Poetry Out Loud Blog

Part One:
1. Dreamers
2. Nineteen-Fourteen: The Soldier
3. Echo
4. First Poem For You; On The Lawn At The Villa

Part Two:
I liked Dreamers because it is about a soldier missing home and I can empathize for him.
I didn't like First Poem For You because it was about a woman's love, I'm not a girl.
I am most interested in studying Dreamers.
I am debating about joining the army, and if I do I would miss home. Also I can really feel for the soldier who wrote that poem.

Part Three:
Physical Presence and Voice and Articulation because I have a very big voice and I have no problem showing I am not nervous on the stage (even though I probably will be).
Dramatic Appropriateness and Level of Difficulty because I do not read or listen to poetry very often so I don't know where appropriately dramatize and I don't think the poem is particularly hard.

Part Four:

I watched Forgetfulness recited by Jackson Hille. This performance was successful because of his posture and dramatic appropriateness. The tone of his voice matches very well with the tone of the poem. The next poem I watched was Writ On The Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem recited by Stanely Andrew Jackson. This was a very successful poem because of the difficulty of the poem, but also the Dramatic Appropriateness.

Part Five:

All in all I am nervous for the competition, and I know I'm not the only one. I think the competition will be fun, yet nerve-wrecking. I feel I will do semi-well, hoping for at least a B. The people from Poetry Out Loud really put a lot of work into this website, and it payed off. Whenever I do poetry in the future I will remember and look back to this website.

"Lobters" Discussion

The biggest thing that stood out to me, and made me think more about the poem is what Levi said about the slave trade metaphor. That really made me rethink the poem in its entirety. I got the basics about the poem, but the discussion really helped me look at the entire thing, not just the things I saw.

After the discussion, I took some time to read over the poem again. This time I really tried to analyze it for the slave trade metaphors and I found many more things than I did the first time I read it. What Levi said changed my whole theme statement and thesis and made me rethink the whole entire poem.

5 part paragraph critiques

There were many good paragraphs throughout the last couple of weeks, there were even some great ones. Yet others weren't as good as I thought they could've been. For instance fundamental mistakes that you could have caught if you just read through it one more time. Proof reading would benefit people that didn't have the "great" paragraphs the most. Even though some people didn't have the great paragraphs, others did. It takes a lot of skill to write a good five part paragraph, I know from writing them the last months, it's hard! You have to find something you want to set out to prove, find the quotes to prove it from the books, and the hardest part, writing commentary to support why it proves your topic! So much stuff!

I did write a five part paragraph and got critique on it, even though I was one of the last ones. I thought I did a pretty good job for this being my first five part paragraph. Even though I felt confident, reading out loud really showed how much I could have improved it. The main thing I probably should have done was read through it one more time just to make sure there were no "awkward sentences" or spelling errors. And maybe just spending the extra time to make sure that I had the best quotes I can find from the book to support my topic, or thought a little bit harder to make sure I wrote the absolutely best commentary I could. Although I probably could have done better on my paragraph, I know what to do in the future so I can write the absolute best I can!

Informal Diction

It ain't much, but there really ain't nuthin else much to write home 'bout. Really, the only innerestin thing dat happened dis week was when I went to da store. It was dat one Safeway or whatever ya call it. I went wit my momma and my brother. We was out of food in our house, so we went to go get some more. We gots some apples and bananas and even some carrots. Now we gots some more food to eat in our house so we don't get hungry and stuff.

Dat night we ate good. We had some noodles with the meat and the cheese. Dat is one of my fav dinners to eat. My mom makes it good every time. I love my mommy cause she makes good food for us to eat when we get hungry. Dat was a fun day cause I got to spend time wit my mommy, brother, and had good eatin for dinner. I haped you did enjoy this blog post good and see ya'll next time.

