Urban Art Walk

One can find graffiti in every city. Nowhere in the dictionary does it tell us that grafitti is a negative thing; it is simply defined as writing or drawing on the wall. I would define it as an expression of oneself or one's culture. Then, why can't graffiti become art? The painted mural called Yesturday's Tomorrow by Brian Holderman in the Cultural District of downtown Pittsburgh reminds me of graffiti art because it lays over a tall, brick building. The sky blue paint at the top of the mural blends in with the sky I see between and above the buildings. The only difference is, the real sky appears to be in motion. I think of my recent trip to Spain, where graffiti art is quite popular. Each city we entered had entire walls dedicated to graffiti. These were not necessarily run-down places, though they could have been temporary. (These are two pictures from Spain. They are both very interesting to me and open to interpretation. The second is actually poem-like but also pretty disturbing to consider).

The Liberty Avenue Musicians by James Simon were in my top three for most visually stimulating. They were grand, green-ish statues of men, one with a guitar, one with a trumpet, and one with an accordian. The description provided for the art doesn't answer my questions about it: why are they so caricatured? what ethnicity was he representing? what made him put lizzards on the accordian's tie; why is there a phone in the trumpet player's pocket; why the rings on the guitarist's right hand? They are interesting characters to say the least, and perhaps there is some deeper significance behind these musicians which could be applied to Pittsburgh's history.

I must admit my favorite work of art was Magnolias for Pittsburgh by Tony Tasset. These were two bronze trees with 800 petals each. The pink buds looked real, as well as the bark. However, there was something disturbing about the facade these trees presented. The intention was to lend Pittsburgh some magic and fairy-tale, according to the artist. But how long ago did we build this city, thereby destroying the trees (regardless of their origin), only to bring them back again in an altered form, not rooted in the ground. Then again, I'm being a hypocrite because the vision of these trees, real or fake, was appealing to me.

Eden Hall Farm

Today is my day off, and I have woken up feeling sick. It feels like a stomach flu of some kind, so I dig into some chicken noodle soup and saltines which taste like the plastic that contains them. I feel the hypocracy of the situation, as I am filling up on Campbells condensed. Maybe it is the green movement, but I am beginning to tire of eating all things packaged. After volunteering some time at Chatham's branch campus, Eden Hall Farm, I am reminded that food is not meant to be contained; it is meant to grow in the dirt or from a tree. My first trip to the farm was spent weeding along the garden's fence. As I delved into the dirt with my pick-ax, and dirt crowded the underside of my nails, I was taken back to childhood when my parents asked me to weed the stone patio or the flower garden and sift dirt with my hands for a smooth topsoil. I realized how long it had been since I'd done this, and the disconnection I felt. I ripped roots out of the soil, using all the muscles in my body to remove their hard appendages. I was reminded of Nancy Gift's book and felt a slight guilt in their removal as I pursued control. Then, Lynne suggested leaving the morning glory (if I'm remembering correctly) because it would wind itself to the fence and bloom purple buds. She shows me the wilted and brown stems of last year hanging on the wire. I felt balanced again. I ask if "this" is something important, pointing to a plant that looks headstrong. And when she tells me that's mint I recall a childhood memory once again: my mother picking mint from the hillside and making iced tea. Being near this plant, which Lynne says is extremely invasive, is like being reunited with my mother, who is also invasive; many mothers are.

Eye Level View

It's around 5:30 on Thursday. I don't usually come to the pond this late in the day. Pete and his fellow ducks are nowhere to be found. I see one or two splashes of orange, but the fish don't appear to be traveling in schools right now. I've never thought of a fish like that, alone, lonely, unless he was on the end of my pole. A bird flies into the low branches of the tree. It sits there for two moments, looks around, then flies to somewhere more interesting. Imagine if that is how we gaged our lives, our time, searching for interesting places and people. I think of how I'm always so bored and unsatisfied, yet there is loads to be grateful for, tons of blessings sprinkled on me every day. With sympathy for my yearnings, I see that the bench at the pond has been moved to the left and sits at a new angle. Although the pond is not swarming with animals today, plenty of students are around. Two girls walk past; they make sure to stay on the stones rather than the grass. This reminds me of my child-like tendency to never step on the cracks in a sidewalk. Not never, but when I'm thinking about it. I avoid them as though they could open up and swallow me whole.

