The State Store

It's Friday 2 o'clock
One more hour in
This stale classroom
Then by god it's the weekend
It's been a long five days
Beer just won't do
How do I execute:
Reach for the Arbor Mist
or grab the ole gallon?
Swipe the Vlad or
The infamous Goose?
Do I go for the Captain
Or dare tame the Kraken?
What do ya say we go bush whacking
For some Wild Turkey 101?
Maybe Jack or Jim will be over
Na, way to common
Something exotic and wild
How about that Clear?
I am not sure
That there is a cure.

Carpe Diem.

Carpe Diem! Seize the opportunity! We cannot let opportunities pass us by for the simple fact that you more than likely won't get them back.  This includes seizing the opportunities for getting an A in a class, securing a job interview or job, having fun with your friends or like the Carpe Diem poets seizing the girl.  Women are mysterious creatures and most of the time you have one opportunity to get them. You must be silky smooth, clear and precise in your delivery.  We must be like the great poets John Donne and Andrew Marvell and tell our women that we don't have much time on this earth so let's get down to business. 

The Second Coming

People often talk about the end of the world and the apocalypse.  Someone every year says that the world is going to end.  Everyone was convinced that it would happen in 2000 and then again in 2012 but as you can see I am still very much alive.  This is not a new concept to our society.  People have being trying to predict the end of the world, well since the creation of man.  Yeats believed that the world revolved in 2000 year cycles and the Christian world would fall around the year 2000.  This is what he is talking about in his poem "The Second Coming".  I however do not get caught up in this end of the world thing.  The world is going to end for everyone at some point, we all have do die don't we? So what does it matter if the apocalypse happens right now? It doesn't matter that's the answer.  If we live for today and live our lives to the fullest we will not fear death.  This can be summed up by my favorite quote: “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time- Mark Twain.

Connection With Our Past

I really connected to Seamus Heaney's poem "Digging".  I love learning about my personal history, that is my ancestors.  I am simply fascinated with the stories that my grandfather tells me about his father and his grandfather, etc.  It gives me a sense of pride in who I am and what my family is. It seems as if Heaney is also enthused about his family heritage. He speaks with reverence about his father and grandfather.  He is very proud that he can say that he comes from the same line of men as them.  He also acknowledges the fact that he is not them but he still has the same characteristics and traits but uses them in a different way.  I liked this because we cannot be like our parents or grandparents because we live in a different society than they lived.  We can, however, use the traits that are passed down from them in our lives just in a different way. I suppose I connected with this poem because of the great pride I have in being a "Sloan" the same way that Seamus shows the great pride he has in being a "Heaney". 

  

Beer is Good

As I sit here reading and writing
I can't help to think of alcoholic beverages
Preferably beer and not the cheap kind
Like Natty, Hamms or any ice
More like the mid road kind
Say like my good friend Buddy Light
Possibly a Labatt or a Busch
Preferably in the orange camo cans
Or maybe just maybe my favorite of all
A good ole Pabst Blue Ribbon
Maybe that'll quench my thirst
For this liquid gold
This however is doubtful
You can never drink enough beer
Nor do you ever get tired of it
I guess you could say beer is like a good friend
Or in my case..... a best friend.

Death

It seems like we talk about death a lot in literature classes, especially when covering authors like Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allen Poe.  At first it is somewhat creepy or dark that some authors are so fixated on death.  At a closer look; however, it is not as creepy as you would think.  Death is always around us whether we know it or not.  People, animals, objects are constantly dying.  Every year fall comes around and kills all plantation until the rebirth in the spring.  We are so accustomed to death that we hardly realize that it is happening.  These authors are simply writing about what is happening around them, to them and to everyone else.  We are not timid to accept love poems or nature poems but we are reluctant to accept death poems. Maybe this is because we fear the thought of death.

Chruch vs. Religion

Philip Larkin's poem titled "Church Going" really made me think about how people practice their religion.  I feel that the narrator of the poem whether it is Larkin or not believes that religion can be practiced outside of the church.  In our society, that is the American Society, it is quite common for people to believe that you can only be religious if you attend church.  Our society puts the image of the church on a pedestal and in some instances believes that church is religion.  This, however, is not the case, you can be a very religious person and practice your beliefs without ever setting foot in a church.  I am not a "church goer" but I do find myself to be a righteous man.  I think it is practical to practice your religion, especially if you are a Christian, outside of a church and in nature.  After all The Lord created nature and everything in it, including man. He did not create churches,  so I believe that it is more practical to practice my faith in the environment that my Lord created not an environment that man created.

