Tone (Blog #16)

I tried my best...so here it goes:

It was after the crash. Bruised, and shaking, but still okay, we walked into the house. It looked a little run-down, dirty, and different, but it had the same nostalgia it had before and always will have. The floors were matted with dirt and the trash had not been taken out.
Chrissy apologized profusely for the mess; but I didn't care. It was the same; the stairs still creaked, the curtains were still the same, and the room by the kitchen still had a sticker on one of it's windows.
The world around it had changed, but the house still stood, in my eyes, the same. This had, and always will be my home.

I thank you god (Poetry Blog #15)

I am pretty sure this is my poem to present to the class, but I could be wrong...it has been awhile since I have checked.

Anyway, this poem was really optimistic and seemed like it had been some sort of epiphany or awakening..."I who have died am alive again today."

I also think the author may have had a dry spell in his faith and was renewed and saw everything with a different perspective. He describes things that humans see everyday and take for granted as extraordinary and profound..."the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky."

The structure of this poem was interesting to me because instead of the poem taking a more organized approach, it seemed like the poet just wrote down his thoughts and feelings without any hesitation, or again, structure. I thought that was cool, it was more sincere that way.

I also noticed how "YOU" was capitalized when the author was talking about God, which was interesting. I thought that it was because that he just felt very passionate and felt that way when he was writing and because the poem was directed towards God and her thankfulness. Or it could be an unknown reason?

By the way the poem was structured, it made me think that he wrote this poem because he wanted to for himself, not because he was trying to appeal to an audience...
This is random, but I just watched this French movie and they had this quote throughout the movie, I think by Karl Kraus, "Why do some people write? Because they are too weak not to write." I think this quote applies to a lot of authors and writers...I don't know...I just like that quote a lot. If that quote is true, I certainly think that this poem applies.

I know that E.E. Cummings is very famous and I remember that he wrote "I Carry Your Heart."

Thankful Poem (Poetry Blog #14)

Here is my poem for Thanksgiving. Sorry it ends kinda weird, I didn't know how to end it any other way without ending it the way I wanted.(:

Lately, the only thing I want
Is something far away
Made to always be there and taunt
Me into a slow decay.

Isn’t it ironic
That I want to enjoy life
When I am stuck in the chronic
Past causing me stress and strife?

Now when this time of year
Comes around the bend,
And when what I need is near,
I need to pull myself out of this dragging trend.

My family is what I need,
Friends around me too.
It is the wise words I need to heed,
To keep me from feeling blue.

What I appreciate
Is that I am here now.

Life needs to be enjoyed with every moment…
Then the future will turn out well
If I accept what is meant
And do not dwell

And I always, always, always
hold on to what is around me,
Which is love

The Secret (Poetry Blog #13)

This poem reminds me of the poem our class read called, "Introduction to Poetry," because it sounded like the author of "The Secret" was describing the concept that "Introduction to Poetry" explained about how people trying to analyze a poem get much more meaning and information out of the poem that the author of the poem had intended.

The author of the poem, Levertov, describes how two girls find something profound in a line of poetry that the author herself did not intend to write about.

I liked how the author was not upset about the girls finding something deeper in her piece than she intended. In fact, she described "the secret" the girls had found in the poetry, as a secret she had forgot about and was not able to find anymore. It is a great description of how poetry can have ambiguous meanings.

The poem is split into nine stanzas, and the stanzas are all four lines each. It is interesting how each of the sentences or lines are split up because it makes the poem choppier than it needs to be. The last line of each sentence has either one or two words.

Passing Afternoon (Poetry Blog #12)

So, this blog I decided to interpret song lyrics. I chose Passing Afternoon by Iron & Wine. The lyricist for this band, Sam Beam, although a little melancholy with his song, really writes great poetic imagery for his lyrics.

There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children 'till she let's them go at last
And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know
Her baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

So, I think that this song is very personal or it is a story, but from what I understood, it is about lost love. I think that the women he loved married someone else even though she was in love with him.

One of my favorite parts in this song is when the lyrics all go through the seasons from Summer-Fall-Winter, but never to Spring. Like i said, Sam Beam is very melancholy.

Anyway, this is what I interpreted:
1st Stanza- She was married and had kids and is fine
2nd Stanza- She is losing hope and is becoming a little scattered but "believe[s] in the hymns her mother sings" and what she thinks is right and what she should do.
3rd Stanza- Her children get older and they leave, and she loses faith in her marriage and leaves it in her memories when everything was good.
4th Stanza- She forgets her love for the narrator while she cares for her kids and keeps herself busy, but he never forgets her.
5th Stanza- Now when he is older and thinks about it, she probably thinks about him, but she goes back to her marriage and puts it in the past.
and.........I have no idea what the last line means.....hahah

The Possibility (Poetry Blog #11)

Wow, this poem is really pessimistic...but I guess it is interesting.

