Blog post 2 due on sample poetry analysis due by midnight -- Choose any one of the sample questions but apply them to Emily Dickinson's poetry. Do not use the same question as you did for Nye.

2. “The language of a poem is often that of one thing compared to another.” In the work of at least

two poets you have studied, explore how poets have made their subjects come alive through

different means of comparing them.

In poetry poets often use one thing to represent another thing. This is shown in the poem by Emily Dickinson, “Hope” is the thing with feathers. In this, she uses many comparisons to show what hope is.

In the first stanza, she compares hope to a bird. She describes it as perching in the soul. In this, she paints a symbolic picture of a bird perching in the soul, but it represents hope resting in the soul. Then she goes on to talk about how birds sing tunes without words. This is symbolic for how you can be optimistic for the future, even though you may not know what will happen. Then she says the bird's song never dies which represents hope never dying.

In the second stanza, the author continues comparisons to describe hope. She continues to talk about how the song is heard in the storm but this is purely symbolic for hope pursuing even when times are rough. Then it goes on to talk about how the storm must be angry because the storm tried to hurt the little bird, that helped so many people. This is a comparison for hope. It is saying that some angry people will get in the in the way of hope (aka the bird) and try to stop it and put it down.

However, in the last stanza, the reading continues to take a more optimistic approach. It talks about how the song of the bird can be heard in the chillest land and strangest sea. This is compared to hope, and how it can be found anywhere. Then it continues to talk about how the bird has never asked the author for a crumb in the worst of times. This is metaphoric in the sense that it means hope has never asked anything of her or cost her anything even in the worst of times.

This poem has made hope come alive by comparing it to other things, where hope is represented by the bird and it’s songs. Meanwhile, the storm is compared to people who try to bring her down. Perhaps this story is symbolic of her own life where hope has helped her overcome challenges and other people have tried to bring her down and crush her dreams, but hope continued, and she made it through. The moral of the story is that you will always be able to hear the birds singing even on the roughest of days or that there will always be hope for you even on the roughest of days. In this text the author made hope come alive by painting it as a bird.

Blog post on sample poetry analysis due Monday by midnight. Questions are on the class blog. Choose ONE question only to answer in a short essay. On the IB test, you will need to discuss TWO poets, but for this assignment, only talk about Naomi Shihab Nye

Blog post on sample poetry analysis due Monday by midnight. Questions are on the class blog. Choose ONE question only to answer in a short essay. On the IB test, you will need to discuss TWO poets, but for this assignment, only talk about Naomi Shihab Nye

3.

Poet's often withhold information from the reader and imply things that are not necessarily certain. This is shown in much of Naomi Shihab’s work. This is shown in much of her work and is especially portrayed in the poem Grandmother in the stars.

This poem can be interpreted in many ways. An important concept for interpreting this poem is that these poems are non-linear. In my opinion, in this poem, the Grandmother is both dead and alive at times. The title implies that she is dead, “Grandmother in the stars.” However, in the first line, it says that it is possible they will not meet again. This means that the grandma could be alive or dead, and we cannot be certain. This is one of the many parts in this poem that could have a duel meaning.

When it talks about her bowing to her rugged feed this could mean a few things. One interpretation of this is that she is praising her dead grandma, at her grave. This is less likely but is possible. Another interpretation is that the Grandma is poor and has traveled a lot. We can think this because it says rugged feet.This means that her feet are worn down. Hence she has traveled a lot. Additionally, her feet could be worn down because she doesn’t have shoes. This shows how she lives in poverty and is poor. Although this interpretation is more probable, the author has a way of making both of these interpretations seem plausible with her word choice.

Lastly, at the end, it continues to make the reader question whether the grandma is dead or alive. The last line could be interpreted as a flashback or it could be seen as a current event. It talks about how memory makes them rich which makes it seem like it’s a flashback. This statement also leads me to believe the grandma is dead. However, I have a different interpretation of this scene. I think this scene takes place in the present. If you connect it with the title it can have an entirely different interpretation. The title is Grandma in the stars, so when she’s on the roof at sunset her grandmother is in the stars of the night. She is dead and in the sky and when the sun sets the grandmother is there in the sky. With this said, all they have is the memory that makes them rich. The reader can take both of these perspectives when analyzing the poem.

