Narrative POem Research

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed. 





This is a beautiful and touching poem by Billy Collins, one of the most famous poets in history. This poem examines the feeling of a little ten year old looking back with bitter remorse at his life before his age turned into a double digit. Before he turned ten, the world to him, is a bizarre and interesting place. He could one day be a wizard, another day be the prince...Yet as age did not have mercy on him and he grew up. Now,he is neither the wizard nor the prince, he, is only himself. The world is neither a battleground nor a palace, the world is just the few roads in front of his house. It seemed as if as the narrator grew up, the amusement and imagination of the world faded at his age of TEN. The last part of the poem was especially powerful as the narrator spoke " It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed." These few lines especially signifies how hard it is for a child to grow up and become practical. The lines don't just represent a physical occurrence, but also a mental occurrence. As a child you believe you can accomplish anything. IT seemed like just having a dream is enough. Yet now, as a child grows up, reality hits him square and flat. He fell to the ground, and bled the crimson blood of red despair. 
This poem is a relatively short narrative compared to the historical ones such as the " canterbury tales" and " The Devine Comedy". The story wasn't very long, neither is it a fiction like story, yet it is a narrative alright. This poem is a free-verse narrative so there isn't much of a rhyme scheme to look into. Again, since it is a free-verse narrative, there isn't much meter either. The oversell style of the writer is informal, childlike, remorse. I don't think there is a lot of imagery in this poem either, because it is mainly a description of the poet's feelings. The last stanza, however, may be an example. I could picture the boy when he fell upon the sidewalk and bled instead of shedding light. I think that can be a pretty powerful image. The metaphors are abundant in this poem. There is one when the narrator mentioned himself to be an Arabian wizard at four, a soldier at seven, and a prince at nine. The next stanza, the narrator mentioned that light " fell solemnly" against his tree house and his bike " leaned" against the garage. I think the poem is great the way it is with sufficient use of all the poetic elements. It represented the view of a remorseful ten year old boy saying goodbye to his imagination and hello to reality where you bleed when you fall. Too much of any poetic elements will not contribute to the mood the poet has created. I thought this was an excellent poem. 

Seven Ages of Man Extended Metaphor

Life is a candle,
starting out with a a tiny flare of,
orange
That turned red,
then blue
And near the end,
sprinkle the last spark of bursting crimson before
fading into
Nothing.
Ashes.

In my interpretation of an extended metaphor for life, The whole poem is basically an extended metaphor of the first sentence " Life is a candle" as it develops a comparison oversell several lines of writing. IN this poem, I opened with the line, " Life is a candle" then extended the metaphor to compare the stages of lives to the color of the candles as it progressed. You start out as an infant with only a tiny flare of orange light. This is the stage when life was new and faint in one's body. Then the light of the candle turned red as we mature and the spark of life shined brighter and brighter until we eventually reached blue, the maximum capacity of brightness. In the end before our death, our dwindling light may suddenly relit before fading into nothing but ashes. I compared life to candles in general because we all started out as nothing but a faint glow in the darkness, and as we mature, the light became brighter and brighter. Finally near death, our faded light may lit up again with the last strength in its body before momentally dying.
Just in case my candle metaphor was not entirely correct, I'll supply another example. Life is like a book. You start out with the first chapter then gradually progress your way until you finally finish the book. There are times when you can predict what you'll see and others when you simply will have to be surprised.

The Seven Ages of Man Quickwrite

I personally thought life has no stage. Life, is not to be scripted. Life by itself is, almost, a living, and breathing soul with its own sorts of mind. However, the point of this assignment is for us to second-guess Shakespeare's 7 stages of life predicament, and so that is what I will have to do. I predict the first stage to be of the babyhood. The stage when a child cries and have no sort of pride of any kind. The stage when a child's mother is their world and their only. The second stage, I predict, is childhood. The time when a child learned to stand on his or her feet and make friends. The third stage, I predict, is adolescence. This is the stage when the body and mind of a child develops into one of an adult. Many fell in love at this stage. This is also a time of great imprudence as the hormones within each teenager rules his or her action. The forth stage should be early adulthood when people stepped into society as a fresh, new human being in charge of his or her own life. Some fell in love in this stage, in college, and get married and start a family with a huge dream and a life ahead of them. The fifth stage is middle-aged man stage. This is when family and work became the center of each man's life. This is the life when the parents themselves have to take care of new characters that come into their plays as fresh human beings. The sixth stage is when a man or woman reaches his or her 60s. This is a stage of great peace as he or her rest from years of weary and fatigue. This is also the time when most gets to take a rest and do the things they weren't able to do in their previous stages of life. The seventh stage, lastly, is also the last and men reaches this stage in different years. Some for the rest of their life, and some for a very brief moment. This stage is when men finally loose all senses and almost all possessions save their breath and becomes as needy as an infant. Only this time, instead of learning to stand up, they are learning to lie down.
This, is the play of men I believe Shakespeare had in mind.

