don't stop, make it pop

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

IT Home Learning Lesson 2- Favourite Poet @ 8:31 AM

My favourite poet is nonetheless, Billy Collins.

Why is he/she intriguing?

His writing style : Billy Collins’s poetry shines brighter than others due to the sarcastic yet funny style he uses to create his poems.He uses simplistic stanzas to try to create images that pull the reader away from real life and draw them into his poetic creation.

An interesting point : His poems rarely follow a significant topic; instead they are just thoughts that happen to pop into his head. Often, he uses poetry to offer relief in troubled times for himself and the reader.

Biography of him

Billy Collins was born in New York City in 1941. He is the author of several books of poetry, including Ballistics (2008), She Was Just Seventeen (2006), The Trouble with Poetry (2005); Nine Horses (2002); Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001); Picnic, Lightning (1998); The Art of Drowning (1995), which was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Questions About Angels (1991), which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series; The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988); Video Poems (1980); and Pokerface (1977).
His work has been featured in the Pushcart Prize anthology and has been chosen several times for the annual Best American Poetry series. Collins has edited Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (Random House, 2003), an anthology of contemporary poems for use in schools and was a guest editor for the 2006 edition of The Best American Poetry.

Here are three of his poems which I feel that they are some of his finest works:

Poem 1:

Candle Hat

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel.

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders.
a device that allowed him to work into the night.

You can only wonder what it would be like
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is no need to read
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
the laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house
with all the shadows flying across the walls.

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in, " he would say, "I was just painting myself,"
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.

Poem 2:

Man Listening To Disc

This is not bad --
ambling along 44th Street
with Sonny Rollins for company,
his music flowing through the soft calipers
of these earphones,

as if he were right beside me
on this clear day in March,
the pavement sparkling with sunlight,
pigeons fluttering off the curb,
nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs.

In fact, I would say
my delight at being suffused
with phrases from his saxophone --
some like honey, some like vinegar --
is surpassed only by my gratitude

to Tommy Potter for taking the time
to join us on this breezy afternoon
with his most unwieldy bass
and to the esteemed Arthur Taylor
who is somehow managing to navigate

this crowd with his cumbersome drums.
And I bow deeply to Thelonious Monk
for figuring out a way
to motorize -- or whatever -- his huge piano
so he could be with us today.

This music is loud yet so confidential.
I cannot help feeling even more
like the center of the universe
than usual as I walk along to a rapid
little version of "The Way You Look Tonight,"

and all I can say to my fellow pedestrians,
to the woman in the white sweater,
the man in the tan raincoat and the heavy glasses,
who mistake themselves for the center of the universe --
all I can say is watch your step,

because the five of us, instruments and all,
are about to angle over
to the south side of the street
and then, in our own tightly knit way,
turn the corner at Sixth Avenue.

And if any of you are curious
about where this aggregation,
this whole battery-powered crew,
is headed, let us just say
that the real center of the universe,

the only true point of view,
is full of hope that he,
the hub of the cosmos
with his hair blown sideways,
will eventually make it all the way downtown.

Poem 3:

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Sources:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/another-reason-why-i-don-t-keep-a-gun-in-the-hou/
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/278
http://project1.caryacademy.org/echoes/03-04/billy_collins/Defaultcollins.htm

And finally, I'm done with this Lesson!

Monday, June 29, 2009

IT Home Learning Lesson 1- Figurative Language @ 8:44 AM

This is the poem that I have chosen.

A Life by Sylvia Plath

Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year ---
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.

Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as cork,
Every one of them permanently busy.

At their feet, the sea waves bow in single file.
Never trespassing in bad temper:
Stalling in midair,
Short-reined, pawing like paradeground horses.
Overhead, the clouds sit tasseled and fancy

As Victorian cushions. This family
Of valentine faces might please a collector:
They ring true, like good china.

Elsewhere the landscape is more frank.
The light falls without letup, blindingly.

A woman is dragging her shadow in a circle
About a bald hospital saucer.
It resembles the moon, or a sheet of blank paper
And appears to have suffered a sort of private blitzkrieg.
She lives quietly

With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle,
The obsolete house, the sea, flattened to a picture
She has one too many dimensions to enter.
Grief and anger, exorcised,
Leave her alone now.

The future is a grey seagull
Tattling in its cat-voice of departure.
Age and terror, like nurses, attend her,
And a drowned man, complaining of the great cold,
Crawls up out of the sea.

Dissection of the poem:

1. How is figurative language used in the poem? Give the specific word(s), explain what type of figurative language it is, and why the poet chose to use this figurative language.

"shrink like an eyeball" - Hyperbole is used as the author wants to emphasis that it could be touched, without any fear.

"This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear" - Simile is used as the author wants to compare and emphasis its clearness.

"ping like a Chinese chime" - Simile is used to compare the sound produced to a Chinese chime,letting us get a rough idea of the sound.

"inhabitants are light as cork" - Simile/Hyperbole is used to imply that the inhabitants are light as cork,but at the same time, is realistically flawed.

"the sea waves bow in single file" - Personification is used to let us imagine how the waves look.

"Stalling in midair" - Hyperbole is used as the author probably wants to make the waves look intimidating.

"pawing like paradeground horses" - Simile is used to describe the waves more vividly for us to conjure up how it looks like.

"like good china" - Simile is used to compare it with good china.

"like a foetus in a bottle" - Simile is used here to compare it like the foetus.

"too many dimensions to enter" - Hyperbole is used to exaggerate how confused she is.

"Crawls up out of the sea." - Hyperbole is used here as the author wants to emphasis how the man complains.

2. Tell us why you like this poem in no less than 100 words.

I like this poem as it relates to us about our daily life activities and our frustrations. Also, is illustrates to us about one’s anger and confusion which is commonly seen in today’s world. We normally succumb to unforeseen circumstances without us noticing it and only till others notice is that we will try to change. This poem also states the aging of a person and how that age will change up on us quickly. This means that we should treasure our own life as by the time we start, it may be too late. Another point is that we should try to make full use of each day and not regret after it is over and when a new day awaits.