The Dramatist

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” -William Shakespeare-

This picture was taken from
http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323

William Shakespeare also considered as the greatest dramatist of all time as his plays have been made into movies . Shakespeare is renowned as the English playwright and poet whose body of works is considered the greatest in history of English literature. There is no doubt that William Shakespeare is the greatest writer of modern English to date as most of his literary works are translated into hundreds of languages.William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England and it is assumed that he was born on April 23, 1564. The exact date of William Shakespeare’s birth is not known. When he was 18 years of age, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was 26 years old that time. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford and they had four children. Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at the age of 11. 

Shakespeare headed to London sometime in 1586, there already was an established community of playwrights.By 1595, Shakespeare was suffiently successful to be named as one of the more senior members of the Lord Chamberlain's men, an acting company that performed frequently before court. In 1596, Shakespeare was so successful as a playwright that his family was finally granted a Coat of Arms which amongst other things allowed Shakespeare to call himself a "gentleman". Shakespeare's fortunes were also improving during this time and in 1597 he purchased the second largest house in Stratford which he called New Place and began buying up land around Stratford. One year later, he became a ten percent owner of the new purpose built theatre in London, the famous Globe Theatre were so many of his plays would later be performed. By 1611, Shakespeare retired, returning to Stratford. Shakespeare died in 1616. 

William Shakespeare's play include Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night or What You Will, Julius Caesar, Richard III,Macbeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Macbeth is the best known of Shakespeare's play and often regarded as archetypal. The play tells the dangers of the lust for power and the betrayal of friends. 

References 

http://www.egs.edu/library/william-shakespeare/

http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323

http://web.singnet.com.sg/~yisheng/notes/shakespeare/mbeth_f.htm

Susan Glaspell  (1876-1948)

This picture was taken from
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jglaspell.htm

Susan Glaspell had never liked to feel controlled or delimited. Born in Davenport, Iowa, on July 1 1876, she rebelled against society's expectation and, rather than passively wait for a husband to appear. She went to Drake Universtity in Des Moines, graduating in June of 1899 and then worked as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. She gave up her newspaper job in 1901 and returned to Davernport in order to write. She had already published a number of short stories in Youth's Companion, and was to see her stories accepted by more sophisticated magazines such as Harper's, Leslie's, and The American. Her story "For  Love of The Hills" received the Black Cat prize in 1904. Glaspell's first novel, "The Glory of the Conquered" was published in 1909 , later followed by "The Visioning" . in 1911.

On 2nd December, 1900, John Hossack was murdered with an axe as he slept. His 57-year old wife, Margaret, was charged with the killing. Glaspell covered the trial for her newspaper. The jury did not believe her story that she slept through the killing, even though she lay next to her husband as he was murdered and she was found guilty. Trifles, a very short one-act play based on a John Hossack case that Susan covered while at the Des Moines Daily News, is probably her best known and most studied work. The central character, a woman arrested for the murder of her husband, never appears on stage, but her actions and motives are easily reconstructed and understood by the women of her community, while patronizing male authorities overlook solid evidence as meaningless 'women's things'. Glaspell's plays became very popular in Britain. Edith Craig, the daughter of Ellen Terry, had established a feminist theatre group, the Pioneer Players. They had initially performed Trifles and this was followed in March 1925, with a production of The Verge. Trifles embodies women alienation in the hands of patriarchal society. We can this in the beginning of the play, when Mrs Peters worried about the fruit when it turned so cold which Mr Hale replied "women are used to worrying over trifles". The women's voice is silenced by the men's failure to recognize her concerns as legitimate. When presented with a concern from a woman, the men dismiss the woman  and silence them from speaking further. This strongly showed that  they alienates women , thus placing them in lower status. 

During her busy life, Susan wrote nine novels, fourteen plays, countless short stories and articles.Most of her writings is strongly feminist, dealing with the role that women play,in society and the relationships between men and women. She inspired and guided other writers and was a good friend to many. At times, her work and her personal choices reflect acceptance and admiration for the culture, values, and attitudes of her Iowa origins, and at other times rejection and scorn.  There is no doubt that she never lost sight of her Midwestern roots. She died on 27th July 1948. Nineteen years after her death, Susan Glaspell was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame.

References

http://blogs.shu.edu/glaspellsociety/sample-page/

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jglaspell.htm

http://www.davenportlibrary.com/genealogy-and-history/local-history-info/the-people/susan-glaspell/

Explorations of the text. 

