Notes

5. Patterns, aimed at the mind, the heart or the ear of the reader, are used by poets to

achieve their purposes. In the work of at least two poets you have studied, examine various

patterns and their effects.

Hope--Emily Dickinson: the way how she rhyme, repetition, traditional, meter. The endings of the poem similar leave questions. The length of the lines, shape, verse, syllables, stanza and lines.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Grandmother in the stars--Naomi Shihab: the connections, plot in the poem, free verse, how she end sentence in the middle. Shape, character. THe endings

It is possible we will not meet again

on earth. To think this fills my throat

with dust. Then there is only the sky

tying the universe together.

Just now the neighbor’s horse must be standing

patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day

to open. What you think of him,

and the village’s one heroic cow,

is the knowledge I wish to gather.

I bow to your rugged feet,

the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair.

Where we live in the world

is never one place. Our hearts,

those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us

moons before we are ready for them.

You and I on a roof at sunset,

our two languages adrift,

heart saying, Take this home with you,

never again,

and only memory making us rich.

In Class Writing

There is only one stanza and 12 lines for the poem. Although there is only one period in the poem, I think the poem can be divided into three sentences. The first sentence is starting with Nature is what we see; the second sentence is starting with Nature is what we hear; the last sentence is starting with Nature is what we know. In my opinion, the poet use these sentences to emphasized that we can see nature from different perspectives. People should understand and appreciate nature from both visual and auditory. I see connection with daily life and nature like cricket and thunder. I see abstract ideas and living things like bumblebee and heaven. THese connection highlight and create an image inside reader's mind and give them a more vivid feeling of the poem. Readers can “see” how the flying bee a on the hill create a wonderful painting that seem to be paradise.

By reading the poem out loud I found out that there are a lot of rhyme such as bee, see, and sea. Also the sentence structure repeat in the first and second sentences which gives readers a joyful feeling that how wonderful the nature is. By using our imagination, we can see a beautiful painting like heaven, or a dulcet song. However, this joyful tone ended at the last sentence which change the float of the poem from joyful to regrettable. The poet said that all the thing we see and hear are limited by what we know. She gives the reader a question that does we really understand nature? Is nature really simple or because we can’t understand it only by using the knowledge we have. How should we look at nature?  By forming a contrast from the first and second sentences, which emphasized the question at last sentences that can people really understand nature because people are only interpreted nature from their own perspective.

Practive question

After a hundred years

Nobody knows the place,--

Agony, that enacted there,

Motionless as peace.

Weeds triumphant ranged,

Strangers strolled and spelled

At the lone orthography

Of the elder dead.

Winds of summer fields

Recollect the way,--

Instinct picking up the key

Dropped by memory.

The poem “ After a Hundred years” has three stanzas, three sentences, and 12 lines. I think the tone of the poem is sorrowful, because of the words poet use like agony, dead, and weeds. It is a poem about things that happened before and how it changed after a hundred years. I like the way how the poet using personification to describe an abstract thing. For example, the line that said “Dropped by memory” gives me a feeling that memory is a person who is forgetful, because as time past he gradually disappeared. Nonetheless, the tone of the last stanza is a little bit erent than the others; it talk about the present days and it is the part which give readers an ambiguous feeling. Therefore, I think there are several ways to understand the poem from different perspectives.  

First, I think the poem can be understand as how people treated things that happened before. As years past, people start to forget things happened before. Although theses may be painful and full of sadness to them, but time is like an eraser which expunge the feeling. People forget and move on to accept their new lives. However, the old memories they had would covered with grass which can be seen as things happened afterwards which driven people’s attention and let them forget about the old memories. New memories come and occur when the elder are dying lonely which is being forget. The winds of summer field can be interpreted as related things that trigger the old memories people had and let them realize what has happened in the past.

Second, I think the poem can be understand as the repetition of the history. For example, the war has happened before in this place which brought sorrow to people. However, as the time past weeds covered the ruins of war and the place is taken by the new people who know nothing about the war that happened before while the elders who know about the war are dying lonely. As the time goes on, people all forget the war happened before which brings them tons of sorrow, and they formed another war again. I think that’s why history is an important subject for people to learn and remember, so people won’t repeat their mistakes again and again.

Lastly, this poem remind me of an ancient Chinese poem I had read a long time before, which is talking about the spirit people has and metaphor it as the grass. It says that although the grass can be burned, but when the wind of spring blow by it will grow again. In that case, this poem can also be understand as people can hardly forget something. Although they may gradually desalt the feeling of it. But when at a specific time or place, such as revisit the old place the memories will be trigger.

