Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Coming of Wisdom with Time
The Coming of Wisdom with Time by William Butler Yeats is a very easy poem to connect to. The way I looked at this poem was that when you are young everything is simple but because you are not told certain things. You are "lied to" as a child because some problems are just not for little kids to know or have to deal with.
The lies aren't like the sky is red but more of a subtle lie. For instance, if a child has parents who are not happy together and fight all of the time when they are not around their child the child could believe that they have a happy family. In truth, however, the family is falling apart and nothing is what it seems. As soon as that child grows up and learns the "truth" their whole childhood would just appear to be a big lie.
I don't think that this poem is necessarily about something as drastic as that, but I do think that it is about finding out lies from your past and then dwelling on them. It is especially about lies that were told during ones youth because those were a lot of people's happiest years and anyone would be sad to find out that, even a part of, what they believed to be reality was a lie.
This poem is so easy to connect to because everyone has been told hurtful lies in their life. This was a really short poem but it was oh so clever.
The lies aren't like the sky is red but more of a subtle lie. For instance, if a child has parents who are not happy together and fight all of the time when they are not around their child the child could believe that they have a happy family. In truth, however, the family is falling apart and nothing is what it seems. As soon as that child grows up and learns the "truth" their whole childhood would just appear to be a big lie.
I don't think that this poem is necessarily about something as drastic as that, but I do think that it is about finding out lies from your past and then dwelling on them. It is especially about lies that were told during ones youth because those were a lot of people's happiest years and anyone would be sad to find out that, even a part of, what they believed to be reality was a lie.
This poem is so easy to connect to because everyone has been told hurtful lies in their life. This was a really short poem but it was oh so clever.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Those Winter Sundays
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden is such a deep poem.This poem really spoke to me because it is cool how the narrator talks about his father this way. This father just sounded like a great man, but in reading this poem I sensed a hint of regret coming from the narrator. I think that the narrator regrets treating his father the way that he did. I think that the narrator wishes that he would have paid more attention to all of the things that their father did.
I am really close to my father so i don't really see how the narrator just took his father for granted like this. It makes me sad for his hard working father because it sounds like he was a great man who tried very hard to be good and do good but never really got recognition. It is really cool to look at how other people view their fathers though because fathers are supposed to be such dominant figures in peoples lives.
Everyone looks at their relationship with their father differently, and it makes me sad when people take hard working people especially their parents for granted.
I am really close to my father so i don't really see how the narrator just took his father for granted like this. It makes me sad for his hard working father because it sounds like he was a great man who tried very hard to be good and do good but never really got recognition. It is really cool to look at how other people view their fathers though because fathers are supposed to be such dominant figures in peoples lives.
Everyone looks at their relationship with their father differently, and it makes me sad when people take hard working people especially their parents for granted.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Wallflowers
Wallflowers by Donna Vorrey is such a cool poem! I really liked this poem because I never really thought too deeply about vocabulary. I usually just skip words that I don't know and pretend they don't exist, but this poem changes my perspective a little. It was really nifty how Vorrey personifies words so that you almost feel bad for all of the words that one usually pays no mind to. Another thing about this poem is that as I finished reading it, I was curious to read some of her other poems to see if she actually uses higher vocabulary like she says she wants to in the poem.
Except, someone has to use almost all of the words because someone came up with them didn't they? Still, this poem makes me want to pick up a dictionary because there are some cool words out there i'm sure. I probably won't think of the words the same way that Vorrey does, but it would still be cool to learn some new words. Vorrey can't use all of the words that exist.
I also kind of found it funny that Vorrey wrote a poem about words, because you write a poem using words and she wrote it about how she wanted to use more words. In reading this poem, I found it strange that she wrote about how she felt bad for all of the words that no one uses but she only drops a few "orphan" words in the actual poem.
This poem had a couple of layers and struck up a couple of random thoughts in my mind as I read it. It's all okay though because isn't that the point of poetry? To make you think?
Except, someone has to use almost all of the words because someone came up with them didn't they? Still, this poem makes me want to pick up a dictionary because there are some cool words out there i'm sure. I probably won't think of the words the same way that Vorrey does, but it would still be cool to learn some new words. Vorrey can't use all of the words that exist.
I also kind of found it funny that Vorrey wrote a poem about words, because you write a poem using words and she wrote it about how she wanted to use more words. In reading this poem, I found it strange that she wrote about how she felt bad for all of the words that no one uses but she only drops a few "orphan" words in the actual poem.
