picture poems

In this assignment we read some more poems but these poems were accompanied by a picture they were describing. One poem i found particularly interesting was the "Van Gogh's Bed" Mainly because it was a short poem but secondly because i have never seen a poem done in this style. If you read it, you notice that befor each stanza you have to place "Van Gogh's Bed" In front of it for it to make sense.

"Is Orange
like Cinderellas coach, like
the sun when he looked it
straight in the eye"
If you dont place the title in front of it you havent got a clue as to what the author is describing as Orange or like Cinderellas Coach.

"Is narrow
he slepft, tossing
between two pillows, while it carried him
bumbpily along"

which is thr second stanza. As you can see placing the Title at the begining of each is the only way to know how it relates to the story. The poem main thing is that it ise describing this bedroom which aparently is Van Gogh's

The second poem i liked was "The Great Figure" because it shows you his first draft of the poem and the final draft, and it kind of shows yous how something you start off with NEVER ends how you expected it too, his first draft is a little more desribtive and more wordy but the final is short and to the point. If you look at the picture you see there is a GIANT number 5 but it gets smaller as it goes back, which in my mind says "Its actully very small but the reason they make the third and final one so big is to put your mind onto the fact that this poem is about the number 5..." while not so Brilliant that even a 2 year old would get that message, i just thought it nice to give that few as well...

The "Mourning picture" which is the final poem in the set we were given to read only attracts me because i recognize the picture but from where i do not know. i feel like i have seen this picture before, and the poem does an excellent job of portraying the picture on the service and what is expressed underneath the meanings of the differnt objects and people in the picture

America has got the blues

In this Assignment we read "Americas got the Blues" the introduction gave a brief history summerization of how Blues came to be. It also says how when the blues became popular many "White folk" tried to do the blues but failed at it so they would put the word blues in the title of their song or band name or on a special occasion have a Blues Song. The introduction also talked about key figures of bringing blues out in to the open like W.C Handy who wrote "Memphis Blues" and "St Louis Blues"


After the introduction it lists some very famious poems or blues lyrics. It gives a brief life history of each of the authers then shows you one of the Poems that they are famious for.

"Blue" the Poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, very crude yet in its simple way more telling than all the other poems. Its writing style while hard to understand, once you grasp what he is saying is actully very good.

"Standin at de winder Feeling kind o glum listen to de raindrops play de kettle drum lookin crost de medders swimming lak a sea lawd a mussy on us whats de good o me? cant go out a hoein wouldnt ef i could goun to wet fu hunting fishing aint no good too much noise fo sleeping non one hyeah to chat des mus stan and listen to dat pit-a-pat Hills is gitting misty valleys gittin Dahk watch-dogs menance a holwin athah have em ba;k"

As you can see with what i have written down in what is said in the poem the style is very crude, yet the story is telling. In his descriptions all he talks about is how there is nothing to do, and even if he wanted to he cant go outside cause even the weather is against him. in his poem life is just one big storm against him. He cant tend to his crops, he cant hunt and he cant fish so he cannot provide for himself or his family. "lawd a mussy on us" = god have mercy us. Aparently even god is not on his side. All in all its a very sad story of an uneducated man who lives off of a land that doesnt want to provide for him.

St. Louis Blues is a different sort of style in comparison to "Blue" It is very articulate and very straight forward about why the person has the blues, the person is down and sad because the person they love has been stolen away from them "St. Louis woman with her diamond ring pulls that man around by her If it wasnt for her and her that man i love would have gone no where no where." That kind of gives you the hint.

Something I have noticed about Blues Poems and Blues songs is they very much like to repeat the first sentence in most of their Stanza's.

Squiggles got the blues

in this assingment we had to choose a quote from the blues section in our Text book. The following quotes is the one i choose and the following reasons are why i choose it.

“The blues is not the creation of a crushed spirited people. It is the product of a forward looking, upward striving people.”
~ Albert Murray

The reason I choose this quote to analyze and talk about is that, its quiet different from most other quotes I had to choose from, because the quotes are either about how these people were crushed, or how they are striving to become free spirited. With this quote he is saying “This isnt made by those with no spirit, but with those who have a strong spirit” Blues is always assosicated with a slow paced mournful tone. But when you listen it isnt always that. It is inspiring, it gets down right into your soul and makes you feel good. I choose the quote because, it says without saying it “The blues, hit your soul, breaking you free and making you feel good”

Back when African-Americans were slaves they didn’t sing the blues because they felt they had no hope, they sang the blues because they knew “there will come our time to shine and be free” they sang the blues because it made them feel good and it gave them hope, as Albert Murray says “it is the product of a forward looking upward striving people” they never thought this was all they would get, they knew that if now wasn’t their time, it would be their childrens time, or their childrens children.

The blues brings hope, and with it it brings the people who sing it.

All about Squiggles

Hello everyone.
I Am Robert and I am in English 112 at NOVA.
hmm, something interesting about me? well I was born in Germany and when i was 6 weeks old my family moved to England where i lived until i was 15 years old. Then I moved to Norther Virgina, and went to oakton highschool for 3 and a half years.

What do I want to get out of this class? well I generally expect from all English classes something of use, broaden my reading abilities and my vocabulary, I like English its my second favourite subject. Theatre being my first favourite. I plan on Majoring in theatre and becoming a stage actor, ok well i hope I can become a Stage actoy

My major goals for this blog, well I didnt expect I would have to make a blog for an English class but HEY im here so I might as well, it could be fun. Well I expect that using this blog i will be able to get alot of awesome, maybe some bad, pointers on my writing, which in the end will help me do good on my papers for the English Class

Ok well that was my introduction to squiggles :)