this is what it feels like to be a precocious teen in the early 21st century

7/29/2019 this is what it feels like to be a precocious teen in the early 21st century

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this is what it feels like to be a precocious teen in the early 21st century.

By: Ben Shear

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Half Shade

Way up, high high, high eye level with passing peregrines,

The Sun chandelier was on full power

Calling forth sweat, and bugs, and sweat

Sweet sweat ran down my cheeks. Not tears I promise.

Dust in the sky clouds the otherwise pretty pretty view,

and the little city below is filmy and captured on film somewhere by someone I am sure:

That tends to happen.

Everything is sepia and scorched, and framed neatly probably in mahogany at a local art co-op.

But then, oh then to my left and down the hill a bit there is a purple something.

purple something not sure what something; I dont know my flowers, maybe it was a petunia or apenumbra,

who is to say who is to know really...horticulturist...

I had never seen purple like this. Toward the purple I stumbled time passes

just as beautiful up close.

...

sun hangs low now.

still fixated on the purple flower, which is fixed to the dirt: by a syllogism, both of us clinging to

something loose.

oh purple flower please dont leave,

if you do I may shed a tear.

Im up on this hill for a reason you know, I wouldnt ever come up here just to gaze at a purplesomething.

....

sun down now: purple gone.

penumbra after all.

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I Genuinely

believe I willwin at least 2

Pulitzers

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Analysis ofHalf Shade

Half Shade is based on the work Sunflower Sutra(http://boppin.com/sunflower.html) by

the famed and infamous Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg. Ginsbergs work is both an environmental message,

as well as a love song of sorts to his writing companion and friend, Jack Kerouac. Half Shade contains

neither an environmental message, nor does it seek to impress anyone in particular. Originally, in its

mental incarnation, Half Shade was going to praise Ginsberg for his revolutionary writing style, but,

after actually taking shape, I found that there was no such message hidden in the concept. Rather, Half

Shade took on the shape of a free verse story of love and loss, or more aptly, fascination and

disillusionment.

In this poem, there are no indicators to the identity of the narrator of the mini quest. The

poem is lacking masculine or feminine pronouns, and offers no reference to the age of the protagonist. I

chose to write the poem as such because I feel that it serves the same purpose as Bella in the Twilight

Series, in that any reader can inhabit the character and have a unique experience.

With this in mind, I left the third to last line for a reason ambiguous so as to allow the

reader to create their own reason, if only on a subconscious level as to why they would be up on a hill.

I attempted to create a tone just shy of desperation through uncertain diction and images. The end of

the first stanza marks the narrator promising that they are not crying, which automatically leads one to

believe they are crying. After this, the narrators general uncertainty and self consciousness add to the

sense that something is amiss in their world. This is heightened in the third stanza with the syllogism

(flower has a weak grip on earth. Narrator has grip on flower. Therefore narrator has weak grip on

earth) that portrays the narrator as clinging, which does not indicate complete stability, no definitely

not.

On to the significance of the title. Half Shade, a penumbra is a half shade. It is that area of

shadow that is kind of shaded, but not completely. Contrast this, not quite eerie, but not far off, image

with a petunia, which is delicate, and there is an immediate discrepancy. As the day passes, the shadow

will disappear, taking the penumbra along with it, and also taking along the light, thus making it

impossible to distinguish whether the supposed flower was a penumbra, or a petunia, as the darkness

would mask the color no matter what. Therefore, the last line of the poem is only probably correct,

not certainly.

For all of this anxiety the narrator is encountering, he appreciates the beauty of the flower, or

penumbra, whichever it may be. This would seem to contradict the nervous mood, but rather, I

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employed the calm backdrop as a foil character of sorts, as it highlights the somewhat offness of the

narrator.

Much like Ginsbergs jazz like rhythm to his poem, I repeated many sounds to try and create a

rhythm of my own. The most obvious of these sounds is p as it pops up on nearly every line. The p

sound is an oddly slow sound, as it has a tendency to remain resting on the tip of the tongue, not quite

wanting to venture out to the world of sound. This creates an almost sticky pace to the poem, as the

reader has to pause at each p sound. This contributes to the agitated mood of the poem.

Now that mood has been addressed, I think it would be beneficial to discuss the purpose of

Half Shade. As this is the more standard of the two poems, it has one cohesive theme and feeling,

which leads to one basic purpose: to create a singular image and emotion. Rather than making

statements with poetry, I believe poems should be about evoking emotions otherwise untapped by

other media outlets. In this sense, Half Shade is similar to the imagist movement, but, rather than

focusing on one image, I attempted to focus on one theme, on emotion which I hope to elicit from the

reader.

