Patterns

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.


Poems used: Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson and My grandmother in the stars by Naomi Shihab Nye

Intro: basic information about two poets
Patterns are used to explain and describe the theme of a poem that Emily Dickinson used metaphor to explain hope while Naomi Shihab used memories to describe her love to her grandmother.

What both poems has?

Hope is the thing with feathers: 
Structure: 3 stanza, 4 lines each, rhyme, dashes + pacing
Content: the mood of each stanza
How does the bird showed hope?

My grandmother in the stars:
Structure + pacing
Content: the mood
Why does Naomi use memories? what does she wanted to show through this pattern that she wanted to show

Conclusion, what else can patterns highlighted

Practice exam 2

“Poets often withhold certitude, which can at the same time empower readers to think creatively.” Consider a poem you have studied in which ambiguity has enabled readers to reach their own conclusions about meaning and implications. Explain.

Poets don’t often explain every single line in the poems usually that it can give people more different impression to understand the poems. For example, in Emily Dickinson’s poem “ ‘hope’ is the thing with feathers- ”, she gave a very ambiguous explanation of the hope she understood. The poem has 3 stanzas and each one has 4 lines. I would like to split those 3 stanzas in to 2 sentences, from “Hope” to “That kept so many warm” and “I’ve heard it” to “It asked a crumb of me”. This is a beautiful described and has a lively tone that it compares hope to feathers. Also, the happy tone can be seen in this line: “and sweetest – in the Gale – is heard- ”. Emily showed that hope is sweet and she was eager for it from this line. However, there are two part of it that can be seen differently.

The first line that can be seen differently is “and never stops –at all”. This is the forth line in the first stanza. In my perspective, there can be two ways to understand this line; one is positive and one is despair. For the positive one, t showed that hope is fast coming and always being lively or happy with the never stopping songs. It showed that people are always having hope and always being positive through this line. However, it can also mean that people do want hope to come but it never stopped to being generous to give anybody hope. From the phrase, “at all”, I feel that the poem was desperate that she knew hope was so beautiful and she was truly eager with hope, but life never being generous to give her hope.

The second part that the poet withheld certitude was the last stanza. From the first perspective, she was saying that life never asked anything for return when it gave her hope. It showed from this line “yet – never – in extremity, it asked a crumb - of me.” These 2 lines meant hope didn’t ask anything in return even though the bird, that represent hope in this poem, already gave too much and being hungry to need something back. This is the positive side that it showed how kind hope was that the poet’s life was always full of hope. Nevertheless, I also read a despair perspective from the last stanza. From the first two lines in the last stanza, “I’ve heard it in the chilliest land – and on the strangest sea”, it showed that hope was far away from where people lived and the bird that represent hope didn’t live well. From these two lines, it showed that hope didn’t live well. Otherwise, there’s a second meaning in the last two lines, “yet – never – in extremity, it asked a crumb - of me.” Not asking a crumb of anybody in the lines also meant that hope has never given to anybody no mater how despair or how bad the condition that they were in. Overall, the poets always withhold certitudes that can give different people with different experience different impression of ones’ poems, so that I can understand a lot through those poems.

Nature is what we see

“Nature" is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse— the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.

Structure: In the poem “Nature is what we see”, there are 12 lines and only one stanza. According to the grammar, there should only be one sentences but I would like to split the poem into 3 parts. They separate by “Nay- nature is…..” It’s because it showed the three different describes of nature. The rhyme of this poem is ABACDAEAFGHA with the sound of “ee”. Also, Nature is emphasized in the poem that including Nay and Nature, there are 7 “natures” in the whole poem. The sentences are connected by similar sentence structures for example “nature is what we hear”, “nature is what we know” and “nay- nature is heaven”, “Nay- nature is harmony”.  The tone is like a appreciation to the simplicity and being thankful to the nature.

Content: I feel like one thing that the poem is saying is the poet’s desire to nature that she’s saying nature is a heaven and harmony. It means that she felt the nature is wonderful that each part of it, even thunder, are made by nature and it’s beautiful and clever. Thus, she’s looking forward to be free and go into the nature that the world made.

The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime – a fantastic show

This Wednesday, I went to see the play, The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, at Broadway. It was a fantastic show that all the lights, sounds and the emotions that actors controlled were great. Even I was far away from the stage, I can feel each small details in characters’ emotion. This play told a story of an autistic little boy’s journey to find his mom and get his life into his real route. It was hard for an autistic boy to do many things, but, finally, people found that he was able to do everything that he wanted through his hard work. Thus, I also found it encourage me to do something that I was afraid to do.

