Friday, February 23, 2007

Week 4 Journal

“The Computation” by John Donne

S: Grieving man
O: Lover has left him and he misses his love
A: People that have lost a loved one
P: To show how he feels alone now
S: A man’s wife has died
Tone: grieving, mad, sad, longing

Contemporary Response:

John Donne does a good job with expressing the feelings of the character in his poem. The reader can tell that the character’s lover has died and that he wants the person to come back. In my response poem I tried to some from the perspective of the person that has died. I talked as the ghost, which is also answering the question on the last poem of “can ghost die?” Also, I tried to use the same diction and old word choice that Donne has used in his poem. In this poem I really liked hoe he played with a little repetition and rhyme in a couple of lines, which I also included in my response poem.

For the last 60 years since yesterday
I see that thou has lost their way
Though I have left, I have not
And it seems that thou has forgot
At night, tears drown thy face and I wish
To come back and plant one last kiss
To come back and be thy niche
But I cannot so grant me this
Wipe thy eyes and carry me in they heart
Ghosts never die and we will never part

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Week 3 Journal #2

"I carry your heart with me( I carry it in my heart)" by e.e. cummings
S: a person deeply in love
O: confessing his love to his love one
A: anyone who has being love
P: to convey their his love for her will never die as long as his heart beats
S: Love
Tone: loving, wanting, desire
Comparative:
I would relate this poem by e.e. cummings to another poem that I have read in class called "The Hour Glass" by Ben Johnson. I think that these two poems have much in common eventhough they are written by poets with two totally different styles of writing. Cummings has a more loving vibe to his love poems where as Ben Johnson has a more lost, hurtful vibe to his poems. I chose these poems to connect to each other because they both refer to love lasting forever. Cummings shows that love will last forever as he says that he carries her heart with his heart which would mean that he will always have love for her because he will always have a heart. Johnson shows everlasting love in his poem as he refers to ashes of a persons body which use to love and still loves eventhough the body is in ashes. I really like these two poems as I compare them because they have totally different tones to them yet they both send off the same idea and message.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Week 3 journal

"it may not always be so; and I say" by e.e. cummings
S: Someone that has been heart or cheated on
O: When He/she realized their love may not be true
A: Anybody that has been in love
P: To convey thoughts in feelings of a person in love
S: accepted love might not be still there
Tone: hurt, accepting, pleading
Literary response:
I think this poem written by e.e. cummings is a very good poem because it does not follow the criteria of the natural and common love poem. A lot of love poems talk about what they like about a person make metaphors for their feelings. But his poem is different because it talks about accepting that love is not in the relationship but between their partner and someone else and then congratulated the other person for finding love. Most poems would be a hate poem if this situation would occur. I like how this author took the concept and really did a 180-degree turn and took a hate situation into a love situation looking at it from a different point of view.
Other than the idea of the poem I think the author used great word choice to convey his poem. Also he uses a nice structure that shows a sort of cause and affect of what will happen. I like the way he repeats the two words "I say". This solidifies the fact that what he is talking about might happen but is not for certain that it will. Also, I like his word choice in the first four lines, it sort of gives of the picture of the character reminiscing on the things he would do with his girlfriend and him thinking about his girlfriend doing the things he use to do with his girl. Also, to go back to the structure of the poem in the first part of the poem the character is thinking of his love spending time and loving another and its sets up the next paragraph. The next paragraph say that if this is true then let him now so that he can congratulate the man for finding love and then he would leave them alone and be sad.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Journal #1

"Forgetfulness" by Billy Collins
S: an old person
O: an old person talking to someone
A: a grandson
P: let people know what happens when you get old
S: what happens when one gets old
Tone: Reminiscent, sort of sad
Personal Response:
The message of this poem is when you get old you begin to forget everything that happen in your life, especially little things that happened. I think this poem really conveys it's message by going in and out of a list of things that one might forget. He starts off in a list but then jumps into explaining more about one subject then going back into his list. I think that this poem really relates to everyday life because when my mom forgets things once in a while she always says, "you have to excuse me I'm getting old." I think that many adults use this fraise because as people get older they really do forget things and I'm now experiencing that with my mother. Also, my grandfather forgets things a lot to, where as he didn't before. My grandfather use to tell me where my things are when I would lose something but now I have to help him remember things and find what he loses. It's like me and him switch places, when I was really young I would forget things now I'm and I remember things better and he forgets things.

Journal #2

"Song at Midnight" by Lucille Clifton
Contemporary Poet:
S: a big woman
O: a woman has felt unloved for a long time
A: Men, maybe black because it says brothers
P: To say there is more to a woman than appearance
S: Men should love all woman
Tone: asking a question, proving a point

In reading this poem the first time I did not quite understand what the poem was saying so I had to read the poem a couple of times to understand the poem. The poem basically just tells men that there is more to woman than just looks and they should love all women no matter what their size is. I think it also asks men to love big woman because if they don't then nobody else will. I like the way this author uses her choice of words, it is very short but it still has a lot of information in it. The author chose words that give the reader a very vivid picture of what the character in the story is going through. The author also raised a question in the poem of "Who will hold her, who will find her beautiful if you do not?" I think that this question is true because if someone is always told that they are beautiful in public then other people will notice the beauty in a woman. Because her beauty is verbally expressed other people will begin to notice the beauty they had not seen before. It's sort of life an ad in a magazine where they have models and somebody says "Ooh! She look good." Then a whole bunch of people look at the picture and nod there head in approval.






“I Do” by Ramon Meacham
I do
I love this woman
With her voluptuous curves
That rock like the sea
Her voice
So sweet and soft.
She is
My plump melon
But far more sweet
I do
I do hold her,
I do find her beautiful
And so will you

Friday, February 2, 2007

Journal #2

Ramon D. Meacham Jr.
"Everything the Power of the Would does us done in a circle"
Black Elk
February, 2nd 2007
Speaker: A person that is thankful for life
Occasion:?
Audience: Anyone on Earth
Purpose: To educate people about the powers of the world
Subject: power of the world
Literature Critic:
Yes, I do think that the poet of this poem has conveyed his message that the power of the world is done in circles. I think that this poet has done by the words that he has chosen and the way that he has placed them. I think that what makes this poem so strong is that this pet chooses vital parts of the world that makes life circulate such as the sun, the moon and the earth itself. In the poem the author also uses the placement of his words to bring the meaning of his poem back to circular powers as he always puts the word "circle" as he talks about a new power. But also I like how this poet starts off talking about the world itself as a whole and then works his way to end talking about the life of man. I think that the last line is the strongest because it touches on the part that the power of the world is in a circle but it is also the most prized power of life.

"We Where the Mask", Paul Lawrence DunBar Journal 1

S: sad person
O: depression
A: people that have felt sad at one point
P: to point out that people are not what they seem to be
S: people that hide their feelings
Tone: depressed
Personal response
I think this poem really connects to life today because there are many people trying to be something different than their true selves. A lot of people watch television and thin that is the way they should act and begin to act in that form. This poem also relates to real life because I do believe that people lie and grin even though they might not feel that way. Sometimes in life people have to life to keep from hurting a loved ones feelings or from getting in trouble. It is not their true self but it keeps people happy and safe.
This also relates to my life because I feel that I sometimes live my life behind a mask. I do not like to show how I feel to other people because I feel that showing emotion is a sign of weakness. So like in the line in the poem "With torn and bleeding hearts we smile" I can relate to it because when I am hurt I still act as if though nothing is wrong.