"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute."

Poetry is something that many people can relate to and don’t even realize they can! Anxiety has been a major factor in my life thus far and poetry and writing has helped me overcome leaps and bounds. I kept a book of all my pieces and I when I go back I see my fears written all over the place. My two biggest fears and the themes for many of my poems were growing up and finding true love but then waking up to find it was all just a dream. Then as I got older I read more outside poetry and realized published poets also had the same thoughts and fears as I did.

Growing up is an inevitable and completely natural experience in life. Life is all about growing and maturing as a person but when I was young I was so terrified by the thought of adulthood. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost is about youth and how important it is to enjoy is while it lasts. Gold symbolizes the purity and innocence of the flower but as the day goes on it’s getting older and changing. The poem goes as follows:

“Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.” This poem was featured in The Outsiders by S.E Hinton and has stuck with me since the 7^th grade. The tone of this poem is almost bittersweet because clearly there’s nothing that can stop people, or in this case flowers, from growing but yet we still have to enjoy the beauty of them when they’re new and fresh. Frost used a rhyme scheme, which he was very popular in his poetry! His scheme is clearly AABBCCDD and it makes the poem more enjoyable and stresses the lines better. I used to stay up at night wondering if I’d grow up and be able to make it out in the world. From that fear I wrote one of my favorite poems, “Neverland.” And it goes as follows:

“Peter Pan please take me away,

take me to Neverland

where I can stay.

A place to where I run and fly

A place I won’t grow old,

A place I could never die.

Peter I’m scared to be an adult,

they don’t have fun,

that can’t be my result.

I want to live wild and free,

go on adventures,

oh please take me?

I want to live out my dream,

imagine you and me,

we could be a team!

Wouldn’t that be oh so great?

So tonight I’ll lie in my bed,

Pray and wait.” I specifically used a rhyme scheme but skip every other line because as a child poetry is all about rhyming. I wanted this poem to show off just how important it was to me at the time to stay young. The tone of this poem is fear and a bit of sadness. I’m begging a fictional character to take m to a fictional place where I could live out my life as forever 17, which was the age I wrote the poem at. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and “Neverland” are similar because they’re both about wanting to stay young and about enjoying youth because it does go by quickly.

A fear of losing love is also something else many poets write about. I used to have these vivid dreams and everything seemed so real, so clear but suddenly I’d wake up and have a sense of missing something or someone. I called this poem “Separate”

“I wonder if you know yet that you’ll leave me.

That you are a child playing with matches and I have a paper body.

You will meet a girl with a softer voice and prettier hair and she

will be everything you need.

She’ll be perfect.

You will fall into her bed and I’ll go back to spending Friday nights alone, hopelessly and anxiously waiting.

I have chased off every fool who has tried to sleep beside me.

You think it’s romantic to screw the girl who writes poems about you.

To screw any girl for that matter.

You think I’ll understand your sadness because I live inside my own.

Truthfully everyone’s sadness is their own and yes,

I may feel for you but I’ll never understand.

You want a miracle and I want love.

Our two wants shall not cross paths,

Our two worlds are better off separate.” I wrote this in December about one of my friends that I had fallen head over heels for. I started off the poem with, “I wonder if you know yet that you’ll leave me” because in truth we did have something but there was always a devil on his shoulder and somehow it always got the best of him. The tone of this poem was desperation to me. I just wanted him to realize what he was doing and in the end, I couldn’t find the words. We would always remain in separate worlds when it came to relationships. A poem by Billy Collins called “Divorce” on page 462 gives the same message that sometimes you love isn’t completely enough.

“Once, two spoons in bed,

now tined forks

across the granite table

and the knives they have hired.” With 18 words about utensils (which was a metaphor for much more) this reader thinks about divorce proceedings. They start off in bed as spoons, which could mean spooning the way people in love do.  Then they begin to separate and distance themselves from one another. The knives represents divorce attorneys and I think Collins picked knives because they’re the most sharp and most dangerous of the utensils. They can really hurt someone, much like the way divorce attorneys can. These two poems relate because they both end with a lack of love and sadness in them. No one wants to admit things are over when a relationship is starting to go downhill but yet, sometimes it must be said.

“Neverland,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” “Separate,” and “Divorce” are just some of the poems I have read or wrote that really speak to me. Poetry is for everyone as long as you understand it and interpret it how it makes the most sense to you.

