Final Blog

"A Clean Well Lighted Place"

What influenced me about this poem was the fact that an "older waiter" stood up for the old man and told the "younger waiter" to respect the man he is. Today, our generation tends to judge people, especially the elders, and its rare to see other people stand up and put them in their place. Unfortunately people today including the older generation that have lost wives, children, close friends, etc. turn to alcohol as their way out or their escape. If our generation was less judgemental and took the time to show kindness to these people they would feel less lonely. This poem has showed me to not shy away from lonely people and welcome them into a conversation.

"Dreams"

This poem basically defines my life. I only wish to chase my dream and not let it slip away from me. Dreams are so important to have and I find that dreams cause motivation which can cause success in life whether it be in sports, job, family, school, life...Hughes talks about how a dream that dies is like a frozen barren field. This means that without dreams theres no reason to live.

"The Road Not Taken"

In life there comes a time when we must choose right or left, right or wrong. This poem is so famous today because Frost clearly explains about finding the right path and going with it. How the right turn can lead to a lesser journey and finding your path to righteousness. This influences me to make the right decision and find meaning with it. Choosing the right path is like taking the road less taken.

Assignment #4

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night- Dylan Thomas



1.My emtions/feelings after reading this poem is sad and darkened. I feel like people are blinded of the good light and are on their way to death.



2. I chose this picture because this shows how the light is reflected away from the dark light. Pink Floyd named this album The Dark Side of the Moon.



We Real Cool- Gwendolyn Brooks



1. After reading this poem I feel fortunate and blessed to not be in this predicament. This poem talks about people who go through the motions of living a gang style life. I cannot relate to this poem for I have never lived like this.



2. This picture shows what can happen to people who go down a path of rebellion towards society, violence in communities, gang initiations, etc.



I felt a Funeral, in my Brain- Emily Dickinson



1. This poem is about how after hearing a loud noise right next to you, in that brief moment you stop and look around and carefully listen to every specific detail around you; How every little distraction can take your mind away.



2. This poem reminds me of the movie because I saw this in theaters last week and how this relates to the poem in my aspect is during the movie there are so many distractions and occurances that take away from the meaning of the film which is death and saying goodbye to someone.



The Road Not Taken- Robert Frost



1. This poem is a powerful one because to me it is about choosing either right or left. Which way is going to take where you want to be? In life there are choices and decisions needed to be made and unfortunatley you will not know outcomes to all of them. You will know you made the right choice once you get to where you want to be, the road less traveled.



2. This picture shows a man looking for the right direction in life. Which way will he choose? Only he will know.



If the World Was Crazy- Shel Silverstein



1. This poem happens to be my favorite because it takes you into a whole new world, a world we are not use to but a world where anything goes. This brings an emotional state of happiness because it is a happy poem.



2. This picture is a unique one. It is just so different from what we percieve of the world.

Poetry

1. Poetry is writings that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. 

www.merriam-webster.com

2. A poem is a way of expressing emotions and feelings. Poems usually include the use of irony and symbolism. A poem can be anything. A a novel or a long story isn't considered to be a poem, although The Illiad  and The Odyssey are considered to be epic poems. There is a difference. An epic poem is a long poem that tells a tale of a heroic figure. Regular novels and stories are long narrative written in literary prose.

3. Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830. Throughout her life she rarely ever left her house and never had any visitors. Although the people who she became friendly with had a major impact on her poetry. She never had any romantic love but had close friends from time to time. Dickinson's poetry reflects her loneliness and the speakers of her poems live in a state of want but they are also marked by the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are decidedly life-giving and suggest the hope for happiness. She was heavily inspired by the Book of Revelation which lead to a conservative approach to Christianity. 