Suggested Listening: Bright Eyes - You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8DBoIgsYF0

Conor Obersts melodramatic lyrics and the calm, but anxious aspect of this song in particular

make it a perfect companion piece to this poem. (this is me acknowledging, and accepting the nature of

teen poetry to be fake big and fake important. I did my best to avoid this, while still fending off the

copious amount of irony that I have a penchant for using to mask true emotions. Hope I struck an ok

balance)

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Help, Ive been reading too

much camus and now I dontknow if I exist.

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Nirvana (can i have a hug?)

My Friend mixed up Juggalo and Gigolo,

And I had to use pictures from Google Images to explain the difference.

It was funny.

She then blogged about it and a lot of ppl on the internet probably laughed.

And it is funny.

I wonder if there are any juggalo Gigolos.

eek

(i want to fold the space between us in two)

Anyways, what I am getting at, is treat me like a Halloween Pumpkin.

That means scoop out my guts and leave me hollow and a bit slimy.

Then, take a knife, and slash until a visage of faux gruesome is permanently present.

After that, stick a candle in me to make me glow through my new facial abysses, and leave me on the

front porch for a week or so.

Maybe a neighborhood rascal will kick in what hasnt rotted away.

After a week or so, throw me away, and replace me next year.

(and watch movies together all dang night and start but not finish a game of clue)

And maybe conquistadors were actually just hormonal and full of angst.

That would explain all the violence,

And also maybe they were just rebelling against their strict parents who didnt let them go hang out withtheir friends whatever they want.

I am starting to think this may be the case because of a letter from Hernan Cortez we read in Spanish

Lit,

Even though the letter does not support this claim at all.

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It is just an idea I had while reading the letter and I thought it would make a

funny poem.

(..and probably maybe give you one or two kisses and feel close and warm)

I usually write poems on the ground in front of my mirror because I am just a teen full of angst,

And I have once again projected myself onto inanimate objects,

And I have once again projected myself into the past,

it is better than wiping out civilizations, I guess.

(hmmmm, that is love in a true form.)

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Humility is a wonderful

Wonderful thing

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Analysis ofNirvana(can i have a hug?)

Now this poem was fun to write. My original draft was long and completely scattershot, and

more of an idea pad than an actual poem, but after a number of edits and revisions, I have crafted a

poem that I would consider to be one of my favorites. Tying in with the title of the portfolio, this poemis a reflection of teen life in the early 21st century: it is unorganized, cluttered, distracted, calm, fast, and

ultimately, contradictory.

Unlike Half Shade I wrote this poem directly based on my experiences and my thoughts,

making it a free verse, confessional poem with a love story sub plot. The stanzas build in such a pattern

as to reflect an increase in awareness. Starting with the concrete, not much emotion associated with

juggalos and gigolos in this context. The second stanza addresses abstract thinking w/r/t myself. The

third is abstract thought w/r/t others, and an established link to the genesis of the thought. The final

stanza is reflection, the epitome of personal awareness. I believe these 4 distinct steps are the definition

of what it means to grow up. To be completely honest, this structure only vaguely occurred to me at

the time of writing, which I think is a testament to the power of art that it hides messages even from its

creator.

The structure of this poem is hectic as it bounces from seemingly unconnected examples,

separated only by a mini parenthetical love poem, however, taken individually, the stanzas are actually

rather calm in nature. The language is not fast like in Half Shade nor is it especially charged except for

the pumpkin metaphor (which I quite like for literary purposes but I dont actually feel that way, well

sometimes but isnt that part of growing up?). Even though there are a lot of conjoining words, there

are also many terse sentences, thus creating another conflict and contradiction.

This type of seemingly off the cuff writing reflects the speed with which information is relayed

these days. The internet, and especially social media has changed communication, and with it, art. Many

of these lines are tweets of mine, and the poems lack of hyperbaton or complex syntax of any form is

indicative of internet writing; in that it needs to get straight to the point, because there is a plethora of

other things to read or watch or do.

I chose the title Nirvana as an homage to the kings of angst, as well as a reference to the

sublime peace implied by the original definition of the word, as at the end, I have acknowledged my

flaws, and rationalized myself back into a calm and contentment. The parenthetical title (can I have a

hug) is the title of the smaller, fragmented rhyming poem that separates the stanzas, and it is something

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I say when I want a hug. I like the contrast of this hectic environment of stuff against the sweet, love

of a true form. It serves as an anchor both in the poem, and in my life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ-XB0z9kPM&feature=youtu.be .

Suggested Listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47xbkT3calM - animal collective- todays

supernatural.

This song is crazy, just warning you.

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