I wish a bird would land on my knee and lend me some of its magic. They seem less powerful, small next to my large body. When I wear heels, my best friend and my boyfriend tell me I'm too tall. I'm at eye level and perhaps that scares them. That is the gift that I want, though, to look everyone in the eye. If I could look a bird in the eye what would she tell me? Many of you become birds when you're done. A fish? I can feel every hook, every skillet, every tooth. And swimming alone is hard on my gulls. A duck? I'm a wooden figurine on your shelf and a floating figure in your painting. Leave this body alone.

Annie Proulx, Close Range

Annie Proulx should be admired for her poetic style of fiction writing. With lines like "the dry socket of his heart choked" and "grief like gravel under his kneecaps," she captures my attention and inspires me to read on. Proulx came as a reminder to me that prior to my immersion into the MFA writing program at Chatham, I read fiction more than poetry (which is my concentration), but to this day I cannot write fiction. I delved into writings by Toni Morrison, Richard Wright and Edward P. Jones, all African-American Writers who create an interaction between character and place/environment in their novels, and who are such gifted, poetic writers.

I am also intrigued by Proulx's depictions of womanhood. In "The Governors of Wyoming," which is where all three of these passages are from, Proulx writes, "Bonnie stirred the kids' porridge, looked at a papaya that was shriveling on the windowsill. Why had she bought it? She disliked the womb-shaped fruits with their middles full of seeds." Proulx highlights the parallels between woman and landscape in this fragment where both are feminine, pregnant objects. She often reflects on the subjugation of females in Wyoming, sometimes metaphorically (as in the former passage), and sometimes she forms an argument merely by portraying the disempowerment, which is the case in her short story "Job History."

Although it was not an assigned reading, I took some time to read "Brokeback Mountain," which has been made into a movie since its 1999 copyright. Reading the story is surely more enjoyable, although it did not provoke tears. It is interesting how much I cry when watching movies, but only feel an internal sadness while reading. She writes, "It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he'd thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack's own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands." She is skilled in portraying imagery which will represent the feelings of these men who love each other but are not allowed to love, of a torn shirt, as these two men are torn away from each other by the expectation to be normal. She displays the importance of a shared landscape, a landscape which hides intself within the memory once it is no longer revisited physically. As many writers describe, we often return to a landscape that lies within our imagination. Typical of the relationship between these two men, Proulx craftilly chooses the title of the meeting place as Brokeback Mountain. It seems like an easy choice in depicting their love and the rough landscape, but as I am working on my fiction essay for class, I remember that writing takes time to come together so smoothly, and it takes extreme effort as well. However, place can truly inform a set of characters as well as a lovely story.

The Stone Footpath

It is Sunday at the pond after a long day at work. I stood at the bar all day without customers, until the least convenient moment, which was during the Germany v. Austrailia World Cup game. I missed every pivotal moment, the four goals scored by Germany for their win. Now that my legs are settled in the grass, I can punish thoughts of work to the back of my mind. Pete is not alone after all! There are two female mallards here today. If you look closely, the male and female duck have a singular feather in common. It is a deep purple sandwiched by bold white lines. As I take pictures of them, they simultaneously nuzzle their beaks into their rumps. An itch perhaps? Their necks are bendable like rubber toys; they rotate like globes of spinning continents. The water sounds like an African drum today, beating on hollow leather. Moss grows on the moist metal fountain, making it more beautiful than its altered metal, man-made face. It's funny how the footpath of square stones leads nowhere. It wraps around the pond and simply stops. At the other end, it leads to the walkway at Mellon Board Room. Stone leading to its other half: cement. I notice this because sometimes I have the same feeling. Where is my life leading? Where will I go next? When will I arrive? Who will walk across my hard surface and who will see underneath? There's something about stone that brings a building closer to nature. It is made of wood, of trees, but it is the stone that forces me to remember that it was once individual pieces buried in the ground, and now it stands upright, sternly staring at me with slate gray emotions. My mind wanders back to my to-do-list and I have to hop in my blue-green jetta, the color of Pete's oval head, and drive into the darkening air.

