Nani (Alberto Ríos)

1. History: [no video]

2. Reader Reaction: Well, – hmm – I remember. What is a carcass?

3. Plot: A small child is being fed by his grandmother while binding words to her and to his world. These words are now forgotten.

4. Character: Child – presumably the author, just learning to speak, loves food; Grandmother – Nani, wrinkled, cooking, feeding, loving.

5. Setting; Wherever this takes place, they speak Spanish. A child is sitting, being fed by his grandmother.

6. Point of View: First person

7. Objects/Events:

*wrinkles repeated

*Broken phraseology with intent of expressing childishness – ‘watches..with…skin…hair’ ‘wrinkle speak’ ‘they speak nani was this…’

*simile: words=string

*Begins and ends with not being able to refuse food.

*She will die with time, taking part of the child.

*extensive imagery is used to build this cloud of wet words

8. Mood: Inquisitive, and neutral in emotion. He speaks of deep love for her, which brings him to a casual discussion of how much he will miss her when she’s gone.

9. Ideas: Importance of the grandmother in Latin culture: she is the caretaker, the excessive food and word giver. Loss of death – a part of a person is left dies when those he loves dies.

10. Style: Sentences are long, erroneously punctuated and complex. Occasionally, sentences are clipped with short little simple questions. Language is extremely simple yet intelligent.

11. Metre: Free verse. The thoughts are meant to be cloudy and wet.

12. Sound: Infantile in the extreme unattachment children can have while speaking about truly deep and difficult matters, for, in many cases, they have not experienced them. They simply speak of what they understand. Words float about ready to be grabbed and painted onto something meaningful. A warm home is lovely.

Problems with Hurricanes (Victor Hernández Cruz)

1. History: His reading of his own poem was much more energetic than I would have read it in my head. The accent helped too.’

2. Reader Reaction: Absolutely hilarious. Again, not a very pure Spanish humour. It was meant for people who have contact with English culture (which is probably why it was written in English). It has a very English dryness about it.

3. Plot: In a hurricane, don’t be so afraid of the wind or the rain, for if you are hit by a mango or other fruit, you shall have no glory in your death.

4. Characters: Campesino – wise, funny, well-acquainted with hurricanes; author – recipient of sagely advice.

5. Setting: Somewhere where there are plenty of hurricanes the author was walking along when he meets a man.

6. Point of View: First Person

7. Objects/Events:

*Repeated contrasts: noise, water, wind, to mangoes, bananas, and plantains.

*Repeated phrase: ‘Don’t worry about the noise/Don’t worry about the water/Don’t worry about the wind’

*Phrase is repeated at beginning and end of poem as an introduction and conclusion

*Similes: projectiles

*Hyperbole: winds and mangoes that crush people’s skulls. While it is intended to be seen as hyperbole, it is not, strictly speaking, an exaggeration. The exaggeration is in the likelihood of being murdered by a banana.

*Each stanza is eleven verses

*First and last stanzas say basically the same thing.  In a sense, it forms a type of chiasm

A. Not the noise…

B. Bananas

C. Killed

C2. Killed

A2. Not the noise…

B2. Bananas

8. Mood: Frivolous and humorous in its ridiculous stories, yet, slightly worried about being killed without honour.

9. Ideas: More honourable to die drown than to be smacked dead by a mango.

10. Style: Sentences are long and unpunctuated. Strictly speaking, they are extremely complex, but they are still extremely simple. The language is simple, yet impressively used. He wrote it with a thorough understanding of the English language.

11. Metre: No metre. No rhyme. No specific number of syllables. Free verse. In that way, it represents the frame of mind very well. It was never intended to be complex. It was simply to be funny.

12. Sound: The thing about foreign authors in English is that they have the vocabulary of a twelve-year-old with the mind of one who was brave enough to learn a language so well as to be able to write poetry (humorous poetry) in it. The sound takes the cliched ignorance of the peasants and brings it a warm and tender air. From living among campesinos, I can tell you that I heard a lot of advice that sounds a lot like ‘don’t get hit by bananas.’

Bilingual Sestina (Julia Alvarez)

1. History:  I’d heard of a sestina before. Still, it’s a really, really cool form.

2. Reader Reaction: I was prohibited as a child to mix languages, so reading this is both extremely aggravating and extremely freeing. I understand her. I also understand the English, whose words of gargoyle and glob seem to have intrinsic value of their own. However, Spanish does have that warm, scraping effect, like digging wet fingers into chunky, rocky, warm soil. 

