My Found Poem

Being Blunt

There was a feel of permanent twilight.
It was sad to watch.
His jaw was in his throat.
He was a citizen and a soldier.
A stupid mistake.
That's all it was, a mistake.
That was simple, I thought.
But it had killed Kiowa.
I try not to dwell on it.
All the illusions gone.
My best friend.
My pride.
Too much gone.
Even now, I haven't finished sorting it out.
It's time to be blunt.
It's a war.
You're in a place where you don't belong.
Flat, dreary, and remarkable.
This isn't civilization.
This is Nam.-

Poem Analysis

The poem I chose to analyze is "Southern Mansion" by Arna Bontemps.

What stands out to me in this poem is its imagery. She uses sounds to describe the scene of the southern mansion. For example, "there is a sound of music echoing" and "an iron clank." She also uses vivid phrases such as "the sound tinkling in the cotton."

Arna uses the the simile "poplars stand there as still as death." to open and end the poem. A poplar is a tree in the willow family. Arna is trying to describe how still and haunting the southern mansion is with this simile. Since willows flow in the breeze, so if the poplar is still as death, the atmosphere must be still as well.

Arna uses consonance in the line "another sound tinkling in the cotton." She is trying to express the crisp sound of the chains of the slaves (bondmen) in the next line with repetition of the t sound. She also uses consonance in the simile "poplars stand there still as death." She wants to use the s sound to imply the scary feel of the southern mansion.

Who I think of as a transcendentalist...

If he lived in that era, Mr. DuBois would be a transcendentalist. I think he has that calm nature about him that I see when reading transcendentalist work. He's also not shy at all. I think writers in general have this quality, especially transcendentalists. They aren't afraid of expressing his/her thoughts in their writing when maybe they can't express them any way else. But Mr. DuBois is just that awesome and doesn't have a shy personality either. ;) Above all, he loves the transcendentalists movement, which means that he most likely has some of the same qualities that the transcendentalists have, at least when it comes to writing.

Great Gatsby Question

I'm a sucker for romance. I don't know why... anyway, so my question is what do you feel romance contributes to this book? Do you think it wouldn't be much of a book without it?

What I appreciate about poetry...

I've always had a love/hate relationship with poetry. Poetry is important to many people in my family, so I want to love it. A little bit is that I'm slightly left-brained, so a bit of me is the person that says, "urg, why couldn't you have just said that?" But also, I'm very, very impatient. I don't like going and trying to figure out what a line means. It's just a ton of work. When I do find the meaning, however, I love it. As I've learned Spanish, I've learned the beauty of language. Poetry is beautiful, don't get me wrong. I think that this unit especially has made me realize that. Thanks Mr. DuBois. :)

American Dream

I feel the American dream is fairly simple, really. We all want happiness. We get that happiness in different ways, but in the end, we all want success. We all want to be around the ones we love, whether that is from friends, family, or a relationship. That’s the American dream. We all want to be successful, especially financially, and we want to be around the ones we love. That’s what gives us the most happiness in the world.