A Bird came down the walk

A Bird came down the Walk— He did not know I saw— He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw,  And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass— And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass—  He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around— They looked like frightened Beads, I thought— He stirred his Velvet Head  Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer home—  Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam— Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon Leap, plashless as they swim

John Keats was an English romantic poet born on 1795 in London. He was the oldest of four and he lost both his parents at a young age. At the age of fifteen he dropped out of school to become an apprentice to surgeon. He studied medicine in a hospital in England. He was licensed apothecary but never worked in that field and decided to write poetry instead. His greatest work was the Hypernion but was never complete because he had to come home and take care of his brother who later died due to tuberculosis. Keats family suffered to tuberculosis and at the age of twenty five tuberculosis took Keats life...Ironic!

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

The poetry of earth is never dead:    When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,    And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead    In summer luxury,--he has never done    With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never:    On a lone winter evening, when the frost       Has wrought silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,    And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,       The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills

Clean Well-Lighted Place

1. The setting to A Clean Well-Lighted Place takes place in an Italian cafe late at night during World War I. The setting shows that the cafe is always lit and the streets surrounding it are always lit up, it never gets dark there. The idea is that the old man is lonely and whenever there is light he will not fear the dark and being around other people will keep him alive.

2. The characters to the story are nameless because Hemingway is telling the story how he wants to. He uses minimum building blocks to complete the story. This story in whole is just simple. It is about finding out their true identity and why they are different but similar at the same time.

3. The connection between the old man and the older waiter is that they both are lonely and tired out by life. The older waiter respects and defends the old man because he is clean and tidy in what he does. For example, the old man never spills a drop of his drink and is always proper. The older waiter seems to be a clean, proper man as well where we can see a comparison to one another.

4. The rising action is the beginning part to the story where the old man is drinking away while the two waiters, one young and one older, talk about life and why their cafe remains open late at night. The conflict is the old man does not wish to leave and to keep drinking while the younger waiter wishes to leave and be home with his wife. The older waiter unlike the young waiter lacks confidence and is not young. Like the old man, he likes to stay late at the cafe and believes that staying here may lead to someone who needs the cafe. The climax in this story is when the old man goes on his way because the young waiter had told him they are closed when really there hours of business were to remain open until the last customer left. In conclusion to this, we see that the old man and the older waiter continue there night somewhere else because they cannot go to bed. 

5. The theme to this story is Solidarity. He defends and understands the old man and his thoughts are with him.

Ernest Hemingway's life in a paragraph:

Ernest Hemingway was an American Author who started off working in a newspaper office. He was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois and later moved to Kansas City at seventeen. During the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army where he was injured on the front line. He was recognized by the Italian Government and spent many times in hospitals. Upon his return to America he became a reporter for both American and Canadian newspapers. He then moved to Paris where he became a member of expatriate Americans. He then began to write novels, The Sun also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, etc. All of these works and others had to do with loneliness and finding meaning in life. Also they take place during the War and post War. He was an alcoholic his whole life and this can be related to how the old man in A Clean Well-Lighted Place was. He never slept and was always working or drinking and he suffered with sleeping disorders as well, known as insomnia. His straightforward prose, his spare dialogue, and his predilection for understatement are effective in his short stories. He died a lonely man in 1961 in Idaho.

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http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html

Sonny's Blues

1. The setting takes place in Harlem, New York before the the Civil Rights Movement period. African Americans began to come in from downtown, from the South, and from the West Indies. There are four Harlem's: Black, Spanish, Jewish, and Italian. By the 1930's half a million people came into Harlem, one of the largest slums of New York. 

www.thehistorybox.com/ny_city/harlem_nycity.htm

Sonny was younger than his brother and his character is portrayed as someone who is lost and wants to find meaning. Sonny always wanted to get out of Harlem because of the drugs and because it is a deadbeat area. Growing up in Harlem, Sonny was probably street smart but mentally weak because he never completed school and held no job nor had a place of his own. Sonny believed running away from Harlem would solve his problems but in the end he ended up back in Harlem in pursuit for music and lived with members of his bandstand.

