Rebecca+Fenton

=//"Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you-like music to the musician or Marxism to the Communist-or else it is nothing..."//=

__//The Rain://__ //I love the sound of rain falling at night,// //so peaceful and calm helps me to sleep well,// //lay down in bed so still so dark not bright,// //thinking about what tomorrow will tell,// //no tossing no turning just peace of mind,// //can't ever sleep but not with pouring rain,// //tip-tap so sleek so light so sad so kind,// //everything seems better today no pain,// //I drift I breath I'm calm listen softly,// //as this is the only time to sleep in peace,// //I want to run to dance to be playfully,// //I run my fingers on the bed the crease,// //I hope for rain always washing the world,// //I lay so warm magic feeling so curled.//

**The technique used in this poem is ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG. The rain inspired me to write this poem because ever since I was little the rain helped me sleep and it calmed me down. My mom would love when it would rain because I wouldn’t cry or make any noise. I used onomonopia because it’s needed in this poem to make it come alive. “tip-tap so sleep so light so sad so kind.” Just by reading that line it tells the reader that the rain is peaceful and soothing. This not only makes it a poem but now it reaches out and touches you by the sound illuminating from the outside world. The last two lines I wanted to make dramatic so it would be a closing sentence and it would end very well.

__//Raised by my Mother//__

//I was raised by good nutrition,// //never eating anything bad,// //nap time and video games,// //snacks and a pet dog//

//Little kid shows,// //Clifford the Big Red dog,// //Elmo,// //Sesame Street,// //Barney//

//Almost never babysat,// //playing with my neighbors,// //bundled up in the wintertime,// //drinking warmth when I was cold//

//Birthdays and Christmases never fail,// //believed in Santa 'till I was 12,// //Left cookies for Santa// //candy for his reindeer//

//raised by a woman with no help from anyone else,// //battled the struggle for money,// //i was raised by non-stop effort,// //i was raised by never giving up,// //i was raised by love and caring//

//Falling and getting comforted for an hour,// //Singing and bedtime stories every single night,// //I was raised by someone determined,// //I was raised by someone that I love.//

**My technique for this poem was 6 stanzas and first-6 stanza was 4, 5, 4, 4, 5, 5 lines. I reused the line “I was raised to add dramatic effect to my writing and get the point across that I was being raised. I wanted it to have a cheerful upbeat tone to it so I used happy words/ phrases such as, “never giving up, caring, comforted, Santa, etc.” “Drinking warmth when I was cold.” I put this line in there because I thought it’d be very visual and make you feel like you were little. While writing this line I thought of being cold on a winters day while it was snowing, your mom making you and your friends hot chocolate after you were finished playing in the snow and sledding. Feeling that warm feeling in your tummy after drinking hot chocolate. My mom raising me basically by herself was what inspired me for this poem. I really wanted to get my point across about how much she did for me.

__//Ode to the Soldiers//__

//Of who I admire,// //risking your lives for the better of the country.// //Big guns,// //heavy armor, strong faces and bodies,// //you don't scare me I know you're soft on the inside//

//Like a teddy bear,// //you have a family at home.// //You have children, people care about you.// //You're not just a fighting machine you're a person.//

//A person with strength and fear and sorrows,// //you hold it back you need to be strong// //for your men, gotta come along.//

//Don't be afraid for the end is near.// //This war can't last forever// //so stay strong keep fighting.// //This isn't forever, almost ending.//

**For this poem I really wanted to make it dramatic and with the poems that I picked from poets.org I notices that when a poem is dramatic it very often does not rhyme. This is why this poem doesn’t rhyme. Also, there are lots of line breaks. This isn’t for any other reason than to make my pauses as if I was pausing while I read and whatnot. This is more so if it’s being preformed that you pause as if you’re thinking about what you should say next. “Like a teddy bear.” I used this simile to compare the soldiers to teddy bears when I am talking about how their family is at home missing them. I wanted to get my point across that they’re just average people and that they are fighting for the country but when it comes to them coming home with their family they’re just as innocent as everyone else. What inspired me to write this poem is when I was watching illuminate videos with my family because it talked a lot about war and a lot about how people from Iraqu may or may not have bombed our buildings. I thought that I’d write this poem about both USA soldiers and Iraque soldiers.

