Farewell Friends

I had a great year with everybody in this class and I feel like I got to know everybody more than I have in any of my previous college courses. I think that the poetry really brought out some feelings and emotions and this allowed for us to really engage in some meaningful conversations and express ourselves in a way that most classes don't create. I hope that everybody has a great summer and keep writing poems, I have come to the conclusion that they are a great way for students and young adults to deal with stress and helps express feelings and emotions that the writer may not even know are there.

Journal 7

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
http://www.poetryoutloud.org/
I always enjoy poetry foundation to find poems because of how organized it is. I liked poetry out loud because you are able to listen to poems and and performances.

One poem i really liked was call Death Is Something Entirely Else by Joy Katz

Death Is Something Entirely Else

Department of Trance

Department of Dream of Levitation

Department of White Fathom

Department of Winding

Sometimes my son orders me lie down

I like when he orders me lie down          close your eyes

Department of Paper Laid Gentry

Department of Sound of Sheets of Paper

                                                                           he covers me with

then sings

I like best the smallest sounds he makes then

Department of This Won’t Sting

Am I slipping away

Department of Violet Static

as if he were a distant station

Department of Satellite

My child says you sleep

Department of Infinitely Flexible Web

and covers my face with blankness

Department of Tap-Tapping the Vein

Department of Eyelash

I can’t speak

                           or even blink

                                                      or the page laid over my face will fall

Department of Clear Tape in Whorls and Double Helixes on the Wall

He says Mama don’t look 

Department of You Won’t Feel a Thing

I cannot behold

Department of Pinprick

He will not behold

Department of Veils and Chimes

of Lungs Afloat in Ether

 

I like this best

Department of Spider Vein

when I am most like dead

and being with him then, Department of Notes

Struck from Thin Glasses Successively at Random

I must explain to my child that sleep

                                                                    is not the same as dead

Department of Borderlessness

so that he may not be afraid of

Department of Fingertips Lightly on Eyelids

so I can lie and listen

not holding not carrying not working

Department of Becalmed             faint sound of him

 

                                                                                                 I am gone

 

His song is the door back to the room

 

I am composed of the notes

The two websites are very different. They are both well organized but poetry out loud has videos and recordings that poetry foundation does not have.

Journal 7: Amanda Gifford

http://www.poetryoutloud.org

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/


These really enjoyed these two websites from the list of sites. The set up of Poetry Foundation was nice with being able to view by poem, author or category. I spent a lot of time shifting through random poems and then reading about the poet of the poem. Poetry Out Loud was easy to go through and had a variety of options. Hearing the poem and seeing the expression on the face of the reader really enhances the experience. It was interesting to watch a poem being signed it was really powerful.


 

The Cherry Trees

By Edward Thomas

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding

On the old road where all that passed are dead,

Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding

This early May morn when there is none to wed.

I really liked the simplicity of the poem in tackling a subject such as death. In comparing something beautiful and light to a heavier topic of the beyond.

Journal Seven from Dathan

The two places that I look through the most were...
The Poetry Foundation
and
Web del sol

I liked The Poetry Foundation better. It was mostly because of the set up of the sites themselves. The Poetry Foundation seemed to have a better arrangement of things and Web del sol seemed to at least look cheaper, less user friendly, like it had more adds. They both had a good catalog of poems, you can really get lost.

How Quiet

Related Poem Content Details

BY JUDITH HARRIS

How quiet is the spruce,

the wind twills

through the uppermost tier

of splayed leaves.

Now the song of a bird

like the squeaky lock

over a canoe's oar,

followed by startling chirps,

the sky pushing its clouds

like sailboats,

and I think, what kind of God

keeps himself secret

so that to find him out

we have to seek, as children do

for something like the beetle

scuttling between grass,

hidden in plain sight.

I chose this poem because when I read it I saw a nice image in my head. It was like I was in a canoe on a slow flowing river surrounded by trees. It does sound a little stupid when I put it that way, but if it sounds completely stupid to you then you have never gone canoeing.

Journal 7- Aziz Hamid

My two favorite websites that I really enjoyed are:

www.poetryoutloud.org

www.poetryfoundation.org

I already knew about the poverty foundation website before this activity. I used this website when I was working on my presentation on Lucille Clifton.  Poetry foundation has 27 poems by Clifton. In addition to the poems the website offer articles, audio & podcasts, video and biography on Clifton. The website is nicely organized and easy to work with. 

The Poetry Out Loud website has fewer poems but is a great website to watch people recite poems from memory. I was amazed on how well some of the people memorized poems. I was very nervous reciting my poem in front of a small group, I can't imagine reciting it in front of a larger audience. Poetry Out Loud is a great website for someone like me who get nervous talking let alone reciting a poem in front a group of people. This website can help improve your  public speaking skills and most importantly build self-confidence. The website is also colorful and pleasing to browse through. 