Thoughts on Weeds

My father has always hated crabgrass, and my mother always assigned me the chore of pulling weeds from the stone patio in preparation for a picnic. Aside from me not wanting to do chores, it never occured to me that removing weeds was pointless and slightly derranged, possibly even wrong, and definately affecting my point of view towards wild flowers, although I still love picking dandelions and placing them behind my ear. Nancy Gift's book A Weed By Any Other Name sheds light on the upside of weeds and the downsides to getting rid of them with pesticides. I'm not quite sure of the product, but I do remember my father spraying the edges of the lawn for either bugs or weeds, and my mother telling me not to walk outside barefoot or I would drag "it" into the house, along with my cat Gracy who was banned to being inside for the moment. When Gift addressed the issues of pesticides in her novel, I was shocked to hear that there was an herbicide called paraquat that is linked to farmer suicide (146). Since my dad grew up on a farm, and two of his brothers still farm on their own land, I was very disgusted by this fact, not to mention worried about people using pesticides in general. I plan to research more specific cases of the relationship between paraquat and suicide. Gift's examination of astroturf was also something for me to think about since I have played soccer for about 20 years. She writes, "I still think it is ironic that we spend a lot of money and resources trying to mimic the natural surface that humans have run on for millennia" (127). There is something about the human need to imitate and create a space of visual perfection that is interesting, but speaking as an athlete, I know that there are also feelings of pride linked to having such a beautiful place to play. At the upper levels, play turns into competition, of course. I think exploring this topic further will serve as a good essay prompt. The main component of Gift's book is this: tolerance. She says, "Tolerance implies dealing with something distasteful, but it is also necessary in even the most deep and passionate love. Perhaps tolerance means that when I dislike something in a loved one, I acknowledge that there might be a defect in my vision." I love this quote because it can be applied to all things, not just weeds, and it addresses the various ways of examining a controversial topic. Perhaps there is a defect in our vision, as a people in general, that we need perfect lawns and fields. Perhaps we are reflecting our own flaws onto nature and attempting to fix the disatisfaction we find within our inner beings. We are bullying the weeds.

A Review of Poets on Place

Among the writers that were assigned from Poets on Place by w.t. pfefferle, Mark Strand and Dave Smith were my favorite poets, which is unusual because I am usually attracted to the voices of female nature poets. It doesn't matter what gender speaks to me, because when Smith says "All the cold morning light does is leave/us standing," he's taken my breath away. In another moving line Strand ruminates, "I moved like a dark star, drifting over the drowned." Both of these poems take place during the morning, which is compelling when I attempt to understand my attraction to them. I usually find myself writing in the morning on a free day, when I have my coffee of course. Everything is quiet, still, peaceful. The birds are heard at that time of day. Each poem is also an instance of looking into another kind of world, whether by a different time period as in Smith's poem "Gaines Mill Battlefield," or Strand's poem "A Morning," which explores water/the sea as a separate world. In my poetry, I tend to remember a place and my relationships with other people in that location. What was I doing there? What occured there? What was discussed? What kind of pain or joy did I feel? For example, in the past I wrote about my family relationships, and I explored them by examining the outdoors surrounding my adolescent home. I have depicted the hard-wood floors inside the house as a source of pain and isolation, the raspberry bushes as a source of nostalgia and mothering, the stone walls as a representation of my father's personality. Nature, landscape, and environment run together as inspirations for my writing. It comes easily to me and I feel like I must always have an image or metaphor from nature. If I don't have something nature-like in my poetry, it doesn't feel like mine. Sometimes it becomes boring, feels overworked; it is difficult to come up with new ways to discuss nature poetically without being overly romantic. Furthermore, I often find myself writing about nature inside at my computer after I've experienced a place, that way I can meditate on what I've seen, felt, heard, and experienced. As many of the poets from the anthology discussed, place often comes from the imagination. While I'm at my computer and not immersed in the place, it is quite possible my memory has already altered that place. But I don't feel guilty about that because I feel that I'm sharing a truth or making a discovery about my identity. Strand says, "Our identity is in the way we use language, not necessarily the place from which we come." I underlined this urgently because I agreed with him. Our poetry is made through our interpretation of place, not its reality. Or maybe the place from which we come is always changing, and only minute details/themes will follow.