The character I liked the most was Christopher. Even though I cannot understand his way of thinking, I still see his firm and brave spirit through his weird and week expression. If I were he, I can never go to find my mom in London so easy. It might because of his easy way to think that make him not afraid, but I was jealous that he could do things that I was afraid to do so. He wasn’t a wonderful person, but at least he told me that there’s something that I needed to be brave to break or to do.

For my first impression of this play, I found the background was too simple that was even worse than our school black box theatre. However, I knew that I was wrong after a few minutes. I saw the changing background with those simple little spots and strange light effect. I feel like I got into the show and feel the strange way of thinking as the main character did as well. I also understood him, through that easy way of thinking. Watching the show was like giving me an impression of autistic children’s world!

Overall, this is a fantastic show as I have said in the title. I wish I can always go to Broadway to see something like this!

3 themes

1. The first theme that I read through the poems is missing hometown. From my father and the Fig tree, the fig tree is the symbol of her hometown because it’s the tree that they planted when they were at home. Since they didn’t have fig trees in America, they weren’t happy; they weren’t planting one more tree since the poet is not in her hometown as well. The quote can be, “‘Plant one!’ my mother said. But my father never did.”
 2. The second theme that I read through the poems is the poet connection with her father. From the poem, she loved her father very much so she remembered those details of her father’s lives and she liked to talk about the fig tree and all other things with her father. Also, they are having close connections that they always shared each other's ideas. The quote is, “In the evening he sat by my bed weaving folktales like vivid little scarves.”
 3. The third theme that I read through the poems is the poet’s love to her grandmother. From my grandmother in the stars, she showed that even they weren’t together, the poet missed her grandmother so much and their hearts were always tight. The quote is, “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.”

Stage diorama - My drawing is the worst!!!!

The part that I want to stage is when Kahu give a speech about Koro in school’s performance. This part showed the process that Kahu felt despair. As the sketch has shown there, Kahu’s at upstage in middle while the audiences are at downstage around her. The middle seat among the audiences should be empty to show that Koro wouldn’t come. The audiences are all in suits or dresses while Kahu’s in a traditional Maori dress as the performance needed to be. There should be a tatto thing on her face. When her speech starts, she should often look back to see if Koro comes. When she notices that he hasn’t come, she would start to cry and continueing the speech. Nanny flower, at backstage, should become kind of angry then.

The Whale Rider, Once from that tribe

The Whale Rider, written by Witi Ihimaera, tells a story of a little girl who’s been hated by her grandfather but finally been recognized by him and became the leader of the tribe. The story was fill by myths, struggles, admiration and whales. This is a beautiful story even though the 3rd person perspective seems kind of confusing. If I want to perform the Whale Rider or transform the story to a play, there will be lots of things for me to do. Firstly, the characters that I would highlight are Kahu, Nanny Flower, Koro and Rawiri. Those four characters are already important roles and structured the whole story of the novel so that I wouldn’t abandon them. However, I wanted to highlight another figure, who is Kahu’s dad. Porourangi, Kahu’s father, wasn’t so important in the novel. However, I feel like it’s his ignore, somehow, that made Kahu eager to Koro’s love since he was the only male who can take place of the role of a father. Since Porourangi wasn’t that close to Kahu and he wasn’t always at home due to the new family he had, Kahu can only insist on absorbing love from Koro, even if he doesn’t love her due to her gender at all. Thus, I wanted to show Porourangi’s ignorance through the play version of the same story. Besides the characters that I want to highlight, the figure of the whales is also important in this story. In the stage, since it’s impossible to have to whales, I would decide to let two people with some whale models to show the existence of the whales and the two people who hold them would speak as the whales. They really need to speak out because I also wanted to highlight the story of the whales in the original version. It, thus, might show the reason that Koro insist on finding the leader so much. For the costumes, I would make them to wear like some peasants usually and wear in formal sometimes. For example, actors should wear in formal when Kahu is going to give a speech about their tribe and leaders at school. There should be a projection of the view of sea when Kahu rides on the whale and there should be sound effect as the sea as well. Then, for lighting, since the whales are dying at night, it should be a little bit dark and weird. I want to highlight the scene when Kahu gives a speech. Thus, she should be in upstage and stage middle while the others who listened to her speech is at stage left and right and downstage around her. The seat of grandpa should right be in the middle so that everyone can see that it’s empty. I thought the audiences would also be worried when they stare at the seat but nobody has come. Lastly, if I were to transform The Whale Rider into a theatre version, I wish I could do it well. I wish I can show the struggles between and showed each figure’s emotion through the theatre version.