Proposal

For my multigenre project I am going to try something different than what I usually do. The "theme" if you want to call it is going to be inspiration or imagination. The theme does not necessarily lie in the text, but rather in me and my relationship with the text. I am going to use a vairety of texts from the class and use them as a creative starting point. I will use them as inspiration to create my own work or put a spin on the text. I plan on using them for poems, alternate endings, personal experiences, etc.

More Poems

I didn’t find ten poems, but here is a list of what I found;

“God Bless America” by an unknown author

“The Thermobarbaric Bomb” by unknown author

“Sept. 11, 2001” By Amanda G. DeBey

”TWIN TOWER” By Lisa Midwood

“What the Bullet Sang” by Bret Harte

“Twas the Night Before Bagdad” by the mother of a soldier

“There is no Poem that will Stop this War” Joe Napora

All of these poems deal with war or political themes of the time. Many of them express negative feelings towards war. Some are written by those who have been touched by war in some way. The one I liked the best was “Twas the Night Before Bagdad.” The poem uses the same patterns as “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” I thought that that was an interesting base to use for a poem like this. The poem kept with the rhyme scheme and felt much like “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” I felt that it was well written and an interesting poem to check out. Here it is for you to read:

Twas the night before Baghdad

Twas the night before Baghdad
And all through the base
Not a heartbeat was silent
Not a smile on one face

The soldiers at attention
Fists raised in the air
Saddam is a monster!
We must all go there!

So we loaded our planes
With our guns and our tanks
And we sent all the soldiers
To Kuwaits outer banks

From Kuwait, from Turkey
From Saudi and more
With battering rams
We knocked on his door

The Fedayin heard
All the military clatter
And ran to Saddam
To ask what was the matter

Don't worry he said
With a heartening ring
They financed my reign
They won't do this thing

We bombed all the buildings
Til the fires were glowing
While Baby Bush yelled
Keep the oil pipes flowing!

He should be a magician
Our Baby Bush, cuz you see
He created the biggest illusion
The WMD's

He lied to us all
About terror and pain
When all that he's after
Is monetary gain

For Daddy, and Barbara
And Baby Bush too
There is no such thing
As too much oil revenue

Some people believe
That it's for our own good
To bomb and to kill
To shed innocent blood

They sleep in their beds
Oblivious to lies
While we who have wakened
Hear bloodcurdling cries

Cries of our fathers,
Our brothers and sons
Sent to fight in a war
That cannot be won

We liberated them!
Our Baby Bush chimes
That is why they attack us
Time after time

With Christmas upon us
He steps up his work
Of campaigning again
The self serving jerk!

He'll don his flight suit
He'll have all his fun
Wishing Merry Christmas! Keep fighting!
And to all....Duck and Run!


written by mother of a soldier

Poems

The six poems I read are:

Game Day (Nothing To Loose Everything To Prove) by JDBison

Deicide Government by: Unknown Author

Poverty Police by: Unknown Author

Basketball by: Rachael Kerney

My Son by: Ada Tyrrell

The Marine and the Terrorist by: Richard Macwilliam

The poem “My Son” is written by a mother who is concerned about her son in the military. All she asks is that he returns home safe. She knows the danger that lie ahead and she is hoping for the best. It’s a situation that many families can relate. Seeing their love ones leave, especially when they may be in danger. They hope for the best, but fear the worst.

“The Marine and The Terrorist” gives an interesting comparison of the two. It is one poem written twice with different titles. On the surface you would look at a Marine and a Terrorist and think one is good and one is evil. But if you think from their perspective, which is what the author does, you see that they have the opposite views of one another. I found this poem and tactic interesting and insightful.

Marks

I found this poem interesting both from an enjoyment standpoint and also by looking at how it was written. The woman in the poem, a mother/wife, seems frustrated with the "marks" she is given by those around her. The author uses marks or grades to indicate how those around her see her and her actions. She is constantly graded on her performance, as if she were a student. As the poem moves along her marks lower and her anger and frustration builds. I'm not quite sure what the others motivation for writing this poem is, but it’s possible that she has experienced judgmental people in her time. In the end she says, "I'm dropping out" which signals the end of her dealing with the marks others give her. She will no longer be judged by others and is moving on with her life. I found the idea interesting and unique when I read the poem. It was different than the others and stood out to me.

Morning

Morning by Billy Collins is a simple yet effective poem. The author describes top the reader why he loves the morning so much. There are many lines in the poem that reflect the wonders of the morning. One part states:

“This is the best-
Throwing off the light covers
Feet on the cold floor,
And buzzing around the house on espresso-“

This passage describes when one first wakes up in the morning. You come out from under the sheets and blankets and touch the floor, often times feeling the cold chill of the morning on the floor. He also mentions espresso for the first time in the poem. Another passage states:

“maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins-
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso”

Here the author describes some action one does when they first wake up in the morning. He also one again mention espresso, which is popular to many in the morning. Coffee is important to many in the morning and he is no exception.

I found this poem to be much easier to understand than some of the others we read for today. It was simple, which also made it more enjoyable after reading some of the other poems for class. Sometimes simple is better.

A Love Poem

They met at 17
It was love at first sight.
They spent time together
In the day and the night.
They began to date
It was a perfect match
They were inseparable
When you saw one you saw the other
They were like one
Nothing could come between them
No problem was too big
No argument too heated
They were met for one another
They went to different colleges
But their relationship never strayed
Temptation was never too strong
Their relationship would never fade
They would talk every night or every other
Their love was too strong to be broken
No other person would do
They were meant to be together
They were the only each had ever knew
They married at 25
It was the beginning of their lives
Together for forever and a day
Nothing would come between them
They would never stray

Lucky Response

It is apparent that Alice has different relationships with the different people in her life. The way she handles and deals with her rape around them is also very different. When she is first raped her immediate reaction is to not tell her mother. She tries to think of ways to hide it from her, but in the end she does tell her over he phone. Later on in the story a conversation over lunch she takes a different tone with her father. He asks if she would like something to eat and she responds by saying “That would be nice.” “considering the only thing I’ve had in my mouth in the last twenty-four hours is a cracker and a cock.” I can’t imagine that someone would react like this, but as the author states this is normal for her. To her and her family it shows that she is still the person she has always been even after the trauma and hardship of being raped. Later she sees a boy named Tom. Alice thinks that no boy will ever love her because she has been raped. Her family tries to tell her otherwise, but she does not agree with them. When she sits down with the boy at first he is very nice and understanding. She does not know that he knows anything her happened to her until they begin talking. It is then that she finds out that he has been told a lie. He thinks that she was beaten and robbed in the park. She then tells him the truth, that she had been raped. Their conversation turned awkward, as he did not know what to say. He began to move away every so slightly as to not make it obvious. He was at a loss for words and her feelings about how men will think of her were at least for now, confirmed.