Reflection #8 Lyrics of Evanecense: My Immortal

As poems, songs are other ways to show your thoughts and feelings, the person that sings has the gift of a great voice, but the person that writes also has something, has the feeling, the compositor is the true artist. For me, writing a song is another way of poetry, I love music, especially the kind of music that has that flow, that feeling that it makes you feel what the person is feeling and you can understand it more. Evanecense has that ability and it all starts from their lyrics to the great voice of the lead singer. One of my favorite songs is "My Immortal", although when I started to read word for word the lyrics I had some doubts in my mind, some questions about the plot in the song, because she is like telling us a story, not a very detailed story because has a certain mistery. From what I can understand, she is saying that she has a pain, a pain that has come from the past because it saids that she has it since her childhood. This pain is caused by a person, but that person that is making her suffer, I am not sure if the person is dead or what because as she explains, she talks about a precense that is still with her. Wether she is talking about a ghost or of a person that has not been there for her when she has needed him or her. Her pain is so intense that it wont heal and not even the time can erase all those memories that seem to haunt her. She explains in the chorus how she has been there when that person has needed her and it seemed that or that person died or has just left, but the ghost or the precense is still with her. It seems that all of this is bothering her so much that she cannot even think well. This person was not always been a bad headache in her mind, she used to admire him or her, but with the time the admiration disapeared and the memories only brought her pain. At the end in the song there was a part that left me thinking and a little confused: "I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone, but though you're still with me, I've been alone all along"...Is like a contradiction, like if she was trying transmit a message behond of what is written in those words, when I read that part it only reminded me a time that somebody told me: "The worst way to miss somebody is to have that person beside you and always know that you will never have him/her".....

Reflection #7 Poem: The Road Not Taken

This poem talks about two diverged roads in wich the author is confused because he is not sure wich one to take. I liked this poem because you can compare this two diverge roads in our everyday's lifes decisions. Those decisions that give us a lot of headache every time we think, talk or try to analize them, because they are decisions that lead to problems if we dont do something or try to solve them. In "The Road Not Taken" the author is comparing and talking about the two roads and I know for experiece that comparing is a good technique to choose and make a wise decision. You should set a list of all the positive and negative things of one and all the positive and negative things of the other. The author expressed how he lamented the fact that he could not travel both roads and this is another example of how we too lament sometimes that we cant do both things, but to decide one or the other. When he already decided wich one to take, he kept on walking and eventually realized that both roads had been practically the same, for a moment it came to his mind the doubt if he should ever turn back, but he later desisted of the idea. This happens almost every time we make a decision that is difficult for us and always stay with that little doubt in our minds, saying: "What would had happened if I had done things differently?, some people overcome that, but some dont, anyway that is life, part of growing up, and taking the reponsability of our actions... At the end there was something that thje author said that it put me to think and I think he is very right: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." He accepted and realized that he had choosen the right one, he said it proudly and with reassurance because: " THAT HAS MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE".....

Reflection #6 Poem: AmeRícan

When I was in class there was a poem that captured my attention, I thouhgt it was very unique. AmeRícan, by Tato Laviera (B. 1951) is a poem that it was written with great pride and joy. Certainly is the PRIDE of how this poem is written what truly facinates me, he takes step by step to describe tha AmeRícan, starting from the history to our different ethnic groups and culture. From what I could understand the author is talking about the puertorrican's that leave to go to New York, because he talks about "plena", how sometimes they talk "spanglish", and go all around admiring what they see, that is simply what a puertorrican would do and how he would act if he was in the States. He also talks about how we are so well integrating in the groups, not leaving behing our learned cultures, and how we are always looking for the future, our destiny. I agree very much with the author of this poem, I have family that lives in New York and I have learned that at least us, puertorrican (I cannot speak for other countries) we do not leave our culture behind, we may have to do some changes in our lives styles, but we integrate what is most important to us in our "new home". Puertorrican are proud, that is one of the caracteristics that we are distinguished for. But at the end their was a part that surprised, well if I understood well I think that at the end as the author said, the AmeRícan was accepting, was dreaming and wishing that one day he would take off the accent and say it like it was, to be proud to say that he was "american in the u.s. sense of the word". Well, I most say that I am not quite sure I would wish to have leave my accent, because that is what distinguishes me and makes me different from those who their first land is New York, anyway everybody is entitled to their own opinion...

Reflection #5 Poetry

In the class room we started to talk about POETRY, a very profound and behond the imagination matter. When I talk about poetry I take it very seroiusly because as a student in the classroom said: "Poetry is what the heart would say if it could write", I agree with that beautiful thought...Poetry does not have to rhyme, there are certain rules in poetry, but rhyme is not a requierment. As the text says: "An image is language that addresses the senses", I think that if the author of a poem can achieve the goal of the reader, while he is reading, can view in his mind the images that the poem is trying to present, he will appeal to the senses of the reader. As there are poems that appeal to our senses, there are too those that are plain and dont describe to much, like "Poem" by William Carlos Williams. I read this short poem and I founded it very simple, so simple that a five year old that knows English could write it, but is simply the style of some writers. But on the contrary in the poem "Calvary Crosssing a Ford" of Walt Whitman he seems to have no problem describing every little detail so we can create the images in our minds. There are also other poems that while creating in our minds a vivid picture of what we read, they try to emphatize the movements of the actions they are making, for example: "Windsurfing" by David Solway, a beautiful poem that only makes you want to go to that place of what the author is talking about and go windsurfing on vacations, just by reading it, it feels good all ready. "Root Cellar" is a poem written by Theodore Roethke, in my opinion is very literally nasty, is describing an old cellar how are the rotten things in there...In conclusion we could say that every poet has his own style of writting that should be respected, that is what makes them unique...