Cather in the Rye

So far, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is bland, yet interesting. It's kinda hard to explain, but the storyline seems pointless, yet it is still interesting to read. I am also only 50 pages in, so it will probably get better.
Because I am in the beginning of the novel, the most important literary element so far is characterization, and Salinger does a great job of it. I can almost perfectly picture all the characters in my head, what they look like, what their personalities are, and even their relationships to other people in the novel.
The only book I can really think that is somewhat like The Catcher in the Rye, is 1984 by George Orwell. The only reason is because I forced myself through the first 40 pages of the book. I found it very boring at the beginning, much like the novel I am reading now. Even though both of the books are slow at the beginning, I find The Catcher in the Rye much better to read, only because I know the characters better and somewhat of the plot than I did in 1984.
The only reason I have for a creative project at this point is a poster, because it is easy, and because I might be doing it with a friend. We might talk some more about ideas, but this far that's the only idea I have.

Theme: Extended

I haven't read many books that actually have morals and themes. Sure I read Harry Potter, Captain Underpants, but they never really had anything to say that made any sense. That is why I was very excited to pick up this novel at the beginning of summer. I have heard it was a very good book and had many elements to it that looked into the insight on life, but I never knew that it could speak to me as an individual. The one theme that I felt really related to me was growing up and loss of innocents.

My family has not been the most fortunate. When I was just 7 years old, we lost a very nice house, that's when we moved to Olympia, but then on it has been pretty hard for us. only 4 years later, my parents got a divorce, and I had to grow up really fast and look out after my little brother. It has leveled out by now and we are getting by, but its still something very hard to get over. Much like Jem looking after Scout, I have had a big roll in my brothers life. I believe we are very good friends today and I hope that will never change.

The things I most learned from To Kill A Mockingbird are not to judge people to harshly because you can overlook what kind of person they really are, and even though evil and hardship may overpower good, you can still see some good in people. This first theme of not judging people is important to me because I was a big child, always taller than my classmates and peers, so people would label me as the "scary big dude." I hardly thought that was fair, even though it did come in handy if I didn't get my way (I'm only joking don't worry). Although I was labeled, once people got to know me they saw how cool I could be and I got quite a few friends. The second theme is especially important to me. I have had the displeasure of meeting some people that are not the nicest people in the world. Even though these people were the snake's venom, I still knew people that I knew would always be there for me, my dad, my mom, and my brother. Those three people are very close to me and help me see the best in people even in the hardest of times, and I will thank them for the rest of my life because that is one of the most important quality a person can have, seeing the good in people no matter what.

Death? Whats that?

Death. Ya it's cheesy but I didn't understand it one bit when I was a kid. I had a couple relatives die when I was young, and my mom tried to explain it but I just didn't get it. I tried to think about it sometimes and it scared me. I would think about people who are close to me dieing and it would scare me almost to the point of crying (remember I was five back then). But now I am older and I understand, and appreciate it much better now than I did back then.

Just like Scout when she was young, whenever I faced the thing I didn't understand and the thing I didn't know, I tried to run from it. Whenever Scout or Jem had to cross in front of the Radley house they would sprint by because they didn't know what was there, and were afraid of what they don't know. Whenever I tried to think about death, it scared the crap out of me, just like walking by the Radley house scares the crap out of Scout and Jem. Even though both Scout and I were scared of something, we learned later that its not what we think and its actually something to appreciate.

When I was young, I lost my grandfather and my cousin. I wasn't very close to either of them but I still had many questions. Where do you go when you die? Does it hurt? How do you die? All of these questions I pondered. I didn't quite understand what I was thinking about, much like Scout didn't know what Boo Radley was exactly. Although, now that I am older, and much more knowledgeable, I can think much more in depth that I could when I was little. I am now able to comprehend what death means, and understand what it is and appreciate it much more. I just recently lost a Great Aunt, and I can much better understand and appreciate what the process is, and what actually happens. So now much like Scout at the end of the book, I am no longer afraid and now very much appreciate what it means to die.