I would give both of these website 5 stars because they are great websites that offer different features depending on your needs. 

My favorite poem I found on poetry foundation :

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Rosen Journal 7

JOURNAL 7: The Final Journal

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems-and-performance/poems/detail/37525

 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/92730

The two websites that I enjoyed, aka poetryoutloud and poetryfoundation, were very similar but different in certain ways. For Poetryoutloud there seems to be a lot less poems on this website because when going to the "Z" section of poems there literally were only two poems listed where I'm sure that there are many more poems begining with a Z in this world so it just felt a bit limmited. Poetryoutloud had more detailed biographies of poets which I really enjoyed because it was nice to be able to go straight to their bio's to learn about them more. I would give Poetryoutloud 3 stars out of 5 because they have a lot of great features and include a lot of good poems but I think that I'm left wanting more poems from the website.

Poetryfoundation was the other website that I looked into and I thought that it balances pretty even with poetryoutloud due to a couple reasons. I think that poetryfoundation was a lot more organized and professional looking than poetryoutloud because the web design is very clean cut and well put together whereas the poetryoutloud seemed thrown together in some sections. Another thing that poetryfoundation does well is that they have a large selection of poetry in this website and exponentially more poems than poetryoutloud which made it seem like I could choose from a large selection which was nice to have the options. But something I didn't like about the website was that the bios were a bit harder to reach and it seemed sort of careless of the poet themselves. I thought that the website overall was very well done and easy to use. I'd give this website a 3/5 stars as well because I think that the pros and cons of each site balances to be at the same place.

The poem I enjoyed off of this poetry search:

Onions

By William Matthews

How easily happiness begins by  
dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter  
slithers and swirls across the floor  
of the sauté pan, especially if its  
errant path crosses a tiny slick
of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.

This could mean soup or risotto  
or chutney (from the Sanskrit
chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions  
go limp and then nacreous
and then what cookbooks call clear,  
though if they were eyes you could see

clearly the cataracts in them.
It’s true it can make you weep
to peel them, to unfurl and to tease  
from the taut ball first the brittle,  
caramel-colored and decrepit
papery outside layer, the least

recent the reticent onion
wrapped around its growing body,  
for there’s nothing to an onion
but skin, and it’s true you can go on  
weeping as you go on in, through  
the moist middle skins, the sweetest

and thickest, and you can go on  
in to the core, to the bud-like,  
acrid, fibrous skins densely  
clustered there, stalky and in-
complete, and these are the most  
pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare

and rage and murmury animal  
comfort that infant humans secrete.  
This is the best domestic perfume.  
You sit down to eat with a rumor
of onions still on your twice-washed  
hands and lift to your mouth a hint

of a story about loam and usual  
endurance. It’s there when you clean up  
and rinse the wine glasses and make  
a joke, and you leave the minutest  
whiff of it on the light switch,
later, when you climb the stairs. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS: Thank you for such an enjoyable class, I will miss all of you.

Journal 7 from Jake

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

The websites that I explored seem to really have a lot of poems from people that are interested in posting their poems for the public to read. I had a lot more trouble finding poetry that I enjoyed from the poetry foundation because there seemed to be a larger selection. I enjoyed how you could narrow your search based on the theme and titles.This helped me read the poetry that I enjoy instead of taking hours to scan through material I would not enjoy. Both websites allowed for the user to limit their search but I believe the poetry foundation was more efficient in the process. I would give the Poetry Outloud website a 3/5 and the Poetry Foundation a 4/5 because of the ease of use and total access to tons of information. I think they could improve by adding a 'most popular' or 'best rated' section to really entice their users to enjoy what others enjoy, this could cause a snowball effect and soon BAM! a poem or poet could become famous!

Cloud Fishing

Related Poem Content Details

By Phillis Levin

To fish from a cloud in the sky

You must find a comfortable spot,

Spend a day looking down

Patiently, clear-sighted.

Peer at your ceiling:

Where a light dangles, hook & line

Could be slipping through.

Under the hull of a boat

A fish will see things this way,

Looking up while swimming by — 

A wavering pole’s refraction

Catching its eye.

What will you catch?

With what sort of bait?

Take care or you’ll catch yourself,

A fish might say,

As inescapable skeins of shadow

Scatter a net

Over the face of the deep.

Journal 7 - Brooke

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
http://www.poetryoutloud.org/

He is Trying to Get Home From the Store,

By Susan Firer

but lake winds pick him up

Related Poem Content Details

& blow him into the clouds. I
married a dreamer. I wait. He
stops to listen to the early
lilac orchestra. He starts to
change into blowy horizontal lake
rain, then migrating red admirals.