3. Plot: The author is talking to Gladys, a white American, trying to remember the words and world taught to her by the Spanish that she once knew so well. 

4. Character: Author – hispanic, raised in English, heart in Spanish; Gladys – American friend. Rosario – has some connection with author and Spanish and the author’s childhood.

5. Setting: Abstract. In a sense, the poem is a letter to Gladys, who does not seem to understand the author.

6. Point of View:  First person

7. Objects/Events: * Though the Spanish words are important, I shall merely wash over them by saying that, at least to me, there is a warmth, being away from Spanish, in those homey words. Spanish seems like a buried treasure (and I believe she used the same simile).

*’snowy, blonde, blue-eyed, gum-chewing’ English the language of the whites

*Alliteration: wash…warm…waters; (consonance) tierra, cielo; sun…saying

*Rosario is an unnamed person, described as a muse, who had some connection to the author and Spanish

*Use of ‘Las Mañanitas»

*Genie: Arabian lore

*’dawn’s early light’ Star Spangled Banner

*Counting the stars, Biblical reference

*Poem bounces from oceans to shutters to oceans to window-related words – oceans representing Spanish and shutters bringing back English.

8. Mood: Emotive, heart-felt and childlike in the author’s intense desire to convey to the world the beauty of Spanish. Disappointed with flat English.

9. Ideas:  Beauty of the Romance Languages: warmth of the words, earthiness of the concepts, base human emotion, saying that it wasn’t Adam that named these objects. Their true names are in Spanish. English as a language of whites. Non-Biblical: ‘not Adam, not God…’ Learning Languages – it is impossible, even among those raised bilingual, to not attach oneself more wholly to one or the other languages. It is so difficult to change language, for, to change language, one must learn to change and shift thought, which she writes about so beautifully. It’s not just words attached to objects; it’s feelings attached to objects attached to words.

10. Style: High use of imagery. Long, un-punctuated, complex sentences. Language is substandard, technically for its mix of languages, though it does, according to for, italicise those words which are foreign.

11. Metre: No metre; sestina. No particular arrangement of syllables, though the lines are kept as visually the same as possible to maintain uniformity. The poem has a very silent yet difficult structure.

12. Sound:  Frustrated in not being able to use the native tongue, yet very happy and conversational. Not particularly euphonic, but not dissonant either. 

Theme for English B (Langston Hughes)

1. History: Felt like ADD. Very well done; comments below were hilarious.

2. Reader Reaction:  Feels monosyllabic while being highly literate and intelligent. His running commentary, as well as choice of response for an introductory essay, was comic and philosophical genius. Not entirely sure that his choice of setting was the most appropriate, but I suppose it works.

3. Plot: Mr Hughes is commissioned to write a page for English B. What comes out is a sincere search for who Mr Hughes is to Mr Hughes and the rest of his comraedic world.

4. Character: Mr Hughes – author, unnamed, implied, black, American; Teacher – white, old, freer

5. Setting: Mr Hughes is commissioned to write a reflective and sincere page for an English class.

6. Point of View:  First person

7. Objects/Events: *small section of versed italics indicating, in stylized format, the words of the teacher

*Mention of road to author’s home in Harlem

*Many of the verses begin with ‘I’

*End rhyme sporadic (N AABB NCNcNcNNNN NNNNNDDNNNNEeNNefNfeEeNfNG G)

*Hill above Harlem. Ascending to learn, descending to write.

*’feel and see and hear’ three of the five senses

*apostrophe: speaking to Harlem (‘hear you, hear me’), which is inanimate as if it were animate and that both were writing this poem.

*Differentiation between Harlem and New York (‘I hear New York too’)

*His likes are organized (and split into verses during each different level) to primary needs (‘eat,sleep…’), secondary needs (‘work, learn…), and self-actualizing needs (music and pipes). He is indicating his equal humanity.

*In mentioning Bessie Smith, bop music, and Bach, he was encompassing the three areas of music at the time, modern equivalent to jazz, pop, and classical. Classical brought forth blues which brought forth bop.

