Poems
Change
Certain things vary everyday,
tides lap various portions of sandy gold
and land is illuminated and darkened
with clock like accuracy.
Like cammilions, hills and land
periodically display their transient colors
with no regard to its inhabitants
needs, preferences or even life.
Everyday change, insignificant,
expected and unshoking when it occurs,
no emotional distress or
even flickers of eye lids.
Those firecrackers of life, however,
sting with flaming relentless pain
as if being attached by legions of jelly fish
intent on wreaking havoc.
Like all wounds, the stings heal,
but not without hours upon hours
of termites gnawing on the brain,
infesting every thought with the jelly fish stings.
One asks, why must they experience firecrackers,
they didn't light the fuse,
why should they endure the relentless stings
And mind gouging termites?
Left or Right?
Crime, or right of choice disdained by others-
From different eyes, colors change and evils shift.
On the right stand pillars, stern, intrenched in dogma
drilled in from the crib, etched like the Grand Canyon.
In which evil is evil and good is good,
it is written, it is said and so it shall proceed-
What isn't broken in some eyes
doesn't require fixing-
Apposed, left winged donkeys flying
for an utopian dream
existing only in books fashioned by scholars,
where right is that which causes no harm,
choices aren't made illegal based on perspective
and not adversity.
As long as grey haired tablets
continue to decree antiquated perceptions,
no person, of any soil, con revel
in the exalted presence of true Liberty.
Reality
If ever there was an ambiguous word,
one which is entirely defined individually
it would be reality.
Where one person sees pleasure and serenity,
another sees blatant sin and sloth
and yet another is completely indifferent.
One hears the mention of god
and falls to his knees in obedient fear,
while someone else grimaces at the mindless dogma.
Viewing a santa figuring evokes
good memories for one
and rips through another with recollections of a
traumatic, life altering winter experience.
For everyone, different events and feelings
lead to a separate reality for all,
one's revulsion will always be another's pleasures.
Sentience
How grand a thing it would be,
...vocal statement about the ?organic? possibilities of poetry than optimistic readers might have expected. ?Mayflies? forces us to complicate Randall Jarrell?s neat formulation. Here Wilbur has not just seen and shown ?the bright underside of? a ?dark thing.? In a poem where the speaker stands in darkness looking at what ?animate[s] a ragged patch of glow? (l.4), we are left finally in a kind of grayness. We look from darkness into light and entertain an enchanting faith that we belong over there, in the immortal dance, but we aren?t there now. We are in the machine-shop of poetry. Its own fiat will not let us out completely.
...arly, these poems all have a statement to make about the opposition of stasis and change. Old says that false love is always changing, but true love is constant. Lake states that nature is much more desirable than city life, become it is unchanging, whereas people change things constantly. Wild gives us the realization that things that have always been one way may at any time become different. In Second, we see how people change the world too fast, and sorrow ensues. Finally, the great poem Sailing to Byzantium makes clear the faults of humanity in our pursuit for the physical, ever-changing aspects of life, when what really matters are the ever-constant aspects of the metaphysical world. From this week of reading Yeats, and some deep thought into the matter, I have come to this very simple conclusion about the world we live in. Nature doesn’t change, until it does.
During the time period of the emancipation proclamation multiple black authors were becoming educated enough to write works of poetry. Such works have influenced and persuaded the minds of white people all over America to this very day. It also gave their own people a work of art to turn to for their own history. The poets have ventured into modern day eras also, and still have the same topics at hand. The main idea of these poetry pieces was on their ancestors in Africa but also of course of the modern problem of slavery. Langston Hughes was the first influential black poet. Lucille Clifton and Colleen McElroy are modern poets but is a black woman who has other views on slavery but also very similar looks on their historical past. All of the poets all mentioned their historical background in Africa. Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, and Colleen McElroy all wrote about their ancestors and of slavery, and some of the same references were of the rivers, and the connection between the people even though they are literally worlds apart; a difference between the poems was the desire for freedom and the freedom that was already existing in the modern day poetry of Lucille Clifton and Colleen McElroy.
The three sources I have selected are all based on females. They are all of change and transformation. Two of my selections, "The Friday Everything Changed" by Anne Hart, and "Women and World War II " By Dr. Sharon, are about women’s rites of passage. The third choice, "The sun is Burning Gases (Loss of a Good Friend)" by Cathleen McFarland is about a girl growing up.
Reading is part of everyday life, but understanding what you have read is something less common. There are a lot of different types of literate that you can read. One of the most popular types of reading that people do would be to read poetry, but almost everyone that reads poetry reads the most common type; the ones that rhyme and are easy to read. These are very good poems, but when you begin to read different types of poetry you start to figure out that a lot of it seems to be nonsense and this is not the case. “Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.” (Auden) This is a very good point because poetry is something that seems to be very clear, until you get to feelings and everyone has different feelings. Poetry is something that can be written in a lot of different ways, in fact there is even poetry about how to write poetry. Archibald MacLeish and Marianne Moore all manage to tie in how poetry is supposed to work in their own poetry. They both do have conflict in some of their ideas in how to write poetry and some ideas are the same. Marianne Moore, and Archibald MacLeish share the same love and passion for poetry but have different opinions on how they should be different.
2. What are the symbolic significances of the candy store in Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "The Pennycandystore Beyond the El" (Geddes, 318)?
