traces of things that once were, a series of poems by ben frederick
/
1.
1
traces of things that once were, This document/electronic communication contains personally identifiable information from a student’s educational record. It is protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 USC Sec. 1232g) and may not be rereleased, or used for any purpose other than that for which it was intended, without the consent of the student.
/
1.
3
contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.
a cover blank repitition blank what your reading now 72 pt draft x 2 ‘‘ binary draft almost there force justified draft x 4 binary draft traces of things that once were justified situations 72 pt binary situations 8 pt 12 pt just ryanposter ryanreading americancheeseflagspapabeardoritoscolbert ‘‘ ‘‘ ‘‘ 72 pt half of a photo other half of photo from pg. 26 olivegarden 01001101 cream just blank fin blank twopage informal title that reflects that I have learned something in this class
/
1.
5
The places, scenes
/
1.
7
10010011010101000110100001100101001000000111000001101100011000010110 0011011001010111001100101100001000000111001101100011011001010110111001 10010101110011001000000111010001101000011000010111010000100000011010 110110010101100101011100000010000001101101011001010010000001100110011 10010011011110110110100100000011110010110111101110101001011101001010000 0011010000101000001101000010100110000101101100011011110110111001100101 00100000011101000110100001100101001000000000110100001010011100110111 0100011001010110000101101101001000000110001101110010011001010110010101 1100000111001100001101000010100110011001110010011011110110110100001101 0000101000001101000010100110100001101111011011000110110001101111011101 1101110011000011010000101000001101000010100110111001101111011101110010 000001101000011010010111001101110011001000000111010001100101011000010 111001000001101000010100111010001101000011001010010000001110111011010 01011011100110010000100000000011010000101001110100011010000110010100 100000011011100110000101101011011001010110010000100000011000100111001 001100001011011100110001101101000011001010111001100001101000010100111 001001100101011000010110001101101000001000000110011001101111011100100 0100000011001110110110001101111011000100110010101110011001011000000110 1000010100111010001101111011011110010000001100110011000010111001000100 000011101000110111100100000011100100110010101100001011000110110100000 1011100000110100001010000011010000101001110111011011110110111101100100 00100000011000010110111001100100001000000111000001100001011100100111 010001101001011000010110110000100000011000100110111101100001011100100 110010000101100000011010000101001110000011010010110111001110011001000 0001100001011011100110010000100000011101110110010101110011011101000110 0101011100100110111000100000011000110110111101100100011001010111100000 0011010000101001100010011011000110111101100011011010110010000001101111 011101010111010000100000011101110110100001100001011101000010000001101 1000110000101111001001000000110001001100101011110010110111101101110011 001000010111000001101000010100000110100001010011100110110100101110100 00100000011000100110010101101000011010010110111001100100001000000110 000100100000011100110110001101110010011001010110010101101110000011010 0001010011011010110100101101100011001010111001100100000011001100111001 00110111101101101000011010000101001100001011101110110000101111001001011 0000001101000010100000110100001010010000010010000001100010011011000 1110101011001010010000000001101000010100110110001101111011000100111001 1011101000110010101110010001000000110010101100111011001110010111000001 1010000101000001101000010100101001101101110011011110111011101100010011 000010110110001101100001000000000110100001010011100110111010001110010 011010010110111001100111001000000110000101101110011001000010000001101 10101100001011100000111001100101100000011010000101001100001001000000 1100110011001010111011100100000011101000110100001101001011011100110011 101110011000011010000101000001101000010100110001001101100011011110110 001101101011001000000110110101100101000011010000101001100110011100100 11011110110110100100000011110010110111101110101001011100000110100001010
/
1.
9
the places, scenes alone the steam creeps from hollows now hiss tear the wind the naked branches reach for spars light, far to craddle. wood and partial board, pins and western codex block out what lay beyond. sit behind a screen miles from away, A blue lobster egg. Snowball string and maps, a few things me and you.
the a steam f h
places,
scenes
l
that
o
n
r o
wood pins block sit miles a
e creeps m
o l
now the the reach too
keep
l
o
w
hiss
far
naked for
and and out
tear wind branches globes, reach.
to
partial western what lay
behind
s
board, codex beyond.
a
w
a
screen from ,
y
A lobster S n string a block from
blue egg. o
w
and few
b
a
l
l maps, things me you.
/
1.