This poem had a couple of layers and struck up a couple of random thoughts in my mind as I read it. It's all okay though because isn't that the point of poetry? To make you think?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The Heart of Darkness
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was a difficult read for me for sure. It took me like a month to finish this book because I would read about ten pages and realize that I didn't remember a single thing that I had just read. For me, this book was hard to comprehend and grasp because the vocabulary was so high level and Conrad used so much description that it didn't even feel like a story to me. It is extremely difficult to read a book when you can't get a mental picture of what is going on because it's boring and frustrating. I got bored really easily while I was reading this book and that frustrated me because usually I love to read and I usually don't have a problem forming mental pictures. I had a really difficult time understanding the whole story part and how Marlow felt about Africa because I was so frustrated about how I couldn't even really read it and understand. The most frustrating part about reading Heart of Darkness was that while I read it I couldn't understand, and I got mad at myself for not understanding it. As I read it, i just kept thinking to myself:
"Everyone else can read and understand it, why can't I?!"
Personally I dont like reading books that have the style that Conrad used with his high level vocabulary and such because it just feels really pointless to me. Why read a book that doesn't even feel like a story?
Doing the MWD really helped me gather my thoughts about the Heart of Darkness, and as I was filling it out I realized that I really did grasp parts of it. For instance, I knew that the Congo river was a symbol for Marlow's journey to finding himself. Conrad used a lot of symbols and metaphors which I thought was pretty clever because it also made it a story within a story. Speaking of story inside of a story, I thought that it was really weird how the book was about a story being told by Marlow who was a character in the story. I also was curious as to who the narrator was the whole time. It didn't consume my thinking while I was reading, but it did kind of sit in the back of my mind.
As I read the book, I tried to summarize after every ten pages and it was kind of difficult because I usually had no idea what I was summarizing, but it helped a little bit. I usually went back and read the ten pages again after I finished summarizing and then I could pick up on things that I had missed when I summarized it the first time. I really like this annotating style because it helped me reflect and kind of forced me to at least some what comprehend what I was reading.
I really thought it was cool how the whole book was kind of Marlow's journey to finding himself because I think that it is really important for everyone to do this. it was cool to see it done in a different way that wasn't the "norm". Marlow had to go into the heart of Africa in order to find out who he really was and how true his integrity really was. So although this was a difficult read for me, I have to admit that the message of the story was pretty good and i'm glad that I read it.
"Everyone else can read and understand it, why can't I?!"
Personally I dont like reading books that have the style that Conrad used with his high level vocabulary and such because it just feels really pointless to me. Why read a book that doesn't even feel like a story?
Doing the MWD really helped me gather my thoughts about the Heart of Darkness, and as I was filling it out I realized that I really did grasp parts of it. For instance, I knew that the Congo river was a symbol for Marlow's journey to finding himself. Conrad used a lot of symbols and metaphors which I thought was pretty clever because it also made it a story within a story. Speaking of story inside of a story, I thought that it was really weird how the book was about a story being told by Marlow who was a character in the story. I also was curious as to who the narrator was the whole time. It didn't consume my thinking while I was reading, but it did kind of sit in the back of my mind.
As I read the book, I tried to summarize after every ten pages and it was kind of difficult because I usually had no idea what I was summarizing, but it helped a little bit. I usually went back and read the ten pages again after I finished summarizing and then I could pick up on things that I had missed when I summarized it the first time. I really like this annotating style because it helped me reflect and kind of forced me to at least some what comprehend what I was reading.
I really thought it was cool how the whole book was kind of Marlow's journey to finding himself because I think that it is really important for everyone to do this. it was cool to see it done in a different way that wasn't the "norm". Marlow had to go into the heart of Africa in order to find out who he really was and how true his integrity really was. So although this was a difficult read for me, I have to admit that the message of the story was pretty good and i'm glad that I read it.
Little Apocalypse
Little Apocalypse by Charles Wright is such a cool and powerful poem! When I first read this poem, I didn't really understand it very well and it was kind of confusing but after we discussed it in class I really liked it. I had no idea what the four horses was referring to, but in class I found out that it was referring to the four horsemen of the apocalypse which made it that much cooler. I also liked how in the poem, Wright makes all of these small things like butterflies and ants seem bigger and more important.
"The ground shudders beneath the ant's hoof."
That is really cool because when we think of ants, we think of little annoying bugs and we don't really think about the different parts. We especially don't think of ants feet as hooves, because that just makes me think of horses and those are rather big. Wright did a really good job of telling how there are all of these little things in the world that seem insignificant but they're really not. I liked how the poem started off with these litttle things and it seemed kind of cheery but then it built up to the apocalypse, which is not a cheery or small thing.
I really enjoyed this poem and I think that it is really interesting and unique which makes it stand out from the other poems that we have read so far.
"The ground shudders beneath the ant's hoof."
That is really cool because when we think of ants, we think of little annoying bugs and we don't really think about the different parts. We especially don't think of ants feet as hooves, because that just makes me think of horses and those are rather big. Wright did a really good job of telling how there are all of these little things in the world that seem insignificant but they're really not. I liked how the poem started off with these litttle things and it seemed kind of cheery but then it built up to the apocalypse, which is not a cheery or small thing.
I really enjoyed this poem and I think that it is really interesting and unique which makes it stand out from the other poems that we have read so far.
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