A slam poetry is a competition at which poets read and recite original work. These performances are then judged on a numeric scale by previously selected members of the audience. This slam poetry is different from how people recite their poems, the slam poetry normally involves a rhythmic with a vocal delivery style found in hip hop music and focuses specifically on the tradition of dub poetry. There are various well known slam poets in South Africa many in their youth, my focus on this essay slam poet will be none other than the award winning, playwriter, storyteller and slam poet Gcina Mhlophe.
Born in Kwazulu Natal Durban as Nokugcina Elsie Mhlophe in 1958 the 24th of October from a Xhosa mother and a Zulu father.When growing up her grandmother
…show more content…
Ever since she first wrote her first poem, creative writing was always something she laid upon. She has written plays, children stories, adult poems and story telling. Having published over many books under her name she is seen as the african mother of creative writting. In 1990 she wrote a famous poem called Sometimes When It Rains, a poem that explains and interpretates her childhood when growing up and the falling of the rain and what happened. This poem knownly to be for the children. The Adultery poems she wrote were Praise poem for Nokukhanya Luthuli which was a praise poem she performed in 1989 to honour Nokukhanya Luthuli who was Albert Luthuli's wife at the time. The poem ‘The dancer’ which was a post- apartheid poem that she wrote which means "how to mourns the past but also how to move on with a sense of beauty and grace" (Yousaf 2010: 148). This poem The Dancer was written in 1994 post-apartheid, it explains the loss of people and how we grieve to their loss and recovering from the dark days and how to move on. In 2001 Gcina Mhlophe performed In The Company of Words which spoke about being literate and being able to write words that would make up a story and how fortunate it is to read and write and create imaginations. Armed for Success was a poem that spoke about achieving success, working and believing in
The death camp was a terrible place where people where killed. Hitler is who created the death camp for Jews. The death camp was used for extermination on Jews. This occurred on 1939 – 1945. The death camps were in the country of Europe. Hitler did all this because he didn’t like Jews and the religions. The book Night is a autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. The poem called First they came for the communist written by Martin Neimoller is a autobiography.
However, she also makes it clear that she is in control. By breaking away from the norm, she is able to keep the reader interested in her work. The use of short sentences is almost hypnotic. What catches the readers’ interest by far is her consistency in the theme of politics especially in these three poems. She uses playful language to make it interesting for anyone to go through. However, she also makes her message assertive. Give her background, life was not always easy. Art becomes her way of expressing her emotion and making people aware of the things that go on. These are things that people allow. Things that can be changed if people worked together. The poet is careful not to lean on any side of politics. Her major role in the poems is passing information. Undoubtedly, she does her part
Making difficult decisions show up in life more often than realized. These choices can alter a person’s life in good and bad ways. “The Bicycle” by Jillian Horton is a story that focuses on a young talented pianist named Hannah. Throughout the story Hannah deals with the strict teachings of her Tante Rose, which leads her to make ironic decisions. Similarly, in the story “Lather and Nothing Else” by Hernando Tellez, the barber undergoes a dilemma in which he must consider his moral values before making his final decision. Both stories have a protagonist that face conflicts which lead to difficult decision making, and in the end leads the characters to discover themselves. In both stories the authors use the literary devices theme, irony and symbolism to compare and contrast the main ideas.
Sonnets is a type of poetry that originated in Italy. There are many different types of sonnets, such as the Shakespearean sonnet, Petrarchan sonnet, and the Spenserian sonnet. Despite their differences, these sonnets share some similarities. “Harlem Dancer” by Claude McKay and “In an Artist’s Studio” by Christina Rossetti share many similarities and differences such as the form, the portrayal of women, and the way the woman is objectified.