What clues lead the women to conclude that Minnie Wright killed her husband?

Mrs Hale discovers Minnie's sewing basket and the quilt she was piecing.The disorderly sewing is the clue that tellingly narrates her neighbour's story.Its chaotic threads tell explicitly the tale justifying her revenge. Minnie's sprawled sewing is not only indicate that she can't control her feelings but most important, the messy stiches of her quilt are an evident replication of her knotting her husband.Mrs Hale recognizes that the rambling mixing and matching of fragments is not only the product of interrupted life but, abuse and exploitation. The log cabin pattern quilt reflects Minnie's attempt to break the marriage bond. 

In a way, Mrs Peters finds the clue that replicate her neighbour, Minnie Wright. The killing of the bird symbolize the death and silencing of the singing voice of Minnie.Mrs Peters imagines Minnie's desolation when her bird had its neck wrung and remembers her own grief after a young boy killed her kitten and her loneliness after the death of her first child.

How do the men differ from women? from each other?

Unlike the men who are looking for forensic evidence to solve the crime, the women observe clues that reveal the bleakness of Mrs Wright's emotional life. While the men go to the upstairs bedroom and to the barn to look for clues that will prove that is Minnie who has murdered her husband, the two middle-aged rural women are left alone in the kitchen to collect clothes for their imprisoned neighbor. As Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters observe the trifles they find in the messy kitchen, they slowly start to patch up together possible pieces of evidence that bespeak the reasons for the crime. When the men return, in a silent act of bonding, they suppress the information they have gathered and the men are left without evidence to condemn Minnie Wright.Glaspell portrayed men in her play as arrogant and insensitive. The men denigrate the realm of housework.The men criticize Minnie Wright's housekeeping skills.

What do the men discover? Why do they conclude"Nothing here but kitchen things"? What do the women discover?

When the men confronted with the visible signs of Minnie's life, they respond "Nothing here but kitchen things", "a nice mess' and "trifles". The uncovered hidden signs of Minnie's presence such as her bread set, her preserves, her clothes and her sewing basket are ridiculed as women's things. Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters solve the mystery as they identify what they discovered. The kitchen text taps their awareness that as women " we all go through the same things". Minnie's condemnation to silence is used as weapon, a space where she can build herself. They discovered the evidence of the murder, the quilt and Mrs Hale pulls out stiches that are not very well sewed by Minnie to erase evidence of the murder.Mrs Hale fears that men trying to "get her own house to turn against her".

A Date with a Literary Scholar

Few days ago , to be exact on 21st October 2013, Mr Refaat Alareer , a Palestinian academic and writer paid a visit to us, and this really made my day! I've never thought that he'd come to our class since he's working in his motherland, Gaza. Mr Refaat , it was such an honour to see you here! Okay, let me just be honest here, actually I didn't know that there's Palestinian or Arab poet like Mr Refaat who defending themselves by writing. Getting back , at the very begining of the talk, Mr Refaat told us about how Zionist movement managed to occupy Palestin, then he continued on how to write poetry, shared his experience when he first write a poetry. He himself did not realized that he got the ability to write at first. The thing is, we need to believe that we can write and we should have will to write poetry etc. One thing that I remember is ,  we should not give up when it comes to writing. [ basically that's what I'm doing] , we just need to write everything that comes from our mind . I really adore Mr Refaat as his poems made me realized about hardship faced by Gazans. When he read the poem to the whole class that day, "I am You" I can feel his emotions, nearly made me burst out my tears. 

I am You 

Two steps: one, two.
‏Look in the mirror:
‏The horror, the horror!
‏The butt of your M-16 on my cheekbone
‏The yellow patch it left
‏The bullet-shaped scar expanding
‏Like a swastika,
‏Snaking across my face,
‏The heartache flowing
‏Out of my eyes dripping
‏Out of my nostrils piercing
‏My ears flooding
‏The place.
‏Like it did to you
‏70 years ago
‏Or so.

***
‏I am just you.
‏I am your past haunting
‏Your present and your future.
‏I strive like you did.
‏I fight like you did.
‏I resist like you resisted
‏And for a moment,
‏I’d take your tenacity
‏As a model,
‏Were you not holding
‏The barrel of the gun
‏Between my bleeding
‏Eyes.