The general theme I got from the poem was the feeling of hopelessness and a tone of detachment or apathy. I was expecting a little glimpse of hope at the end...I guess not, but I think that is what made it unique.

I noticed that the flower is a recurring metaphor throughout the poem, so I think I'll just interpret the poem stanza by stanza.
1st Stanza- For some reason the first two lines he describes makes me feel as there is some sort of detachment, and that is why he has "lost the possibility of good."
2nd Stanza- He used to find beauty in the world, but now he sees nothing but a flower and there is no feelings towards it anymore.
3rd Stanza- This part was difficult for me to understand, but I think that the author is saying something that he should think but doesn't. Work is supposed to be good, but it isn't to him; maybe he doesn't like work because it makes him think. I interpreted the last to lines to elementary-ish words to help me understand it and it turned out like this- "Unless working was a way of wasting away me being alone." i still don't understand the point he was trying to make...
4th stanza- Being alone was good for awhile, and he thought it would get better, but he was wrong.
5th stanza- The first two lines of this, I think, are referring to the first lines of the poem, but are making the once beautiful comparisons to something ugly and overwhelming, the way he feels. The flower is no longer open to him, therefore, the possibility of him to see beauty again recedes, or passes.

Kind of sad. I'd like to know that if the poet really felt this way, that he'd have another possibility to be good and happy again.

Break (Poetry Blog #10)

This is the blog that I will not be writing....if that makes sense......Thanks(:

For the Sleepwalkers (Poetry Blog #9)

I really liked this poem!

It had great imagery and comparisons, it flowed kind of like a story, and it was dreamy.(:

I'm not sure if it supposed to be taken literal, but even if it isn't, I guess I interpreted it in a way that really appealed to me. The bed reminded me of a safe place or a "shell" to hide in, and sleepwalking reminded me of doing what you feel and want to do.

When it says "raise their arms and welcome the darkness" and "we learn to trust our hearts like that" I thought it was like taking a risk and being open to the unknown when pursuing what you want. Also, when it says, "they always wake up as themselves again" I thought that was cool because it seemed like if you do what you want you'll always be the same person you always were.

The poem is 27 lines and each stanza has 3 lines each. There is no rhyme scheme, but each line has around the same number of words.

This was a fun poem to read.(:

A Work Of Artifice (Poetry Blog #8)

I really enjoyed this poem. I noticed that this poem was written in 1936, so it was when woman barely had any rights. It is funny, because my dad was just talking about a book he was reading about woman's suffrage and how crazy it was.

I thought that the bonsai tree to women was such a cool comparison. I know that this poem was written in the 1930's, but I still can relate to it a lot.

The poem is about women having to look groomed and pretty and "perfect" and only do domestic things, while their full potential is not being reached. The bonsai tree "could have grown eighty feet tall but a gardener carefully pruned it."

Women are always seen as the domestic caretakers of a family and I think that it is cool that a woman realized that this doesn't always have to be the case in 1936 when woman had less rights than men.

I, Too, Sing America (Poetry Blog #7)

I really enjoyed this poem because of how hopeful it was and how it was a response to Walt Whitman's poem.

I like how Hughes asserted that he is an American also, even if he is discriminated against and not allowed to be with company because of the color of his skin; also, he does not think he is second class to anyone, he is just a normal person. I love how secure he is with himself and I think that is what provokes change. Also, the fact that he was so confident in his third stanza that this oppression would change.

My favorite line of the poem is "They'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed."

Langston Hughes is such an amazing poet because his words are simple, but they are deep and so impactful.

A Gray Haze Over The Rice Fields (Poetry Blog #6)

I really enjoyed this poem when reading it as a piece of history. I think that it is about a kid being forced to lose his childhood and innocence because of events coinciding with his life.

I noticed that the first stanza is a description of what is going on and the second is more metaphorical.

The first couple of lines in stanza one are about the hard times, for example, "trucks going past the high road" and "kisses on my cheeks my long-dead grandmother gave me." I am a little unclear what the last two lines mean that says, "my mother didn't...closed door of her youth." I think that this means that his mother is confused on how the narrator is so different from her when she was a child and confused why he is not child-like anymore.

