Puppy Love (Prose Poem)
Back when I was a little girl, I fell in love with my first crush. I met him in the sandbox during recess and by naptime; I planned our whole life together. We were to be married July 17, 2006 at my family church. I would walk down the aisle wearing a stunning white gown holding my dad’s arm and he would be waiting for me in his all black tuxedo. After the exchanging of our vows, we would live happily ever after like all the fairytales I read about. However, my fairytale started to change towards the end of the day, when my crush on this boy started to fade away. My crush started to fade away, when I seen his best friend walking my way.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
"Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning"
"Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning"
Looking down into my fathers
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
but with civility
"Good night, Willie Lee, Ill see you
in the morning."
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.
By: Alice Walker
I picked this poem, because I believe it is an great interpretation of a elegy poem. Because how the woman knows her husband is dead, but she still looks down at him and say “I’ll see you in the morning.” Walker uses this poem to display the destructive results of a woman's need for a love relationship with a man. Her images of pain and death, suggest the physical and mental stress on a woman in this double bind. Walker uses this poem to show the continuing vulnerability of heart and body, but we also see hints of an emerging awareness of woman's equal need, and increasing ability, to resist abuse.
Looking down into my fathers
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
but with civility
"Good night, Willie Lee, Ill see you
in the morning."
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.
By: Alice Walker
I picked this poem, because I believe it is an great interpretation of a elegy poem. Because how the woman knows her husband is dead, but she still looks down at him and say “I’ll see you in the morning.” Walker uses this poem to display the destructive results of a woman's need for a love relationship with a man. Her images of pain and death, suggest the physical and mental stress on a woman in this double bind. Walker uses this poem to show the continuing vulnerability of heart and body, but we also see hints of an emerging awareness of woman's equal need, and increasing ability, to resist abuse.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Juke Box Love Song
Juke Box Love Song
I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.
By: Langston Hughes
I love this poem, because Langston Hughes uses a literary point to explain the love he has for Harlem and a pass relationship. I love this poem, because it is basically Langston Hughes’s view of jazz and his environment in relation to Harlem, New York. The environment in which everything is represented makes it very clear that all of these elements are detailed very clearly through descriptive words and he still involves his acts against stereotyping in general in the poem by stating,” Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.” To me this part talks about a pass relationship in Harlem that Langston Hughes had and this poem was a way for him to reminisce on the times they spent together.
I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.
By: Langston Hughes
I love this poem, because Langston Hughes uses a literary point to explain the love he has for Harlem and a pass relationship. I love this poem, because it is basically Langston Hughes’s view of jazz and his environment in relation to Harlem, New York. The environment in which everything is represented makes it very clear that all of these elements are detailed very clearly through descriptive words and he still involves his acts against stereotyping in general in the poem by stating,” Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.” To me this part talks about a pass relationship in Harlem that Langston Hughes had and this poem was a way for him to reminisce on the times they spent together.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Lost "Free Verse"
I woke up this morning with something on my mind,
but it all was lost according to time.
I woke up this morning,
trying to grasp what I lost.
But time currputed my mind and
the thought was lost.
but it all was lost according to time.
I woke up this morning,
trying to grasp what I lost.
But time currputed my mind and
the thought was lost.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Coal
Coal
I
is the total black, being spoken
from the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a words, coloured
by who pays what for speaking.
Some words are open like a diamond
on glass windows
singing out within the crash of sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
in a perforated book - buy and sign and tear apart -
and come whatever will all chances
the stub remains
an ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
breeding like adders. Other know sun
seeking like gypsies over my tongue
to explode through my lips
like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
bedevil me
Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.
By: Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde was born in 1934 in New York to parents of West Indian heritage. She passed away in 1992, a victim of breast cancer. Her battle with the disease, which was chronicled in works like The Cancer Journals, was just one of many struggles she had to deal with in life. Audre Lorde was a black homosexual female in a world dominated by white heterosexual males. She fought for justice on each of these minority fronts. Her writings protest against the swallowing of black American culture by an indifferent white population, against the perpetuation of sex discrimination, and against the neglect of the movement for gay rights. Her poetry, however, is not entirely political in content. It is extremely romantic in nature and is described by Joan Martin as ringing with, "passion, sincerity, perception, and depth of feeling."
American writer Audre Lorde calls herself “a black feminist lesbian mother poet" because her identity is based on the relationship of many divergent perspectives once perceived as incompatible. Thematically, she expresses or explores pride, love, anger, fear, racial and sexual oppression, urban neglect, and personal survival. Moreover, she eschews a hope for a better humanity by revealing truth in her poetry. She states, "I feel have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain." Lorde was a prolific writer who continually explored the marginalization’s experienced by individuals in a society fearful of differences.
