critical week # 14

Today is a Bitter Sweet day. It is the last day of us doing poetry blogs. I must say that I have learned a lot from this class. With our first day of coming into this class we were asked what was our definition of poetry. To me it was a an expression of art with the use of words. I still feel this way about poetry but i have also learned to appreciate that expression a lot more when realized the mechanics that it takes in order achieve this art form. There were so many different forms that I have learned about. Before this class I had never heard of a Ghazal, an Abude . This class broadened my experiences with poetry. I must say I don't think I will invest in a career of Poetry, but it has definitely affected my life. Now I appreciate the use of language and how words can be placed together so beautifully. It makes me want to expand my vocabulary, discover new words to use within my poems. I also have learned to be creative. Poem are better when you describe your subject with out directly speaking about it. Metaphors play an important role in poems. It is what gives the poem that twist. So as this semester comes close to the end. I now have a greater appreciation for poetry. I started out wondering if I would be able to conquer the task of writing poetry. Though I may not be the best in the class I do feel that gave a good effort. And hey life is all about trying.

I was on facebook today and I came across this video on my friends page. I was just going to pass it by.

I didn't think that it was worth watching, but something told me to press play. This poem blew me away.

With me being Christian it really touched me. It made me question myself, my life and my desires. As a college student

its easy to lose focus on really living the right way. Its easy to be religious but hard to be spiritual. You can go through the motions,

but if you are not living right its hard to continue to have that true connection to God. Where he can abide in you.

Another point this poem made, was that it easy to quotes scripture of comfort. The ones that promises us prosperity, but we

hate to read the ones that convict us. He ends it with how bless we are that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. And thats when

I realized that is how I am saved. Poetry should move you, and it should inspire you. Love to hear people perform poetry.

You feel their expressions and your not confused on what they want you take away from the poem.

week #14 free #1

This is the poem that I did for this week group presentation. I decided to post it so you can tell me what you think.

Revenge

I still taste the salt from my tears.

What a sweet sour taste.

I sit on the edge of our bed,

Staring blandly at the wall.

Devastation consumes me like a parasite.

Leaving nothing left if me.

Leaving no trace of who I once was.

Life seems a lot darker now.

I scare myself,

With the possibility of my thoughts.

I could kill you a hundred ways,

And cover up the evidence.

Scorned,

A womanís fury comes straight from hell.

You should hope for the best,

But expect the worst.

I hope she was worth it.

Sherita Bolden

As you can assume, my topic was about my husband cheating on me. So I tried to explore this with confessing my thoughts of getting revenge.

week #13 criticcal

This weekend I read over our packet for the upcoming group project. The poem form that interested me the most was Confessional Poetry. It was stated that confessional poetry was an expression of feelings and emotions. They consisted of feelings of death, trauma, and relationships. Some of the most known people to use this form, was Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and W.D. Snodgrass, and Robert Lowell. I choose the poem but Sylvia Plath was Lady Lazarus

Lady Lazarus

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-------

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The Peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot ------
The big strip tease.
Gentleman , ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart---
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

I loved the vivid images used in this poem. In the bible Lazarus was raised from the dead, her use of language in the poem paints that picture of what it may have been like to view someone that was once dead. My favorite line was " Do I terrify" and "The Sour breath will vanish in a day". The poem had solemn tone to it. She comes out of the grave incomplete, and she is hoping to one day regain those things that makes us alive. While doing research on her poem. A reader wrote that " "Lady Lazarus' is Plath's way expressing in her own words the agony of being born agian." This was a deep dark poem. Plath has been known for writing depressing poems that hint around the act of suicide. We even see in this poem her multiple suicide attempts and how she continuously raise from the dead and come back from them. To me, most confessional poems are like a cry out for help. Its a way for the author to hopefully gain understanding from the reader.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esBLxyTFDxE

week #13 free

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

I did blog last week when we wasn't suppose to so I'm gonna repost it for this week.

week #11 critical #3

I went back to one of our old blogs when our teacher told us to find something beautiful and tell why it is beautiful. Well I decided to think outside the box and write about something other than nature. So I wrote about a movie camera. I find the beauty in this camera because this is my life's dream, being an actress. Along with acting, I want to be a director and produce films. I love seeing life throw the eye's of a camera. Your creativity is limitless. You can tell any story that you want. Your shots are everything. Close ups, medium shots, and far away all work together to help tell the story. Acting and film has been my life and this would be my dream job. When I look at this camera I see the freedom of life. I see, myself living life to the fullest. With film everyday is different, its spontaneous. And to me thats the beauty of life. Waking up excited to go to work, to see what the day will bring.

week #11 critical #2

So spring break is the week that most of us will probably be getting our barriers together and start to work on our poetry collections. I think back to when I heard Natasha Trethewey speak last week and she went into depth of why she choose certain pieces to place in her collection, Native Guard. Her collection started off with the an elegy to her mother. Most of the poems in the beginning were about her relationship with her mother, and ultimately dealing with the grief of her passing. Then the last part of her collection was about the forgotten soldiers of the Native Guard. She explained to us the reason for her placing her mother and these soldiers in the same collection. She said that they had one thing in common. Each of them were left to be forgotten, and that the people that should have honored them left no memorial for them. She did not give her mother a tombstone, and the Blacks soldiers names were not left on a plague like the white soldiers names were. This made her collection connect and come together. This made me realized how important it is that your collection has some sort of theme to it. It gives depth and meaning to your poems. Reading other collections you also see how the poems all connect. Some poems feed off of the one before, almost like a story. So as you create and set up your portfolios think about what kind of story or message you want to tell.