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
When discussing the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, due to the strength of their relationship, one must look at Blues and Jazz. Many viewed this genre as a voice for the black communities and as “the New Negro poets expressed a deep pride in being Black” (Smith, 1983, p. 37) it is easy to see how this influenced their poetry. The main theme of Blues were the troubles of life and finding an escape, and this underlying dissatisfaction was incorporated into poetry as a response to many of the injustices present. For example, a clear example of this is Langston Hughes’ Homesick Blues which uses many of the key techniques from Blues songs, such as short lines to create urgency. The poem discusses the effect of prejudices and injustices on the black communities, especially when it comes to finding a home and an identity. There is a subtle, irregular rhyme scheme from words such as “sun… done” (Ramazani, 1994, pp. 152-3) which strengthens the influence. The dull, full rhymes create a sense of dissatisfaction and boredom, as if the speaker has given up on life. Hughes similarly uses many colloquialism and phonetics, which were common in Blues songs, such as “De Railroad Bridge/ a sad song in de air” (Ramazani, 1994, pp. 152-3), which furthers racial pride and identity, present in Blues and Harlem Renaissance poetry. However, perhaps the strongest example of how the Blues genre infl...
Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18th, 1918 in the small village of Mvezo, Transkei, which was home to the Madiba clan. (“A clan name in Africa represents a person’s ancestry and has deeper meaning than a surname” (Lee 1).) His Mother, Nonqaphi Nosekeni,
Maya Angelou is a internationally respected, brilliant poet, and author. Maya Angelou says "In all my work I try to tell the human truth, what it is like to be human, what makes us stumble and somehow miraculously rise and go on from the darkness and into the light”. This theme is consistently exemplified throughout Angelou's greatly acclaimed poem ‘Still I rise’. The poem shows us the true life story of Maya Angelou's tragedies, and their dreadful conditions she had encountered in her youth. But in Angelou's poem, she escapes the night to go into the light, leaving all the hurt and shame to prosper in a new life she has created.
As might be expected of one of her background and artistic gifts it is in the Part Three "The Guide" we see poetic, rhythmic and musical qualities at its best. She uses words with a keen sense of their rhythmic and musical potentialities: her style is richly figurative.
“Fast Break” Have you ever been on a fast break? Author Hirsch utilizes imagery that describes a fast break in detail. The author depicts this fast-break by promoting simile’s and vivid language. Imagery is a grandiose part of this poem, it’s help the reader to comprehend the enhanced pace fast break of this poem. 6.
The poem On Girls Lending Pens that is written by Taylor Mali tells that a boy forgets to bring his pen for class, so he has to borrow one from a girl beside him. However, he does not expect that girl has too many pens to pick from. It seems that the girl cares too much about her stuff and makes the simplest thing more difficult to deal with. At the end, the boy decides that he would rather come unprepared than borrow a pen from the girl. It is a very humorous and rhymed poem. Through different poetic devices, it shows the theme of being prepared.
Most all ethnicities and cultures have been prosecuted at one time or another from an oppressing source. In the case of the Native Americans, it was the English coming in and taking their land right from underneath them. As the new colonies of the cohesive United States of America expanded, they ran into the territories of the then referred to Indians. These people were settled down south on the east coast, for example Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and the Carolinas. America obtained this land through the Louisiana Purchase, where they bought it from France. The Native Americans were already there before anyone, yet the big power countries bargained with their land. The Native Americans did not live the way the American democracy did, and they
Analysis Essay Min Seo Kim Per 1 Without the use of numerous stylistic devices in Kealoha Wong’s work, would you still be interested in his poetry? Kealoha Wong is a slam poet who has performed all around the world. He was even the first poet that performed at a Hawaii governor’s inauguration. In his poems, he uses myriads of stylistic devices and expresses his emotion passionately through his heart.
It is a way to crucially engage oneself in setting the stage for new interventions and connections. She also emphasized that she personally viewed poetry as the embodiment of one’s personal experiences, and she challenged what the white, European males have imbued in society, as she declared, “I speak here of poetry as the revelation or distillation of experience, not the sterile word play that, too often, the white fathers distorted the word poetry to mean — in order to cover their desperate wish for imagination without insight.”
In a performance by Jazlynn Pastor, a spoken word poet, she spoke in English but would use words in Tagalog here and there. Of all the performances, many of them felt like performative art- dance for the sake of dancing, singing for the sake of singing. With her poems, however, I felt like there was a serious message in it, of strength, of rebellion, of revolution. She talked about the difficulties our generation faces in her poem, “Find Resilience.”