short stories - ian green

I enjoyed reading the short stories way more than the poems, mainly because I could understand just about everything that was said and didn't have to put my thinking cap on to decipher what certain words, phrases or even passages meant. I liked the "survivors" story by Kim Addonizio, I think that's the perfect length for a short story because it is truly short, yet it also has all the necessary parts of a full length story. It contains a beginning middle and end, it even has a conflict that needs to be dealt with; who is going to die first and what to do with the other person and their stuff once they have passed. the main character thinks of hiding his partners stuff in sake of his family because he knows they will disapprove as shown in this passage "he knew, too that they all... would disapprove of their flat, of the portrait of the two of them holding hands that a friend had painted that hung over the bed..." ect.


I also enjoyed the story "Morning News" by Jerome Stern. In this story it seems to me that he has gotten news that he only has a short time to live and throughout the story is trying to figure out what to do with his last remaining time on earth. But he can't figure anything out, he tries thinking of what others would do, or something fantastic and exciting to do but can't bring himself to it. I get the sense he feels he has wasted his life away, and knows not how to enjoy it. You can tell he must be an American because at the end all he does was drives to the store with his family and picks out a huge television set to mindlessly numb the last of his existence with pictures of people doing what he never could do flashing before his eyes. This story saddens me and shows how futile many peoples lives really are. just wasting away before the television not knowing what to do with themselves.