J.D Salinger - A literary recluse

Bio: Born on January 1, 1919, in New York, J.D. Salinger was a literary giant despite his slim body of work and reclusive lifestyle. His landmark novel, The Catcher in the Rye, set a new course for literature in post-WWII America and vaulted Salinger to the heights of literary fame. In 1953, Salinger moved from New York City and led a secluded life, only publishing one new story before his death.

J.D Salinger is probably one of the most interesting people to learn about. The Catcher in the Rye is and will always be one of my favorite novels. Also his short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is truly amazing. If you're interested, link will be below. Also in 2013 a movie came out titled Salinger, which was a documentary of his life and stories (link to details below). Salinger is one of those few people I think of when people ask, "if you could have coffee with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?" 
"A Perfect Day for Bananfish": http://www.dibache.com/text.asp?cat=51&id=184
Salinger movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596753/

Interpreter of Maladies

Postmodernism relies on understanding and interpretation; “reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually.” “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri shows the complexity of human wants and how males and females sometimes differ in their wants. Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi are drawn to one another but for very different reasons. In a way however, they both need a friend but that doesn’t always work out.

            Mr. Kapasi is hired to be the Das family's tour guide for their trip to India. It's lean red that Mr. Kapasi was once fluent in several languages but now speaks only english. He always had a dream of becoming a diplomat but he never achieved it. Now he works as a translator in a doctor's office and also as a tour guide. Mr. Kapasi also has an arranged and loveless marriage. Kapasi reflects postmodern literature because his character is going through the struggle of how unfulfilled his life has been so far. “In those moments Mr. Kapasi used to believe that all was right with the world, that all struggles were rewarded, that all of life’s mistakes made sense in the end. The promise that he would hear from Mrs. Das now filled him with the same belief” (Lahiri 21). This excerpt shows that Mr. Kapasi is looking for something to fill a boring void in his life. The simplicity of Mrs. Das writing him a letter and sending him a photograph got him all worked up and made him picture the subsequent months and their friendship that would form. He does interpret all her signs as flirting and ultimately makes mini fantasies in his head, but only to be disappointed with Mrs. Das in the end and no longer wants a friendship with her.

Mrs. Das has a desire of her own. She is stuck with her husband who she no longer loves and wants a release. She’s quite self-absorbed; she even paints her nails during the tour and ignored her daughter. The reader sees her children calling her by her first name, Mina, and also get a sense of the disconnect between the family and her. Mr. Kapasi picks up on this disconnect but doesn’t mention it. Mrs. Das does have a secret; she had sex with another man and even conceived a child with him. She told Mr. Das that it was his son and until this trip, she never told anyone otherwise. She sees Mr. Kapasi as a shoulder to lean on and confide in, she felt guilty that she has fallen out of love and cheated on her husband. Mr. Kapasi asked her, “is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?" Mrs. Das was very offended by the question and she then raced to be a part of her family again.

This story exemplifies post modernism because it shows that humans can’t rely on simply interpreting what others are saying and that we need to hear the hard facts behind their words or else we could end up disappointed. It also shows how, if humans don’t hear facts, they create fantasies of what they want and what they imagine in others. In “Interpreter of Maladies” the characters only end up disgusted by the other; Mr. Kapasi, upset that Mrs. Das only wants him to be a parent figure and Mrs. Das is angry that Mr. Kapasi doesn’t want to hear her out and help her resolve her internal issues.

Why So Oppressed?

             Oppression is best defined as “prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.” Oppression can vary in type because there’s such a wide range of unjust things in the world. Martin Luther King once said, "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." This means that to achieve freedom, the oppressed must face their fears and/or their oppressor. Oppressors thrive on power and the control they get; the oppressed victims are the ones that need to change the situation. Sometimes freedom can come as easily as saying something to stand up against the mistreatment but sometimes people are pushed too far and get themselves in too deep.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin shows the oppression of a woman, Mrs. Mallard. She wasn’t in love with her husband anymore but stayed wit him because in the time this story was written, divorce was non-existent. When Mrs. Mallard is told her husband was killed in an accident she cries her eyes out, then goes to her room to be alone and locks the door. Inside, she’s terrified by an unknown feeling, “She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body” (Chopin). Even though she and her husband loved each other, and she's saddened by his death, she feels liberated and free for the first time. She looks forward to the days ahead instead of dreading them. Finally, Mrs. Mallard comes out of her room, newly resolved, and she and her sister start to go downstairs. Just then, Mr. Mallard comes in! He actually survived the wreck and when Mrs. Mallard sees him, she has a tremendous shock and dies. Mr. Mallard didn’t treat his wife cruelly or even tried to oppress her but back then it was very common for women to not be able to express themselves the ways they needed. Chopin shows in her pieces that women are just as human with the same needs as men. The only way Mrs. Mallard felt free was when Mr. Mallard was dead and tragically that was short lived and ended in her own death.