Yet as the poem progresses he sees that views of paradise are always changing and shifting, thus his parents would envy his religious freedom and regard his situation as freedom. He recognises that the only paradise that does not change is the "sun-comprehending glass" and the "deep blue air" thus he has once again affirmed his reverence of the continuity of the elements.
The world is changing and evolving at an astounding rate. Within the last one hundred years, the Western community has seen advances in technology and medicine that has improved the lifestyles and longevity of almost every individual. Within the last two hundred years, we have seen two World Wars, and countless disputes over false borders created by colonialists, slavery, and every horrid form of human suffering imaginable! Human lifestyles and cultures are changing every minute. While our grandparents and ancestors were growing-up, do you think that they ever imagined the world we live in today? What is to come is almost inconceivable to us now. In this world, the only thing we can be sure of is that everything will change. With all of these transformations happening, it is a wonder that a great poet may write words over one hundred years ago, that are still relevant in today’s modern world. It is also remarkable that their written words can tell us more about our present, than they did about our past. Is it just an illusion that our world is evolving, or do these great poets have the power to see into the future? In this brief essay, I will investigate the immortal characteristics of poetry written between 1794 and 1919. And, I will show that these classical poems can actually hold more relevance today, than they did in the year they were written. Along the way, we will pay close attention to the style of the poetry, and the strength of words and symbols used to intensify the poets’ revelations.
Restlessness is the main focus of Phillips’ article, it is the title of his article and in his opinion it is the reason why poems exist at all. “Poetry is the results of a generative restlessness of imagination… uncertainties become obsessions to be wrestled with, and with luck, the result is poetry…” (Phillips 132) Phillips, in summary of his article, claims uncertainties in life trouble our minds until the uncertainties become obsessions. We become restless in our quest to understand the uncertainties we face and by writing poems we can organize our thoughts and try to understand the things we do not. Phillips furthers his explains his claim by admitting “ I write poetry for the same reason that I read it, both as a way of being alive and as a way of trying to understand what it means—how it feels—to be alive.” (Phillips 133).
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
When we first started the poetry unit, I felt that I would hate reading and creating poetry. When I heard we had to read poetry I was very disappointed. Every other year we did poetry units, I hated it. I hated every part of it. I dreaded reading poetry and answering the questions. I mostly felt this way because I am a factual person. I always have to have one right answer. I do not like when there are more than one answer choices that are correct. Poetry always has more than one interpretation.This year, however, hearing poetry and writing my own poetry has changed my opinion on poetry. Although I still hate answering questions on the poems I love to listen to poetry and write my own poetry. But, even when you read the poems that I write they are very straightforward and there are usually no other ways to interpret it.
In the past, if I was inclined to read poetry I would probably have stopped about line two, rolled my eyes and found something else to do with my time. My view of poetry has now changed the way I read other poet’s work. My exposure to several different chapbooks now allows me to recognize themes within poetry, understand the progression of thought through their verse, and garner a comprehension of the motivation behind the artist process of producing a piece of creative art. The idea of motivation in a chapbook became clearer for me when I re-read The State of the Ship by Le. Goldstein. I originally read it in the beginning when I had no knowledge of how to interpret poetry and decided to pick it back up a few days ago. I wanted to gain a better
With time poems may have lost their voice, but not their importance. Up to this day, poetry is still one of the greatest forms of artistic expression; Poems speak to emotions and capture feelings. There is no right format of a poem, but yet a world of possibilities. Instead being unchangeable poems are innately open to interpretation; they should be spoken out loud in order to be “heard”, convey truth and cause impact. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot is an extremely meaningful poem; it is one of Elliot’s best-known works and without a doubt a masterpiece (Hillis). T.S. Eliot introduces the poem with a quote from Dante's Inferno (XXVII.61-66), and with that sparks our curiosity. He then makes statements and questions that perhaps everyone has done, or will do at some point in life (Li-Cheng, pp. 10-17). The poem is a legitimate work of the modernist movement, the language used is contemporary; the verses are free and the rhythm flows naturally.
There are many different forms of writing that all fall under the name literature. These different ways to create literature are often categorized into specific genres. Some of the genres have more in common with each other than others. Two genres, the short story and the poem, share many similar aspects. Both the short story and the poem can successfully send powerful messages or tell complex stories in a very short amount of words. Both genres contain carefully manipulated language that quickly yet effectively establishes the meaning of the short story or poem. Point of view is a prominent aspect in controlling short stories and poetry. The works are thus often told in the first person. By making the narrator a character, authors are able to quickly engage the reader and intensify the emotionality of the story or poem. They do not always, however, use this tactic to accomplish the same objective. Still, authors of short stories and poems usually achieve similar goals when using similar devices. Writers of the two genres also frequently take advantage of the use of symbolism and metaphor. These literary devices allow the authors to create works that deliver more than one meaning or message while only stating one thing. The short story author or poet also successfully creates a complete story or poem in minimal words with the use of irony. Ironic scenarios or statements add shock to the writing and can significantly strengthen the emotional power of the story. Both the writers of the short story and the poem often use similar literary devices to achieve their goals.
Poetry unlike fiction is solely based on the author’s personal take on a certain subject. The tone, diction, syntax, and mood of a poem are all determined by the author of the poem. For some readers, to interpret a poem or explain the plot can be a difficult task. Other forms of literature such, as fiction is much easier to understand and discuss.