*Comparison from ‘you’ to ‘me’ frequent as is the repetition of those two words in conjunction with the word ‘white’

8. Mood: Confused yet Steady; Confrontational and Unapologetic yet not Angry

9. Ideas: Difference yet Unity under the American Flag: comparison from American teacher, who apparently might have issues with author’s black-ness-that’s-not-a-word. Yet he likes ‘white people’ music and is still American. Harlem Renaissance – road back to Harlem. Racism – ‘Sometimes perhaps yo don’t want to be a part of me.’ Indignation – ‘Not do I often want to be a part of you.’

10. Style: Sentences are chaotically long and complex (contrasted with chaotically short and fragmental interjections). These sentences are structured in a basic, repeating format – namely, I+verb+elaboration. Language is informal and beyond conversational. It is paralleled to a train of thought. In that sense, it could then be considered the gulf between substandard and rhapsodic.

11. Metre:  That which is spoken by the teacher holds to a near-perfect (presumably a writer’s flaw) iambic dimetre written in couplets. The rest is conversational and un-metrical.

12. Sound:  It is almost chaotic. It was written in a hurry with much previous thought. In most cases, poetry such as this would be deemed flawed and worthless, however, with his understanding of Proper English metre in the small discourse by the teacher, one can see that he did understand the rules of poetry at least semi-well. Still, thought it is genius, it is right-brained genius that did not take long to write. The sound is like watching slides roll by in slow motion. They are vibrant, but they are only snippets.

Harlem (Langston Hughes)

1. History: I’d never heard of the Harlem Renaissance before. It makes sense, though, all those period pieces coming together in one localized – uh – place. I always supposed that it came from New Orleans or some place similar. It makes sense, though, I suppose. How it makes sense, I don’t know. It just does.

2. Reader Reaction: Absolutely hilarious. What a fantastic imagination and use of imagery.

3. Plot: Dreams wither.

4. Character: Assumed character.

5. Setting: Someone’s dream withered, and he’s imagining watching it.

6. Point of View: Third Person Editorial

7. Objects/Events:
*Imagery: raisin, sore, pus, rotten meat, candy syrup, heavy load.

*Running question and elaboration. First question is finished with question mark; second with dash. All sentences are interrogative save the penultimate stanza. That is a whimsical proposition.

*Imagery deals with sores and foods.

*Alliteration: ‘dream deferred,’ ‘sun…sore,’ ‘sugar…syrupy sweet,’

*Assonance: ‘Fester…then’

8. Mood: Darkly humorous. Though the poem, in its core, is dealing with highly depressing stuff, it does it in such a childish, colourful way.

9. Ideas: Deferring Dreams: dreams die and are constantly rejected and postponed. We watch them die and yet we have no idea what they look like as they do.

10. Style: Sentences are short and fragmented. Language is like that of a highly intelligent yet vivaciously strange child.

11. Metre:Loose iambic. No set syllabic length of verses. The excessive, consciously incorrect punctuation gives the poem movement.

12. Sound:  Though the language is conversational, it is a very strange and childlike conversation. The sounds give me the mental image of a little girl turning from side to side, hands in pockets, as she tells me something of absolute importance.

 

America (Claudia McKay)

1. History: I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch. An onion patch. An onion patch. I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, and all I do is cry all day. Boo-hoo. Boo-hoo. The air’s so strong it blows my breath away. Boo-hoo. Boo-hoo. And all I do is cry AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL DaaaaAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!

2. Reader Reaction:  You know, I wish I couldn’t agree with the poem. It is a heavily pessimistic and parasitical view of America. The problem with emotional appeals is that frequently they don’t match reality well enough. 

3. Plot: The writer sees America as a decayed horrible place that she loves for the promise its future could potentially bring.

4. Character: Author – frustrated, caged, stupid, hopeful

5. Setting: The author lives within an America that stifles and condemns her.

6. Point of View: First person

7. Objects/Events:

*’bread of bitterness’ and ‘tiger’s tooth’ are both Indian, I believe, metaphors

* ‘breath of life’ Judaic term

*references to water: ‘tide’ ‘flood’

*’might and granite wonders’ = past

*reference to Father Time, whose origin is in Sumerian mythology (Sin, Nanna)

*Much, much use of simile: ‘tides into my blood’ ‘a flood’ ‘priceless treasures sinking…’ ‘rebel fronts a king in state’

*Metaphor: ‘her walls’ ‘cultured hell’

*’America’ uses a blend of culture and religious language from several different religions, as there are many religions in America.

8. Mood: All lines save the last three are stimulated, stifled and hateful toward America, contrasted by the hope (if a hurt hope) in a future in the final three lines.