Attack of the Squirrels

I walked up to Pete, who was nestled in the grass. He was scared and jumped in the pond. His bright, crayola orange feet rose from beneath him; his mouth opened in a constant quack; his black tail waddled into the water, and a black poof was exuded from his tail after he jumped in. Hmm, wonder what that was. After getting so close, I notice that the back of his head gleams a shellac of teal feathers. I decided it was time to research some duck info. Pete is a Mallard duck, specifically a Drake, which is a brightly colored male duck, just as I have described. The female is known as the hen, and is brown in color. No hen here; poor Pete. Black poof is still a mystery. I'm sitting on the lone bench next to the tree, today, and a grayish-brown squirrel skitters around me; he stops, and his right black eye glares at me, but then he quickly runs past. I have to admit I was a little bit scared, but it seems that these animals reciprocate the fear. I feel like I am invading their space, but isn't it mine as well? There is a pile of sticks in front of me as though someone wanted to clean up, or build a fire-pit, which I'm sure is not permitted here. There is name-tag litter by the pile of sticks, how ironic. If I could identify each person who littered, I would make them pick up after themselves; I could change the world in that motherly role. I'll leave the name anonymous for the sake of blogging. One squirrel scampers up the tree, stops, stares at me, and I can see his nose wiggle, his stomach pant. I can't be sure if it is the same one, or if it is even a boy. I'm beginning to see how the patriarchy of the English language has shaped my writing. I need to stop turning to "him." Pete has tucked his body into the grass again where no one will bother "him." I am suddenly surrounded by squirrels; three grays chase the black one in circles in a game of territorial tag. Maybe it is time to go.

Duck named Pete

The duck is in the pond! I've named him Silvester, but my boyfriend think he's more like a Pete. The grass is slightly longer and there is a stick in the pond that could be mistaken for a snake. All else seems unchanged. Right before dark, the pond reflects a building on campus. A red structure is a blurry ghost on the surface of the water. Ryan, my boyfriend, says, "Give me the camera--I am going to capture nature," as though we were trapping a lightning bug in a jar. He snaps some pictures of the birds hopping around. Earlier he was convinced that one was staring at him. I am reminded of the day he said, You want to be a bird don't you, and think to myself yes. Perhaps I am another version of that bird exploring the weekend's buildup of whiskers on his face: cheeks covered in red and brown. The duck lets out a sharp quack! after I am done chasing his image in circles as he swims. He dips his head underwater, nuzzling. As he moves, the water follows in a triangular path like the shape of his tail feathers. C'mon, it's you and me, Pete, do something," Ryan says, wishing for a spectacle. When the duck moves, he says, See, told you his name was Pete, insinuating that he's got the correct name for the duck. Kids riding bikes break the silence and run towards the duck in exitement that is excrutiating to my ears. I notice that they have means to harass and control poor Pete. A girl calls it ducky, and wants to jump in after it. She then asks why small ducks are yellow, but she's thinking of baby chics. Always a need to call an animal our own, to disturb the one that travels alone peacefully among its own triangle. Always a need to name an animal to identify a spec of commonality and communicate.