Poetry is not straightforward. It’s about looking for the underlying meaning of the poem. There is a deeper meaning to every line, and this meaning is not always blatantly shown. Often in poetry, this meaning will be unclear. Yet, this allows the reader to think about the reading on a deeper level and analyze what’s going on. Poetry is all about the interpretation and finding the words under the words.

Staging proposal due on blogs by 11pm -- 500 words. Describe how you would stage MLML or TPG as a play, your vision of it. What does it look and feel like? Talk about how the stage is set up, color, characters, lighting, etc. Drawings optional.

A scene I would stage in my love my love would be the helicopter scene. However, I would create an adaptation of the helicopter scene. I would exaggerate how the rich do not like the poor. I would put a more modern spin on the play to make the rich seem like they had more power. This play would take place in a black box theater, where the lights were on because it is daytime.

In the first scene, the wealthy would come flying down on ropes. They will be descending in the upstage right, and the villagers will be in the upstage center. In the background, there would be helicopter noise. There would be a crowd of poorly dressed men and woman below them. The villagers will be mumbling about a bird, and jibbering about the strange thing in the sky. As the people on the rope descended, you would be able to see that they were nicely dressed. The people in the helicopter would all be taller than the people in the crowd to show their power. Additionally, to show their power they would all be holding weapons.

When the rich descended they would land and shout, “Silence! Where is my son!” He would do this while firing a gun in the air. This will add exaggerated anger to the play. Meanwhile, all the peasants will be trembling in fear. Then the rich make will grab a villager by his clothes and shout, “Peasant, take me to my son!” The poor will be quivering in fear. All of them will look scared. Then a villager will take the rich man to the downstage left stage where there will be a small hut.  The man will see his son and threaten to kill several villagers for what they did to his son. Then a villager will frantically try to exclaim that she was helping him. The rich man will call over his men and instruct them to carry him to the plane.

The rich men will walk back to upstage right, past the villagers who are still surrounding the helicopter. Then the rich men will throw a handful of pennies at the poor. This will be symbolic to show how the rich see the peasants as less than them. The peasants will swarm to pick up these pennies. The rich men will attach themselves to the ropes, and leave without saying thank you. This will show how the wealthy completely disregard and disrespect the poor.

In this scene, the villagers will be dirty and skinny to show that they’re starving. Their clothes will be tattered, and they will be barefoot, in addition to having long shaggy hair. In  the downstage right stage, there will be brown dead crops to show the current famine. Additionally, in downstage center there will be peasants in the background curled in a ball and tattered blankets. These will be homeless people and will help show the class difference.

The purpose of this adaptation will be to show the imbalance between the poor and the rich. It will show how they are completely different and that the rich will never care for the poor. This adaptation will be important in introducing the tainted relationship between the rich and the poor. Also, this scene will foreshadow the future of the play where the man falls in love with another woman. This scene will be crucial to the overall plot of the play.

M. Bienconnu vs. Ti moune

On page 60 of the book, my love, my love, M. Bienconnu has a very different opinion from Timoune. Timoune's concerns are ones that have been proven again and again throughout the entire book. In this book there are two sides. There are the rich and the poor. These classes are not meant to be mixed they live in different area's on the island. Timoune says that fate will prevail and that the poor cannot be with the rich. It is just history acting.

This is more than just speculation in this book there is a curse between the rich and the poor. They cannot be together, and will not be able to. They are just living out history. There is nothing they can do. If they make it with each other bad things will happen. Timoune is smart enough to see this and this is why he says this. It is just a class issue. The rich barely see the poor as human. This adventure is bound to end in a tragedy. How can they be together if they can't even show each other common respect?

Chapter 4-5 Notes + The Five Senses

Chapter 4

• The woman is taking care of the rich man
• God’s don’t like it, she’s playing with life and death
• God’s send a ferocious storm that takes off roofs
• People want to just let the man die but the woman protects him and keeps him warm with her bosom
• A demon comes to attack her, and take possible vengeance
• Woman prays to the god of love and claims that she loves the man
• The goddess of love answers the prayers and sends the god away

Chapter 5

• Rain stops, and the storm ends
• The poor is left to starve
• Rich people come in a helicopter to save the wounded man.
• They pay the woman five coins
• They describe the man as a rich man they had never seen before.
• Use coins to buy seeds.