2. During the Revolutionary War, black men and women served in a variety of capacities for the Continental and British armies. Proportionally, more African Americans supported the British because they promised freedom to those who fled rebel slaveholders. In 1775, Lord Dunmore issued a proclamation in Virginia with such a promise and formed a black regiment of British soldiers. For these soldiers, the Revolutionary War was as much a war for liberation as it was for the American colonists rebelling against England. However, the British military was not always so magnanimous. More often they used blacks as workers to perform menial labor such as building roads and serving officers. Still, in places like New York, black men and women were used as spies for the British and sabotage rebellious cities. Moreover, they created networks to help enslaved men and women to escape to New York City which was occupied by the British. Many of these former slaves, known as the Black Loyalists would migrate to Nova Scotia and the Caribbean and become prominent leaders in the emerging freed black communities.

In New England, states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island employed African Americans in the militia and the Continental Army. Promised freedom for their service, many served in regiments that were interracial. However, Rhode Island raised one of the few predominantly black regiments that fought for American Independence. Although the state legislature approved the measure because the state badly needed men to fight, the black soldiers fought valiantly when given the opportunity to fight for their freedom. As one white soldier remembered, the African American soldiers, known as the Rhode Island Line, played a critical role in the battle of Rhode Island, protecting a key flank which prevented the British from overwhelming the Continental Army. The spirit of the Revolution coupled with black military service inspired a wave of manumission laws that ultimately sealed the fate of slavery in the northern states. Some of these veterans would eventually become leaders in abolition movements throughout the north. While it is still unclear whether blacks served in the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War, our best understanding of African American military service in the ninetheenth century come from the records of the American Civil War.

www.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/HY/HY243Ruiz/Research/military.html

Sonny wanted to enlist in the military because it was a way out of Harlem, New York and because he had felt bad about the wrongs he had done in his life and it was a fresh start for him. His brother did not agree to this because he wanted nothing but the best for Sonny and he wanted to protect him like an older brother and like his mother had asked him to. Blacks were never treated well in the military and for Sonny to enlist would bring more hardship in his life when Sonny is really looking for happiness.

3. Billie Holiday- "They Cant Take That Away From Me"

The way you wear your hat;
The way you sip your tea;
The memory of all that.
No, no, they can't take that away from me.

The way your smile just beams;
The way you sing off key;
The way you haunt my dreams.
No, no, they can't take that away from me.

We may never, never meet again
On on the bumpy road to love.
Still I'll always, always keep the memory of

The way you hold your knife;
The way we danced 'til three;
The way you've changed my life.
No, no, they can't take that away from me.

The way you wear your hat;
The way you sip your tea;
The memory of all that.
No, no, they can't take that away from me.

The way your smile just beams;
The way you sing off key;
The way you haunt my dreams.
No, no, they can't take that away from me.

We may never, never meet again
On on the bumpy road to love.
Still I'll always, always keep the memory of

The way you hold your knife;
The way we danced 'til three;
The way you've changed my life.
No, no, they can't take that away from me.
No, they can't take that away from me. www.stlyrics.com/songs/b/billieholiday525/theycanttakethatawayfromme23382.html

Sonny's love for music and the time and dedication he spends practicing and playing is almost related to the way this song is written because no one can take away his music and his love for it. 

4. Bebop (1940's-1950's)

Bebop emerged in the 1940s a as a style of jazz in great contrast to the music of the big bands. It featured a small group of musicians -- four to six players -- rather than the 10 or more associated with the big bands. The smaller size allowed more solo opportunities for the players. The music itself was characterized by more complex melodies and chord progressions, as well as more emphasis on the role the rhythm section. Furthermore, phrases within the music were often irregular in length, making bebop interesting to listen to, but in contrast to music of the big bands, unsuitable for dancing.

www.hypermusic.ca/jazz/bop.html

Sonny prefers the Bebop style because he enjoys good rhythm and the music has to do with more complex melodies and chord progressions. The style of Bebop consists of smaller size bands than the larger ones where there are more solo opportunities. The music was a way to express their feelings and it symbolized pride upon the African American people. It can be said this helped with the social movement for Blacks because it brought communities together to listen rather than dance to.