11
0111010001110010011000010110001101100101011100110010000001101111011001 1000100000011101000110100001101001011011100110011101110011001000000111 0100011010000110000101110100001000000110111101101110011000110110010100 100000011101110110010101110010011001010000110100001010011000100110010 1011011100110011001110010011001010110010001100101011100100110100101100 01101101011000011010000101000001101000010100000110100001010011000110 110000101110010011101100110010101100100001000000111011001101001011000 11011101000110111101110010011110010010000001100010011001010110111001100 1010110000101110100011010000000110100001010011100110110101101101001011 011100000110100001010011001010110010001100111011001010010000001100010 011011000111010101100101001000000110010101101110011001000010000001110 01001100101011100110111010101101100011101000000110100001010011000110111 100101100001011011100010000001100100011011110111010000100000011011010 110000101110100011100100110100101111000000011010000101001100011011010 000110000101110010011000110110111101100001011011000010000001110000011 01111011011000110110001101001011011100110000101110100011001010111001100 100000000011010000101001110100011010000110010100100000011100100110111 10110111101101101011100110010000001100011011100100110010101100001011101 000110100101110110011001010010000001101000011010010110010001100101011 0000101110111011000010111100101110011000011010000101001100001011011000 11011110110111001100101001000000110111101101110011000110110010100100000 01101101011011110111001001100101000011010000101001100101011011010111000 001110100011110010010000001101111011001100010000001110000011100100110 01010111001101100101011011100111010000001101000010100110111001100001011 0101101100101011001000010000001110111011000010110110001101100011100110 01000000110001001110010011001010110000101110100011010000000110100001 01001100010011001010110011101100111011010010110111001100111001000000111 010001101111001000000110001001100101001000000111000001101001011011100 1101110011001010110010000001101000010100111000001110010011011110110010 0011101010110001101110100011010010111011001100101001000000110000101110 010011101000110100101100110011000010110001101110100011100110010000000 0011010000101001100001011000100111001101100101011011100111010000101110
/
1.
13
traces of things that once were carved victory beneath skin, edge blue end result, cyan dot matrix. charcoal pollinates the rooms creative hideaways, empty of present naked walls breath begging to be pinned, productive artifacts absent.
traces carved s edge cyan charcoal the
of
things
once
victory i
k blue
rooms
naked begging
to s
dot
n end
were beneath , result, matrix.
pollinates hideaways,
creative
empty
productive a b
that
of
present
walls
breath pinned,
e
be n
artifacts t .
/
1.
15
thinking of painful situations post crit. on
01110100011010000110100101101110011010110110100101101110011001110010000001101111 011001100010000001110000011000010110100101101110011001100111010101101100001000 00011100110110100101110100011101010110000101110100011010010110111101101110011100 110010000000001101000010100111000001101111011100110111010000100000011000110111 00100110100101110100001011100010000001101111011011100010000001100001001000000 1110100011101010110010101110011011001000110000101111001001000000110000101100110 01110100011001010111001001101110011011110110111101101110001000000110100101101110 00100000011001010110000101110010011011000111100100100000011000010111000001110 0100110100101101100001011100000110100001010011000100110010101101110011001100111 001001100101011001000110010101110010011010010110001101101011000011010000101000 0011010000101000001101000010100110001101101111011100110111010000100000011011110 1100110001000000111100101101111011101010111010001101000001000000110000101101110 01100100001000000110100001110101011001010110010000100000011100000110000101110 0000110010101110010000011010000101001110000011011110111010101101110011001000010 0000011011110110111000100000011100110110100101101100011101100110010101110010000 011010000101001110111011011110111001001101110001000000110110101110101011001110111 0011000011010000101001100011011011000110111101110101011001000110010101100100001 000000110010101111001011001010111001100100000011101000111001001100001011100000 010000001101011011001010111100101110011001011100000110100001010000011010000101 0011010010110110001101100011101010111001101110100011100100110000101110100011001 010010000001110100011010000110010100100000011011100110010101100111011000010111 010001101001011101100110010100100000100100110110100101110100100101000000110100 0010100110100001100001011100110010000001100011011011110110111001100111011001010 110000101101100011001010110010000100000011000100110010101101000011010010110111 001100100001011000000110100001010011100110110010101101110011101000010000001101 010011101010111001101110100001000000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001 000000111000001110101011100110110100001100101011001000010000001100001011001110 1100001011010010110111000101100000011010000101001100010011100100110111101101011 01100101011011100010000001101001011100110110111101110100011011110111000001100101 01110011001011100010000000001101000010100000110100001010010001100110000101110 0100010000001100110011100100110111101101101001000000110000101110111011000010111 1001001011000000110100001010011100110110100101101100011101100110010101110010001 00000011011000110100101100101011100110010111000001101000010100000110100001010 0100111101110110011001010111001000100000011011110110111001100011011001010010000 0011000010110111001100100001000000110111101101110011000110110010100100000011011 11011101100110010101110010000011010000101001100011011011110110110101101101011000 01011011100110010000100000011000110010110000100000011100000110110001100001011 00011011001010010111000001101000010100000110100001010011100000110000101110010 0110000101101110011011110110100101100100001000000111011101110010011000010111010 00110100000100000000011010000101001101111011011100110001101100101001000000110 001101110101011101000010000001101001011011100111010001101111001000000110000100 100000011011000110010101110100011101000110010101110010001011100000110100001010
/
1.