The Master Key Of Equality Is Education

In Gwendolyn Brooks poem "We Real Cool", she addresses the problem of high school kids dropping out of school and hanging around pool halls.  I cannot help but think that this a criticism of the African-American race. This poem was written in 1950 when civil rights were a huge topic among people in the United States. I believe that she is telling young Black people of that time that in order to win the battle of civil rights or equality they must stay in school and become educated.  She is mocking these kids at the pool hall for dropping out of school, lurking late, thinning gin, Jazzing June and dying to soon.  Brooks is also sending a message to all other school age people that education is the key to equality. 

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover

In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral" a man's wife has invited an old friend/boss of hers to stay with them for a while.  We soon find out that the man (Robert) is blind.  The husband has preconceived notions about the blind man. He expects the man to be wearing sun glasses, to be a non-smoker and a non-drinker.  He is also unsure of how to act around Robert.  He is unsure if he should turn the T.V. or help him at the dinner table. After a bit the husband and Robert are watching a television show about Cathedrals and Robert asks if the husband could describe one to him. The husband is not very good at this so Robert decides that they will draw one together.  After this scene the husband has finally realized that Robert is like any other human being and connects with him.  Throughout the story Robert doesn't wear sunglasses, doesn't need assistance, drinks alcohol, smokes cigarettes and marijuana. This proves all of the husbands stereotypes false.  This is a great example of how people often judge those who are different, when in reality they are exactly the same as everyone else. We are all humans, man or woman, and we should be treated as such no matter what we look like or how we act. 

Childhood Shenanigans

In Yasunari Kawabata's "The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket" children are scouring the hillside looking for insects in the evening light.  The children use lanterns as a light source in order to locate the insects. On the first night there is only one boy searching on the hillside. His lantern was bought and shines the color red.  As the nights go on more children arrive on the hillside. There is one difference between them and the first boy.  These children have hand made their lanterns out of household goods.  The boy with the store bought lantern feels out of place because his lantern is not the same as everyone else's.  He then throws his lantern away and makes a homemade one like the rest of the children.  I feel like this is a common experience for children and possibly adults.  I think everyone has experienced a time when they had a toy or object that was not like everyone else's. In order to combat this we get rid of our toy and get one like all the other children; that is if our parents allow us to do so. This part of the story is very relatable to real life.   

Punctuation. Who Needs It?

I believe it was the first day of the term that the class had some debate over where to place certain punctuations in a poem that we had written on the board.  Throughout this debate I could not help but think that it does not really matter where a comma or period is placed.  I believe that the lack of punctuation allows the reader to have more play with the words and sentences in a work; especially, when it comes to poetry.  It allows the opportunity for the reader to have multiple interpretations of a work.  With punctuation the reader can only read that work in way and what fun is that? An Example is the following:

 There is obviously two meanings to the circled portion of the cover; however, if the "correct" punctuation was used there would only be one reading of it.  I believe that the lack of punctuation in creative writing, especially poetry, adds humor and more excitement to the reading.


http://cybertext.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/a-light-hearted-look-at-how-punctuation-can-change-meaning/

Marriage, Is It A Funeral?

One of the poems that were discussed in class today was Emily Dickinson's, " Because I could not stop for Death".  We had mentioned that the poem could possibly be a metaphor for marriage.  I believe this to be true due to the second stanza. It reads "We slowly drove- He knew no haste/ And I had put away/ My labor and my leisure too,/ For his Civility".  This does not explain the use of "Death" in the title and first line.  Some may believe that the poem describes a woman being taken away in a "carriage" and getting married.  Her life then flashes before her eyes and before she knows it she is dead. I take it another way.  Instead of her actually dying I believe that her life is dead once she is married.  Men often times joke to each other saying that once you are married the fun ends and because of this marriage is a funeral.  Maybe, this is why most grooms wear black Tuxedos; to signify the death of their bachelor life.  I believe that this what Dickinson is writing about, except it is about a woman not a man. Many women's lives change after marriage.  They cook, clean and care for their new husbands.  They also begin to have and raise children.  Just as men's lives change after marriage, women's also change. This is something that I did really think about until I read this poem.