In the poem “Coal," the controlling metaphor of coal, staple fuel, celebrates "the total black, being spoken/From the earth's inside," which becomes in its idealized form, the jewel, diamond. In the this reading, the poem's final visionary lines . . . claim their political identity precisely through an empowering biologism. . . . For Black American poets it meant a call to a poetics of Blackness which emphasized the role of poet as activist and leader and the role of poetry as expression of an intrinsically Black vision.
I
is the total black, being spoken
from the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a words, coloured
by who pays what for speaking.
Some words are open like a diamond
on glass windows
singing out within the crash of sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
in a perforated book - buy and sign and tear apart -
and come whatever will all chances
the stub remains
an ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
breeding like adders. Other know sun
seeking like gypsies over my tongue
to explode through my lips
like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
bedevil me
Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.
By: Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde was born in 1934 in New York to parents of West Indian heritage. She passed away in 1992, a victim of breast cancer. Her battle with the disease, which was chronicled in works like The Cancer Journals, was just one of many struggles she had to deal with in life. Audre Lorde was a black homosexual female in a world dominated by white heterosexual males. She fought for justice on each of these minority fronts. Her writings protest against the swallowing of black American culture by an indifferent white population, against the perpetuation of sex discrimination, and against the neglect of the movement for gay rights. Her poetry, however, is not entirely political in content. It is extremely romantic in nature and is described by Joan Martin as ringing with, "passion, sincerity, perception, and depth of feeling."
American writer Audre Lorde calls herself “a black feminist lesbian mother poet" because her identity is based on the relationship of many divergent perspectives once perceived as incompatible. Thematically, she expresses or explores pride, love, anger, fear, racial and sexual oppression, urban neglect, and personal survival. Moreover, she eschews a hope for a better humanity by revealing truth in her poetry. She states, "I feel have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain." Lorde was a prolific writer who continually explored the marginalization’s experienced by individuals in a society fearful of differences.
In the poem “Coal," the controlling metaphor of coal, staple fuel, celebrates "the total black, being spoken/From the earth's inside," which becomes in its idealized form, the jewel, diamond. In the this reading, the poem's final visionary lines . . . claim their political identity precisely through an empowering biologism. . . . For Black American poets it meant a call to a poetics of Blackness which emphasized the role of poet as activist and leader and the role of poetry as expression of an intrinsically Black vision.
Monday, March 15, 2010
"Wise I"
Wise I
WHY's (Nobody Know
The Trouble I Seen)
Trad.
If you ever find
yourself, some where
lost and surrounded
by enemies
who won't let you
speak in your own language
who destroy your statues
& instruments, who ban
your oom boom ba boom
then you are in trouble
deep trouble
they ban your
oom boom ba boom
you in deep deep
trouble
humph!
probably take you several hundred years
to get
out!
By: Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka was born in Newark, New Jersey, where his father worked as a postman and lift operator. He studied at Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard Universities, leaving without a degree, and at the New School for Social Research. His major fields of study were philosophy and religion. Baraka also served three years in the U.S. Air Force as a gunner. Baraka continued his studies of comparative literature at Columbia University. He has taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo.
In 1956 Baraka began his career as a writer, activist, and advocate of black culture and political power. In 1958 he founded Totem Press. In Harlem he established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre, which presented poetry readings, concerts, and produced a number of plays. The theatre was disbanded in 1966 and Baraka set up in Newark the Spirit House, a black community theatre (also known as the Heckalu Community Centre). In 1968 Baraka founded the Black Community Development and Defense Organization. He has also been Secretary-General of the National Black Political Assembly and Chairman of the Congress of African People. Doing his life time, Baraka published over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist novels.
I love the poem “Wise” by Baraka, because creatively and critically explores issues of racism, national oppression and colonialism.
WHY's (Nobody Know
The Trouble I Seen)
Trad.
If you ever find
yourself, some where
lost and surrounded
by enemies
who won't let you
speak in your own language
who destroy your statues
& instruments, who ban
your oom boom ba boom
then you are in trouble
deep trouble
they ban your
oom boom ba boom
you in deep deep
trouble
humph!
probably take you several hundred years
to get
out!
By: Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka was born in Newark, New Jersey, where his father worked as a postman and lift operator. He studied at Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard Universities, leaving without a degree, and at the New School for Social Research. His major fields of study were philosophy and religion. Baraka also served three years in the U.S. Air Force as a gunner. Baraka continued his studies of comparative literature at Columbia University. He has taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo.
In 1956 Baraka began his career as a writer, activist, and advocate of black culture and political power. In 1958 he founded Totem Press. In Harlem he established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre, which presented poetry readings, concerts, and produced a number of plays. The theatre was disbanded in 1966 and Baraka set up in Newark the Spirit House, a black community theatre (also known as the Heckalu Community Centre). In 1968 Baraka founded the Black Community Development and Defense Organization. He has also been Secretary-General of the National Black Political Assembly and Chairman of the Congress of African People. Doing his life time, Baraka published over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist novels.
I love the poem “Wise” by Baraka, because creatively and critically explores issues of racism, national oppression and colonialism.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
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