Wendy Cope “Lonely Hearts”

This poem was appealing to me because it had a lot to do with feeling. In my opinion this poem is about the wish and desire of every person to find someone to spend the rest of their lives with. I thought it was funny though that all these people were put ads in the personals column to find someone. In my opinion that is no way to meet someone. I also thought that it was funny that all these different people were from the same place, “North London.” If there are so many people in the same place looking for their “special someone,” I would think they would go out and try to find them; not just put an ad in the personal’s column.

WORD COUNT: 125

Carl Sandburg “Grass”

This poem is very unique. It is told from the view of an inanimate object, grass. I found it interesting because it uses allusion to help make a point to the audience. In this poem different war battles are alluded to. For example, the battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, and Gettysburg are named. When referring to these battles, the poem talks about the people who died in them. It says to pile the men high and bury them. Then the grass continues to narrate the poem and says, “let me work – I am the grass; I cover all.” I found it interesting to compare the men who died to the grass that will last forever. The grass will always be there and it will always cover those who die; however, I found the most interesting part at the end. The grass seems to erase what happened there, at the battles. When people go by they ask where they are like nothing significant ever happened there. After the grass grew over all the buried bodies, it’s like what happened there was erased or forgotten.

WORD COUNT: 182

Oedipus

Over all I really enjoyed the story of Oedipus. It was very interesting as a tragedy because one always assumes that the main character never has anything bad happen to them. They always end up surviving what ever killed everyone else and they are the hero. But is Oedipus a hero in this story? I've pondered this a while since we read it. In an obvious way, no he is not. He is the one that killed the last king and brought doom on his city in the first place. However, in the end he leaves the city. He does not return which, in a way saves the rest. So, the last thing we have to look at is motive. In my opinion, I have no opinion. This is a difficult decision because he was ignorant to his actions for so long and he had no idea about their consiquence.

WORD COUNT: 150

Outside Activity 5

During this semester I had the opportunity to listen to an accomplished writer with a disability read her work. It was an incredible moment. A young woman named Kelly came to speak and she has autism. It was very moving to listen to her talk about her family and her life with autism as she spoke to us and through her book. I think her main idea she wanted to get across was to not make fun of people with disabilities. She told us in her book and through her speech that she had many hard times in school because other students would call her retarded and it hurt her feelings. Kelly was a very nice and intelligent woman who has accomplished a lot. She is living on her own in a community with other people with disabilities and is very close to her family. She inspired me as an individual to help others and myself.

WORD COUNT: 156

Movie vs. Text

In class we watched a movies that was based on the text "A Worn Path." I really enjoyed getting this point of view from the movie. In the text, the narrator is an outside source that has nothing to do with what takes place; however in the movie, the narrator seems like it is the old woman herself. In the text, the author was very discriptive of the events that occured but the movie helped me understand more of what happened. It helps me a lot to see expressions on people's faces because you can tell a lot from how people are looking at you. Because of this, I was able to better understand the nurse in the doctor's office throught the movies than in the text. Another difference in the way the text is portrays and the movies is where the setting takes place. After reading the text, I assumed that it was taking place in the north because although the white man was somewhat racial toward the black woman, he was still polite in helping her. In the movie, however, the sign on the doctor's office said "colored" which makes me think more about the south and segregation.

WORD COUNT: 200

Outside Activity 4

This weekend I went to Burke's Book Store to listen to students from a different college read creative writings that they wrote themselves. It was very interesting; however, when poetry was read I got a little lost. I'm not much or a poetic person so most of the time it was over my head. The fiction stories were very enjoyable. I liked the first one read the best. The girl was very talented. I noticed a big difference in the way that I would write compared to her. She used a lot of details, adjectives, and different uses of language. There was a lot of fowl language which I appreciated because I was able to relate to it better since that language is used everyday anyway. The second fiction story that was told by the last reader was also a well written story. It too used very descriptive words which I was able to follow and visualize while listening. Our guest in Memphis were very talented and I enjoyed the experience a lot.

WORD COUNT: 173

The Barmaid Tells the Story

When the barmaid is first introduced into the story, a negative connotation begins to develop through the text chosen by the author. Words such as “semiwhore,” “doomed,” and “menace” are used to describe the character and her life (Baldwin 45). These words are consistent with the negative tone of the rest of the story as it goes on to talk about the life of Sonny. The narrator uses the barmaid to symbolize the underlying theme of the story when he uses these words to portray different characteristics. Baldwin writes, “When she smiled one saw the little girl, one sensed the doomed, still-struggling woman beneath the battered face of the semiwhore” (Baldwin 45). This is how the narrator characterizes the barmaid to his audience; simultaneously, the narrator is speaking of the conditions in every character’s life in Sonny’s Blues. Not only through words but also through different behaviorisms is the theme seen through the barmaid. When the narrator sees the struggling and doomed woman, she is dancing and singing. It is assumed that the dancing, singing, and music are her escape from the reality of menace, because when the music stops, the barmaid pauses and looks at the juke box until it resumes. That moment when the music stops is when reality is hardest. Sonny’s Blues is about the hard times in life and learning the right way to deal with them by finding an escape which is shown briefly in the character of the barmaid.

WORD COUNT: 245