Im not a poet and I know it

I have been studying, writing, hearing, and reading poetry since probably the 1st grade when I started learning nursery rhymes. Since then I have failed at the one thing a good poet must have, Rhyme. I am a horrible rhymer (is that a word?) it is one of the reasons why in my poems I use a technique that I learned in the 8th grade, to end each line with an important or impacting word, and it has gotten me pretty mediocre grades so maybe rhyme isn't so important. But all the famous poetry seems to have rhyme so I guess its an art i have failed to master. In the poem "The Possibility" the first thing I noticed, you guessed it the rhyme!  In each stanza the second and fourth ending word rhyme, they make the poem flow in the direction the poet intended it to be. The rhyme is not the only thing that was noticed, in the second to the fourth stanza the same word in the beginning of each stanza is also in the last line of the stanza before it. For example, stanza 2 line 4 " It was not beautiful to me"  Stanza 3 line 1 "I know that work is beautiful" Stanza 3 line 4 "Of squandering my solitude"  Stanza 4 line 1 "And solitude was beautiful"  These two things stood out to me because everything written in this world has a purpose every word, punctuation point and space has impact in the authors eyes so there must have been reason for this to have occurred, but my literary knowledge is short lived, so any thoughts? :)

Yea what she wrote!

When we read a poem, its just kind of a automatic though that the speaker would be the author. But for some poems I think the poet writes these poems to give the thoughts other people have a voice. It is like how we can hear a song and decide that that song fits us or our situation at the moment, well poems are the same way. The poem "The Writer" I believe was written for my mom, or at lease for her thoughts. I have been writing this story for my best friend back in Texas and I send her chapters when i get around to finishing them, my mom has never asked to read it or see what I am writing but I just kinda know that the poem reflects her thoughts.  This poem fills in the things I know she wants to say to me but just doesn't  say it, and I think that alot of poems are like that, they give us an outlet to portray our thoughts both good and bad.

Have faith, easier said than done

"For the sleepwalkers"  was a delightful imagery packed poem. I could see every stanza play out in my head, which means alot because if I cant "see" I won't be able to fully understand the poem I am reading.  Another thing I enjoyed was how the author spoke about one subject yet his  message was projected to all. I am thankfully not a sleep walker ( that I am aware of at least) but I do know of times where I loose faith in myself and this poem is about people like me. We loose faith in us, in what we are doing and in our actions, we forget to trust ourselves and if we cant do that then what else is left to trust? The poem "spoke" to me in a sense by saying " We have to trust our hearts like that" like the sleep walkers trust they will make it safely around and back into bed. I do not know  how many of us do that, as a student we doubt everything in fear it may be incorrect, when do we ever just know we are right and have faith in our answer? ( and if you say you are one of these students that just knows you are always right, then you are lying ^_^ )

Symbolism? I think yes!

By just reading the title of the poem "The Coming of Wisdom with Time" the first thing that comes to mind is graduation. I have known since 1st grade someday I will graduate as a senior, but now its only months away and it makes me think . I have made many choices in my life which have branched off into different directions influencing my life, but everything still comes back to me, the roots of my tree of life. This poem was symboloic and special to me because it is symbolic of my life in the past and future. After May I will be thrust into the real world where nothing is sugar coated and no one is there to hold my hand like they have for the last 17 years of my life, and this poem truely marks the steps we progress through our lives . This poem hit home for me .

Spell check needed

i'm reading the poem "I thank you god" by ee Cummings and i feel like im just learning how to read again. i have to read each sentence out loud and pronounce each word, this poem is full of confusing  things. i am sure you have noticed the lower case "i", well i noticed it too in this poem and how the only things capitalized were the words pertaining to God. Also the odd words like "leaping greenly" and "blue true dream" made me repeat those sentences a lot, did anyone notice how in the poem everything that is linked to God is capitalized yet Cummings didn't capitalize it in the title? As i read this poem i keep trying to figure out what the yes and no answer in the stanzas, the whole poem was oddly written it seemed choppy and messy with big words placed here and there. It is defiantly a poem worth reading about 70 times to full get what it is even saying.

The chop shop of poetry

Like a good car, good poetry has many parts and each part has a specific task it preforms in the whole poem. In the beginning of the poem "Wallflowers" the opening stanza starts out as a thought, an almost unheard of thought, a word an author of all people doesn't know it cant be true. The second part is the question, the rhetorical one meant for us to stop and think for a moment before going and reading the rest of the poem (and I'm sure 90% of us said a word 3 times to make it our own ^_^ )  The third stanza is full of dark gloomy underfed orphaned words that make us feel bad, we have cast aside our need for the words who only want a better life. This is the stanza where things begin to change, we start to see a tone change in the writing.  The fourth part is the beginning of a hopeful tone change from the gloom of stanzas past. We see the author standing up and creating a place full of great word space away from the dismal island of misfit words. The different parts of this poem show the changes in tone and showing a complete problem solution scenario completed in the poem.

