Fools Must Master Foolery

As writers, it is in our nature to draw from the real world and pit it against fiction, fantasy. It is our instinct to over exaggerate, to throw the real world against the worlds we have imagined and read about, the worlds we crave and wish we could step into. Sherman Alexie's poem about a woman he sees on a plane encapsulates this human urge in a perfect way, utilizing stream of consciousness in order to relate his observations to something we can all understand.

Alexie uses stream of consciousness in a way that I actually have never seen or used before, which I find extremely impressive. The closest I may have ever gotten to this style was in a poem I wrote freshman year about a woman who threaded my eyebrows, a poem I wrote the day it was due and chose stream of consciousness because I was literally making it up on the spot. This poem expertly utilizes this same concept that silly little freshman me used so poorly; while reading this poem, you get the innate sense that this man knows how to write with precision and skill, but is deliberately writing a poem to make it feel natural and jesty. One has to be talented and a master in order to deliberately do something poorly.

Alexie, Sherman. "16D" Narrative Magazine. N.p., 28 Dec. 2015. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.