Poetry Out Loud: My Poem

The poem I chose to read for the Poetry Out Loud recitation in class is Let it be Forgotten by Sara Teasdale. I think the meaning of this poem is that some things should be forgotten, no matter how beautiful they are, because they will only make you and others sad when they are gone. My reasoning for thinking this is that the things the poet mentions are all really pretty, like a flower or a fire that "once as singing gold." I'm not sure how accurate this is, though, because the poem is so short that its meaning is hard to judge with what I'm given. The poem isn't really very relevant to my life because there haven't been any particularly amazing things that needed to be forgotten, or that should have because they made me sad when they were gone. The closest thing I can think of is something that applies to most everyone, which is your childhood. When you're a child you can have huge amounts of fun doing even the simplest things, and there is usually nothing you need to worry about. But once you get older you tend to forget your childhood. This might be for the best, because if you remembered it better then you might miss it even more and become sad. There may be other, less significant ways in which this poem relates to my life but I can't think of any.

I'm not exactly sure how I'll convey the theme of the poem through my reading. If I read it in a hushed voice, it will make it seem more mysterious or secret, which kind of makes sense because of the verse "if anyone asks say it was forgotten." This verse makes me think that Sara Teasdale is talking about some sort of secret, and if I read the poem in a hushed voice it would make those listening feel that way as well. However, I think it would sound kind of awkward and it might be hard to hear, so I'm not sure if this is the best option. Besides this, I'm not sure what else I could do with my voice to help the poem have more meaning when read. I also don't know what I ought to do with my face and gestures. With my face I suppose it would be best to appear very interested, like I'm telling or being told something secret. I don't really know what gestures would fit with this poem. I feel like anything too exaggerated goes against the hushed nature of the poem, but I really don't know what else I could do. I guess one possibility would be to think of some sort of subtle hand movement that signifies something "being forgotten," and that I could use at every use of the word forgotten. This seems like it could get a little corny and repetitive though, and I also can't think exactly what I should do. Still, I feel I ought to think of something because a short poem like this would be very boring and pointless if read in a monotone voice with no movement.

Something Interesting

In the class discussion of "Lobsters," one of the ideas that a classmate, I forget who, brought up which I thought was interesting was that the poem is sort of showing how death is random. The lobsters in the tank have no idea who will be picked to die next, but they all know that it will happen to them eventually.

However, this does not only apply to lobsters. It is the same for any creature, humans in particular. Everyone and everything that is alive will die eventually, whether it be after a few weeks or hundreds of years. I believe that the author is, in particular, referring to humans in this comparison, for a couple of reasons. The first of this is that throughout the entire poem the author compares lobsters and humans, so why wouldn't he compare them here? Another reason I believe this is that humans have the "most random deaths." While anything can die at birth, or from disease or old age, humans have many other ways in which they are killed. They could overdose on drugs, be run over by a car, be shot by a fellow human... the ways go on. By comparing the lobsters to humans, the author shows just how random and inevitable death is.

So Many Paragraphs, So Many Skills

In order for one to write a great 5-part-paragraph, it is important that your topic is focused, but not extremely narrow. If your topic is too broad then your paragraph may be confusing or hard to follow, whereas if it is too narrow it may become boring or repetitive. In general I think the majority of papers read in our class were very good, but a lot of them had a few errors (I am no exception). I think the most prevalent weakness amongst our classes' paragraphs were the transitions- on a lot of papers they were very weak (next, finally, etc.) and on others they were missing altogether. There were also a couple of other errors, although none of them were as bad as the transitions. I noticed that on quite a few essays, there was some plot summary in the commentary, and there were also a couple of errors regarding the format the quotes were in (problems with conversations in quotes and lack of page number primarily). Overall, however, I am happy with how our class performed on this assignment and hope we will do similar ones in the future.

I was honestly not very happy with my own paragraph. While other students seemed to think it was alright, and I got an OK grade, I feel as if I didn't put much effort into it. While my concrete details, commentaries and transitions were alright, I feel as if I did a bad job on pretty much everything else. I forgot to put page numbers after quotes, I didn't like my introduction and my conclusion was quite short. I also failed to fill out the outline which was due at the beginning of the project, mainly because I had trouble understanding exactly what we were supposed to do with it (that, and I hate using graphic organizers anyway). I'm hoping we won't have to use many of those in the future, although I understand that this is probably a bit much to hope for!

Extending the Theme

My life has a couple things in common with the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. The only obvious similarities have to do with my first years of school. When I was young I really hated school, and I would often get in trouble. Often this was because I was reading when I was supposed to be doing something else, which, while it's not the exact same, is similar to why Scout got in trouble as it concerned reading when you weren't supposed to be able to. I also didn't know anyone going into school, since I only had two or three close friends at the time. Two of them went to a different school and another moved away in the first grade. Luckily, unlike Scout, I made quite a few friends early on and from that point onward I was not short of friends until the sixth grade.

Other than this, I don't think my life has much in common with those of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. I was never particularly close to my father or sister, didn't have a maid or anyone with a role to Calpurnia's (excluding my own mother), and there was no intriguing neighbor for me to attempt to contact.

One thing this novel taught me was what it's like being a small child. I had forgotten what it was like, and being put in the shoes of one for the duration of the novel was very enlightening. I'd forgotten that you're perfectly content with activities that, to me, would seem extremely boring, such as reciting plays or playing with simple toys such as batons. At this age, activities like that seemed tedious, and now I can better understand why they entertain younger children so much.

I also saw what it would be like to be discriminated against, just for being a different color. While I already knew that black people were often treated worse, this gave me a better idea of just what "worse" meant, at least in that era.

Reading over this, I'm actually a little disappointed in myself. I feel like I could've learned a lot more from this book, and am sad that this is all I've gained knowledge of. When I next read a book, I will be careful to identify what relates to my life and what I can learn from the book. I'm glad this blog post helped me realize that.

Introduction

I think I will be an OK English student. I enjoy reading, and am usually able to remember what I read quite well. I also consider myself to be a very good test taker. On the other hand, I consider myself to be a very average writer. I am very shy, which might be bad for discussions, and am also apt to space out. If you read my blog you will probably find very dull writing, so unless you are Mrs. Gilman I would probably not read it!
While I doubt my blog posts will be very "enlightening," I'm sure I will occasionally discover things in the literature that not many people have noticed. In my opinion, one of the meanings of English class is to prepare you for the rest of your schooling. In many classes, English classes in particular, you will be required/expected to use proper grammar on the majority of your assignments. Taking English classes means you won't have to worry about and points being taken off for grammar, spelling or the like-- and you might even gain a few points! You will also need the knowledge you have gained in this class after you finish school. When applying for a job, it is unlikely you will get it if you cannot spell correctly, or your grammar is terrible. I think the reasons I've just stated are the primary reasons for why English is a required class, if you're looking to go to a four-year college. On top of this, in College you will likely be taking more English classes, which would be very challenging if you had not taken four English classes in high school.