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Posts by NonSequitur
Joined: Dec 3, 2009
Last Post: Mar 12, 2011
Threads: 3
Posts: 15  

From: United States of America

Displayed posts: 18
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NonSequitur   
Mar 12, 2011
Poetry / Ultimate freedom; 'Tell me if it isn't true for you?' [6]

Hey there, I really enjoyed reading this poem!

Your first stanza does a lot of telling, and I wonder if it have a stronger impact if you tried to add in more descriptive detail that shows the reader what you are saying i.e. elaborate on that "ocean of feelings"...

However, I absolutely love your ending. Perhaps change the structure a bit?

You come from somewhere.
The scarring on the ground, your cremated remains;
and wonder, who was there?

^ Just a suggestion. :) GL!
NonSequitur   
Nov 30, 2010
Poetry / "chasing time often" - My first poetry (If this can be called as poetry) [8]

Hi there. First of all, thanks for giving poetry a chance! You'll slowly improve with time and practice, so don't forget that.

Going back to your poem, I think that diction and imagery are perhaps the two main problems. Words like "impeccable" tell, but doesn't show, and poetry should be about showing.

In addition, try to avoid descriptive phrases such as "endless darkness" that lack both abstract power and concreteness. It is also rather cliche, so be careful of that.

Remember that poetry is not a summary; instead it should capture a very specific state of mind or event. The more details the better!
NonSequitur   
Dec 26, 2009
Undergraduate / U Chicago essay (my own prompt) "Are you free?" [7]

Freedom- A Trichotomy

-----I am not free. For the past several years, I have watched as my mother, her hands blistered and chafed, walked out the front door at 5:30 am in the early morning, running for the bus to take her to work. The sacrifices she made for me, both financially and emotionally, were priceless. In that sense, I am certainly not free. In sociology class, my professor told us rather matter-of-factly that large jumps in social status are rarely possible, that the rag to riches story of Horatio Alger is a mere fantasy of the poor. However, I was raised by a man and a woman who taught me to dream without boundaries. They gave me all that they ever owned, and in giving, we are rich. Because of their giving, I am free.

-----However, I have been confronted with several other dilemmas regarding freedom in the past few years. Strangely, the question of freedom gnaws at me, myself only one victim of its enigma in a sea of billions. Growing up, I have always felt destined for the stars; my name, which means "the son who soars" in Chinese, might also be a part of the reason why. As a kid, I would stare at the sky and imagine green aliens out there, waiting to meet me someday. However, as I grew up, I have come to realize that space, the vast blackness that surrounds and sometimes scares us, symbolizes the ultimate freedom. However, I frequent ask myself, will I ever attain that ultimate freedom? Am I truly free?

-----Philosopher John Locke once proposed a problem regarding free will. In this problem, Locke asked whether a willing prisoner, locked inside a jailed room, is free. The man wants to stay within that jail cell, in fact, he would be unhappy being anywhere else. However, the moment he tries looking for the nonexistent exit, he will realize that he is not free. Like the jailed prisoner, I too have come to belief that I am not free. The Earth is my jailed room, and I am the prisoner who is no longer willing to stay put. The more I yearn for alien worlds and the more vivid my dream of someday being able to explore the contents of the universe becomes, the stronger I feel the tightening grasp of my humanity, imposing a limit on my freedom.

-----For several months after I first found my answer to the question "Are you free?" the world seems to fall into a rather colorless jumble. I know that the pessimistic lenses can only see the colder lifeless colors of winter months, and yet I have chosen to wear them in this period of anxiety. However, after having lived with a roommate this past summer at the Harvard Summer School program, the question "Are you free?" took on a new meaning.

-----I remember the phone call near midnight on a rainy Friday. The roads on campus were muddied and vacant of students. Yet, on that evening, my roommate was nowhere to be found. I remember reading about the Snowball Earth hypothesis in my astrobiology textbook when my phone rang in the silence. I picked up the phone, and heard on the other end, a rather hesitant question, "Are you free?" my roommate asked me. He became silent after asking, and I heard the sound of rain splattering on the ground beneath him, likely drenching him. I knew then that something was wrong. I closed my astrobiology textbook, and answered "Yea, I am. Where are you right now?" In that moment, I knew that I was free, that I will always be free for him. All the other freedom that I have ever sought became insignificant at that moment, when I heard his voice, calling out to me. I am a friend and, I would like to think, a healer and an up-lifter of the human spirit; thus, I am free, I will always be free.

...
I used ----- because I couldn't indent my paragraphs for some reason.
I just wrote this. What do you guys thinks?
NonSequitur   
Dec 17, 2009
Undergraduate / 'The Tramp - Charlie Chaplin' - Common App Essay #4 Character in fiction [8]

Honestly?

The writing feels forced, like you wrote it with a dictionary by your side.

Some of your word choices are just awkward...I can't point to specific examples but I think it is important for you to consider the smoothness of the writing.

There are just too many 'big' words (not that we don't know the meaning of the words, but simply that a simpler word could be used) that are not necessary for the story development.

Best of luck!
NonSequitur   
Dec 13, 2009
Undergraduate / An experience that changed my life--saved a stranger's life--comapp [7]

Hey. I just want to say that I also talked for several hours on Omegle with a German guy. We really connected and it was an amazing experience, so I definitely understand what you experienced on Omegle.

