What is Poetry?

        What is poetry? At the most basic level, poetry is an experience produced by two elements of language like “sense” and “sound.” The “sense” of a word is its meaning. Poetry is derive from Greek word means  an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or its notional and semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose.

        Poetry in English and other modern European languages often uses rhyme. Rhyme at the end of lines is the basis of a number of common poetic forms, such as ballads, sonnets and rhyming couplets. However, the use of rhyme is not universal. Much modern poetry, for example, avoids traditional rhyme schemes. Furthermore, Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not use rhyme. In fact, rhyme did not enter European poetry at all until the High Middle Ages, when it was adopted from the Arabic language. The Arabs have always used rhymes extensively, most notably in their long, rhyming qasidas. Some classical poetry forms, such as Venpa of the Tamil language, had rigid grammars (to the point that they could be expressed as a context-free grammar), which ensured a rhythm.

        Compared with prose, poetry depends less on the linguistic units of sentences and paragraphs, and more on units of organization that are purely poetic. The typical structural elements are the line, couplet, strophe, stanza, and verse paragraph.

        Poetry is also visual, and so it’s a good idea to pay attention to how the words are assembled on the page. Our imaginations are often stirred by a poem’s visual presentation. Just like a person, poems can send all kinds of signals with their physical appearance. Their lines are all regularized and divided neatly into even stanzas. If the poem is about war, maybe it looks like a battle is going on, and the words are fighting for space. If the poem is about love, maybe the lines are spaced to appear as though they are dancing with one another. Often the appearance and meaning will be in total contrast, which is just as interesting.

http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm

http://www.shmoop.com/poetry/how-to-read-poem/what-is-poetry.html

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
   So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare.

Exploration of Texts: "Turtle Soup" by Marilyn Chin

1.       Notice the author’s choice of the word “cauldron” in line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chosen “cauldron” rather than “pot”?

“Cauldron” is an ancient pot that usually use by ancient Chinese to boil the medicine or soup.  Through this word chosen we know that she is someone that very appreciate every single things about her ancestor land.

2.       Chin refers to “the Wei”, “the Yellow”, and “the Yangtze”. Why does she reference these rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?

She refers to “the Wei”, “the Yellow”, and “the Yangtze” because these rivers are the river where the Chinese civilization had started. The turtle represents as an ancient animal for the Chinese as their symbol of tradition. Through those references, we might say that the turtle had witnessed lots of glorious achievements in China civilization like “grazed on splendid sericulture”, through its journey in that river. She could not refer to the river like Mississippi, Nile, and Amazon because there is no big event that ever happened there. There are non-glorious cultures that we could dig among those rivers.

3.       What is the tone of this poem?

The tone of this poem is sadness and disappointments. We could see in the entire poem that the mood of the speaker is full of sadness because her mother no longer interested in preserve their sacred culture. The turtle. In the last stanza the speaker questioning about where are their ancestor belief had gone. “The songs, the rites, the oracles?”.

Ideas for Writing: Turtle Soup by Marilyn Chin

        There are lots of pros and cons that will gain by a family that moving to the new land or a new country. It takes lots of courage for a family to move to a new land because it will give them lots of challenges that will affect their everyday life. They need to adapt themselves in a new culture, way of life, learning new language and work ethics. It will take lots of time to adapt ourselves with a new way of life or a new culture because we had used with our ancestry land way of life and cultures.

        “Sometimes you’re the life, but sometimes the sacrifice”. The quote represent that sometimes we will have a good time but sometimes we need to face hardness when we live in a new land. Based on the “Turtle Soup” poem that written by Marilyn Chin, we could see that the speaker is an immigrant in a place in America called Pasadena. Her family faced the hardness to maintain their ancestor belief and cultures. We could see her family face the loss of their true identity as a Chinese family. Her mother no longer believe in their ancestry cultures and sacred. In Chinese tradition context, the turtle soup represents a revered Chinese mythological symbol that the Chinese belief it is the symbol of longevity, patience, grandeur and antiquity but her mother had poached and boiled the turtle without any hesitation because for her it just a type of food that they need to consume.

        In contrary, they could learn a new culture when they move a new land. It is really important for us to adapt with our new cultures in our new place because we could avoid any misunderstanding that will arise. We could not just simply act like the way in our own land. For example, talking loudly is considered boorish in Japan, entering a mosque wearing shorts is disrespectful in Saudi Arabia and holding hands with your opposite-sex sweetheart in India is provocatively rude. Instead of to avoid the misunderstanding, we can also broaden our knowledge about other countries culture. It might be hard for the Asian immigrants to blends with their new cultures in the West countries because Asian had known as one of the most polite and good behave people, while the Western are more open in their cultures.

