Blog Assignment #8: Final Workshop Reflection

 

Class Reflection

By Lorraine

 

They can’t see me.  The doctors, some nurses, they can’t  see me.  I walk in to a patient room, dump the garbage, they continue their conversations without pausing.   A doctor explains to a patient in English that he must run some tests.  In English he asks for her permission.  Above her bed in bright yellow is a sign that reads speak to me in Spanish.  The woman nods and smiles reflecting the doctor’s motions.  I clear my throat and nod towards the sign.

 “She doesn’t speak English.  You might want to get and interpreter.”  

“She doesn’t need one.  She understands me.”

This piece is something I have been working on for some time.  I work in a hospital as a housekeeper and I want to write about my experiences.  I think the perspective of a housekeeper is unique.  I have seen a lot of work from doctors and nurses but nothing from the point of view of housekeepers.  Most of my work about the hospital has been journal writing.  I had written some short story pieces prior to this class.

  I have written a few poems and short stories before this class.  I think because there were no rules in the experimental piece it was like writing poetry.  Once I had the idea that I wanted to write from a different perspective, an inanimate object, the writing became easy.  In the past, it has been hard for me to write about the hospital, I always got stuck, but the experimental piece helped me to describe a typical week on a hospital ward.

 Because of the practice of writing everyday, and blogging, and the readings, my confidence and my writing skills grew.  I had never blogged before this class and it was fun to share my work and see what other people were working on.  The readings opened my eyes to different formats and styles of writing.  I look forward to reading more non-fiction and playing with the different styles to see what fits for me. 

Blog Assignment #7-Author's Note on Assignment #3-Personal Memoir

Gypsy Lady

 

                I let my eyes wander, never settling too long on anyone person. I have learned that the unwritten law of the subway commute is look, don’t stare.  I observed quickly, a man  of twenty, pushing thirty, sporting a flannel shirt, opened enough to reveal his superman t-shirt peeking out.  His thick horned rimmed glasses framed of black plastic rested on his nose.  His blonde hair was trimmed but his beard was not.  He shared the pole in the middle of the subway car with his twin from a different mother.  Before I plugged in to Cyndi Lauper be bopping, I overheard them talking about their newest project, capturing the New York experience in words.  Let him wait for the thirteen bus in Bushwick, at midnight on a Friday night, now that’s a New York experience, I thought to myself.

                What inspired me to write this piece?  I wrote this piece because I found myself judging hipsters on the subway without really knowing them.  I felt like they should take some physical action to rescue a woman in need instead of watching the action unfold.  I felt that instead of thinking about how to write a story of what they were seeing they should actually help a fellow human being.  But then I thought how I was not only quick to judge the hipsters on the train but the situation in the car next to me that I was not even a witness to.

 I How many times has the train been stopped in a station and we do not even question why?  We continue to read our papers, listen to our music it’s just part of our routine.  And lastly, I felt for the gypsy woman.  I do not know her. I have never even spoken to her.  So I do not know her situation, only what she chooses to reveal to us on the train.  She may have family, she may not. The baby might not even be hers.   But I do know that I am living from pay check to pay check. And it is not a long distance for me to be in the same situation.  We are all humans inhabiting this earth for a short period of time.

Apparently the circle of poverty has not been broken because she fell even deeper by stealing and putting her baby at risk in order to feed them both.

The writer I had in mind when I wrote this piece was John Steinbeck.  I did not try to imitate his writing style, but to try to put in my own words the plight of the poor like he did in his works.  I have always liked his work and I have always strived to portray people the way he did in his stories. I would like to be able to write social and political issues of my time the way he wrote about his.

When I revise this piece I am going to try to reveal more about myself.  I am going to try to do this by comparing the works I have read and my aspirations to illustrate the plight of the poor the way Steinbeck did in his books but from my eyes.