To sum up, I think this poem can be understand from many different perspectives which is the question the poet leave to readers and want them to think about.

The Dog!

Fantastic Staging

Although it take us hours and hours to travel from cheshire to Broadway, I think the play totally worth it. It is my first time watching a play in Broadway, and my eyes are attracted by the tecnologic stage instantly. Inside the building the decoration are ancient and gorgeous which form a contrast with the stage which is plain and empty. However, as the play the start it suddenly transform a modern sense to the audiences with the dazzling light effects. Although there are not many props and settings on the stages beside the little cubes on the side, quick and glaring background changes formed by only moving these little cubes. The things that interests me most is the trap in the play. The stage is formed by hundreds of cubes and most of them can be moved and opened. Actors can go off stages and get the props they want by simply moving the cubes. And the cubes can be formed into different shape to fit the requirements for the scenes. For example, for the scene in the train station the cube open up and form a pathway for the train. These daring stage design open up a new door for me. That is what kind of play I want to create the combination of technology and acting. By using the projector and moving the cubes to form different scenes and giving audiences an intense impact by the help of sound effects which result in some pain to my ears. My favorite part of the play is when the boy lay on the ground and the train put on the ground start to move around him and massive numbers appearing and disappearing on the background showing audience how the boy is feeling right now which is a visual feast to me. To sum up, I got a lot of inspirations from the play and I hope I can create my own play with that kind of techniques. Another goal is added to my list and I LOVE THIS PLAY!

Blog Post

1）There is a nostalgic feeling in the poem. We can see that from how the poet's father always talk about the fig tree and how fig tree remind him about his hometown. For example, from the quote:"At age six I ate a dried fig and shrugged. 
"That's not what I'm talking about! he said,
"I'm talking about a fig straight from the earth – 
gift of Allah! -- on a branch so heavy 
it touches the ground. 

2) culture pride, there is also always a proud of their Arabic culture. In the poem poet heritage this proud from his father from the stories he told her. Quote:"It was never too strong for us:

make it blacker, Papa,

3). Missing grandma. The poems also shows how the poet miss her grandmother, she think that she can connect with her from the stars in the sky and they can share memories together. Quote:

Where we live in the world

is never one place. Our hearts,

those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us

moons before we are ready for them.

layout

staging

Staging Proposal for Whale Hunter

In my opinion, one of main point in the book the whale rider is the unequal rights that women have which is a conflict between the modern world with the old tradition. In order to highlight these two points, I want to show the story from two different perspective. First perspective is from Kahu, she will act out her story about how she develop such a deep love to her grandpa Koro, and she wishes she can help him with his goal of leading the Maori people. Second perspective is from Koro, He will act his transformation from how disappointed feel about the birth of Kahu because she is a girl to he accept her and choose her as the new leader of the tribe after he saw her riding the whale. In that case, audience can experience the conflict between the modern thoughts with the old tradition.

In my play, Kahu represent the modern thoughts. She learn them from her grandma Nanny flower that women can do what men can do. She also influenced by her uncle Rawiri who has known a lot about the world outside the tribe. Koro represent the old tradition parts in my play. He believe that only man can be the leader, so he ignored her grandchild Kahu who love him and trying her best to help him. The play will focus on mainly how the relationship change between Kahu and Koro, and other characters are less important, because they are only used to explain or carry forward the story.  The whale in my play share the same role as the butterfly in the story of My love My Love which is only a guidance for Kahu. It will teach Kahu the tradition and the culture and help her to prove to Koro that she is the leader he’s waiting for.

The sound effects and the lightings should be the most important part for staging my play. In order to differ the two perspectives I have, There should be different music playing when Kahu or Koro is acting. For Kahu, the music should be modern and active which shows her personalities that she is a girl with modern thoughts and firm spirit. For Koro, the music should be constrain and solemn which shows how strictly he follows the tradition and the limits it brings to him. In the end, when Koro finally accept Kahu the music will be a combination of both become peaceful and joyful showing that the tradition adapt the modern ideas. For the lightings Kahu’s also should differ with Koro’s. Koro’s background light should be darker than Kahu’s showing that how depressed the old tradition is. And when the whale appear to guide Kahu the light should be smooth and has a light blue color like the shallow water under the sunshine. I can use the digital camera to project the image of the whale on the background to give audience a magical feelings. Lastly, for the costume all the characters except Kahu should wear traditional Maori clothes to perform the differ between tradition and modern. That is how I am going to stage the play and I think it is going to entertaining and fun! I hope I have the chance to turn it from an idea to practice in the future. : )