I don't share poems that I don't care for. I'm not that sophisticated. I like for a good poem to speak for itself. Reciprocity by  Wistawa Szymborska There are catalogues of catalogues. There are poems about poems. There are plays about actors played by actors. Letters due to letters. Words used to clarify words. Brains occupied with studying brains. There are griefs as infectious as laughter. Papers emerging from waste papers. Seen glances. Conditions conditioned by the conditional. Large rivers with major contributions from small ones. Forests grown over and above by forests. Machines desig

A while back I read on  HONY  a man's statement that the best way to be happy is not to be competitive with others because it meant there is only one road to success and it can belong to only a few. Those are not his words exactly, but a paraphrase of my understanding of what he said. I agreed immediately because this is how I see competition with others, too. To compete with others often suggests the need to out do others, as if to say, one is better than another and one must prove one's superiority. The thing is, I don't believe I am better than anyone, nor do I believe anyone is better than me. I believe we are equal in our diverseness. This is why it seems to me that it is more beneficial to compete with one's self than with others. To compete with one's self is to challenge the self; to improve it by fighting one's weaknesses and improve one's strengths. It means to get to know one's self, to understand what makes us happy and know how to go

I Keep to Myself Such Measures  by Robert Creeley I keep to myself such measures as I care for, daily the rocks  accumulate position. There is nothing but what thinking makes it less tangible. The mind, fast as it goes, loses pace, puts in place of it like rocks simple markers, for a way only to hopefully come back to where it cannot. All forgets. My mind sinks.  I hold in both hands such weight it is my only description. ---

I've been trying very hard to put together my opinion on why I feel that it's better to compete with one's self than another. Only the words keep failing me. So I'll sit on it for a while or process it for a little longer and try again on Monday . May your today be beautiful. -Jane P.S. Every time I use the phrase "one's self" I think of Walt Whitman's One's-Self I Sing .

Legacy by  Amiri Baraka (For Blues People) In the south, sleeping against  the drugstore, growling under the trucks and stoves, stumbling through and over the cluttered eyes of early mysterious night. Frowning drunk waving moving a hand or lash. Dancing kneeling reaching out, letting a hand rest in shadows. Squatting to drink or pee.  Stretching to climb pulling themselves onto horses near where there was sea (the old songs  lead you to believe). Riding out  from town, to another, where it is also black. Down a road where people are asleep. Towards the moon or the shadows of houses. Towards the songs' pretended sea. ---

Via To keep my diary private I created  symbols for recording in my journal when I was in elementary school. At its success, I created another and taught it to my friends. We  passed notes in class in those symbols. We even tried to create a new language: we used a repeating word before and after every word, for example, to say "let's hang out after school." we would say something like "ishletish ishusis ishhangish ishoutish ishafterish ishschoolish."  It is very likely that I got this idea from one of the books I was reading back then. When we talked, our peers only heard a lot of "ish". If my brothers opened my journal in those days, they would not have understood what I had written, nor would anyone other than me.  Just like my teachers would not have understood the notes my friends and I shared in class. Perhaps the reality for my brothers, teachers, and class mates who did not understand my symbols would be abstract signs. Perhaps reality

via T wo more semesters to go. I'm not really counting, just noting. I'm afraid. Two more semesters then what?  I should be looking into PhDs now. I haven't started doing so.  Sometimes it feels as though I am standing still and everything is moving around me and I am just watching: not waiting, not interested, not uninterested, just observing. I feel removed from everyone and everything. This happens only an instant then I am toss back into things again.  The fall semester was good. My grade for my 20th Century Novel class was perfect and almost perfect in my Manifestos class; I did learn a lot from two professors who though opposite in their teaching approach, were both amazing.  It fascinates me how things keep moving. How right now it feels as though it were only two seconds ago when I was stressing about my final papers; when I was eager to find out what my grades were.  Now, here I am looking forward to the spring semester, my penultimate semester; curious as t

via The New Age by Stevie Smith Shall I tell you the signs of a New Age coming? It is a sound of drubbing and sobbing Of people crying, We are old, we are old And the sun is going down and becoming cold Oh sinful and sad and the last of our kind If we turn to God now do you think He will mind? Then they fall on their knees and begin to whine That the state of Art itself presages decline As if Art has anything or ever had To do with civilization whether good or bad. Art is wild as a cat and quite separate from civilization But that is another matter that is not now under consideration. Oh these people are fools with their sighing and sinning Why should Man be at an end? he is hardly beginning. This New Age will slip in under cover of their cries And be upon them before they have opened their eyes. Well, say geological time is a one-foot rule Then Man's only been here about half an inch to play the fool Or be wise if he likes, as he has often been Oh

via W hen asked what I want   I used to find myself needing a minute to recollect myself. I mean, I only wanted the world, so how could I  coherently make the list that would put everything in that sequence of significance?  My answer changed recently when I came to the realization that I'll always want, but what I want won't always be what I really want or need. Yes, this is confusing.  Put in another way, "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it." How many times have you gained something that you didn't have on your wish list, but that surpassed everything on that list? I have been lucky to have this happened to me several times, and there have been many instances when I have gotten exactly what I believed I wanted only to find out that I would rather not have it. I am convinced that all I want is that which would keep me happy and I understand that I don't always know what this is. This way of thinking has brought me relief, in that,

You might enjoy going on "Mind Vacations." They are fun and the most inexpensive vacations you'll ever be on; all they take is a bit of imagination. It is when one travels somewhere through one's mind utilizing one's senses. There are several nice things about this, like not packing or going to the airport. You must pick a place and through pictures (unless you've been there before or an entirely imaginary place) visualize the place, what do you see? touch things with your fingers, smell the city or country, listen to what's going on around you, create encounters and make new friends or find solitude. If you get really into it, and decide to go away for a whole day instead of a few minutes you can try to associate the things you do and see in your own environment to where you are visiting in your head . Just do come back home sometime ;) -J | via |

|  via  | There were several things I intended to do in 2013 that I didn't. Some I started and never finished, some I kept putting off and never got to. One of these things was to write on a piece of paper, at the end of everyday, the nicest thing(s) that happened to me, fold and store it in a jar to open at the end of the year (I got this idea from Pinterest). I started but stopped. When I opened my jar at the end of the year I had about 6 good celebrations — yes, 6 days out of 365. The notes reminded me of some good times in the past year and gave me some exciting memory trips; some I had entirely forgotten about. I really hope to be successful in my records this year because it was really nice opening those pieces of papers. Another major resolution (amongst several) is to learn to spend more quality time with myself. That is do fun things like go to museums, take long walks, go to the movies, read more poetry, start working on my photography again, have a nice cake som