This work did not come easy for me.  I had five stories I had thought about writing before I settled on this one.  It was hard for me to write what I was thinking and what I was observing without being too melodramatic and I think I went too far the other way and had to find a middle ground.  I don’t want to tell the reader what to think, I just wanted to take them on the same journey.   But I realize now that my thoughts and feelings are a part of that journey.

When I revise my stories I like to print them and then I write in long hand my revisions and then I retype it.  So I write the same story several times in its entirety.  That’s why I burned out on this story, so I’m not sure about revising for my portfolio; I’m kind of tired of looking at it now.   I feel when I write freehand my thoughts just pour out on the paper.  I find myself correcting my work as I go if I’m on the computer and I don’t do that when I put pen to paper.

creative writing assignment 4-Experimental Memoir

This is a rough draft.  Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

The tear in my side cannot be mended.  If left open germs could fester and infect not just me but the patients who sleep on me. I could hear the on the phone.  I am not just cleaning it and putting a sheet on it.    What if it was your family member?  There are more mattresses in the closet.

 So now I’m waiting for the porter to take me to the dreaded compactor room and my destruction.  I will be replaced.  Maybe he will get one of my friends or family members from the closet.  I wonder if they will know of my demise.  My comrades.  We held each other up in that dark closet, leaning against one another awaiting our fate.  We were not the elite mattresses.  We are simple folks, stuffed plastic sewn on the sides to keep or insides in. No the elite serve to comfort patients in intensive care.  Sometimes their stints lasted months, sometimes a day.  Briefly they would be deflated of air, bathed and replaced to their home.  Discarded rarely.  No, we are the plow horses of the mattresses.  We are providing comfort to new mothers, sick children, and the terminally ill. 

The maid has removed the sheets and now I am naked.  I feel her lift the pillow and heard her toss it in the garbage.  I can hear the motor of the bed and feel my legs and head being lifted in to the air.  Squeezed together I form a v shape while she washes under me.  The drawers of the nightstand are opened and soap, toothbrush and any remnants of a patient are discarded, making room for the next one. Depending on the maid the TV is either turned off or turned in to Univision and Sebastian, foretelling the future for Gemini’s.  Once I heard two maids discussing the novella.  One was giggling when music played.  She asked her friend,

Bravo, who is she?

She is a very bad person, killed a lot of people, but she’s ok now.

The broom swishes and then I feel the cold wet rag on me.  My top and sides are scrubbed.  She leaves me to dry while I hear the broom. After I am dry, she tucks in clean sheets and tops the bed with a pillow of dreams.  Then the baths the blue rag bathes me head to toe, and along my sides.  Refreshed I hear the click of the light as she turns it off. 

Day one:   I would feel the weight of him lighten.  Like a king on his throne he would sit in the chair, the head looming over him, a blanket to his chin.  His cane rested like a specter on his armrest.  I could hear him greet the maid with “Buenos Dias.”  And her response in English good morning, he giggled and I heard her replace the bag in the garbage. 

Day two:  he has not moved.  His tears rained on me in the dark.  He shifts and whispers, as the nurse adjust his IV.  Tiene hambre,  tiene hambre he mutters.

Day three:  the weight is lifted.  The sheets have been removed, and I wait for my bath. This is the ying and yang of a Brooklyn hospital. 

Don’t feel sorry for me, I have been witness to joy and sorrow.  Before my stint on the cancer ward I was comfort to the new mothers who nursed and cuddled their infants.  Siblings crawled in beside to adore and wonder at the new member of their family.  Spouses and cousins, in-laws and friends, ate feasts of pernil and rice. After three days I would be bathed and clothed and another woman would climb in and begin snoring soundly.    