Make the Connection pg. 511( Disrespect??)

If I were to write down a mood such as grief, I might use the following metaphors:
Ambition is a hungry lion, swallowing everything in its path.
Loneliness is the white moon alone in the night sky.
Selfishness is the shadow that engulfs the light.
Anger is a destructive wind that trampled everything in its path.

Branded / Disrespect? pg. 512

I oftentimes felt disrespected and treated less than the person I knew I was. I still do today sometimes. Once I attended a cram school and one boy was always praised for his works and grades. While he is a good student, my grades rivaled his yet nobody seemed to acknowledge that. They thought he was the model student and that I, was simply another wannabe. They thought that he was the best at everything, and when our group gets a good grade in presentations, people thought it was all due to his benefits when I, in fact, contributed more by writing the speeches, creating new ideas, and pointing out the general directions. That was a time when I felt disrespected and overlooked. People thought I relied on him for good grades, and that was huge disrespect to me. There was also another time when I joined a newspaper club and there was a girl who thought I was stupid and clumsy. She was not a very good writer and her teammates often tease her about that. Seeing that I am a new comer and seemed to have mistook some general instructions that was given to me, she found herself more superior than I am. From then on, whenever somebody gave me an instruction, she would translate mindlessly in that superficial language of hers. To me , that was bold effrontery. The insults were a declaration of war. Nobody gets to treat me any lesser than I am, and she, is not about to become the first. I vowed silently to myself to seek revenge one day, to throw everything back into her dark freckled face. Within a few weeks, my writing improved and received praise from the leader. She no longer offered those " translations" . Now, I realized she may have just been trying to be nice, or perhaps, she felt sympathetic to myself. Yet for me at that time, her bold gestures were offensive and discriminating. I thought and spoke lowly of her, and made my friends think the same. In general, I hate to be treated lesser than what I am. When that situation happens, I will fight back with all my will. Nobody can trample on my pride. Nobody can.

Imagery you see in " A Blessing"

The power of " A Blessing" comes from Mr. James Wright's master in imagery. I will go ahead and describe to you all there is to it throughout the poem. First of all, the author used imagery to inform us that they are off the  highway in Rochester, Minnesota. I don't personally really consider this imagery since it's more of feeding off information than using language that appeals to our senses, but just to be not he safe side, I decided to include that as well. We also knew it was night time because of the next imagery" Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass" . In our mental eye, we can see how little faint bits of lights ran or leaped in strides . The next imagery describes the eyes of the indian ponies: " And the eyes of the Indian ponies darken with kindness." From here we can see that the eyes of the ponies are dark black, another imagery. We also see the author and his friend stepped over the barbed wire and see the excited ponies on the grassland they had been grazing all day along. That, I think, is another piece of imagery. The part about the excited ponies especially. I could also see the ponies chew on the young turfs of spring and the female pony that is black and white and had her manes fall wild on her forehead. That is the strongest point of imagery throughout the entire poem. I can literally see the beautiful pony. I can also feel the  light breeze the author used imagery to decide and feel the delicate skin of the pony like a girl's wrist. This is also a great piece of imagery. I think this whole poem is composed of imagery starting practically from the very beginning. I saw how it was night, how the beautiful ponies reacted to them, where they lived, and how they felt like. This, is a wonderful example of imagery. I believe we can learn a lot from Mr. James Wright. Another imagery I forgot to mention was how they bow shyly like wet swans. In my mindful eye, I can really see the way they bowed to each other lovingly. 