This essay is frank, simply, and very effective. Great job.
NonSequitur   
Dec 12, 2009
Poetry / The Barber (a very short poem that I wrote). [8]

"if rid of weather"

double entendre here (sort of)

weather as in bad weather. the barber's is rather cranky and does not have the patience to 'trim', rather he 'cuts'.

weather as in weathering/erosion. if the hair was weathered (unkempt and dirty), he can perform a harsher procedure ('cuts it'). however, if the hair/artifact is rid of weather, he is able to be much more graceful and therefore 'trims'.

hope that makes sense.
NonSequitur   
Dec 12, 2009
Poetry / What do you think, Life Poem - Trying a new style [4]

I like it. But personally, I feel like this style of poetry does not give the reader enough 'meat' (if you will) to interpret.

I do love the last line though. Very clever. :)
NonSequitur   
Dec 6, 2009
Undergraduate / Why UChicago (diabetes changed my life and goals)? [7]

I don't know why t1292 is being so negative.

This is a good idea, especially if diabetes is a very personal topic for you.

Write about how diabetes 'caught on to you', and maybe how you were able to beat it (sort of like an analogy of a race).

Best of luck, I'm probably applying to UChicago too, but haven't written anything yet.

:)
NonSequitur   
Dec 6, 2009
Undergraduate / Common App Personal Statement, On Poetry and Sailing [5]

Thank you t1292!

"I learned English, starting with the ABCs, and read frequently." <- I think this is correct, no?

Also, my sister really does call me Brother, lol. I know, it's weird...
NonSequitur   
Dec 6, 2009
Undergraduate / Common App Personal Statement, On Poetry and Sailing [5]

Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to read!
Some of my concerns

1) Spelling/grammar/style
2) Is this essay unique or somewhat cliche?
3) Am I being too reminiscent of the past, and not forward-looking enough?
4) Based on this essay, what kind of person do you think I am?

"Brother, what is reality?" my sister ****** asked me one day on our way home from the library. Startled by the question, I began to tell her something about our five senses, only to realize that I didn't know what reality was to her, because even though we are siblings, we grew up in different worlds, each with a different reality.

Her reality is one of countless Sunday mornings when she would crawl into my bed and tell me about her dreams in a hilariously matter-of-fact way; of the rush to the door on weeknights when my parents come home from work; and of her love to look through my poetry books and take "notes" in her little booklet, among other moments in the daily rhythms of her life. Unlike her, my childhood reality was one of climbing old tombstones behind my backyard for fun, walking to the fish market with my grandmother at dawn, and creating my own picture books by drawing figures in the dirt beneath my feet. ***** and I live in different realities; just as the world she sees through her eyes shapes who she will become, so my childhood has shaped who I am and my reality.

I remember growing up in a rural village in southern China, raised by my grandparents- one a stone mason and the other a farmer. My uncle used to take me to the roof to stare at the stars, then so horrendously numerous in the eerily black sky, horrendous only because I did not yet understand it. I was part of a village spirit, a brotherhood of humans in their most basic elements. We washed our clothing with our hands by the well, and on holidays would gather in the courtyard and slaughter roosters, according to tradition. Life was unruly then; there were no routines, only spontaneous adventures. That was my childhood, the first poem that I ever learned.

I grew up in a world of poetry, and inevitably, began experimenting with writing after immigrating to the U.S nine years ago. I learned English, starting with the ABCs, and read frequently. In a few years, I went from reading children's books to reading classics and writing poetry. While I have been called a poet, I do not think that I speak poetry; rather, poetry speaks through me. In the last few years, sailing has become my poetry; for hours every school night and weekend, the spirit of the -Boat Name- speaks through me. I become a member of the crew, bound by the fraternal oaths of sailors and the love of the schooner. I sail because the water is my shelter, where Jupiter is again visible in the western sky and the black water washes over us with its surges and plunges. Beneath the night, even sailors become passengers, of the vehicle that drives our dreams and humanity, of nature's poetry.

I once met a man on a street in ******, ****** who pointed to a piece of drawing and said "this is not art," and then, gesturing between his heart and mine with his hands, said "this is art". Although at the time I walked away quite confused, now I think he was trying to tell me that the real art lies in the beauty of people bound by a common dream and purpose. Sailing is thus my poetry - my art, without being "art". I watch people as I sail; the children who toy with their naïveté as they stare over the edge into the water that passes beneath us, and the old sailors who have anchored their youth between the shores of Jersey and the piers of Manhattan. We live another reality on the water; the rhythms of our days are marked not by the ticks of clocks, but the rush of waves that rocks the -Boat Name-, wildly and abruptly.

My friends insist that I am a country boy, destined to yearn for the lost romanticism of the village. Yet I think that they are mistaken. Every time I sit on the cabin top of the -Boat Name- with my notebook in my hands, humming the song "Two Worlds" by Phil Collins, I am constructing my future world of poetry, a world once again romantic and hopeful. I make due with what I have, and the city of New York offers plenty of all worlds. I rediscovered my childhood in New York Harbor, salvaged from the depth with my calloused hands and darkened skin. The East River is my home, and the -Boat Name- crew, my family.

Someday, when my sister grows up, she will find her very own reality. But for now, I will tell her about my reality, once in a village in China, now on the waters of New York and very soon, in the community where I will spend the next four years of my life.
NonSequitur   
Dec 3, 2009
Poetry / The Barber (a very short poem that I wrote). [8]

The Barber

is an archaeologist with sharp scissors
& red sidebrushes

cuts &
(if rid of weather)- trims morsels of time

birthdays assembled in a riddle on the foor
a chronology

the scalp
pale & raw beneath rounded bifocals

an artifact of boyhood & hot summers
all for $12 plus tip

This is a going to be a submission to my school's litmag, and I would love to have it critiqued before sending it off.

Thank you everyone!
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