***

One. Two.
‏The very same gun
‏The very same bullet
‏That had killed your Mom
‏ And killed your Dad
‏Is being used,
‏Against me,
‏By you.
***
‏Mark this bullet and mark in your gun.
‏If you sniff it, it has your and my blood.
‏It has my present and your past.
‏It has my present.
‏It has your future.
‏That’s why we are twins,
‏Same life track
‏Same weapon
‏Same suffering
‏Same facial expressions drawn
‏On the face of the killer,
‏Same everything
‏Except that in your case
‏The victim has evolved, backward,
‏Into a victimizer.
‏I tell you.
‏I am you.
‏Except that I am not the you of now.

***
‏I do not hate you.
‏I want to help you stop hating
‏And killing me.
‏I tell you:
‏The noise of your machine gun
‏Renders you deaf
‏The smell of the powder
‏Beats that of my blood.
‏The sparks disfigure
‏My facial expressions.
‏Would you stop shooting?
‏For a moment?
‏Would you?

***
‏All you have to do
‏Is close your eyes
‏(Seeing these days
‏Blinds our hearts.)
‏Close your eyes, tightly
‏So that you can see
‏In your mind’s eye.
‏Then look into the mirror.
‏One. Two.
‏I am you.
‏I am your past.
‏And killing me,
‏You kill you.

http://thisisgaza.wordpress.com/

http://thisisgaza.wordpress.com/

I've got some useful tips from Mr Refaat on how to become a  great poet. The first rule when we are starting out to become a poet is to read, read, and read high quality poetry. And then read some more. Many people think that they can write poetry without having read any of it. They cant. The key is, to read the poetry and get some inspirations from it before we start to write our own poetry.I found that it's one of the best way to develop my writing skills and polish my talent. Apart from that, in order to start writing a poetry, we should find a source of inspiration like Mr Refaat said, "try to imitate great poem and get some inspiration from it". The key to a great poem is finding passion and motivation for the poem. I'm still remember how I got the inspiration when I wrote my own poem, inspired by Naomi's poem " All Things Not Considered", where I tried to feel the emotions in Naomi's poem and imagined that I'm the persona in the poem. The thing is, I tried to bring the feeling through the lines of my poem. Mr Refaat also mentioned about "be yourself" when writing a poem. I personally believe that this will bring out our inner feelings and help to convey those feelings in rhythmic words because that's what poetry is all about!


The talk last for about 2 hours and during the Q&A session, there's question about education in Gaza, and Mr Refaat did mention that most female in Gaza involve in activism. 



p/s : sorry guys, I can't attach the picture during that day here. Thank you for reading! :)

What is Drama?

Drama is a prose or verse composition, especially one telling a serious story, that is intended for representation by actors impersonating the characters and performing the dialogue and action. Talking about drama, the first figure that popped out from our mind is "William Shakespeare". 

-Shakespeare's Comedies and Histories-

Shakespeare's career in the theater begins with three plays about Henry IV, written between 1590 and 1592. It is more illuminating however, if we look at his first decade as a whole, dividing plays into three groups. There is a variety of plays, plays which might be regarded as apprentice works in which Shakespeare is learning his craft:  The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labours Lost, and Romeo and Juliet. 

Plays are traditionally divided into comedies and tragedies. Tragedy has its origins on Greek drama, specifically in the plays of the Athenian dramatists such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The central concept is that a major character is afflicted by some kind of suffering, but preserves his or her dignity in the face of this affliction. 

In tragedy, the hero faces the worst the world has to offer, but there is no sense of compensation beyond the present. Shakespeare's greatest play, "Hamlet" is one of tragedies . Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, has married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, just a month after the death of her husband. In addition, Claudius has claimed the throne, ignoring the rights of his nephew. Hamlet discovers his father was murdered by Claudius. After a great deal of procrastination Hamlet kills Claudius.  

WORLD WAR 1 POETRY

Lieutenant Noel Hodgson, MC

Courtesy of Poems and Poets of the First World War (link)

Life

Hodgson was the fourth and youngest child of Henry Bernard Hodgson, the Bishop of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich. He entered into The School House of Durham School in September 1905 on a King's Scholarship. He steered in the second crew in 1907; was in the XI, 1910, 1911; and in the XV, 1910. He won the Steeplechase in 1909 and 1911. He left Durham in July 1911, with Gallipoli war poet and friend Nowell Oxland, for Oxford University where he was an exhibitioner of Christ Church. He obtained a first class degree in Classical Moderations in March 1913 and decided to stay and do Greats.