This is a stretch, but the second stanza kind of leads me to believe that he escapes suppression after he says "not that I wait for judgment..." and "a shadow freed from the past..." The second stanza also explains the title and "the shadow."

I know that when the author says, "...contains the footsteps of that childhood so light that I could only think of squirrels..." he means the lost childhood because of the rough times the narrator had to endure, that the only sweet part of his childhood was "squirrels slipping in and out of the mango trees."

I enjoyed this poem because it was bittersweet and sad but had great descriptions and images.

After interpreting this poem, I looked up background on the author and learned that he is Indian-American and was born in 1928. I think that this poem may have something to do with the British rule over India in the early 1900's.

Sand Dollar (Analogy)

One of my favorite places is the ocean, so I decided to write my analogy on how a sand dollar is similar to high school.



In 1999 on the shore of the North Carolinian coast, when I was just a Kindergartner, I found a beautiful sand dollar. I felt special that day because not a lot of people were as lucky as me to find one. To this day, my sand dollar is hanging on my wall, framed in a pink shadow box.

When a sand dollar is alive, it is called Echinoid. It burrows underneath the sand and is similar to a sea urchin or starfish, it never really breaches the surface, until it dries up and is turned into it's true, desired form, a sand dollar.

When you begin high school, you start to discover your true self and you are "dried up" to become who you really are or want to be. In middle school you are still very insecure and raw, and you are an Echinoid. When you reach high school and become a sand dollar, you drift in the endless sea, eventually landing on the shore.

You are a sand dollar when you attend high school, because high school is the sea, and when you leave high school you end up on the shore.

In high school, you do your school work, meet new friends, and learn things about life you never knew...but you do what you are told, even though it can be boring and routine because you know that eventually, you will graduate and high school is just a small part of your life. Some kids don't understand this. They drop out, or neglect their grades or responsibilities, or have an experience they didn't want to endure. Some kids become jaded, trying to grow up too fast. But most kids in high school has=ve their struggles or heartbreaks. Not as impactful as the others, but they learn their lessons and learn from the past.

Finally, they graduate high school, and are ready for the part of their life that matters the most...the real world.

When you become a sand dollar looking for the shore, it is hard to find your way. For a while you go with the flow of the sea, and float on to wherever the sea takes you, because eventually you will end up on the shore. Some of the sand dollars are taken by rip tides or the roughness of the water in a storm and they break, never able to be fixed, but they make it to the shore, faster than the other sand dollars...but not as whole. Most of the sand dollars almost are crushed by the rip tides or rough, storm water but they make it out unscathed or with cracks.But after floating on through the water, looking for the shore, their cracks are smoothed out and they look almost brand new again. One fortunate thing the rough water did for the sand dollars was push them towards the shore and showed them the right direction.

Finally, the sand dollars reach the shore, waiting for a giddy, young girl to pick them up and frame. Some waiting on the shore are put in a shop to be sold. The broken ones still have a chance and sometimes find a home, but some are stuck on the shore forever. A sand dollar's true desire is to end up in a frame, to be valued and successful.

I want to be found on the shore and framed, just like the sand dollar I hung on my wall. I think the sea has prepared me to finally find the shore and begin my "real life."

In Blackwater Woods (Poetry Blog #5)

This poem stuck out to me because it was very dark. It was interesting to me because throughout it is describing nature but the tone is very worrisome and melancholy.

Usually when I read a poem about nature, it describes it's beauty and profoundness, not the feeling of being minuscule and helpless.

I know it is a funny comparison, but this poem reminded me of one of my aunt's favorite 80's song's "Dust in the Wind." The author implies that nothing really matters because soon you will be gone and go to Heaven or another life(or whatever you believe) so you need to hold onto everything "mortal" on Earth and when you leave Earth you just have "to let it go."

Personally, I think nature is the most beautiful thing in the world, so I thought that it was interesting the author described it the way she did like it didn't really matter in the end.

To be honest, I thought that the author was depressed and having really deep, melancholy thoughts. I agree that "you need to love what is mortal..., etc." but I think to be able to love it, you need to have a more positive outlook on life.

One thing i really enjoyed was how each stanza was split into four lines, it made the poem flow beautifully.

Wallflowers (Poetry Blog #4)

I absolutely loved this poem even though it was so simple and just about words. I loved the personification and comparisons; it was very creative.

I know it is annoying to use large words from the thesaurus that no one really understands, but I thought that since the poem was about using words that a rarely used at all, it was a perfect opportunity to use them throughout my blog. I also know that some of these words are not that rare, but if they are, sorry if it is a little challenging to understand.(:

When I read the title I had no idea the poem was going to be about actual words...I surmised it to be about actual people who were wallflowers, people who did not fit in.