9. Ideas: ‘Cultured hell’ – Though the people are cultured and educated, they still make life miserable for each other through oppressions and injustices. Founding America – ‘might and granite’ is a reference to age and steadfastness. Granite is not a beautiful stone in itself, but it is a long-lasting stone. Founding America is then compared to granite that persist through the ages only as a reminder and as a hope that those foundations could resuscitate the dream.

10. Style: Most of the sentences are long and complex. There is only one short one (v7). The language is conversational and biting.

11. Metre: No metre. Ten syllables per line. The lack of foot gives the piece a conversational aura, while the set amount of syllables gives the piece austerity and grandeur.

12. Sound: (ABABCDCDEFEFGG) The rhyme scheme, though subtle, adds to its aura of austerity and grandeur while still maintaining a strict conversational tone. Though the rhyme is not slant rhyme, it is written to have the same effect, only almost sounding euphonous.

 

We Wear the Mask (Paul Laurence Dunbar)

1. History: Why do slide presentations always zoom to a face when that particular person is said to have died?I do not envy Mr Dunbar’s life, but I’m glad he lived it. Still, he was more successful than most people live to be in their lifetimes anyway. Shame, the drinking problem.

2. Reader Reaction: His writing is very crisp, very American. His use of the mask is very perceptive.

3. Plot: Man wears a mask to show the rest of the world. He smiles at another, when he and the other are miserable inside.

4. Characters: humanity – keeps its issues drawn.

5. Setting: Abstract setting. The poem deals with humanity in general.

6. Point of View: First person (‘We wear the mask’)

7. Objects/Events:

*’We wear the mask’ is repeated three times. The first time it is used as an introductory statement (and thesis) to the poem. The last time it is used as the last line and concluding statement of the final stanza. The second is in the penultimate stanza, final line. The line is used poetically and transicionally, as well as a cohesive medium.

*Body parts: cheeks, eyes, hearts, mouth, tears, sighs, souls, feet. The use of so many body parts gives the poem an immense sense of touch and feeling. Many of these are used metaphorically, as masks.

*Masks is a metaphor for a false facade that is used to mask the misery underneath. As society sees the masks of others it feels obligated to elaborate on the masks of its own. In this way, Dunbar points out that masks feed each other.

*The iambic metre is broken with the following verses: ‘And mouth with myriad subtleties,’ ‘Why should the world be over-wise’, ‘Nay, let them…’, ‘But let the world dream otherwise.’ All of these references speak of the world. In emphasizing and cutting the pattern at the mentions of the world, he creates a sense of annoyance at the world.

8. Mood: Agony is seen underneath the masks and in the dreaded walks through clay. Agony is seen in the pleas to God and fellow man to free humanity from its prisons.

9. Ideas: Superficiality and Image: The image that people put on is frequently an image that is used as a mechanism to better fit in with the rest of the world. Universality of suffering: every man must wear their mask and suffer inside. Honesty as freedom.

10. Style: The style is succinct and tactile. Though the sentences are complex, they are not extremely long and waste no words. The style is informal.

11. Metre: Iambic tetrametre. Last verse of last two stanzas have two feet.

12. Sound: (AABBA AABc AABBAc) Not much internal rhyme exists. However, since it keeps to its metre mostly, it gives the poem fluidity.

Do not go gentle into that good night (Dylan Thomas)

1. History: I did not understand a word he was saying until I began to read the poem. Still, his technique was good and arrangement was unusual, if repetitive.

2. Reader Reaction: I had to read the poem aloud to understand what the poem was talking about. The imagery is beautiful and gray.

3. Plot: A son begs his father not to give in to death;  a son begs his father to fight.

4. Character: A son – caring, unwilling to see his father die; a father – dying. 

5. Setting: A son speaking to his father, begging him not to die.

6. Point of View: Begins in third-person omniscient; Ends in first-person.

7. Object/Events: *Four different types of men are described: a wise man, a good man, a wild man, and a grave man. They are different in their views on death, but they are all the same in the end. They all rage against death.

*Poem waits until the last stanza to reveal the fact that it is a sad plea for his father not to die.

*Rage, rage is repeated to give emphasis and march

*Triplets 1, 3, 5, and 6 end in phrase ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’

*Remaining triplets end in ‘Do not go gentle into that good night.’

8. Mood: The mood is despairing and raging, which is evident through its portrayals of most types of men, for all shall die. It is at first, demanding in its plea to avoid death. It finishes tenderly and heart-broken.