Known as "Smiler" to his friends, he volunteered for the British Army on the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and served in the 9th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. For the first year of the War he was training in England, before landing at Le Havre on 28 July, 1915 and being sent to trenches near Festubert. His first major offensive came on 25 September during the Battle of Loos. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded the Military Cross for holding a captured trench for 36 hours without reinforcements or supplies during the battle and he was subsequently promoted to lieutenant.

Having returned to England after the Battle of Loos, he was positioned with his Battalion in the front line trenches at Fricourt in February 1916, before moving a kilometre or so to the trenches opposite the town of Mametz in April. The trench was named Mansell Copse, as it was in a group of trees. He was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme when attacking German trenches near Mametz. He was bombing officer for his battalion during the attack, and was killed by a machine gun positioned at a shrine whilst taking grenades to the men in the newly captured trenches. The bullet went through his neck, killing him instantly. His servant was found next to him after the offensive had ended. He is buried in Devonshire Cemetery in Mansell Copse.

Inspiration Of The Poem

Before Action

Serving with the 9^th Battalion the Devonshire Regiment, Lieutenant Hodgson was on the Somme battlefield in June 1916 preparing for the Battle of the Somme. The scheduled date for the start of the battle was originally to be August 1916, but had been brought forward to the 29^th June, 1916. Owing to bad weather in the week building up to the battle the date of the attack was postponed at 11.00 hours on 28^th June and moved by two days to the morning of 1^st July 1916.

It is believed that Noel Hodgson wrote the poem “Before Action” on 29^th June.

Into Action

In the early hours of the morning of Saturday 1^st July 1916 William Noel Hodgson was in position with his comrades, anxiously waiting for Zero Hour at 07.30 hours. Due to the severe damage from German artillery fire the British Front Line trench was unsuitable for the battalion to assemble in ready for the attack, so the men were about 250 yards behind the British Front Line trench. At Zero Hour the men of 9^th Devons advanced from their position behind the Front Line trench, with the 2^nd Battalion Border Regiment on their left and the 2^nd Battalion the Gordon Highlanders on their right.

The 9^th Devons had about 400 yards of No-Mans-Land to cross in the Carnoy valley before they could attempt to break into the German Front Line south of Mametz village. As soon as the first men of the Devons reached No-Mans-Land they were exposed to fire from German machine guns. Many were cut down in No-Mans-Land and the battalion suffered heavy casualties. Lieutenant Hodgson was Bombing Officer in the attack. He was responsible for keeping the men supplied with grenades during the attack, which would be especially important if they got into the German positions. Within an hour of the attack it is said that Lieutenant Hodgson was killed. He was aged 23. He would never again see a sunset.

In spite of the heavy casualties lost by the battalion the Devons had progressed with their attack and the German-held village of Mametz was captured by the British 7^th Division. All but one of the officers of the 9^th Devons were killed or wounded. The British Front Line position did, therefore, successfully advance to a new position by the end of the day.

“The Devonshires Held This Trench”

That night Lieutenant Hodgson's body was retrieved and brought back into the British Front Line position, along with over 160 of his comrades. They were buried in the vicinity of a little wood called Mansell Copse which was in the British Front Line trench position at the start of the day.

A ceremony was held at the burial site on 4^th July. A wooden cross was put up at the time by the survivors of the 9^th and 8^th Battalions of the Devonshire Regiment. Carved on the cross were the words: “The Devonshires held this trench, the Devonshires hold it still.” The graves were left in this position when the cemeteries were rebuilt after the war. 163 graves are now contained in the cemetery which is named “Devonshire Cemetery”. All but one of the casualties are men of the Devonshire Regiment. Lieutenant Noel Hodgson is buried in Grave reference A. 3.

View towards the village of Mametz (far left of the photo on the skyline) from the British Front Line position. Lieutenant Noel Hodgson and the men of 9^th Devons were to attack the German Front Line at Mametz from here on 1^st July 1916.

Before Action

by Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson, MC, 29^th June, 1916

By all the glories of the day

And the cool evening's benison

By that last sunset touch that lay

Upon the hills when day was done,

By beauty lavishly outpoured

And blessings carelessly received,

By all the days that I have lived

Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of all man's hopes and fears

And all the wonders poets sing,

The laughter of unclouded years,

And every sad and lovely thing;

By the romantic ages stored

With high endeavour that was his,

By all his mad catastrophes

Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill

Saw with uncomprehending eyes

A hundred of thy sunsets spill

Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,

Ere the sun swings his noonday sword

Must say good-bye to all of this; -

By all delights that I shall miss,

Help me to die, O Lord.

