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After class today, I was left with the impression of the difference between the creation of words to describe a picture and the creation of an image in our heads to describe words. Describing the photo of Alice was very hard for me because I felt self-conscious that I was going to over-categorize her or, worse, wrongly categorize her. This self-consciousness inhibited my expression of the photo through words. But when describing the image/taste of salt through my words, I felt open to anything. The power of metaphor is that its strength comes from comparing two things things that do not exist as commonly perceived categories of the same thing.

As for the Gertrude Stein poetry, my opinion changed drastically about "Lifting Belly" just from the beginning of class to the end. I should have thought about the power of words without their meaning when I read it the first time. I was trying to decode the entire thing, and when I couldn't make sense of the patterns in a representative light, I gave up, in a sense. But once we discussed the importance of the sound of the language as a means for shattering contrived representations of lesbianism or sexuality or feminism, I saw the fact that I couldn't discern the meaning of the words as VITAL to the poetry. I saw it as a vital thing to think about in a society where the word "feminism" is becoming more and more obsolete and associated with negative schema.