The angst of being a teenager

Who are we?
The dull concrete walls judge us
We don't belong, we are not special
Let's be someone else
Someone is better than no one

Let's try to be like them !
The different ones
The ones with pretty hair and clothes
The ones that have a name
The ones everyone knows
That's what we want, to be a part
A part of an identity

But we are not like them
Who else is there ?
We can not be ourselves
We must find it
The identity that is me, I must belong

Alternant Ending

I heard the door open with a omnious creak and softly close ,shuffled  footsteps approached my resting spot at the other end of the dark room. I looked up from the bundle on my lap that has been my focus for the past few minutes, she stood before me surrounded in sorrow, her dark dress and her fair hair in a spinster bun were the ever present signs of her constant sorrow. She had been mourning for a year, since the news of Kurtz's death, yet no one uttered a single fact of what had happened. Only I knew of the truth, my conscience locked in a grueling battle with my heart and soul to tell this poor woman the truth and free her from this consuming dread and misery of losing her intended. I looked into her eyes, the obvious presence of old tears still welled in the only ray of color left in the room .Yet somewhere deep in the despair of her eyes I saw a glimmer, a glimmer of almost naive and girlish hope that I could be the herald of enlightening news that may free her from impending despair. Suddenly rage filled my heart, the man back in that jungle had misled us both! She truly loved Kurtz and yet he lead her astray, this beautiful woman had been lied to and hurt for far too long, she deserved the truth and that is why I was here. “Ma'am you might want to sit down" I said leading her to the ornate couch as I stood before her looking into eyes, the soft blue pools that ignited my anger in Kurtz. “Madam you have been lied to, the man you knew before, Kurtz, is not a great man nor honorable. The jungle changed him, it drove him power mad and dangerous. He went off into the jungle, never to be seen till I found him dying in a village by the river. He had enslaved the people and used them for his own greed he built himself up as a god and when we tried to save him and bring him back he refuse saying he did not want to leave . The jungle had consumed him body and soul the man you loved was lost long ago, long before he died. He died the moment he entered the jungle and lost himself to a demon of greed and power" I looked at her after I had finished destroying everything she had thought to be true, I was afraid I had shocked her into a comatose state, until she softly began to speak. " ...... Last words, what were his last words ". I couldn't believe this after all the deception and disconcern for her that Kurtz had she still wanted to know his last words? I stared at the small fragile woman sitting here in this dark forsaken room and knew the only way to break her from this despair is to tell her, " the moments before he died he spoke one word twice, he said " the horror the horror" not your name nor anything about you, his only concern was for the fact he was leaving the jungle where he wished to stay. There was no concern for you, no intentions of coming back; you have been living in this gloomy fog for too long." Her eyes were overrunning with tears I knew I had destroyed a life. I placed the packet on the table and walked to the door, I looked back one last time and she was sobbing into the packet, she would never understand and she would stay naive forever. I left that dark house into the gloom of the cities wet and busy streets, never to return to that house again, my memories of Kurtz lost in the gloom of that drawing room, forever to be mourned over by her.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

A writers second greatest weapon, next to his pen is his imagination. Without it, words are only 2 dimensional scribbles, but with it he can create almost a silent movie in the minds of readers as they read his work. In the poem "Mr. Fear" by Lawrence Raab, it is striking how Raab injects his own imagination into the word by creating a human figure to be the essence of a feeling. The whole poem including the title, is about creating the story of this "person". Through out the context of the poem "Mr. Fear", the essence of "Mr. Fear" walks through the stanzas as the reader imagines this dark cloaked looming figure. It takes imagination to create a character that is Fear, from both the reader and the author, it is a powerful source of thought that can transform a piece of writing. The story of how Fear interacts and is seen by his victims is an iteresting one, the way the victim is almost pleading with the cloaked feeling is something that provoked my imagination, by creating the scene in my head.

Yummmm Blackberries :)

In all works of art, movies, music, poetry and, prose there is a climax. The climax of a literary work of art is the point in a poem or monologue or reading that is the most powerful stanza or paragraph . It is the part where we as readers pay the most attention, its the part that speaks to us because of its power and how the writing flows to accent this climax. In the lovely poem "Blackberries for Amelia" it tells the story of a grandfather, who knows of a blackberry thicket and he tells of the changes in time that affect these berries and it all leads up to the time of year where the berries are finally perfects
"And there will come the moment be quick
And save some from the birds, and I shall need
Two pails, old clothes in which to slain and bleed,
And a grandchild to talk with while we pick."
The grandchild is Amelia who will go with her grandfather to pick blackberries because that is an important time for him and her to be together, it is special to them.  The climax is always the most important part, like spending special time with a special  person picking blackberries.

Investigative poetry reading

Everyone has a reason for picking the poem they choose to read, it could be because it stirs a memory, or it simply looks interesting, but we never truly chose a poem or work of writing that just doesn't appeal to us. I probably read through this list of poems 6 times till I started actually paying attention to the titles, then I was like Hey! 1943 that's world war 2 ! that's my favorite topic in history, OK I will choose that one. I started reading and noticed things I wasn't familiar with so I looked into the back ground of this poem and did some research on some of the named people and places. Choosing to do the antecedent scenario and really diving into the history of the people and places of WW2 was so much fun for me just because I really love this war. I thought it was cool that Ed Monahan was a real person and that he was a skilled fighter and he was a very decorated war hero, or that Tarawa was a true place and what the third wave meant. The antecedent scenario gave me a backstage tour of the poem, helping me understand the feelings and emotions the author is trying to expose us to as we read "1943".