Eng. 274-Blog Assignment 5-Angela's Ashes

If asked to list my favorite top ten books, Angela’s ashes would tie with Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.   Frank McCourt uses language of a child and slang to effectively transform his readers to Limerick Ireland.  One example is his recreation of the hardships of his youth.  He describes the reasons for his family’s move.  “Mam says she can’t spend another minute in that room on Hartstronge Street.  She sees Eugene morning, noon and night.  She sees him climbing the bed to look out at the street for Oliver and sometimes she sees Oliver outside and Eugene inside, the two of them chatting away.”    By using the word Mam, a term of endearment, for his mother, I immediately felt a sense of cultural identity and camaraderie.  He continues by explaining her sorrow and in doing so illustrates the hardships of poverty. 

McCourt then shows how religion had an effect on his philosophy on life.  He illustrates this by retelling the story of his father’s treasured picture.    He tells of his father, “He’s the only pope that was ever a friend to the workingman and what are we to say if someone from the St. Vincent de Paul Society comes in and sees blood all over him?”  This illustrates how his father revered this pope and only this pope.  He insinuates that other priests and popes were not as compassionate for the poor.  He also shows how his father worries about what the church will think of him, illustrating his fear of the church.

I found it interesting that the author did not use the formal method of quotations; he does not indent or use quotations.  His dialogue is intermingled with description and action and the experimental writing creates a sense of youthful vision, a story told from a child.  In addition the dialogue reads as part of the story being told.  

Finally, McCourt offers another example of how his parents formulated his personality.  His father took great pride in dressing properly, thinking that it presented an individual as respecting himself, he tells his children, “A man without a collar and tie is a man with no respect for himself.”     The father believed that by dressing well he might receive an opportunity and if he was not dressed for the opportunity it would pass him.  He was teaching his children to be prepared for that oppourtunity.

Like Jonh Steinbeck before him, McCourt offers an honest vision of poverty.  Because of his imagination and determination he was able to overcome his difficulties and pay homage to his mother.  Some day I would like to do the same for the family that worked so hard for me.

Candle

 

 

I light the candle,

                   I light it with the lone lighter that remains,

          I found this one clinging to life in a drawer.

 I light the candle in the dining room,                                         and it fills with the aroma of vanilla. 

The smoke catches a ride on a light breeze,

and caresses the photos and memorabilia on the shelves    

                             above me. 

knickknacks, photos, my grandpa’s cameras,

 Below the shelves to my grandmothers paintings.

 I return my gaze to my candle and I inhale deeply,

                                   once more before I extinguish the flame.

writing exercise

Writing Exercise, Reflection


I found my eyes reflect on squggling linguinis,
                  compelling my attention.
It looks like soapy water.
                 My next idea was a curious one,
I have no desire,
           I can't be meek.
Draft dodgers alking or steppin backwards,    
   sat still, as if bewitched.
Soon I'll become a salt cellar,
            peppered with ice and slush.

       

eng274-blog assignment 4-Writing on a Photo

Get your news here

 

 

  Giovanni poses in front of the leather store that once served the community of Bushwick. A lit menorahh in the window sill illuminates the early morning and frames the teen. In the predawn hours he poses for a photographer before starting his busy day.
He wears a hand me down , woolen coat from his taller brother. A coat, given to his brother from his father a coat that has lasted a lifetim. it hangs off his thin body to his ankles. A single button keeps it closed.
His worn leather work boots protect bear witness to his labor. Hours, days weeks, on his feet, walking the avenues of Brooklyn. . Proudly he dons a Gatsby cap on his blonde locks, and smiles for the camera. He can not keep his attention on the photographer but looks to his right to a friend.
Newspapers protrude beneath his left arm, the inventory of his business venture. He warms his feet on the subway grates before he makes his way to his corner.

ENg 274 Blog assinment #3 -Reading Demetria Martinez's Inherit the Earth, The Things They Carried

Rough Draft
 

When I read “Inherit the Earth; The Things They Carried,” I thought of my friends that I grew up with in Colorado.  My friends and their family had immigrated from Mexico.What I witnessed growing up,  were parents looking for a better life for their children.  They worked hard to give their children what they did not have in Mexico. 
 