I thinksay remember. I remember us.
We chose the imaginal
north/south somewhere
between Bartlett Avenue and Jupiter,
between Lake Michigan and
the Aegean. Remember we drink
 Serbian Cosmos together, we eat
squash blossoms and red snapper soup.
We visit the Calatrava before bed. We
nurture a magnetic field of words. I am

remembering you back. Remembering
plays time. Thinking is all remembering.
I remember our young
bodies. I'm not finished
with us. Remember that.
If someone asks, "why is that lady
out walking in that lake storm?" Tell them
"months ago her husband went to the
store in a blizzard& never came back."
Tell them: "She can't stop looking for him."

I  liked this poem a lot because it was so sad sounding and nostalgic, and it also made the lady sound kind of insane. It was like an inner-monologue from a crazy person. It was sad, crazy, and sweet all at the same time.

Poetry foundation is by far my favorite website. It's such a staple for a poet. I found a ton of information on Emily Dickinson when I did that presentation. Everything is so neat and nicely laid out. Poetry out loud was much the same. Everything on that website was very neat and easy to find. I didn't like the MPT website as much, I felt like I had to dig around a lot more. I did like that MPT had the SoundCloud link of the reading of the poem right there next to the poem. I thought that was really cool. Overall I would give poetry foundation a 5, poetry out loud a 4, and MPT a 3.

Journal 7: Morgan DeWitt

The two websites that I really enjoyed exploring are:

www.poetryoutloud.org

www.poetryfoundation.org

I loved the poetry out loud website because I now have a new understand for how impressive it is that these young people can recite poems this well from memory (especially after taking three times to recite mine- haha!).

Just watch this- it's so impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5aArwwfAKg

The favorite poem I found while browsing the web was: Writ on the Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem

by Gregory Corso-

There’s a truth limits man 

A truth prevents his going any farther   

The world is changing 

The world knows it’s changing 

Heavy is the sorrow of the day 

The old have the look of doom 

The young mistake their fate in that look   

That is truth 

But it isn’t all truth 

Life has meaning 

And I do not know the meaning   

Even when I felt it were meaningless 

I hoped and prayed and sought a meaning 

It wasn’t all frolic poesy 

There were dues to pay   

Summoning Death and God   

I’d a wild dare to tackle Them 

Death proved meaningless without Life 

Yes the world is changing   

But Death remains the same   

It takes man away from Life   

The only meaning he knows   

And usually it is a sad business   

This Death 

I’d an innocence I’d a seriousness 

I’d a humor save me from amateur philosophy 

I am able to contradict my beliefs   

I am able able 

Because I want to know the meaning of everything 

Yet sit I like a brokenness   

Moaning: Oh what responsibility   

I put on thee Gregory 

Death and God 

Hard hard it’s hard 

I learned life were no dream 

I learned truth deceived 

Man is not God   

Life is a century   

Death an instant

I had never heard it before and it blows my mind that someone memorized this! Crazy!

The poetry foundation is just a great website where you can find literally any poem you want. They also offer some history and analysis for some poems. I find myself always using this site when looking for a poem.

I give both websites a 5 star rating. The Poetry Out Loud source is awesome if you want to watch some talent and jog your creativity. Poetry foundation is great if you are looking for a specific poem.

I HAD A GREAT TIME IN THIS POETRY CLASS AND I'M GOING TO MISS YOU ALL!!! HAVE A WONDERFUL AND SAFE SUMMER :) 

LOVE, 

Morgan DeWitt 

Aziz Hamid Journal 6

Part One:

The piece that caught my attention the most in the Wax Paper was To Be Great, Be A Whale by Holly Wren Spaulding. 

The poem is short and easy to read. The poem is one big stanza which I think works well in this poem.  

The poem was motivational to me.  After reading this poem, I got a boost of confidence. This poem strengthens my determination to pursue my goals.  This poem hit me emotionally. The first line “Be a blue whale with a heart the size of a room” sets the tone well for the rest of the poem.

The message of the poem is to strive for greatness. This message of the poem is universal. Everyone has their own set of goals and challenges.

My favorite line is “Let few see you. Let them wonder.”  To me this line basically means to work hard in silence. Nowadays most people like to brag about their accomplishments and success. Some people post their accomplishments on Instagram, Facebook and other social media. They want everyone to know what they accomplished and this line is basically saying to stay humble.   

Another thing I noticed in the poem is there are many commands in the poem.  For example, “Be more at home”, “Let few see you”, “Take note of what is right and true about the world there." This goes well with poem because the poem is encouraging the readers to be great. Having commands helps the reader feel more empowered.

Part Two:

I believe my criticism improved the most through our workshops. At first, I had a really hard time providing criticism to my classmates on their poems. I didn't know what to say or talk about. The more workshops we did in class the more I improved on my criticism. For example, when criticizing a poem I learned to talk about how the line is used, prose vs friction. I improve on identifying devives and techniques the writers use such as alliteration,enjambment, refrain, figurative language and more much more.