To put it bluntly, Michael Ondaatje’s "Billy the Kid" confusedme, as I’m sure it confused others. I liked the poems. I thought the prose wasvery detailed and wordy, so I liked it being broken up with another genre (poetry).The prose sort of reminded of the couple of Chuck Palahniuk books I’ve read.Elements such as the way language is played with, the frankness of what’s beingsaid (but still leaving a lot underneath the surface) and a mixture of darkhumor and plain dark tones. My favorite part was the bit about the "madman'sskin." I thought it was visual and somewhat entertaining.
I really, really liked Jerome Stern's collection of microfiction. It reminds me of poetry, where each word, phrase and sentence must becarefully selected so that they hold a proper amount of weight and meaning.Words count in every writing that we do, but especially in shorter pieces. "Wrong Channel" made me laugh. It also reminded me of my friend’s boyfriend inNorway, who is working on getting his green card to come and live in the UnitedStates. I hope it will be easy for him; he has an extremely competent grasp onthe English language, so there will be no funny mishaps such as in this story.I particularly liked the language in "Mockingbird." Phrases such as "An islandof silence bobs to the surface" and "the chalky pink color of Pepto-Bismol"sounded so fresh to me. I couldn't connect much with "Land’s End," so while Ithought it was well written (with many vivid images), I didn't enjoy it as much.I did enjoy the last one, "Waiting," especially because it was one run-onsentence. I felt that that added onto the feeling of the piece. The style isone that I might use in my own writing, so I felt pretty connected to the voicein it.
In general, I enjoy the use of multigenre in a piece. It feels good to mixthings up a bit, throw in a poem or quote or song lyric. We wrote multigenrepapers in The Writer's Mind, and it was one of my favorite papers that we didin that class. It's interesting to see what happens when you try to connectdifferent forms of writing. As Dr. Maxson put it, it's also interesting toleave some things out and let the readers make connections for themselves.
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