17
thinking of painful situations post crit. on a tuesday afternoon in early april. cost of youth and hued paper pound on silver worn mugs clouded eyes trap keys. illustrate the negative “it� has congealed behind, sent just to be pushed again, broken isotopes. Far from away, silver lies. Over once and once over command c, place. paranoira once cut into a letter.
thinking of painful situations post crit. on a tuesday afternoon in early april. cost of pound worn clouded
youth eyes
illustrate has sent just broken
hued
paper silver mugs keys.
trap
the negative congealed to be pushed
Far silver
“it� behind, again, isotopes.
from
Over command p once
and on
a
once r cut
away, lies.
and c, a
once n
into
o a
over place. r
a letter.
/
1.
19
Kay Ryan I didn’t know what to expect earlier tonight walking in to Kay Ryan’s poetry reading. Was it going to be boring or what, I guess I am in no place to know anything right now. Greg and me sat next to our friend Sam, and her girl friend. I guess that was nice knowing that Kay Ryan is gay, not that it matters. My best friend since I was four years old came out to me in college. So it was nice. I enjoyed Kay’s voice; it was soft, yet deep with knowing. Not in a bookish way, more of knowing in the sense that she has lived, and seen a thing or two. A knowing in a way a 35 year old waitress at waffle house knows, voice raspy with tar. A knowing of life’s pains and hardships. A knowing in a truthful and humble way. Never talking down, but also not talking up. Just communication, no fear of rejection or humiliation. It was what it was. I found wet coming from my eyes unexpectedly as I sat and listened to Kay recite “Home to Roost.” I think it was the sudden understanding, the image, the emotion, the gravity of the words falling from my eyes. I understood. I guess it was about that point when Sam’s girl friend, Sarah, politely took my note book and wrote, “None of these poems contain the word “I” – intensely personal themes made less personal by the omission.” She put it better than I could; she is after all a poet and a law student, an odd mix. But obviously a fan of Kay Ryan, I guess I am too after tonight. “I find learning unpleasant…” and I found myself laughing… and fumbling to understand what she meant. Maybe it was the lack of mystery that learning makes ever present in ones mind. Of course that is a shallow statement, at times learning can bring new mysteries into ones life. “Glass Slipper” another favorite from the night. I wish she would have read it again. I like how it made me feel dreadfully hopeful, yet incredibly depressed at the same time, reinstating the fact that the sole mate is a fairly tail, and anyone will fit into your glass slipper, even if it is for just a short time. Of course I probably miss understood the context and meaning. “Rhyme compels one to a great number of inaccuracies.” The night came to a close with the Q&A session, which is always blotted with horrid questions and descent answers, nothing that a simple blog wouldn’t tell you. We left soon after, walking back in the cold, Greg and I parted ways. I am humbled to say I have experienced Kay Ryan.
Tuesday 4.27 / 12:0-4:30 / McClung 1210
Home to Roost
Kay Ryan
The chickens are circling and blotting out the day. The sun is bright, but the chickens are in the way. Yes, the sky is dark with chickens, dense with them. They turn and then they turn again. These are the chickens you let loose one at a time and small— various breeds. Now they have come home to roost—all the same kind at the same speed.
/
1.
21
/
1.
23
Colbert’s Fightin’ Fifth Your grease would make a french fry cry with pride, could polish a Grammy to the shade of American cheese icon of sarcasm, and doritos, I salute you.
polish a Grammy to the shade of American cheese,
/
1.
25
/
1.
