Response to 'My Papa's Waltz'

My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Response to the poem 'My Papa's Waltz':

     This poem shows alot about how something so easy, but fan and dangerous at the same time. It shows that you can have fun doing anything, but that it can also be dangerous. He shows that it can be dangerous when he wrote, about how when his father was waltzing, he hung on tight, and about how at every step the father missed, his ear hit his father's belt buckle. This shows that his father's waltzing can be dangerous because, the small boy can smell the whiskey in his father's breath, and even though his father may not be drunk, he father might be a little dizzy, or even a little clumbsy.

Narrative Poem

‘There are many ways to lie.’

She thought, as she walked through the heavy metal doors

Of his office

‘I already said that I just witnessed it.’

She thought as sorrow and shame came over

Her

‘How will anybody ever understand if I tell the truth?’

She thought, as she walked through the empty halls of the school

And turned the corner

‘Nothing will ever be the same.’

She thought as she exited,

And left the scene as a victum.

An Incident Poem

It happened so fast

We didn’t even know

That she was standing there screaming

It was a surprise that we didn’t know

She started to cry

As we paniced inside

We searched for help, as 1 guy came

He saw what had happened, and looked around

For a telephone!

Everyone rushed as the panic set in and we carefully watched as rescue came in!

They pried and pulled at the elevator door, and set her fingers free

At last!

No more pain,

The deed was done, to set her fingers free from the elevator door.

Incident
By Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Balimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

Response to Poem:

This poem tells almost a sstory of an incident of an eight year old who went to Baltimore and was called a "Nigger". I think that the Baltimorean was  kind lof wrong for caling an eight year old a "Nigger" espeacially since its a kid. Also since the Baltimorean did that, the eight yeaar old's trip was ruined, since that's all that he can remember.

The Starry Night

by Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.   

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.

Even the moon bulges in its orange irons   

to push children, like a god, from its eye.

The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.   

Oh starry starry night! This is how   

I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,   

sucked up by that great dragon, to split   

from my life with no flag,

no belly,

no cry.

 

Response:

 

    The author of this poem, sounds like she is under a period of stress in the second stanza when she says:

 

Even the moon bulges in its orange irons   

to push children, like a god, from its eye.

The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.   

Oh starry starry night! This is how   

I want to die:

 

    I think that she was trying to say that on such a night that she was looking up into the sky, on one of those nights, was a night when she wanted to die. But when she starts off the poem, and suddenly says:

 

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die.

 

It makes her seem like she is wanting, and almost willing to die at that very second.

But, it is also beautiful when she writes her third stanza stating:

 

into that rushing beast of the night,   

sucked up by that great dragon, to split   

from my life with no flag,

no belly,

no cry.

 

    The descritive sentences in that stanza have action, that soon turns into its own painting, that is full of bright, vibrant colors.

 

Observations:

• The tree is really big
• It has many different colors in the picture
• There is a small house in the corner
• There is a big lake
• The willow tree seems to be the main focus

Inferences:

• The tree seems to be almost like  symbol of peace, and calmness
• The tree shows longevity, because of how big it is
• The house in the corner seems to have been there for a long time, like the tree
• The whole scene of the picture is very natural, and shows peace in it

Interpertations:

• The picture shows how long something can live
• The pictures focus is really big, and its surrounding define it in a bigger way
• The willow tree shows hope, of something bigger

 A willow tree  shows a great big space of peace and hope

It shows longevity

Because of how big

How beautiful

 And how different it is

 There is a house in the corner

 Showing how the tree is blocking it from the sun

 Providing shade

 A space for kids to play

The tree to me represents how nature has its own ways of showing its beauty

 Nature can have the ugliest of all things

 But those things are what show the most beauty of all.

I envy birds for having wings

Birds have wings  to fly where they want

to go,

They have the power to be free and explore
The unknown

Birds are lucky to have no worries, but to

Live Life as time goes by

I envy birds for having wings

Why should man have no wings?

Those wings  are long gone, the wings  that

We have tired out

The wings we, will never have again

I envy birds for having wings,

because when you want to run away

its only  them who can fly away.