LITR 3731: Creative Writing 2006

Monday, 25 September:

1^st Poetry Author: Patty Coleman

1^st Author’s Discussion Leader: Javier Carbajal

Personal Opinion:

This poem brought a smile to my face. There are two different voices in Patty Coleman’s “I’m Cool”. One of them is a particular student who is not very fond of strict or uptight teachers. The other voice is the teacher who seems to be gifted with the patience of one hundred Buddhist monks as she tries to control the hard-headed and rebellious attitudes of her students. The student is represented in the opening line of the first three stanzas and all three lines in the last stanza. We get the teacher’s point of view in the rest of the poem. The typography indicates that author chose the free form style, and I applaud the craftsmanship.

Questions:

-To the class: What are your initial impressions of the poem?

-If the author used a traditional form of poetry, with a rhyming scheme and meter pattern, would it come across differently?

-What are your thoughts on the student’s change in attitude and was it handled effectively by the author?

-To the author: How many drafts did you have to go through before you finally found the typography that you wanted?

-Would this poem have more impact, if more tools like metaphors, similes, symbols, image clusters were used?

-Speaking of metaphors, the only used in this poem is in the very last line. Doesn’t it seem out of place in such a poem that is so direct?

-Did you consider any rhyming patterns?