Come Along For A Journey Through Literature

Hello world! My name is Angela Bradley-Volz. I am a literature enthusiast and student who loves to read, analyze, write about literature and about my own experiences. My fascination for literature started at a very young age when my mother, father, grandparents, aunts and uncles would enthusiastically take me on an adventure through literature. We explored new worlds together at bedtime, which always left me dreaming– creating a new world in my own imagination.  My imagination would soar to great levels, but my greatest interest has always been fueled by Realism. Relating to the literature has always created a deep rooted connection within my soul. I get enthralled within the depictions of interiority, entering into each characters’ thoughts– leaving me connected with them eternally. Some of my favorite works are by Samuel Richardson, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Sandra Cisneros, and Nancy Garden. I am starting this blog in hopes to attract other literature enthusiasts to share their feminist, and psychological perspectives on different literary works. From time to time I will share some of my own work. Lets get engaged with interesting literature!

LGBT Poetry

These Poems are very dear to my heart. When first coming out to my family as a lesbian, not many people were accepting of what I was going through. At one point I felt very alone, but comforted by my writing. I wrote both of these poems during this time. After reading them recently, all of those old memories of that time came flooding over me. Only this time I could realize the exhilarating feelings of sexuality were present in my writing. This was neat to look back upon and return to those feelings of sadness, hurt, loneliness and the most important of the feelings expressed in Rainbow Runner – no matter how hard the fight I will always accept myself for who I am. Thanks for looking!

Exile

I enjoyed the sight of the crimson spell
seeping downward like the chime of a bell does disperse.
Pleasuring in the soft leaden ooze of its warmth,
I bathed in its satin ecstasy uncaring
while sin contaminated every surrounding thing.
My thoughts, my words, and my writings
soon metamorphosis into the satisfyingly wrong,
my ultimate evil.
Outside the soul there lurked none the wiser,
no a ruined selves, and so no demolished goodness.
Time came to sacrifice and let Death
originate from my own life.
The pain and the anger, the explosion of emotion
and the inward crypt of solitude
withdrew me into my corner.
Detached from those who were worthy,
I fulfilled my own set prophesy,
for I lived a life deep within the crevasse of banishment, shame…
Exile.

 

Rainbow Runner

I’m running down a rainbow.
Sometimes I stop and walk,
but mostly the world absorbs me
into its great mystery.
The sky blends perfectly into the street,
and the trees stand stark and reaching for the clouds.
My heart beats, and my nose itches,
and my eyes feast
upon the wonder that I live and breathe.
However tumultuous the storm can be,
I’m running down a rainbow,
straddled between a dream and reality.

A Collection Of Poems From MY PAST

Hello all! I have decided to share a small collection of poems that were written by me when I was in High School. These poems were all written with emotion being the main focus. Please read them with an open mind and let me know if you have any comments. Hope you enjoy!

Broken Fighting

Are not my hurt feelings enough
For thine eyes to see this strife
Between us it makes my heart not love
It makes one want not to survive

Why can’t you understand
All of my pain and tormenting ache
Urges of wanting to travel to Utopia
Fore all this is as vapid as fruitcake

I can’t figure out why this means so much
Your elegant face your gentle touch
But no matter how so hard I try
I cannot make my own face cease to cry

I cry so much always at night
Like a fool I wished, I hoped
For all this hostility to soon turn upright
But all I did was mope

I know that now, my dream of peace
This dream I see never appears true
I need to pray for my hope to release
I cannot be blinded by gloom

Where Naked Eyes Are Blind

Where naked eyes are blind,
Unreal and fictitious spirit I find.
For all whom need hope suffer grief,
And those who hearts break have no belief,
Where each of the lame arise to walk,
I see a generation who does more than talk.
They originate from lenience and secure a stand,
Against all those who draw back soiled, defied hands.
Where the mind meaningful no more or no less,
A place in our hearts, no sign of ignorance.
Although all seem trodden, sickly and coarse
In this place I feel all strength; no remorse.
Those lives who unfortunately depart,
All the harm in the world cannot break my spiritual heart.

 

 Without A Doubt

Without a doubt my love will never fade
No matter how much pain
I will never end the gain
Always in my mind
You will always be my bind
My heart bleeds with sin
But you look past it with a grin
Fear of loss never goes away
Even though I know you will always stay
Be with me forever more
Never close your hearts door
Souls together left to soar
Never parting ever more

The After of Deceit

As your love speaks ill of a broken heart,
take not her forgiveness from neither purity nor sincerity.
Trap her words in thine hands,
for thine ears hear the humble proof
of her reigning love for you.

Inhale the stench of her truth,
thy lust, her pleading gaze
for a weak love has grown so
that it ensnares her strongly
feasting upon her starving heart
as so it strives to breathe.