In the first stanza of the poem I apperceived it to describe a rare word used as a comparison to someone who is misanthropic or like a stray dog who does not have a home. It was funny how amorous the stanza was and it made the poem have more fathomage and engrossment.

I think the second stanza helps focus on the main idea of the poem and what is really apropos.

In the third stanza, "hollow-eyed orphans in Dickensian bedrooms..." was something I didn't know, but I looked up information about it and I think that and I came to a asperous conclusion: "hollow-eyed orphans" because Dickens used to write about orphans in his works (i.e. Oliver Twist) and "in Dickensian bedrooms" because it was poverty-stricken and there was lack of love. After that line it says "longing for someone...'you're the one'" just clarifies my conclusion...orphans longing for a home.

The fourth stanza is a juxtaposition of an actual person who is a "wallflower."

The fifth stanza really affixes the previous stanzas into pulchritudinous comparisons. "the Ellis Island of diction" meaning introducing the words to the English language and "all those words without a home...live in my poem," alluding to the previous stanza about Dickens.

I thought this poem was really convivial to blog about.

By the way,

Gegenshein- counterglow: a faint spot of light in the night sky that appears directly opposite the position of the sun

Zoanthropy- a mental disorder in which one believes oneself to be an animal.

(One was undefinable by dictionary.com)

Beggining Again (Poetry Blog #3)

This poem is interested me after we went over in class so I wanted to try and analyze it a little more.

I think the first stanza is the author over-thinking and criticizing himself...almost to the point of having OCD, because as a reader, it was quite overwhelming trying to understand.

The first line, "If I could stop talking...begin to get well," I think that means that if he could stop thinking and interpreting and seeking perfection he could be happy...I think the whole stanza is him trapped in his mind. "preforming brain surgery on himself...no mirror," I think means trying to perfect himself when he doesn't know what "perfect" is and how he is going to "fix" himself.

And the "why?" pertains back to the question, what is perfect?

In the end about the mountain, I think that it means he will not exist forever, but he does exist for that moment in time.

It is hard for me to understand the meaning in the poem it seems like it was just a reflection, not a change like the first two stanzas implied (if I interpreted it right). Although confusing, I really liked it because it seems like it is left to interpretation or just one of those things you never will completely understand...

Still Memory (Poetry Blog #2)

I'm not sure if I have fully mastered this poem...but...I took it literally as a dream.

I think the author describes the dream, then in the last stanza it explains that this was the first dream she ever recorded and after that dream, she would record many more.

At first, for the blog, I was going to try and interpret the dream she had, but then I realized that it was not the point of the poem...I think that the meaning is simple...the first time the author recorded a dream.

I'm sure that she wrote this poem because the dream was impacted her somehow, causing her to record it.

The poem is nine stanzas and in each stanza there is three lines. The poem is not metaphorical because it is a collection of thoughts and memories from the author's dream. The poem is very "list-like," meaning that the poem lists the images she saw, but there is no figurative language.

I liked that the poem seems very complicated, but once you understand the main idea, it is very simple.

To Myself (Poetry Post #1)

The poem "To Myself" interested me because the tone I felt was kind of longing but apathetic...if that makes sense? Or maybe what I mean is longing and accepting of that...Whatever it is...the poem was really interesting to me.

Before I read the title I read the whole poem and I thought that it was a poem about being infatuated with someone else, but when I noticed the title the second time I read the poem, I thought it was really cool that it was actually the poet speaking to himself...or herself.

I think the whole concept of "finding out who you really are" is interesting and I used to be obsessed with finding out "who I really was." Then I saw this quote book at Barnes & Noble in the bargain price section and one of the quotes said, "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." This quote shifted my whole view of my life...it is funny how on little quote in a bargain priced book at Barnes & Noble did that.(:

Anyway, I got off topic...Sorry!

The poem does not rhyme but it uses a lot of repetition in sets of lines like "you" and "not." The poem has about the same number of words in each line so the poem keeps a rectangular shape. It is only one stanza, but there are 16 lines.

I thought the poem was accepting because in the end it says "you are not time and who speak in the words but you are not what they say you who are not lost when I do not find you." I had to read this a couple times over, but I basically think it says that when I don't know who I am, I am not lost because I am not someone that needs to be found...Actually! This goes hand in hand with my story! You are always trying to find yourself...but you really don't need to because in the process you become who you really are. You "create yourself."

