Poetry class..

It's so hard to express oneself. And sometimes so unnecessary. I.e., with blogs, people diss them endlessly and bloggers unconsciously or consciously pander to the entertainment needs of internet passersby. Basically, we have to entertain them with the products of our ranty subconscious. Because it's lonely and unnecessary for some to express themselves on public keyboard. I'm taking a poetry class with Thomas Sayers Ellis and also a class with Danny Kaiser and am in a tailspin. I have a poor grasp on what I want to say, know that I want to say something, but seriously doubt if it's important. Why should anyone read my poetry other than my having to write some? If it came from the heart, when I attempt it, the limits of verse leave me stymied and confused. Some of the core issues I had in my heart, I tried to write them out in a poem and of course it turned out pretty bad.

Cosmopolitanism, reality, boredom with my lifestyle, confusion about the way things actually are or how they feel, that's what I'm trying to talk about. The things I dream of and imagine as liberated, cosmopolitan versions of reality are a combination of foreign countries and what I picture the lives of other people to be like there, science videos that show these sweeping visions of progress, the beauty and subjectivity that strikes me in certain art as well as hints of deviant sexual possibility/darkness, my right to experience this loungey, nightly subjectivity, etc. And plus how with movies I get a refreshing break from my own boring perspective.

Kids in school gas my head. Dina, you're so unique, weird, awkward, this, some things they say, they don't realize I take them as complements. So I become obsessed with my own personality and how I understand what people project back on to me. Dina has to be a certain way. Perhaps this is limiting. I hate the kind of thoughts that turn back in on themselves. And I have no clue what's important, what I should be thinking about, and how I should be experiencing life. This personality that is partially an exaggerated version of one part of me permits itself to be offensive and direct for the sake of humor. So sometimes, I overstep the line with people in thinking of what I can do. They get offended, get brash, and say something mean to me. I'm really sensitive and forget that the things I say could bother other people just as much in different ways. I.e., though I maintain my liberty to make jokes about flexible gender identity and sometimes even black people, when people say mean things about Jews or use the word "gay" I can't really take it. In fact, my brother called me a wuss. Plus, people hate those who talk about themselves but right now I need to.

In Danny's class, I store up so many objections to what he's saying and can't get a chance to say them or anything. When I mention it outside of class, he keeps on rolling with his own opinion. Even my friends have no idea what I'm talking about or can't consent to a session of mental masturbation where we agree/expand on our own viewpoint. Maybe I don't even know what he's saying, Madame Bovary is a confused jumble in my mind. Maybe I just didn't read Henry James carefully enough. Danny keeps dropping extreme statements about modernism but before I can contest them, I have to pinpoint them! I have no clue where I ought to go with conference either. Shrug. This damming up of my thoughts is gonna lead to silence and confusion. I'll have nothing in my brain, let alone nothing orderly. Just a vague feeling of unease and that I'm not learning something I should be or that we're not getting deeply enough into things.

Essentially, my heart and mind's concerns seem to be so reified that they have no way of connecting and I have no way of finding out what's most important.