Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua

At first this book confused me as far as if it was like a longer essay, narrative, or a book a poetry.  The second confusion came from the language barriers.  It made me wonder how I was going to translate all of the Spanish to make sense of the English.  It gave me a sense of my confusion of language was very similar to her struggle with it as well.  This woman has struggled with identity, gender, sexuality, and becoming a person of her own.  Throughout the piece you learn what she does to identify herself.

"Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures and their value systems, la mestiza.  under goes struggle of flesh, struggle of borders, an inner war.  Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates."  This was a quote I found very powerful for more reasons than one.  Its like being raised one way but developing likes of a new culture.  But in her case three totally different cultures would become very difficult to manage especially after crossing borders.  How do yo adjust into your own person if everyone around wants to mood you to their personal or cultural perspective?

We, in class, also spoke of acting verses reacting.  Acting is being proactive and reacting is falling behind and having sort of a negative catching up for events that have happened.  This quote I thought could be useful for acting, and being proactive in life.  "She is willing to share, to make herself vulnerable to foreign ways of seeing and thinking.  She surrenders all notions of safety, of the familiar.  Deconstruct, construct.  She becomes a Nahual, able to transform herself into a tree, a coyote, into a person.  She learns to transforms small "I" into the total self."  I think this is powerful in saying get up, explore yourself, break down life into the difficult and easy parts and completely understand yourself and when you get there, do tell, and share with others.

 

The Last Painting or the Portrait of God by Helene Cixous

The essay we recently read was very intriguing to me by the way of comparing art and literature.  Comparing thoughts of writing for the instant and capturing the moment and being able to perform those same processes with writing.  Although, painters have a total advantage in giving you a visual there are ways in which a writer could possible give you strong concrete images.  The problem is no matter how concrete a writer gives you images in their writings words translate differently in each reader's mindset.  An apple to me, might be green, radiate, and healthy, but an apple to you maybe the complete opposite, it might be red, tasteless, and unattractive.  Every readers has their own experiences and there is no solid way of changing that although a painter can enable to see what it is they want you to.

There a few quotes that stuck out to me doing the reading which are "I had made a distinction between what I had called "works of art" and "Works of being".  For me, works of art are works of seduction, works that can be magnificent, works that are really destined to make themselves seen."  I remember discussing this among my group in class with a question.  My question was how do we know if our work is considered a work of art of a work of being?  My knowledge was thinking that everyone would like to consider their work to be a work of art.  How do we know if we are on that level of knowing that our work is destined to  be seen, especially if we are afraid to publish them.  After discussing this with my group I learned that the writer meant works like like Rembrandt which was totally off subject.  My group member informed me that its not about having work that wants to be seen yet if it is personally and good and helpful to you then it would be good, helpful, and grand for others as well.

"This is how I live, this is how I try to write.  The best company for me is she or he who is in touch with the instant, in writing."  That to me is also very powerful.  Sometimes as writers we are caught up in the plotting, planning, and over thinking of things.  We lose sight of the initial thought which was powerful and becomes lifeless by revising before we vised.  I believe free writing is helpful in painting that image.  Letting lose, flying away with the page, and daring to leave those structures backbone.  Like a painter can capture an instant a writer can capture as much as they allow if they attempt to write in the moment. 

I really found this comparison between the jealously of a painter's art work and a writers' very informative.  I mean, I've been to art show displays where the people are wowed by the instant of the captured works of art verses an opening for a book show and all a writer can really do is explain, talk, and read certain parts.  The captured image burns when stuck in the same slot for too long in movie reels, is painting a pretty picture doing the same?  When a great writing can last a lifetime.

First Post,

My reading response to Precious, Disappearing Things,

     The piece was very inspiration and left me wondering about certain passages.  As an inspiring writer, I feel every creative writing student should have grasped a passage or two to learn from.  First I would like to say there are parts that moved me, such as "AVA is a work in progress and will always be a work in progress.  It is a book in a perpetual state of becoming.  It  cannot be stabilized or fixed.  It can never be finished.  It's a book that could be written forever."  As writers we often want to rush the ending instead of taking the time to actually write.  It tells me to write without conclusion just continue, go with the flow, experience where the piece will take you and don't be afraid to look back and radically revise.
     Another section that stuck out me to me referred to fragments.  "The fragments piled up.  Keeping the notebooks goings, I began to travel the world in my own way."  I like this because to me it is saying keep going don't stop, don't think about it, left the hand doing the speaking beside the mind.  Also when writing we tend to fix the errors while processing and it ultimately changes the meaning.  Its hard to avoid the green lines which tell us that the errors are there but some statements are made for different interpretations.
     "In AVA I have tried to write lines the reader (and the writer) might mediate on, recombine, rewrite as he or she pleases."  That's fun, give the readers multiple ideas to work with, don't allow us readers to only see one path in your writings.  Allow your readers to fill in the blanks helps it all become mysterious and telling, and fun.
     "Women, blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc.  are all made to sound essentially the same- that is, say, like John Cheever, on a bad day.  Oh, a few bones thrown now and then, a few concessions are made to exotic or alternative or "trangressive" content, but that is all.  And more free slips away."  So from this passage it makes me wonder if it is a bad thing to sound exotic or different.  Should everyone conform to the ways of the past writers which were all white males who've given up the basic restricted structures in which writers today suffer.