Olivia+Smith

"Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in word." -Notrthrup Frye

Olivia Smith: I was raise by The type of man that can be kind. But the "I will step in your ass" kinda guy.

The one that is Number one of the battle field to protect you. But I was raised by the "I will seriously eff you up" one too.

The type of man that's covered in ink But the one that can make a creative meal out of nothing. A man that isn't afraid to cry But the one that will knock you into next Wednesday if you skip another class.

The man that works extra shifts to put food in front of us. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A man that can be understanding. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But the <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"Turn that shit music off before I chuck that iPod out the window" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Guy too.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The one I can have burping contests with <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The one that <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"Has by back even when I'm pissed at you" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The guy that is the first to pat my back when I get the A I tried for.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I was raised by a kid who had to grow up fast. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A kid that's a lot like me. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"I just want what's best for you, kiddo." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">man. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I was raised by a chef coat wearing, tattoo covered, tough as nails softy that I call dad.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Olivia Smith <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Ode Poem:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The teacher says go home and write a poem. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Some kids hear the words and light up. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Where as with me, I just never got into it. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">A lot of people say that poem is from the soul <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">And it leaves them breathless or makes time stop. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">But for me it’s just a jumble of words that I don’t understand. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Maybe something’s wrong with me. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Maybe I have hard comprehension. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Maybe I just don’t care enough to understand. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Would I rather go back to commas and capitalization? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">I don’t think so. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Maybe I do like poetry then.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Poet Assignment: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">March 15, 2011

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Philip Appleman:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Poem One: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">On a Morning Full of Sun <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">One of our gulls <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">is keening in the flat <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">blue light: something <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">is gone, is gone, is gone—a hundred <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">teen-age boys picked out <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">of mud, zipped into <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">plastic bags, and air-mailed <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">home to Mom. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">White wings sweep over our beach <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">in formation: straw huts leap <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">into flame—something <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">is gone, is gone—I stagger up the sand, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">press my M-16 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">to the skull of a peasant girl, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and watch the bone <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">go chipping off and dancing <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">through the flat blue keening <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">air.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Poem Two: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">The Trickle-Down Theory of Happiness <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Out of heaven, to bless the high places, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">it falls on the penthouses, drizzling <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">at first, then a pelting allegro, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and Dick and Jane skip to the terrace <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and go boogieing through the azaleas, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">while mommy and daddy come running <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">with pots and pans, glasses, and basins <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and try to hold all of it up there, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">but no use, it’s too much, it keeps coming, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and pours off the edges, down limestone <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">to the pitchers and pails on the ground, where <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">delirious residents catch it, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and bucket brigades get it moving <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">inside, until bathtubs are brimful, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">but still it keeps coming, that shower <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">of silver in alleys and gutters, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">all pouring downhill to the sleazy <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">red brick, and the barefoot people <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">who romp in it, laughing, but never <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">take thought for tomorrow, all spinning <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">in a pleasure they catch for a moment; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">so when Providence turns off the spigot <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and the sky goes as dry as a prairie, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">then daddy looks down from the penthouse, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">down to the streets, to the gutters, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and his heart goes out to his neighbors, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">to the little folk thirsty for laughter, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and he prays in his boundless compassion: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">on behalf of the world and its people <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">he demands of his God, give me more.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Poem Three: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Philip Appleman <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">gimme a break before I die: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">grant me wisdom, will & wit, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">purity, probity, pluck & grit. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice – <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">these little blessings would suffice <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">to beget an earthly paradise: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">make the bad people good – <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and the good people nice;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">and before our world goes over the brink, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> teach the believers how to think.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Olivia Smith <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Poetry Thesis Essays:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">1. The poem “The Trickle-Down Theory of Happiness” achieves the high expectation of painting a picture, and taking you to the place of complete serenity in your mind. It does this by creating the environment of a day that isn’t happy because of the day, or the circumstances but because of the people that influenced them. In the poem Philip Appleman states certain things that would make those specific people happy. When he was talking about the children he talks about how happy their parents are. Or when he is talking about the people who are so poor they can’t even afford shoes, he states that the littlest things make them happy. He also doesn’t use happiness as happiness. He says that it “it keeps coming, and pours off the edges, down limestone to the pitchers and pails” and “all pouring downhill to the sleazy red brick”

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">2. “On a morning full of sun” is a poem of calmness with a mysterious edge to it. As you read this poem you begin with “One of our gulls is keening in the flat blue light” so, you begin to think that it’s a beautiful, happy day. But as you go on you begin to realize that this is not the circumstance at all. “A hundred teen-age boys picked out of mud, zipped into plastic bags, and air-mailed home to Mom.” This is what you read onto. I think that Philip Appleman wanted you to believe that this poem was going to be happy but in the reality of the War and the people involved his calmning day was turned into something completely different. But with the ending line of “and before our world goes over the brink, teach the believers how to think” he wants the world to know that he didn’t have a good time and that he wants things to change.