27
forgetting the night The stain on the wall Melted wax reminds of a night I don’t remember. We were at his farm an old family home full of a mans life Intoxicated and sad Generations apart you lay on the kitchen floor our heads together always understanding that nothing will be understood I was out on the porch frustrated with the words that I couldn’t say. The wax still clings to the wall a trophy of a night that we got lost in the four of us weeping in sadness it was a contagious freeing experience in an old wooden room the whiskey and wine were dulling my mind but I still remember the feelings that hung in the air pale smoke of loves lost and fights won, of secrets and regret the amnesia.
0110011001101111011100100110011101100101011101000111010001101001011011100110011100100000011101000 110100001100101001000000110111001101001011001110110100001110100000011010000101000001101000 01010000011010000101001010100011010000110010100100000011100110111010001100001011010010110 11100010000001101111011011100010000001110100011010000110010100100000011101110110000101101100 01101100000011010000101001001101011001010110110001110100011001010110010000100000011101110110 0001011110000010000001110010011001010110110101101001011011100110010001110011001000000000110 1000010100110111101100110001000000110000100100000011011100110100101100111011010000111010000 100000010010010010000001100100011011110110111010010010011101000010000001110010011001010110 110101100101011011010110001001100101011100100010111000001101000010100000110100001010010101110 110010100100000011101110110010101110010011001010010000001100001011101000010000001101000011 0100101110011001000000110011001100001011100100110110100001101000010100110000101101110001000 000110111101101100011001000010000001100110011000010110110101101001011011000111100100100000011 01000011011110110110101100101000011010000101001100110011101010110110001101100001000000110111101 100110001000000110000100100000011011010110000101101110011100110010000001101100011010010110 011001100101000011010000101000001101000010100100100101101110011101000110111101111000011010010 1100011011000010111010001100101011001000010000001100001011011100110010000100000011100110110 00010110010000001101000010100100011101100101011011100110010101110010011000010111010001101001 011011110110111001110011001000000110000101110000011000010111001001110100000011010000101001111 0010110111101110101001000000110110001100001011110010010000001101111011011100010000001110100011 01000011001010010000001101011011010010111010001100011011010000110010101101110001000000110011 00110110001101111011011110111001000001101000010100000110100001010011011110111010101110010001000 0001101000011001010110000101100100011100110010000001110100011011110110011101100101011101000110 10000110010101110010000011010000101001100001011011000111011101100001011110010111001100100000 0111010101101110011001000110010101110010011100110111010001100001011011100110010001101001011011100 110011100001101000010100111010001101000011000010111010000100000011011100110111101110100011010 000110100101101110011001110010000001110111011010010110110001101100001000000110001001100101001 000000111010101101110011001000110010101110010011100110111010001101111011011110110010000001101000 01010000011010000101001001001001000000111011101100001011100110010000001101111011101010111010 0001000000110111101101110001000000111010001101000011001010010000001110000011011110111001001 10001101101000001000000000110100001010011001100111001001110101011100110111010001110010011000 0101110100011001010110010000100000011101110110100101110100011010000010000001110100011010000 110010100100000011101110110111101110010011001000111001100100000000011010000101001110100011010 00011000010111010000100000010010010010000001100011011011110111010101101100011001000110111010 01001001110100001000000111001101100001011110010010111000001101000010100000110100001010010 10100011010000110010100100000011101110110000101111000001000000111001101110100011010010110110 0011011000010000001100011011011000110100101101110011001110111001100100000000011010000101001 11010001101111001000000111010001101000011001010010000001110111011000010110110001101100000011 0100001010011000010010000001110100011100100110111101110000011010000111100100100000011011110 11001100010000001100001001000000110111001101001011001110110100001110100000011010000101000 0011010000101001110100011010000110000101110100001000000111011101100101001000000110011101101 1110111010000100000011011000110111101110011011101000010000001101001011011100000110100001010011 10100011010000110010100100000011001100110111101110101011100100010000001101111011001100010000 00111010101110011000011010000101001110111011001010110010101110000011010010110111001100111001000 000110100101101110001000000111001101100001011001000110111001100101011100110111001100001101000 01010000011010000101001101001011101000010000001110111011000010111001100100000011000010010 000001100011011011110110111001110100011000010110011101101001011011110111010101110011001000000000 11010000101001100110011100100110010101100101011010010110111001100111001000000110010101111000011 1000001100101011100100110100101100101011011100110001101100101000011010000101001101001011011100 0100000011000010110111000100000011011110110110001100100001000000111011101101111011011110110010 0011001010110111000100000011100100110111101101111011011010000110100001010000011010000101001110 1000110100001100101001000000111011101101000011010010111001101101011011001010111100100100000011 0000101101110011001000010000001110111011010010110111001100101000011010000101001110111011001010 1110010011001010010000001100100011101010110110001101100011010010110111001100111001000000110110 101111001001000000110110101101001011011100110010000001101000010100110001001110101011101000010 0000010010010010000001110011011101000110100101101100011011000010000001110010011001010110110 101100101011011010110001001100101011100100010000000001101000010100000110100001010011101000 1101000011001010010000001100110011001010110010101101100011010010110111001100111011100110010000 0011101000110100001100001011101000000110100001010011010000111010101101110011001110010000001 10100101101110001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100001011010010111001000001101000 010100111000001100001011011000110010100100000011100110110110101101111011010110110010100100000 011011110110011000100000011011000110111101110110011001010111001100100000000011010000101000001 10100001010011011000110111101110011011101000010000001100001011011100110010000100000011001100 11010010110011101101000011101000111001100100000011101110110111101101110001011000000110100001010 0110111101100110001000000111001101100101011000110111001001100101011101000111001100100000011000 01011011100110010000100000011100100110010101100111011100100110010101110100000011010000101001 1101000110100001100101001000000110000101101101011011100110010101110011011010010110000100101110
/
1.
