April 14-15

Hello All,

For this weekend's post on your blog, find a poem about spring that you like, and explain why it caught your attention/interest.

Robert Frost

Hello All,

For your first (required) blog entry, choose one poem by Robert Frost from his collection titled A Boy's Will.

Briefly explain why you chose it, and then analyze Frost's use of one literary device that we discussed in class.

Recommendations: Winter 2012

Hello All,

Here are your recommendations !

Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields by Charles Bowden
Fight Club by Chuck Palahnuk
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Prince Among Slaves by Terry Alfred
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
"Life of a Salesman" by Yellowcard
"Eyes Wide Open" by Gotye
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Saving Rachel by John Locke
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Blue Moon by Allison Noel
"Just My Dog" by Gene Hill
The Apology by Plato
World War Z by Max Brooks
"Because You Love Me" by Celine Dion
The Velveteen Rabbit by Marjorie Williams
"Better Way" by Ben Harper
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer (Two)
The Watchmen by Alan Moore
"A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns
"No It Isn't" by Plus 44
"Be Drunk" by Charles Baudelaire
"To Realize the Value of" by Saffron
Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss
"Dear Mama" by Tupac Shakur
Striking Thoughts by Bruce Lee
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
"Southbound Train" by John Forman
Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chboski
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
The Yellow Boat by David Saar
"See it Through" by Edgar Guest
"Living Dead No More" by Moreau and Yousafzai
The Inferno by Dante
The One You Love by Paul Pilkington
"Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Myself by K. Miller

The Full Moon

I take my son to see the full moon.  One of his favorite books is Goodnight Moon ("In the great green room, there was a telephone..."), and tonight he gets to hang out with the moon a bit before going to bed.  We wave and try to count the stars.  I ask him the moon's name, and he replies, "I don't know," which is the answer I would have given as well.  If it weren't so cold, we'd go for a walk, but it is cold, so we practice our howling.  He's got good pitch, but he needs to work on his volume.  I, on the other hand, can muster the volume, but my tone is a bit crooked . . .  We'll both work on our howls, and someday the coyotes--those masters of the serenade-- will ask us for advice.  In the meantime, I tell my son to say goodbye to the moon: "Goodnight, moon, goodnight."

A Winter Walk

Hello All,

For the latest blog, write a short-short story (one paragraph) inspired by Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz's artwork entitled A Winter Walk. 

Remember to use one simile and one example of personfication.

While you're at their website, check out some of their other artwork.  It's imaginative and unsettling . . .

Song Lyrics and Poetry

Hello All,

For Wednesday's post, find a song whose lyrics you would classify as poetry.  Provide a brief justification as to why this song would warrant being described as a poem.

For example, I've been listening to Leonard Cohen's new album Old Ideas, and I would classify his song "Crazy to Love You" as a poem.  Here are the lyrics:

Crazy To Love You

Had to go crazy to love you
Had to go down to the pit
Had to do time in the tower
Begging my crazy to quit

Had to go crazy to love you
You who were never the one
Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache
Her braids and her blouse all undone

Sometimes I’d head for the highway
I’m old and the mirrors don’t lie
But crazy has places to hide in
Deeper than saying goodbye

Had to go crazy to love you
Had to let everything fall
Had to be people I hated
Had to be no one at all

I’m tired of choosing desire
Been saved by a sweet fatigue
The gates of commitment unwired
And nobody trying to leave

Sometimes I’d head for the highway…

Had to go crazy to love you
You who were never the one
Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache
Her braids and her blouse all undone.

"Crazy to Love You" has rhyme, of course, but most songs use rhyme.  What makes this song a poem is the personfication ("Begging my crazy to quit"), the implied metaphors ("souvenir heartache"), the parallelism ("had to go crazy to love you/ had to let everything fall") and the antithesis ("had to be people I hated/ had to be no one at all").  Thus, I would argue with "Crazy to Love You," Leonard Cohen has written both a great song and a great poem. 

If you're interested in what the song sounds like, you can find it here.

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Hello All,

For your second required blog post, choose one of the original versions of a Grimm Fairy Tale that Anne Sexton has adapted in Transformations.  You can find those original tales here.

Copy and paste the Grimm's tale into your blog, and briefly (a sentence or two) explain why Sexton chose this tale (there are over 200 Grimm's tales, and she only adapted 17).