In the Midst of Passion

Through my own personal experiences I have felt hurts to the core deeper than a sharp sword cuts. A burning reaction comes lingering from within and the thoughts of reaching a conclusion to these often and problematic issues race through eternity. I often have found that others don’t understand why I may have a certain reaction to being offended or hurt. Kathleen, my entirety, my understanding wife, often doesn’t understand why something that may be funny to others is just entirely too much for my emotions. Does everyone not feel deep within their hearts about themselves or the others they care about? Could this really be wearing my heart on my sleeve? Me, Leaving a bareness for anyone to burst into ash, I believe not. Can just anyone speak to most people without getting even the slightest reaction involving their soul? Deep emotion is what drives me through each day hanging on my coattails just waiting on me to fall. Is it too much to ask to be respected in your own home or by someone that you had given ample respect to? Maybe the respect should have never been disclosed. A woman can only take so many verbal hurts before the passion takes over. It begins to overturn all the hurts and pain that one person could ever feel in one moment. How can it be possible to feel so much hurt? I have often stumbled with this very thought. I have even gone great distances to try to keep it caged within a deep breath. According to John Locke’s, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, every experience leads us to our own truths. If Locke is correct, would each hurt be something we as humans have to experience in order to find our own truth? This theory will remain up in the air until I one day have the ability to sit down with Locke and discuss this very topic. Maybe he wasn’t referring to our experiences as emotional. Although, Virginia Woolf has created a deeper understanding for my own need of writing. It seems at times I can only experience my own emotional outbursts in life through my own writing. Keeping my extreme rolling waves of thoughts closed and completed within myself — once and for all, but typed and enclosed in my own space. An outward approach only causes chaos and explosions of red gauging from my aching eyes, bursting speeds within rhythm, ringing that rushes from within, and only one thought of defense. Keeping anyone from knowing any inkling of my own thoughts. Of course, this reaction doesn’t always end well, so the need for retreat is often compelling to control myself from overreacting to something that could cause such feelings —  Kissing my lips with the sweet silence of passionate emotional hurts. Reading often becomes a close connection to people for me,  links our hurting souls forever more. Would life be much easier by just giving up? Yes, but after losing everything  time and time again I refuse to lose what makes my heart leap. Oh My Sweet Kathleen, I often feel as though she could really do much better. Her brilliant mind keeps her soul constantly searching for her own truths as she swiftly moves through life — succeeding in everything.  This allows her to face life in a collision of her own calculated device. As she throws her mind and thoughts carefully into mouths of others, but refuses to release emotion locking it in a cage, waiting for its exact push of release. Many days I wish she knew exactly how wonderful she has made my being. The sun rises at the  mere thought of her, just knowing that one person has a sensus of my internal thoughts. Each and every clock turns and she is the only person I wouldn’t have to blink in order to fillet my internal chaos — spilling the guts of my every existence. Her sweet kiss and slender hands hold me tight without every letting go — leaving each breath simple yet completely satisfying………. The only safe place in the world. We have a sweet serenity of passionate truths between ourselves. Bonding our souls from any location — even hell, heaven and earth. Often just the idea of losing her is unthinkable — drawing tears from my heart and unearthing hollowed disaster. Tearing each piece of sanity through my endearing heartaches, unfolding each imaginable distraction throwing every thought through the constant non ending darkness.

Although, at times she leaves me like a sitting duck depending on who is in our company —  Leaving me vulnerable through the pain and anguish caused by the only shadows left. Each shadow begins quickly falling one by one. Swallowing my last breath. Even destroying the one bond I hold most dear — the very BREATHE of my existence. The bond that has kept me moving through each swift storm — now left me with an eternal heartbreak that unfolds with each tearing slice of my aching heart. Fires begin to leech through my skin making an eternal reality of layering drought. No thoughts of green growth layering the days — stuck in a midst of no movement. All the love exasperating through a deep nothingness that left the earth with millions of thoughts driving my dying last force into the depths of hell. Drowning in an eternal fire.

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. – Stephen King

The quote that titles my blog reminds me of a short story that I have been writing. I hadn’t really looked at my work in this way, but I can definitely see how I have created a great deal of sympathy for my characters, then raised the monster! This particular short story is mostly completed except for a few revisions here and there. I tried to incorporate literary techniques from authors that have inspired my exhilarating literary journey. A few of the techniques include polyvalent imagery, tampering with time and an unusual play on each of the readers senses. Thank you Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Woolf! So far each reader’s response has been different. Some readers have become emotionally touched from the story and brought back to childhood through the memories of reading amazing southern fiction. Others have been led through a journey that seemed just like an ordinary day in the south. This left them feeling more connected to their roots. Also, the readers who enjoyed horror stories have been left satisfied with the intensity that plays throughout the one single day.

I have to admit that all of the responses have allowed me to feel successful, accomplished and extremely excited about moving forward with this writing journey. You ask, when can I read this story? If you haven’t already you will just have to wait and see.

A Response to Virginia Woolf

Dear Virginia Woolf,

I have a response to your above quote.

Passion is what drives us to push on each day, no matter how horrible things might seem. All of the “buzzing, humming, and soaring roaring diving” is life flashing before our eyes, allowing our imagination to soar. Delving into the depths of humanity and our creative selves. In your novel Mrs. Dalloway, did you not intend for the reader to constantly see the conflict within Clarissa’s mind? Your literary use of stream of consciousness and sensory experience helps to create constant movement shifting through objective and subjective time, allowing Clarissa to define her own time—being bound by no one, but being kept alive by the memories of those that really truly know her. Clarissa’s being “buried in mud” was due to the constraints of her loveless marriage with Richard and knowing that her passionate love for Peter and Sally would remain caged unless she ripped through the cage herself. Although, her passion was caged, creating her insanity, she overcame her insanity with the mere thought of memories. By the end of her day she gained her independence and freedom at last.

We all experience conflict whether at home, school, work, or just in our minds. No matter how tough it gets, we control our own time—just like Clarissa.  We are only bound by what we see as restricted. Embrace the “buzzing, humming, and soaring roaring diving”, and once in a while we all get “buried in the mud”! You have control over how your hours, days, months, or years are spent. Choose to spend them with what keeps your memories alive!

Virginia Woolf, I could not thank you enough for opening my mind to a new way of experiencing life and literature.

Angela Bradley-Volz