Reference : 

The Great War. N.p., n.d. Web. Retrieved on 13 Oct. 2013 from http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/william-noel-hodgson-before-action.htm.

"William Noel Hodgson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web.Retrieved on 13 October 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._N._Hodgson

Poetry & Drama

courtesy from Google Image (link)

Definition of Poetry

Poetry is an imaginative attentiveness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response. Poetry has been known to employ meter and rhyme, but this is by no means necessary. Poetry is an ancient form that has gone through numerous and drastic reinvention over time. The very nature of poetry as a genuine and individual mode of expression makes it nearly impossible to define.

But there are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way. "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."

 Types of Poems

Haiku

Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry which is composed of three non rhyming lines. The first and third lines have five syllables each and the second line has seven syllables. They often express feelings and thoughts about nature; however, you could write a poem about any subject that you would like to in this form. Perhaps the most famous Haiku is Basho's Old Pond:

Furuike ya 

kawazu tobikomu 

mizu no oto

Translated, this poem reads:

The old pond--

a frog jumps in,

sound of water.

Pastoral

One of the poetic favorites is pastoral poetry because it elicits such wonderful senses of peace and harmony. Examples of this form include Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn, which is also a type of ode. A stanza of this poem reads:

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,     

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,     

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express     

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:     

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape             

Of deities or mortals, or of both,     

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?     

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?     

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?     

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Like the haiku, nature is often at the center of these types of poems as well. In general, pastoral poetry will focus on describing a rural place, but the terms will be peaceful and endearing. You will feel at ease after reading these types of poems.

Many pastoral poems are written about shepherds. They are written as a series of rhyming couplets.

Imagery

Individuals who often write imagery-based poems are known as Imagists. William Carlos Williams' short poem The Red Wheelbarrow is a famous example of a short imagist poem:

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

These types of poems work to draw a picture in the mind of the reader, in order to give an extremely powerful image of what the writer is talking about. They work to intensify the senses of the reader.

Limerick

A limerick is a poem that is often silly or whimsical, written in five lines with an AABBA rhyme scheme. Often, limericks tell a short, humorous story.

There was a Young Lady of Dorking,

Who bought a large bonnet for walking;

But its colour and size,

So bedazzled her eyes,

That she very soon went back to Dorking.

Epic Poem

One of the longest types of poems is known as the epic poem, which has been around for thousands of years.

Technically a type of narrative poem, which tells a story, epic poems usually tell the story of a mythical warrior and the great things that he accomplished in all of his journeys such as The Odyssey and The Iliad.

He who has seen everything, I will make known (?) to the lands.

I will teach (?) about him who experienced all things,

... alike,

Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all.

He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden,

he brought information of (the time) before the Flood.

He went on a distant journey, pushing himself to exhaustion,

but then was brought to peace.

He carved on a stone stela all of his toils,

and built the wall of Uruk-Haven,

the wall of the sacred Eanna Temple, the holy sanctuary.

Free Verse

While it is easy to think that poems have to rhyme, free verse is a type of poetry that does not require any rhyme scheme or meter. Poems written in free verse, however, do tend to employ other types of creative language such as alliteration, words that begin with the same sound, or assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds.

Sonnet

A sonnet contains 14 lines, typically with two rhyming stanzas known as a rhyming couplet at the end.

There are several types of sonnets, including:

·         Italian (also known as Petrarchan)

·         Spenserian

·         English or Shakespearean sonnet

Reference :

1. Mark Flanagan – Contemporary Literature: What is Poetry? .  (nd). Retrieved October 5, 2013, from http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/poetry/a/poetry.htm

What Are Different Types of Poems? . (n.d.). Retrieved October 12th, 2013, from http://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-different-types-of-poems.html

Turtle Soup by Marilyn Chin

 You go home one evening tired from work, 

and your mother boils you turtle soup.
Twelve hours hunched over the hearth
(who knows what else is in that cauldron).

You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;
that turtle lived four thousand years, swam
the Wet, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.
Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,
grazed on splendid sericulture."
(So, she boils the life out of him.)

"All our ancestors have been fools.
Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles
to kill a famous Manchu and ended up
with his head on a pole? Eat, child,
its liver will make you strong."

"Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."
Her sobbing is inconsolable.
So, you spread that gentle napkin
over your lap in decorous Pasadena.

Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.
The golden decal on the green underbelly
says "Made in Hong Kong."