        The language practice could be one of the difficulties that will face by the immigrants. It is very difficult to live on a day-to-day basis where your communication skills are limited by language that foreign to you. There will be lots of misunderstanding between immigrants and native residents. For example, you may speak American English and move to the U.K. or Australia. Although the language is technically the same, you will find that many words have different meanings in British English and Australian English. Your accent in your first language might influence your second language that makes what you have said hard to understand. But you could take this opportunity to learn a new language and widen your knowledge about your new land or place language. Language means everything when you move to a new land because through language you could learn their cultures, getting a new job, socialize with native residents and so on.

Explorations of the text 1-6 poem: Preface to a Twenty Volume of Suicide Note

What is the mood of the speaker in the opening lines? What images suggest his feeling?

The speaker mood in the first stanza is hopeless and monotony. He did not really enjoy his life. The images that represent his feelings like “I’ve become accustomed to the way the grounds opens up and envelopes me”. The walking of the dog is such a daily chore, as is running to catch the bus. These activities are mundane, and make the speaker feel hopeless.

2.      What is the significance of the daughter’s gesture of peeking into “her own clasped”?

The significance of the daughter’s gestures with “peeking into her own clasped hand” is she is praying to God. She might pray for her father safety because her father has an intention to commit suicide. He might be too stressful to handle the life of his own and his family.

3.      What does the title means? How does it explain the closing line?

I think the title means the pre-thought and phase before someone commits suicide. He thinks all the same things that he had done that makes him feel tired and sick of his life. “I’ve accustomed to the way the ground opens up and envelops me”. “Clasped hands” can symbolize how the pressure and the gravity of life had brought him to the preface of commit suicide.

4.      Why does Baraka have three short lines that separated as stanzas? How do they convey the message of the poem?

They are facts, though they seem to be more reflective and meant to help connect with the audience rather than simple statements. But the third one is not stand alone but it is a continuation of a sentence above.

5.      Why does Baraka begin stanzas with “lately”, “and now” and “and then”? What do these transitions word accomplish?

It accomplished the timeline of the speaker. It shows how he going through his life before he realize that he cannot commit suicide because there is something that still need him. It use the word transition “and now” to show that he had gained his spirit back to live. It also accomplished that had going through the phase of commit suicide preface.

6.      How does the speaker feel about his daughter? What does she represent to him?

The speaker feels that his daughter still needs him so much. She is someone that has faith in God because with her gestures I assume that she is praying to God to protect her father and her family. She represents the spirit and courage for the speaker to live his life again.

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note By Amiri Baraka

Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way

The ground opens up and envelopes me

Each time I go out to walk the dog.

Or the broad edged silly music the wind

Makes when I run for a bus…

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.

And each night I get the same number.

And when they will not come to be counted,

I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up

To my daughter’s room and heard her

Talking to someone, and when I opened

The door, there was no one there…

Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands

My First Exploratory Drafts and Notes (All Things Not Considered by Naomi Shihab Nye)

        In the poem entitled, “All Things Are Considered” by Naomi Shihab Nye, the poet describes the whole event through straightforward words. Through the title, syntax, diction, imagery and mimesis we know that the poet means that the wars can cause a lot of destruction and lots of people had suffered. This war is happen among the Arab country because she had used a lot of example of Arab people. The poet makes a statement about the dead of a boy, the bombing of a home and the killing of innocent boy.

      

        Through diction like ‘you cannot stitch the breath’ means that the boy had died and you cannot simply get a life back.  There is more that had been killed brutally by the wars such ‘Mohammed al-Durra huddled against his father in the street , terrified. The whole world saw him die”. There is no place for humanity. Anyone who is trying to act like a hero will die, whether being shot or bombed.  The poet had said “if this holy, could we have some new religion please?” showed that she have the problem in believing the religions that exist because it doesn’t seems one of those religions could save the world from wars. War had taken everything from human. It took our loves one. There is no mercy in war, whether you are a man, a woman or children like ‘An Arab father on crutches burying his 4 month daughter’.

        The victims of war will being a refugee and seek a better place to stay. They need to take their children away from their country to avoid from being kill. They will not even know what mean by having a home because they need to struggle on their journey in a foreign place to save their life. They only can voice out through the distance.  Everyone that involves in wars is wrong. There is no ways that consider wars as a good action. If the both sides could stand together and achieve a decision maybe the war could be stop and the people will stop suffering.

        

        Everyone is realized that war is a mistake. But it seems everyone had just being deaf and blind to step forward to stop this situation. The victims of war need to do everything to survive. They need to use guns to protect themselves.  But for those who did not have any guns they just use what they could use to defend themselves and their country.  ‘Generation of Black’ means that they don’t have any freedom and their life always full of terrified moments.

Houses Of Dreams by Sara Teasdale

You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.

The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.

But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true --
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.