29
forgetting The Melted of
the stain a
Intoxicated Generations you
were old of
The to a
lay
at
family
a
on
his mans
the
nothing
kitchen
will
was
out with
a
got
four
of
in
was an
still
the of
trophy we
the the couldn’t
wax
whiskey dulling I
the hung pale
in smoke
wooden
still
and my feelings
and secrets
lost
a old
the of fights and
wall reminds remember. farm home life sad apart floor together understanding understood
be on
I
the were but
lost of the
don’t
heads
that the weeping it freeing in
the
and
our always that I frustrated that
on wax I
night
We an full
night
porch words say. clings wall night in us sadness contagious experience room wine mind remember that air loves won, regret amnesia.
/
1.
31
forgetting the night the stain on the wall melted wax reminds a farm old family home full mans life intoxicated generations lay on the kitchen floor heads together always understanding that nothing will be understood, that we got lost in the silver of weeping in sadness the whiskey and wine dulling-but I still remember the pale smoke of loves, regret. the amnesia.
/
1.
33
(informal title that reflects that I have learned some-
(informal title that reflects that I have learned something in this class) So we circle up, in a group, one by one recite our poems or some “famous” poet’s, we workshop and crit. To an outsider we probably just look like group therapy. Which is fine if you ask me. Poetry is therapeutic so why not. This class has allowed me to express myself in ways I couldn’t during other creative classes, it rounded me out, made me more productive. If I was feeling burnt-out on design, I’d write some poetry, the poem could inspire a drawing, drawing inspire a design, the cycle begins again. I enjoy all these processes; to define them is the hard part, if a view gets the same emotional response from a poem, a drawing and some form of design, then what is the difference? The physical form? Well yes, but your goal is to communicate in some way. If that can be achieved through any process then is there a difference… the medium looks different, but for me the feeling I get is the same. I learned I just like to make stuff, doesn’t matter what it is, as long as I am making something. I wonder sometimes if I only hold myself back by being in creative classes, what happened to Ben Frederick the doctor or lawyer? Why is it the artist? Or designer or poet? To be honest I am none of those things, I’m not a poet, one must be published to be a poet in my opinion. I’m not an artist… cause well you don’t want to be like “hi, I’m an artist” it just sounds wrong, your only an artist when your introduced as an artist. I suppose the same goes for a designer, and so on. But we are really taking about the same thing, art, poetry, and design; they all use some sort of creativity to send a message to the viewer. Each is about arranging elements on a page, canvas or screen. My actual writing process has been interesting. It is normally in a flurry of emotion that I feel like writing, or “need” to write. (not the oh I have class in 5 min. I better write this poem.) More of a need internally. Some days its stronger than others, some times I don’t want to write at all. Most of my poems are written in 30 min or so. I feel like there needs to be an imidiacy in the process to truly get out what is inside. A filtering of emotions one can go back and erase, and edit. Strip down to the barest form. I don’t think it is necessary for one to fully understand what is going on in my poems, if the viewer says, oh hat sounds odd, pretty, and sad. I did my job, they don’t need to now the specifics of the emotions, just the specifics of the visuals that trigger the emotions, or that are around at the time of the poem. Its odd, but the process worked well for me, I have really enjoyed this class and will continue to write.
/
1.
35
/
1.
37