The Five Senses

Taste

• Puny? True. Dry? True. 15 (Talked about how peasants had dry, bad, and insufficient food.)
• They had curled from the lack of moisture. 15
• Dry, then dryer. 22 (Taste the dryness)
• Seeds they were forced to eat. 22 (Shows how gross the food is.)
• Hungry cattle. (Shows how even the animals are starving.) 22
• The food the poor eat is very bad and is often very dry

Smell

• A smell of death invaded the cabin through festering sores. 44
• Smelling the stench of his rotting flesh. 51
• She brews teas. 35 (Nice smells of teas)
• Villages amid flamboyants, poinsettias, azaleas, ficus, eucalyptus, and magnolias. 10 (The smell of the flowers)
• Pushed a wilderness of herbs, of the bush to thicken the underbrush, keeping the trees forever green. 11 (The world around them would smell like the outdoors and spring when the trees are fresh making an outdoorsy smell.)

Feel

• Bracing themselves against the hard-hitting rain. 42
• The air was wet. 43
• Crashed into a tree with a force that might have killed a dozen men. 50
• Dry black skin in mud hardened strips. 52
• How tenderly he treated the voluptuous Asaka. 11
• It ran through his fingers like sand. 13

Hear

• Shrieks of terrified infants rose up in the cabin. 42
• Her words created a silence. They stilled even the cries of frightened babies. 43
• The hammering of the rain. 43
• She cried out in anguish. 46
• The bird sang. 52
• The noise of the storm, thunder,,, etc.

See

• Raindrops pounded leaves. Gusts of wind-bent trees. The ground dampened, then was covered by a rush of water. 40
• Needles of water drilling down into the earth softened it to mud. Houses and mud slid downhill, taking with them those who had been clinging to slippery rocks for support. 42
• They looked at the mountains where stones gleamed in the clear day. They looked at the woods, where standing trees supported those that had fallen, and. 48
• The passengers who emerged from the big bird were city men dressed in rain slickers and hip boots. 50
• It stands on a high hill surrounded by the Black Mountains. 53
• Trees reached up to the tops of the mountaintops to touch the heavens. 10

My Love My love notes

Setting island

Gods effect lives of people

Prediction happy gods become angry

God's rule peasants not the rich

The rich live far from the poor people and rely on poor people to live

Ironic no water on island

Peasants are tribal-like

Drought > Torrential rain destroy crop land > then famine?

Make wished and pray to gods

Desiree found a car - rarity amoung poor

man severely injured from car crash

They pray for the wounded rich man

Reflection on oral due on blogs -- 300-400 words

Overall, my oral presentation was done well. It took around a week in total to do and involved an abundance of editing, revising, and practice. Although I thought I had the criteria met, I was not as prepared as I thought.

I used my notes from class to help me create my presentation. The first step of this project was to create an outline. My outline began with just the title of each subgroup and I added information to each subgroup as I continued to reflect on my work. Generally, I would have one or two words to remind me of a thought or topic to talk about. Then, I would elaborate on this thought in the heat of the moment. I chose not to follow a specific script and to talk based off memory about specific topics. The only lines that I set up in advance were the quotes I had in the presentation.

After writing the script, I learned it. Practice makes perfect. I would practice my script over and over again until I got it right. While doing this I would say it out loud. As I practiced my script I would often come up with a new idea or something to add. Through repetition, I was able to learn my script. Except, when it came down to the actual presentation I was quite nervous.

When I sat at the desk I was nervous that I would forget something. Sadly, my intuition wasn’t wrong. I remembered most of the points but I went too fast to remember all of them. However, this was not the end of the world because I made all of my crucial points. At the end of my presentation, I thought I did an outstanding job until Ms. Guarino told me the news. I had missed a crucial concept.

It was my understanding in the beginning that we were not supposed to summarize the book. This was correct but I interpreted this information the wrong way. I thought we were supposed to talk about the literary features in the play but not the book. This was wrong. I talked about the themes of corruption, oppression, and fear that are found in the book and relate to my adaptation. Additionally, I talked about how foreshadowing in my adaptation relates to the book, except I didn’t add enough information that related to the book. Although for the most part, my presentation was solid and well performed, that criteria could have been improved a great deal more.