// (Poem of Choice) Wonders // // Day by day she waits in fear, // // worrying about the end, she thinks it’s near. //

// She wonders if the twisted games will end, // // it never happened, she will pretend. //

// She comes home to the same abuse night by night, // // wondering if she’ll soon see the white light. //

// In the back of her mind she hopes for it, // // hopes she can be put out of this hell he spits. //

// People ask about her drastic bruises and bumps, // // she just smiles, says it’s okay and holds back the lump, //

// the lump in her throat that indicates she’s weak, // // she’s afraid of the consequences if the truth is to be speak. //

// So she goes home to her father once more, // // to finally see what’s in store. // // This time she decides to put up a fight, // // she is sleeping with jesus tonight. //

**Though I’ve seen in other poems that making them rhyme is more of a cheerful and upbeat tone, I decided to make this one rhyme even though it’s really dramatic and kind of sad and serious. I decided to make this poem SOUND happy and dandy because in this poem the main “character” is hiding the fact that she is getting hit from her peers and people at school and “people ask about her bruises and bumps.” I chose to make it happy to indicate that looks may be deceiving because also mentioned in this poem is that she swallows the lump in her throat, she is hiding a lot from people. What inspired me to write this poem is that I have a friend who used to get abused and she treated it just the same, just brushed it off and didn’t tell anyone. She acted as if everything was happy and dandy.

__//Retreating Wind//__

// When I made you, I loved you. // // Now I pity you. //

// I gave you all you needed: // // bed of earth, blanket of blue air-- //

// As I get further away from you // // I see you more clearly. // // Your souls should have been immense by now, // // not what they are, // // small talking things-- //

// I gave you every gift, // // blue of the spring morning, // // time you didn't know how to use-- // // you wanted more, the one gift // // reserved for another creation. //

// Whatever you hoped, // // you will not find yourselves in the garden, // // among the growing plants. // // Your lives are not circular like theirs: //

// your lives are the bird's flight // // which begins and ends in stillness-- // // which begins and ends, in form echoing // // this arc from the white birch // // to the apple tree. //

// -Louise Glück //

**Louise Gluck is really good at writing all types of poems, but mostly about nature. When she writes about nature you can tell she gets really passionate about her poem. You can tell that she enjoys writing about nature because she also has another poem called “The garden.” In this poem she doesn’t have rhyming or anything like that because it’s a blissful poem, it’s not happy and upbeat. “you will not find yourselves in the garden, among the growing plants. Your lives are not circular like theirs.” I think this makes the poem come alive more because she compares the readers life with the plants growing in the garden WITHOUT using like or as (metaphor).

__//The Garden//__

// The garden admires you. // // For your sake it smears itself with green pigment, // // The ecstatic reds of the roses, // // So that you will come to it with your lovers. //

// And the willows-- // // See how it has shaped these green // // Tents of silence. Yet // // There is still something you need, // // Your body so soft, so alive, among the stone animals. //

// Admit that it is terrible to be like them, // // Beyond harm. //

// -Louise Glück //

**Louise Gluck is really great with using metaphors and similes. In every single poem that I’ve read from her so far has outstanding and really good metaphors. “Your body so soft, so alive, among the stone animals.” I look at this line as a metaphor because I don’t think she’s actually talking about a body. I think she’s talking about the nature in general. Also, I like the way she uses adjectives, ones that you’d never think of to describe some nouns. For example, “The ecstatic reds of roses.” If this line would have just said “The reds of roses” it would have been really boring. I like how she spiced it up by using the word ecstatic. I think that she made all of the stanzas 4-5 lines and then the closing one 2 lines for dramatic effect to close the poem. I did the same thing with my poem to make it dramatic.

__// A Fantasy //__

// people are dying. And that's just the beginning. // // Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born, // // new orphans. They sit with their hands folded, // // trying to decide about this new life. //
 * // I'll tell you something: every day //

// Then they're in the cemetery, some of them // // for the first time. They're frightened of crying, // // sometimes of not crying. Someone leans over, // // tells them what to do next, which might mean // // saying a few words, sometimes // // throwing dirt in the open grave. //

// And after that, everyone goes back to the house, // // which is suddenly full of visitors. // // The widow sits on the couch, very stately, // // so people line up to approach her, // // sometimes take her hand, sometimes embrace her. // // She finds something to say to everbody, // // thanks them, thanks them for coming. //

// In her heart, she wants them to go away. // // She wants to be back in the cemetery, // // back in the sickroom, the hospital. She knows // // it isn't possible. But it's her only hope, // // the wish to move backward. And just a little, // // not so far as the marriage, the first kiss. // ||

**Louise Gluck almost never rhymes because her poems are always so dramatic and serious. Even if they’re about happy things they’re pretty serious. “In her heart she wants them to go away.” This line is really dramatic to me. I find it dramatic because it is REAL. This is a real life example and it’s hard to find that in her poems. She’s always comparing things to nature and whatnot and she actually compared this one to actual human feelings. Also, it shows sadness all throughout her poem and I noticed that she makes it though two different perspectives, the perspective of a child “...new orphans. They sit with their hands folded, trying to decide about this new life.” At the beginning of this poem it fools you into thinking she was going to be talking about orphans making you think she might have once been an orphan. By the end you realize it’s actually about losing a loved one. It also tells about the perspective of a wife who is now widowed so a woman who is grown, “the widow sits on the couch very stately.” This sounds so sad and depressing.