Poetry Out Loud

I initially chose "Backdrop Addresses Cowboy" by Margaret Atwood because I really like the metaphors and similes, and how she used free verse. I like free verse poems best because they seem to have so much more meaning, and they seem less light and bubbly then rhyming poems. You can make even a depressing poem seem happy with rhyming. "Backdrop Addresses Cowboy" reminded me of something that Francesca Lia Block or Ellen Hopkins may write, with so much figurative language, I found it beautiful.

Once I started trying to read the poem aloud I had a few problems. I knew what I wanted it to sound like aloud, and how I wanted to read it, but it was hard to follow through, to remember every pause etc. I also had a lot of trouble memorizing it, because it was fairly long. I would always find certain parts where I would always forget a word, or what order to say the words, no matter what. Of course, after I read it out loud I can almost recite it perfectly, but getting up in front of the class it scary enough, It's hard to remember every word when you're still shaky at it.

Themes in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Racism is a theme that is explored throughout the book. Scout grows up in a racist community and reflects that when she tells Dill that it's no big deal, and Tom's only a black person. As the novel progresses, Atticus teaches Scout through his actions and words that you don't have to view someone by the color of their skin. When he defends Tom Robinson, she sees that he is a human being just like anyone else. Unfortunately, her cousin Francis is not able to see this. As a result of a racist family, he tells Scout that Atticus is a "nigger lover."

Although Scout learns to see beyond a person's skin color, the people of Maycomb County obviously have not. This is proven when the jury finds Tom guilty, even though there is no evidence of his alligation. Tom could not even use his left hand, which is the hand that had been used most on Mayella. I believe the jury was just frightened of what everyone else would think, because to say Tom Robinson is innocent, is to say that a black man is better than a white man, and to Maycomb County, that is unspeakable.

This book Changed My life

This book helped me persevere. Normally, when I start to read a book and find it boring, I don't even bother to finish it. However, this book was a class assignment so I pushed myself to get through the boring bits. The bits where you realize you've been reading the same sentences over and over again whenever you open the book, because you had totally forgotten that you had even read it.
About halfway through the book those parts ended and I was able to read straight through it
speedy quick, as I do with most books I'm interested in. It is like how Atticus always gets a job done that he says he will, no matter how unappealing it is, and there are rewards. Like when Atticus received heaps of food from grateful people for working on the Tom Robinson case. From now on I will persevere just like Atticus and get a job done when I say I will, because nothing good will come from not doing it.

Life Lessons

In chapters 22-28 the main event is the trial with Tom Robinson. I think that Jem learns a big lesson from Atticus about racism and equality. Jem was so positive that Tom was going to win the trial, he had his hopes very high, but the adults knew better. When Tom lost, Atticus told Jem
"...As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it- whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a
family he comes from, that white man is trash."(pg. 220)
Right then Atticus taught Jem that racism will always be around, but that doesn't mean that it's ok and you should never give in or support it.

This is an important lesson because it's true that even now, so many decades later, racism is still a part of everyday life, and it will never go away completely, but we can't forget that it's still there, or give up the fight against it. We see racism everywhere and don't even notice it, we grow up with it, and are introduced into a society of it. I have definitely seen it during this Presidential race. There are so many remarks about Obama's skin color. For some people against him, it's all that they've got against him, and for some people for him, all they have to say is "It would be cool to have the first colored President" It's sad that that's all that they think matters, because really skin color does not, nor should it define a person.

Robert Frost Poem

In Robert Frost's Poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening he speaks of a forest that he stop by in the evening. I think that even though this poem is short, it has an important meaning to him. It seems to me like he was considering suicide, but then decided that he had to keep on going in life. The way he spoke of the woods was like he was so at peace there and it was so beautiful and calm, he just wanted to stay there and let his life end at that point. But when he says "But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." It's like he decides to keep moving forward, that other people depend on him and he has to keep his promises to them, that he still has a long time before his life is over.

I chose this poem because it reminded me somewhat of my great great grandma who passed away two years ago at the age of one hundred one. She also could have let go at any point. When she broke her hip by simply falling down, when she was bed bound for the remainder of her life, when she became blind and almost completely deaf, but for some reason she held on. Perhaps she had promises of her own to keep.