Now, I will give a brief summary of this poem. Just off the highway of Rochester, Minnesota as the night twilight leaped in strides among the grass, the eyes of the two indian ponies seemed to lighten with kindness. The author and his friend went over the wire to where the ponies had been all day along as the ponies rippled excitedly as their arrival. They bowed to each other in a manful way and the author could really see that they loved each other and their loneliness wasn't actually too bad since they have each other. Once they were at home again, they began grazing on the grass again. The author had an urge to hold the slender pony in his arms because she had walked over to him and nuzzled his hand. The author saw she was a black and white pony with her mane falling wild on her forehead . The light breeze gave the author a sudden urge to touch its ears and found them to be as delicate as a girl's wrist. It was then when the author realized that if he were to step out of his body, he would brea into blossoms.

In the last paragraph I feel there is a need for me to explain my imageries. I wasn't sure about which parts of the poem qualified as imagery because it seemed like all parts of it contributed to paint a picture in my head and appealed to my senses. Here I will give a few main imageries just to be safe: 1) Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass- creating an image of night time 2) The eyes of two indian ponies their eyes darken with kindness- creating an image of dark eyed kind ponies. 3) They bow shyly like swans- conveyed the image of the way they bowed lovingly to each other, 4) She is black and white, her mane falls wild on her forehead and ....wrist- Conveys how the slender pony looks and feels like. 

Turning Point

As we humans straddled innocently through the roads of a yellow green forest called Life, a fork would often times skid our giddy footsteps to a halt. We and Robert Frost seemed to agree that we can not travel two paths and still be one traveler, there has bound to be a point where we had to make choices. These choices, big or small, mark different turning points of one's life. I too, had strayed among the roads of the yellow green forest and too, stopped in front of a fork, and pondered harder than I ever did, of my options. These decisions often mark turning points in my life, and in this post, I will present to you a choice I made that marked a turning point in my life. When I was in forth grade, I entered an impromptu writing competition. Despite the fact that I was remembered  as the girl who loved to read and write, I wasn't exactly the ideal choice for the competition. My writing has immense spelling issues and that, is a true disadvantage to my writing. I almost got cold feet and bailed out at that time but my mom encouraged me to just give it a shot anyway. I ended up winning the competition , and even till the present day,  was still much of a shock . If this turning point had never happened, if I had never attended the competition, my insecurity in writing will always hinder me from ever expressing my thoughts in paper. I would perhaps turn to other areas to peruse an interest and express myself. Perhaps I would develop an outspoken voice to say the things on my mind instead of writing them as I do today. Perhaps I will turn out to be a speaker after all.

Self-Sacrifice

 Though it never ended in blood and tears, I decided I had enough of these kind of decisions alright. When I was a little private school girl in elementary school, fate bestowed an unkindly finger upon me. That day, I was given a choice of great ambivalence. For those whose elementary school experience has been nothing but a distant memory, you may find it very hard to relate. The little girls were divided up into tiny subunits and mini-societies where each group was very much well-aware of the other's enmity and existence. I, sadly, belonged to no group. Being the new girl sure does have its cons, I had to transfer into a school where I knew no one, and no one had an interest of knowing me. Fortunately, I was not alone. There was another girl who faced similar situations one month ago, and hadn't since then, found a best friend. Immediately she took me under her wing so I never had to stray from group to group bagging for a lab partner. There was one day when lightening stroke upon a girl from one group and she asked me to join them for lunch. You'd have to realize that in elementary school there is no " casual conversation". Each word was chosen with well meaning and each action was done with discretion. What she had asked me, in elementary schoolgirl language was, " Hey, you seemed lonely. Want to ditch your friend and join our group?" I remembered standing there very much bewildered. Despite the fact that I had a best friend to stick with, a large part of me still wanted to be in the main crowd and now that part of me seemed to be exploding. Joining the group would be extremely to my benefit, but what of my friend? I remembered thinking quietly to myself. In the end, I remembered my timid self remaining silence for so long that the girl simply walked away. That was my way of saying no, and as I see her prideful gate, I was more and more certain of my decision. I was glad that I chose a friend over popularity. I was proud of myself for making such a choice as well. I think, no matter how hard it is, one should always choose a person over his or her own benefits. Of course, this is much more easily said than done.