9. Ideas: Mortality: all men shall die. Rage against death: no man wants to cease existing. Shortness of life: comparison between life-span of man and a day.

10. Style: The style is despairing and repetitive. The sentences are long and compound. Generally, the sentences last the lengh of the stanza. The words are simple.

11. Metre: Iambic pentametre. Stanzas are set up in triplets. Last stanza is a quadruplet.

12. Sound: March-like in its repetition of the last line. Can’t remember what that’s called.

13. Worldview: Naturalistic: though it would seem Nihilistic in its fear of death, there is no push toward death. There is a pull away from death. The fact that death is seen as a light being extinguished rather than set aflame indicates that there is nothing beyond death.

Death, be not proud (John Donne)

1. History: The movie was fantastic. I wish that I could watch the rest of it. I was shocked when she started speaking to the camera. The weaving of scenes together was genius as well. Additionally, I feel that my knowledge of the essence of poetry is diminutive.

2. Reader Reaction: This was one of the poems that I read in that horribly Christian class. However, unlike Dickinson, ‘Paradise Lost’, and ‘God’s Grandeur’, I truly loved this poem. I realise more now why. Its use of inclusio, apostrophe, and personification is vividly beautiful.

3. Plot: Though death believes himself powerful, he is not so. He dwells among the most vile things of this world. He is oftentimes prisoner of the wills of men. But most importantly those he kills once oftentimes rise to be completely out of his power forever.

4. Character: Death – proud, misguided.

5. Setting: Setting is aesthetic and abstract. However, the people it does mention indicate a medieval mind.

6. Point of View: First-person.

7. Objects/Events:

*Inclusio: beginning and end speak of death’s faulty pride; middle is filled with elaborations and examples.

*Rhyme scheme: ABBAABBAACDDC

*Apostrophe: speaking to death as if he were an animate object

*Metaphor: ‘slave to fate’

*Paradox: the death of Death

8. Mood: Courageous in its attacks on death. Triumphant in its realizations of death. Hopeful in life after Death.

9. Ideas: Christian immortality: those who have accepted Christ shall die but once and then live eternally.

10. Style: The sentences are long, complex, and flowing. The wording is arched – beginning with a phrase, reaching a climax, and descending. In a sense, the poem could be considered circular, for its beginning and end tie each other together.

11. Metre: Anapestic tetrametre. Though, once again, the anapest is not perfect, it lends itself to a grand galloping verse. Its use of an unusual metre gives it a glory that would be forfeited had it been written in iambic pentametre.

12. Worldview: Christian: Phil. 1:21 is the premise of the poem.

Because I could not stop for Death (Emily Dickinson)

1. History: I think sometimes films try a little too hard to implement poetry. However, I had never heard those particular poems before, though they seem to be her more popular works. I feel as though I’ve been given a horrible education on Emily Dickinson. Then again, my schools were never that fond of modern poetry.

2. Reader Reaction: I did not like Emily Dickinson’s poems until now. I found them shallow a stupid. I was wrong; I apologise to Ms Dickinson in her grave. I am haunted and fascinated by the imagery presented in this poem.

3. Plot: Death shows up at the door of the author, and takes her for a ride. Death is unexpected.

4. Character: author – near death; death – near author.

5. Setting: a carriage outside the house of the author while traveling seeing all of life.

6. Point of View: First-person.

7. Objects/Events: *Letters are capitalized in exclamation. They are not random; they are accents.

*Death, carriage, etc. are repeated.

*Poem is a passage of rolling landscapes in a carriage. The carriage passes through the stages of life (childhood, adolescence, adulthood: school, clothes, home). In essence, the poem describes one’s life ‘flashing before’ one’s eyes.

*The author was close to death; she did not die.

*Most of the sentences begin with ‘We’.

8. Mood: Delirious and incredulous in its careless portrayal of death driving past life.

9. Ideas: Life flashing before one’s eyes at death. The vividness of remembrance (‘Feels shorter tan the Day…’).

10. Style:  The writing is careless, drowsy, and elegant. The phrases are fragmental and complex.

11. Metre: Iambic metre. Syllables per line vary. The verses are unrhymed. Strictly speaking, though it does generally keep to iambs, the poem is a modified free verse.

12. Sound: The repetition creates a sense of delirium and beauty.

13. Worlview: Christian, or at least theistic: there is a mention of eternity at the end.