     I wish that I would have read this piece earlier because  when I was  living in Colorado, there were people I worked with who would say things like, "The mexicans come here and take our jobs."  If I would have read this piece  I could have quoted Ms.Martinez when she writes, “I think of the fourteen men who died recently in triple digit heat-abandoned by their smuggler, abandoned by a gluttonous nation that craves cheap labor but detest the laborer.”  i realize that some authors try to remain objective, but I admire Ms. Martinez for putting in to words what I feel and thnk about this issue. 

Another quote I liked was the first line in the piece.  It provides a visual image of the Arizona desert in a metaphor.  “The Arizona sun is melting like a pat of butter on the mountain that flanks Tucson’s west side.”this metaphor is effective in giving not only a clear  image of  a bright sun, but in presentin the heat of that sun. 
"the final quote in this piece that left an impression on me is, "It is not Disneyland she hopes for, but dignity."  In this quote, Ms. Martinez is humanizing the plight of the mexican community.  She illustrates that Mexican women want a better life.  They are not looking to get rich, just to live witout oppression, and poverty.

 

 

 

A Day

 

Ron Howard called,

 

an album of photos composed,

 

                     cropped the books,

featured gargoyles,

 

      umbrellas waltz

 

 



Author's Note and Vignette

Author's Note

Columbine

 

      Fear is my middle name.  In elementary school we had duck and cover drills at least once a month, taking cover under our desks in case of an atomic bomb.  Every week we had to evacuate the school because there were bomb threats. Race riots were the in thing.  Anarchy reigned.  Sixties hope had died and was rotting in everyone’s hearts.  Generation hopeless that’s my generation’s legacy. You would think I would be prepared that beautiful spring morning of April.

     I woke up and put on black slacks and a white blouse.  I slipped in to some black flats and made my way to the bathroom. I kept my boots and mittens on reserve. Colorado weather is bipolar; sunshine and clear blue skies, and five minutes later the snow is falling while the sun shines. We would not be out of the woods until June. 

1.  I was living in Colorado when Columbine happened and my daughter was going school in Denver.  That day has always stuck with me and I wanted to express in to words what that meant to me.

2. The writer I had in mind when I wrote the piece was Truman Capote.  Instead of giving insight to the perpetrators, I wanted to express the grief of the community. I hope my piece does not exploit the situation but gives my reader a sense of the fear and grief of that day.

3. I have written short stories, fiction and non-fiction, poems, and kept a journal since junior high.  I find poems are fun because there are no rules to poems.  Short stories and non- fiction require a beginning middle and end.  Fiction is difficult for me because I have a hard time developing imaginary characters.  But I like the freedom of making up a story. With non- fiction I can tell a story as I see it.  Another benefit to writing fiction is that I don’t have to research my topic. 

4. I found when I shared this piece with my family they reminded me that some parts were missing or that I remembered them differently.  I think when I revise the piece I will include these missing pieces.  I found this piece difficult to write because it is so deep so the next piece I am going to pick a lighter topic.  One rule that I kept thinking about while writing the piece was to show not tell the story.    When I wrote this story I wrote it down on paper, I was just writing anything that came into my head.  Then I typed it on to the computer.  When I revise it, I will print it and read it out loud.  Then I will mark the paper and revise on the computer.  That’s how I usually work on a piece.

 

     Before my adventures my mom would braid my hair so tight it would bring tears to my eyes.  After plaiting them she would adorn them both with a butterfly rubber band.  Then she would send me out into the world.  She would hold open the front screen door and I would make my way to my friends.

     In the front yard of our suburban yard, small box house, cherry trees in the back.  I saw Ricky and the other little rascals of Wolff St.  They were gathered in a circle in the gutter.  They were all looking down into the gutter at a black bird.

     His wings were spread out.  His flat beaded eyes flat peered back into ours.  His chest did not rise and cave with life.  The only girl in the group.

     “We have to bury him.”  I said breaking the silence.

     “Why?”  asked Ricky.

     “So he can go to heaven.”