I guess this poem's meaning is that you shouldn't spend time finding out who are if you are "lost" and you should just accept the mystery of life because life will never let you find yourself because it is always changing in time, and you will change because of that.

Did I just "tie this poem to a chair and beat it with a hose?"

Oh well...(:

The Kite Runner

This is the second time I read The Kite Runner and it really helped me focus on the author, Khaled Hosseini's, style.

I noticed how Hosseini took the time, and brilliantly, set up the whole book to make you understand the causes and motives for the plot. I ended up analyzing the characters psychologically, rather than just reading the book as a story.

For instance, Amir's love-hate relationship with his father. It seemed strange that Amir would do anything to please his father, but at the same time would despise him. When I first read this book, it took me a long time to like Amir because of what he did to Hassan; the second time I read this book I loathed his father and felt pity for Amir. Although what Amir did was not right, I felt his father was the backbone of his actions. It seemed that Hassan turned out to be the "perfect" boy because of Ali's unconditional love.

Anyway, I liked annotating this book for the Arabic words that I learned. This summer I worked at a Lebanese restaurant and the owners would speak in Arabic a lot of the time so it was cool that I was able to make a connection. I would also have to file papers from people that worked in the restaurant and I would see names like Nader or Rahim that were mentioned in the book. It made me feel like I understood the culture better.

My favorite part of the book was the end when Amir finally redeemed himself and flew a kite with Sohrab. Even though I felt so much sorrow for Sohrab, I'm so glad he had a chance to live freely, without being oppressed because of his race.

Reading this book again reminded me that I need to read Khaled Hosseini's other book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, because he is such an amazing author...Thanks!

Heart Of Darkness

I found that this book was the easiest to annotate, which is cool, because it was the hardest to read. The pages seemed like they would not end and the plot appeared to be so simple that reading the book was very dull.

It was strange, though, because once I reached Part III, the last part of the book, it intrigued me and caused me to finish the book and pay attention to the details. I realized that the story Marlow was telling was not told for entertainment, but for the end of the book, showing how Kurtz's darkness prevailed.

The way I annotated it was through using a glossary (which helped me very much!), underlining important parts, and by circling every time I saw the word darkness. At first, I just circled darkness because I wanted to understand the title of the book, but by the end I noticed that darkness is the most important and symbolic part of the book.

I found out that in the book, darkness is the safe place...Marlow even says, "The sunlight can be made a lie, too." Kurtz had gone so insane with greed (because of ivory) that he became senseless, explaining why going back to Europe and "reality" would be out of the options for him. In the end of the book when Marlow meets Kurtz's loved ones and acquaintances, he is confused by how they described him as a musician and activist. Kurtz had changed when he went to the forest and became consumed in darkness, it was the only way he knew how to be.

It was interesting that after Kurtz died, a lot of things Marlow associated with him was darkness. Especially when he met Kurtz's "Intended" in Europe and how everything turned dark when Marlow was speaking to her.

It still confuses me why the natives liked Kurtz. Didn't they realize his insanity when there were decapitated heads on sticks of people from their tribe?

I still don't fully understand this book, but the main plot actually interests me now when I am trying to figure things out.

The Great Gatsby

The thing that struck me most about The Great Gatsby was the melancholy tone and pessimistic symbolism. The symbolism that I focused most on was the green light (page 26 & 189). In the end, Nick, the narrator mentions that the green light signifies the future, but I think the green light symbolizes the whole book; the unattainable hope that the book will have a "fairy-tale ending" and that Daisy will leave Tom and go with Gatsby.

It is funny, because even though I would think the book would be unoriginal if Daisy left Tom, I still desperately wished for it to happen. The reason I liked the book was because of this longing that provoked me to identify and understand the characters(I annotated in the text-to-self way). Yet it made me so mad in the end when I didn't hear anything about Daisy!

It was the only part of the book I thought hated! This may sound bad, but I wanted to read about how Daisy came back and was devastated...she hated herself for not being with Gatsby...she lived the rest of her life in misery, losing the love of her life...

But then I understood that this is not what would of happened with Daisy...

I disliked Daisy from the start. She was an airhead, shallow and annoying. I did not understand why a man as affluent as Gatsby loved her.

Fitzgerald left the end open for assumptions, so I assume that Daisy was saddened and guilty by Gatsby's death, but she moved on, and wasn't in love with him after all. She had chose Tom over him.

This made me so mad. Gatsby lost his life for a girl that didn't even truly love him (I think). I guess the tragedy in this story is what made it a classic. I know that it is a better book for it...even though deep down, I wish the green light wasn't a symbol of false hope, but of real hope.