Week 5: Poetry

So this week as we were reading "Writing Down the Bones" I still caught myself being uninterested in poetry. Now don't get me wrong, when I was younger I wrote poetry for fun. Now that I have to write it for a grade it's not as easy for me. I also wrote poems that rhymed and were only like 10 lines long, if that. So this is a challenge but I have promised myself that I will try to do my best no matter what.

This week I want to talk to you about two different poems that are within the book by Natalie Goldberg. The first of the two is called "One Plus One Equals a Mercedes-Benz". The one line that sticks out the most to me is when the writer says, 

                        "Forget Yourself. Disappear into everything you look at - a street,

                         a glass of water, a cornfield. Everything you feel, become totally

                         that feeling, burn all of yourself with it."

I love that the author is trying to make you think of yourself as an intangible object. Describe yourself with your surroundings instead of the normal descriptions of a human being.

My second poem I wanted to discuss was "Listening". The line that stuck out the most to me was when she went to vocal lessons and he told her, 

                        "Singing is 90% listening. You have to learn to listen."

The beginning of her poem is about how her cousin who is 9 years older than her said that she was tone-deaf. After that point she stopped singing and began humming instead. She took one line of criticism and stopped doing what she was doing. I know too many people that have this mind set. Unfortunately I used to be someone like this. I used to take what they said and stopped whatever it was that they said I wasn't good at. Now I have learned to take what they said and turn it into a lesson instead.

Everyone needs to learn how to think outside of the box, and learn how to take criticism for the thoughts they verbalize. We need to take the criticism given to us and turn it into a lesson. Learn from what people have said and don't try to please everyone. Becoming a people-pleaser, well not everyone likes one of those. 

Week 4: Poetry

Today I want to talk about the long poem called "Tocqueville". This poem had a very odd way of pulling your interest into it. It spoke of many gruesome acts that went into detail. It had emotion and in a way could be heartless. It was about one mans life specifically. The details were very gruesome and in a way could cause your stomach to turn and twist into knots.

An example of this is when he was talking about how his wife was already killed. After that he was forced to kill his own child in front of the others. After he killed his own child they still cut off his arms. Now we don't know what this man did specifically, but you never know. Maybe he wasn't innocent, maybe he was a killer of other families. Maybe it was time for revenge. We won't know those facts because they don't inform you over it, that's where your imagination kicks in and you make the part leading up to the events from your mind.

One other example is about his best friend. He was arrested for child pornography. That disgusts me in a whole new level. It's not right for an older gentleman to do. No child should be violated into that type of situation. Also is best friends father passed away, he was on an oxygen tank and smoked during it. It caused his death.

All in all this poem is twisted and sick. It makes you think in a way that a lot of poems don't want to take you down.It makes you think deep into yourself to see what truly lies within, just like he did with the man in this poem.