Getting the memories flowing

Poets are very intune with emotions, they have this ability to make each word drip with 3-5 different emotions making their work fall under so many different genres. W.S. Merwin's poem, "To Myself"  is one I beleived could pull the heart strings in any reader. It is one of those poems where after you finish reading it, there is some moment in your life that can be associated to the poem and you understand how the poet felt when he was writing this. To each reader there are different genres a poem falls under depending on the emotion the reader feels, to me it was a rememberance poem, a solitude poem, and a love poem.  The line " Even when I forget you I go on looking for you.."(Merwin) is that person remembering another and rekindling that sence of comfort and familiarity they had with the person they lost. It seemed to me to be almost a poem of how even after your true love is gone you still have that feeling like they are there and they never left you. Its a sad dose of reality when you start thinking of that special person you lost and how you begin to feel them around again and get a false sence of hope that they were there then remembering they are only a memory now. Thats what I felt the poet felt, a false sence that someone was there again only to remember they are no longer around. Its one of the only poems I think readers catch themselves thinking and feeling long before they read " To Myself" by Merwin.

W-O-W

The Kite Runner has been probably the most intense and emotionally infused book I have ever read. Khaled Hosseini did an amazing job at putting every emotion into his writing; it was as if the reader could feel everything he felt during the intense journey the author endures. The ability to apply pure and raw emotion into ones writing is one that I have a problem with, which is why I found Hosseini’s book so intriguing. His writing style for this book was very powerful, and his ability to paint out scenes with words is one I envy, I am hoping by the end of this school year to be able to put at least half the emotion that Hosseini put into the Kite Runner, into my own work. The annotating process I used for Kite Runner which makes the reader notice the authors writing style, sure did its job. I found myself interested in being able to put that find of pure emotion and power into my own writing for the future. Overall Kite Runner was an eye opening and incredible book, and my favorite for the summer reading, I am very glad I got to read this. J

Gatsby's guide to getting the girl (well sorta)

In Great Gatsby we learn of a romantic love story of young Jay Gatsby who gains his wealth so to win the love of Daisy, a much richer and much sought after young debutante. Gatsby is distraught that he is much too poor to marry young Daisy and so they seal their love as he leaves to fight in World War 2 in hopes that when he returns, he can re kindle his love with Daisy. Too bad for Gatsby though, while fighting Nazis in Europe, Daisy was moving onto a more affluent field of bachelors. By the time smitten Gatsby set foot on American soil, his love of his life had gotten married to a much more financially secure man. Poor Gatsby is left with no money and no love, so he decides to gain his wealth and prove his worth to Daisy as a successful, popular, not to mention filthy rich man.  To Gatsby’s dismay, Daisy has forgotten her loving soldier and enters a state of utter materialistic, foolish bliss. She was flighty and unable to make up her mind for herself, she was immature in many situations and very emotionally insecure, her love for Gatsby stretched only as far as her security blanket, her misogynist, overbearing, loud,  not to mention cheating husband. When confronted with a dilemma she went the safe way and chose her husband over the enamored Gatsby. Fitzgerald portrays women as flighty and foolish, unable to think for themselves and completely absorbed in their materialistic and social needs. Fitzgerald’s rendition of a man trying his hardest to appease a woman so enchanted by parties and social events and foolish fancies, is a reflection of his relationship in real life. His opinion of women was greatly skewed due to his unpleasant and high life obsessed wife, giving no justice to the women of the 20’s.

Marlow, the englishman who doesn't act like most englishmen

Heart of darkness was the most complex 77 page book I have ever read, but I found that by using annotation, especially the text to world out line, helped me understand it a lot more.  After looking at the book and reading the first page I was ready to put the book down, it was totally different to the books I read and seemed like such a difficult read.  I had to reread probably every paragraph, to get a sense of what was going on.  But instead I decided to read it twice and during the second time I did the annotation, which was the best way for me to understand the book.  Without using annotation I don’t think I could have understood the book nearly as well the second time.  My opinion of the book changed over the two reads, the first time I was simply reading to finish the book but I didn’t absorb any content except for the general idea and plot. The second time around I did my annotation process and understood a lot more. I enjoyed Heart of Darkness the second time because I finally caught the difference between Marlow and the other Englishmen at all the different camps. Marlow was there for adventure and exploration; the others were there for ivory.  Throughout the book Marlow showed a significant difference in his treatment towards the natives, where the other men feared and enslaved them Marlow pitied them and worked beside them as a coworker. Marlow proved to be a very interesting character because of his lack of greed and racism; he understood the natives and found them more hospitable it seemed than the “pilgrims” in the camps. The book was a great recap of the imperialism in Africa by the English, and a partially true inside look at it through the eyes of a man who found imperialism terrible and inhumane.