Is there nothing left but the shell
and humanity's strange inscriptions,
the songs, the rites, the oracles?

Explorations of the Text

1.     1.Notice the author’s choice of the word “cauldron” in line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chosen “cauldron” rather than “pot”?

 Cauldron is large round metal pot usually used by witch and in this poem,  the mother boils turtle soup using cauldron and it is considered as unethical , even the speaker feels disgusted to eat it.

2.   2.   Chin refers to “the Wei “, “the Yellow,” and “the Yangtze”. Why does she reference these  rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?

The author wants to emphasize that he/she is closed to his/her origin. 

3.    3.  What is the tone of this poem?

I think it's reflective on ancient Chinese tradition. 

Ideas for Writing

 1.      “Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice.” Write about this quote within the context of an immigrant family. What might a family gain or lose by moving to a new land?

When leaving the country for a new land. We left many things like families, friends and some also might left their love ones. To get to the new land which is a new world and a new place to be conquered. We need to face many things like a new culture, tradition, their religion, their way of life and also the most important thing is their dialectal. If we don’t like to learn their dialectal, we will left behind and can’t follow their societies. The detriment that need to be done is that we need to master and mend our language efficiency in order to triumph in the new place but to someone it might be seen a little bit insignificant but it will affect our daily life as we need to communicate in order to tell what we actually want. If we don’t speak their language, we’re both don’t understand and this might get things that being described are misjudged.

 Being in a new place, we can see a new culture. The culture are really different from places to places. We need to adapt to those changing culture so that we can fully understand and equip it in our daily life. A culture means everything to certain people. So, as we in new place, we need to follow it accordingly as the people are doing it. For the people, if we do some mistakes, we might end up quarrel with them. In order to keep a peaceful life style, a regulation to follow the culture is a must and we must respect it even though some of them might be contradict with our very own culture. We must never forget our culture wherever we go, we could introduce it to the new people as it might be interesting and can keep our relationship tightened and knows each other’s culture better.

Other than that, the food that we usually eat also need to be change, for example in the old country, they eat rice meanwhile in the new land, they only grow wheat, and they need to adjust their taste buds accordingly to the new diet. This food ingestion is really important as it will keep us alive and strong to live and work. A strong motivation also really needed in the new place as for some random people, being far apart far apart from the family can make their motivation going down. The support from the family is quite needed in this situation, if not they can get tired of their life and might end up killing themselves as their morale getting lower.

As we move to a new place, a new path is opened up for us to live there. We have the second chance to change and gain back what we can’t have back in the old place for example triumph, wealth and a better life. A new way of life can totally change a person from a very poor to a very rich person if they utilize everything in the new place. It’s look simple, but need some effort in doing the things so that we can gain the sweet success later. Besides that, when we live in the new place, we can’t forget who we are, what we are, and where we are before going to the new land as this can keep us awake that we had made some sacrifice in order to live a blissful life in the new land.

Group leader: Veronica 

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.


Explorations of the Text 

1. What is the mood of the speaker in the opening lines? What images suggest his feelings? 

The speaker does not happy with his everyday life. This can be seen in "Lately, I've become accustomed to the way" , shows that he had familiar with his life and accept it as normal.

2. What is the significance of the daughter's gesture of peeking into "her own clasped hands"?

This made the speaker feel alive and not to give up in life. His daughter's gesture made him realized that there's a reason to stay alive, the daughter did not say any words, but her gesture tells it all. 

3. What does the title mean? How does it explain the closing line?

The title indicate that the speaker trying to commit suicide. We can assume that the speaker feel very depressed and hopeless being oppressed by Whites because this poem was written during the oppression between the Blacks and Whites. But from the title, the word "Preface" means that it is just introduction to commit  suicide but at the end of this poem, the speaker did not commit suicide. 

4. Why does Baraka have three short lines, separated as stanzas? How do they convey the message of the poem?

He used three short lines, separated as stanza so that the reader can feel what the poem is all about. In a way, this style of writing make reader as a "speaker' in that poem.

5. Why does Baraka begin stanzas with "Lately," "And now," and "And then"?  What do these transition words accomplish? 

Baraka used transition words in his poem to show the reader that the story is in chronological order and how the speaker did not commit suicide at the end. 

6. How does the speaker feel about the daughter? What does she represent to him?

The speaker decides not to commit suicide as he sees his daughter praying. We can see that the speaker does not have strong relationship with God and in this poem, the daughter represent light or hope to the speaker to stay alive.