Gender oppression isn’t the only form of oppression people use. Verbal beat downs and bullying are also oppression; they’re sometimes considered exclusion. In today’s society people may be a little overly sensitive but on the other side, some people are extremely mean! Those bullies are the oppressors, feeding off the “weaker” people they pick on. In Taylor Swift’s song “Mean” she writes all about how one day she’ll be big and successful but that the bully is going to be stuck in the same city and never grow as a person. The song starts with Swift comparing the bully’s words to “knives, and swords and weapons” that are used to hurt her. Then the chorus goes, “Someday I'll be living in a big ol' city, and all you're ever gonna be is mean. Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me, and all you're ever gonna be is mean. Why you gotta be so mean?” The chorus shows Swift moving on and growing up to be different and stronger! The only way Swift sees herself getting her freedom is getting away and realizing that the bully is, “a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life and mean” (Swift). Conclusively, Martin Luther King Jr.’s words mean that a person has to find their own freedom. In “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard sadly found her freedom in her husband’s death and then again in her own. In “Mean,” Taylor Swift finds her freedom by not taking the bully’s words to heart and realizing that all a bully really is just mean.

A Greek Tragedy Unfolding

Antigone by Sophocles centers around whether a person’s morality is stronger and more important than what rules society sets up for people to follow. Antigone struggles with the lack of burial for her brother, Polyneices, and devises her own plan to bury his body herself. Creon, on the other hand, decreed that if anyone were to bury Polyneices, that person will be sentenced to death. Is Creon right for following his own implemented written law or is his niece, Antigone right by following her own beliefs and doing what she believes is necessary? The readers get to see what happens when Antigone break the rules and Creon decisions, while facing the backlash of them.

Creon, now thrust into being the king of Thebes, creates a law to make sure no one buries his traitor nephew Polyneices. He and his brother, Eteocles, murdered each other trying to gain control of Thebes. The tale states that the men were taking turns in control until Eteocles rejected giving up the throne like he had promised. Polyneices, wanting the throne, declared a war and even brought in an enemy army to battle with. Creon and the other people of Thebes see Polyneices as the bad brother. Although Eteocles got so hungry for power that he went back on his word and didn’t step down like he said. Creon stated while discussing Polyneices, “you shall leave him without burial; you shall watch him chewed up by birds and dogs and violated” (Creon 224-225). This was a very serious offence in Ancient Greece, no body was ever left to rot, especially not someone’s own family member. But Creon thought that since Polyneices risked the lives of the people and declared war that he deserved the worst form of punishment, even if he was already dead.

Antigone struggles with this law, believing her brother is still her blood and deserves a burial just as Eteocles had. She’s willing to lie her life down for what she believed was right, which was what Creon thought was so wrong. Her brother died defending Thebes, both did. Antigone then asks her sister to help bury Polyneices, coming up with a plan and everything. Ismene disagrees saying, “extravagant action is not sensible” (Ismene 78). This quote shows that Ismene believes that Antigone’s being a bit ridiculous for wanting to bury their brother. Ismene also states how Creon forbid the burial but Antigone goes ahead with the plan as she felt she had too. When asked why she did it and knowing she was sentenced to die now, she clearly states, “So for such as me, to face such a fate as this is pain that does not count. But if I dared to leave the dead man, my mother’s son, dead and unburied, that would have been real pain” (Antigone 509-512). This quote means that to her, death is no pain compared to the pain and shame she felt for leaving her brother to rot in the streets unburied.

Ultimately, Antigone believed that to leave someone you care about rotting was completely wrong and needed to be rebelled against. Creon believed a traitor is a traitor and that Polyneices should not have went against the city and his brother. Both characters had strong believes that, when faced against one another, clashed and caused many unwanted consequences. Creon represents those who live by the written law and follow the rules set for them and Antigone represents moral law and following what you think is right.