Tuesday, June 30, 2009

1.The poet's feelings then were that he were in a school,and there were various activities in school too.He mentions that Malay chauffeurs sit on the curb,telling jokes to one another.This shows that he is observant.He also mentions that his best friend shaded all A's for his multiple-choice paper.This shows that they were a bunch of mischievous kids.The poet reminisce the days,but also feel embarrassed by the occasional incident.

2.I do share some of the same sentiments,but I have not been caught on camera with my eyes closed.The poem below will justify my primary school days.

I walked around
the school compound
mainly wandering
half sightseeing

As I first stepped in
I felt amazing
Is this school?
Its so cool!

But then I saw
A huge brawl
In the canteen
And I felt like shrinking

But now,I feel good
Amazingly,my limbs are like wood
Done too many push-ups
And we still need to do sit-ups!

3 years passed
I felt i was built to last
I didn't know how
I suddenly started to howl!

For I was out of school
The last day I can see it full
I didn't know what to do
But I know,this is my destiny.

Monday, June 29, 2009

"Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed."Stephen Burt,The New York Times

Stephen Burt has clearly stated that Juan Felipe Herrera,is one very unique artist.One who can create an art.One who can write an art.One who can feel an art.Herrera was born December 27,1948 in Fowler,California.He was basically,a vagrant,and lived from crop to crop,trailer to trailer.This shaped his art instincts.He is a poet,performer,writer, cartoonist,teacher,and activist who draws from real life experiences as well as years of education to form his work.As you can see,his life shaped his art,and that's what makes his poems so life-like,so mystical in its common way.Herrera’s publications include fourteen collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children in the last decade with twenty-one books in total.This shows how active he has been,writing books,poems,and various works to please the common.

Herrera has garnered the Ezra Jack Keats Award, the Hungry Mind Award of Distinction, the Americas Award, the Focal Award, the [[Pura Belpré Honors Award]], the Smithsonian Children’s Book of the Year Award, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice, the IRA Teacher’s Choice, theLA Times Book Award Nomination, the Texas Blue Bonnet Nomination, the New York Public Library Outstanding Book for High School Students Award, two Latino Hall of Fame Poetry Awards, two National Endowment for the Arts Writers’Fellowship Awards, four California Arts Council grants, theUC Berkeley Regent’s Fellowship, the Breadloaf Fellowship in Poetry and the Stanford Chicano Fellows Fellowship. Herrera was awarded the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Half the World in Light.To be such a successful artist,he sure know how to write,and play!

In middle school,Herrera was an avid cartoonist.By high school,he had picked up a guitar and became an ensemble singer of Madrigals.He also began writing folk songs.He listened to many kinds of music,and this shaped his poetry.

Juan Felipe Herrera currently lives with his partner, Margarita Robles, a poet and performance artist, in Redlands, California. His children and grandchildren live in California, Oregon and New York. The author and artist Joaquín Ramón Herrera is his son.

POEMS =)

My word against theirs, my sickle humor
against their last glass of chianti. Simple,
Direct and compassionate—in a way, let us say,
it is in my nature to be generous: to remind
the passengers about the last stop in Anguish-
town, to spell integration with an X, to scrub
the word Prison with sneaky vastness inside.

It is my own penchant for skull symphonies
my embossed headdress, especially, that brings
me to your carpeted doom-time; this flowery intro
serves a purpose; every spirit strand is an exit,
a cash & carry star of exits and entrances.

In this poem,Herrera is Death itself.

I should have visited more often.
I should have taken the sour pudding they offered.
I should have danced that lousy beggar shuffle.
I should have painted their rooms in a brighter color.
I should have put a window in there, for the daughters.
I should have provided a decent mountain for a view.
I should have nudged them a little closer to the sky.
I should have guessed they would never come out to wave.
I should have cleaned up that mole, the abyss, in the back.
I should have touched them, that's it, it comes to me now.
I should have touched them.

In this poem,Herrera is the Guardian Angel of a person.

Into the tilted factories, the smeared taxis,
the stunted universities, into the parlor of bank notes,
in the cramped cookhouse where the dark-skinned
humans still stoop and pitch the daily lettuce bags.

This shows that no matter how advanced a place may be,there are always people in need of help.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Felipe_Herrera
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1822
http://www.woodlandpattern.org/poems/juan_felipe_herrera01.shtml

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

In this poem,the figurative language mostly used is SYMBOLISM.
The figurative language is actually very subtle,and not easy to find out.For example,the 'peppermint wind',since peppermint is actually a bitter sweet,it shows a contrast between the combined sadness and happiness in the wind,for it is on the sidewalk,where beautiful flowers grow,but it is going to end.Most probably,the wind represents the author itself.'The dark street winds and bends',describes the author's messy thoughts,while suggesting that the author is in a dark dilemma.The words used are all very gloomy and the actions they suggest are very deliberate,resulting in a very intense but short read.

I like the poem as it gives out a mysterious aura,and it attracts me as the sidewalk ending is such a common matter,but he is speaking from the children's minds.This shows that children actually have longing and darkness in them,although not visible to observers but only to themselves.I feel that this poem actually has another meaning behind it,which means that nature itself doesn't want streets,doesn't want people driving cars around the polluting the environment.So,actually,this could be a dark story about children of nature.The meaning it may give out is meaningless,and therefore,with such a simple title and few words conveying its meaning,its expressions are limitless.That,is what attracts me.Therefore,symbolism is obvious here,as nature is obviously not even written into the poem itself.The poem is nice,that's a fact.The poem has limitless meanings,that's another fact.Last but not least,the meaning is hidden and so,makes the whole mood turn mysterious.That's the beauty of the poem.