Frick Park Reflections

One thing I have come to love about Pittsburgh is the ability to retreat into nature while remaining in the city. On Saturday, my boyfriend and I walked from my apartment building on Murray Avenue to Frick Park's entrance on Beechwood Blvd, into vast fields and open sky. I thought the newly cut grass would be screaming with bugs, but we laid there relatively undisturbed. We kicked the soccer ball around for awhile (soccer is a passion for both of us), and then laid in the sun. There was a singular dandelion in front of me, maybe the only one that survived the mower's blade on this hillside. Speaking of dandelion's, I began reading Nancy Gift's A Weed by Any Other Name, and I came across the passage Laura formerly mentioned in class. Gift paraphrased Richard Louv: "he reminds us that immersing oursevles in wild spaces fosters creativity, the sense of place, and the confidence that we need as adults" (xii). For me, wild speaks to thinking outside of the box. It is not, or should not always be assigned negative connotations. Paying attention to everything that grows around us can certainly maintain a knowledge of place, history, origin and heritage of a plant and/or person. Confidence is an intriguing concept, but I agree that plants instill confidence. I ponder my childhood: I remember planting pumpkins when I was a child in a plot in my neighbor's yard. Perhaps we stopped doing this because of age and other activities, but doing so had fostered not only the growth of a living thing, but human relationships as well, including my parents, siblings, and neighbor. Since then, I feel that I have lost the ability to grow a thing, that confidence, and also the space and permission; we barely speak to our neighbor anymore. Planting a living thing teaches responsibility, nurturing, hard work and respect for the environment.

Chatham Pond

Today I laid on the hill behind the pond on Chatham's campus. This is the place I will make a weekly visit to and write about. The following are my thoughts from earlier: Grass as long as my fingers. A tree that looks as though it's been skinned to the smooth grey underneath. There are white circular flowers that remind me of a woman's sheer blouse. On this shaded hillside, trees and bushes only let a small amount of light shine through, but no spec of this area is left untouched; it is evenly greened. I search the grass for a four leaf clover, but no luck today. There is a duck by th epond, the kind my father collected in figurines and paintings, the kind with a patch of dark green and antique brown feathers. The pond water is cloudy, muddy, as dark as fear. Yet, bright orange fish swim around in lines and cirlces. The duck is just sitting there on the edge waiting. For what? I wonder. For solitude. For a companion. For a piece of bread like amusement park ducks. Tree branches hang over the water as if the old tree no longer wants the weight on its bark, or as if they were just that thirsty waiting for the rain. The fountain spurts out water which is the only sound, aside from the chirping birds. It creates a movement that groups stray leaves together. Blocking some of my view is a bush that seems like it might be dying, brown bleeding on the tips. Its appendages stick out in all different directions like a boy's hair in the morning. I'm not sure why, but there are large grey stones placed around the pond in a section of mulch. I suppose this is mere decoration, but who needs that? Now that the black squirell is gone, several birds land on the ground moving their necks like the arrow of a clock. Tic-toc. A lone red-bellied bird hops too and fro, looking...for food? The duck is still sitting there. I wonder if I'll see him next time, or if he will have taken the plunge into the murky water.

Nature & Environmental Writing

I am a beginner to blogging, which has now been initiated by the Nature and Environmental Writing course I am taking for Chatham University's MFA program. I have often thought about how one's environment shapes her character. For instance, I grew up in the Poconos, where I spent a lot of time being active in the outdoors. My father hunts deer, primarily, and I have often contemplated the morals of this act. He also grew up on a farm, which I know very little about, except that there are right and wrong ways to care for cows. Many of my family members fish; this is something my brother still loves to do as a hobby, but I have not done so for a very long time. Wen I was young, my brother and I often hiked and explored, and my mother truly loves buying and planting flowers to make her house presentable. I recall several chores that I was not particularly fond of, including sifting dirt and picking up sticks. Part of the environmental movement includes paying attention to the creation of suburb, that is, using chemicals, pesticides, making a house look "pretty." There are several images that I distincly love and remember from the house I grew up in, which are the mint leaves growing on the hillside and the apple tree that we have never eaten from. This imagery often appears in my poetry, where I draw parallels and create metaphors. It is my hope that participating in this class will help me further explore natural landscapes and interpret my own internal landscape/reasons for writing. I feel that I will be challenged most when asked to write nonfiction essays or works of fiction, since these are not the primary genres that I practice.