     The group of boys looked at me and then at each other.  They nodded in agreement and we all went our separate ways to gather the tools of the trade.  Ricky returned with his mother’s gardening spade.  I made a cross of twigs from the cherry tree.  We dug; the bird was placed in the shallow grave and covered with the dirt.  Ricky looked at me and said “now what?”

     “A prayer.  Bless this bird God.  Amen.”

    “Amen.”

   “ Think he went to heaven yet?”

    “ Let’s see.”

     The cross was removed.  The sacred ground violated.  The bird remained.

 

 

Vignette brainstorming

brainstorming for vignette.
would like to write about work.  would like to write about a nurse on the job, from my perspective as a housekeeper.  want to write about when i was five and we discovered a dead bird and wanted to know if it went to heaven after being buried.  have stories from my husband about growing up in Bushwick.  Another one about a cousin who lost her son when he was five years old.  my husbands photo exhibit at the brect and the hisory of the Brect Forum. 

A poem

Rockin’ Robin spinning on the record player,

John’s two stepping it for the class.

Stevie Nicks gurgling soprano,

Casting her spells,

Rocks bleeding of sunlight.

Bonnie Raitt’s blues float on F.M. waves,

Consoling the love sick.

My lover’s lip syncing to Manu Chau.

The savage beat of the Rollin Stones.

Beatles best of,

And the bouncing bubble Cyndi Lauper.

Friends of yore,

Friends of now.
Lorraine Sweger-Perez

Introduction

Hello,
I am currently studying writing and literature at Laguardia.  I am taking Creative non-fiction because I find I enjoy writing essays.  In the past, I have written essays, poetry, and some fiction.  I am interested in documenting my experiences at my job.  I work at a hospital as a enviornmental aide and would have written some short stories about my experience.  I would like to write about the women in my family.  My grandmother came to America as a young girl from Italy and I have not seen too many stories about that experience.  I have been reading Sarah Vowell.  The book of short stories I am reading are about her travels in America. 

Who I am (why I am studying Creative Writing)

 

My young travels were always in a group of five. My father was in charge of the driving, while my mom sat to his immediate right, in charge of the map.  This never ended well.  My mom’s only experience with navigation was the subway maps of New York.  Every trip she got frustrated and crumble the map, throwing it to the floor muttering “fon gool,’ the only  Italian word I learned growing up. 

My younger brother Michael would sit directly behind my mom and would never relinquish reign over his window. My youngest and the  fairest brother Erik ,sat in the middle sleeping most of the trip.  Michael and I would push his sleeping head off our shoulders . A wooden box was attached to the roof carrying what did not fit in the trunk:  tent, down sleeping bags, and sterno stove. The nylon ties would flap the entire eithteen hundred miles from Colorado to New York.

When I was twelve years old, my parents decided to let me travel to New York alone.    My only fear was not the plane crashing but getting lost in the airplane terminal.  Middle school had been traumatic but a foreign airport was a nightmare.  I made my way down the tunnel connecting the airplane and the terminal.  I was guided by roped rails keeping us in line to the exit where my aunt Gloria  was waiting her gold earrings, and her hair dyed just for this occasion.    Many kisses and bear hugs were exchanged. She grabbed my hand and led me to the carousel where we picked up my luggage. I had the back seat to myself. I unrolled the window and inhaled the salty air and watched Shea stadium an the relics of the world fair fly by.

We parked the car in the driveway and entered my grandmother’s compact kitchen. Pots and pans lined walls and the smell of basil and oregano filled the air.  My bags were taken and more hugs and kisses and cheek pinching occurred.  I was surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins who were fascinated with my growth.  Voices were raised over each other in a competition to be heard.    We sat down to pasta and meatballs and later black coffee and cake.  I knew then I was home.  I pictured myself living in the bowery writing the great American novel and visiting with my grandmother. It took me a lifetime to return.  A marriage, a divorce, a daughter at college, but here I am pursuing my dream of writing.