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This short story in the beginning of the semester shocked me completely. I found the ironic poetry behind its words refreshing and disturbing. The idea of freedom dangled and than taken away. So many question arise once the story closes abruptly, and yet there is an understanding that after tasting freedom the idea of losing it was unfathomable. This was a tribute to the caged housewives of the 1800's. The wife's soul experience the wonder of freedom and the terror once lost, within one hour.

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The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin Read by: Heather Ordover all Librivox recordings are in the Public Domain For more informations and free download please visit: http://librivox.org/short-story-collection-003/

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Out of all the poems I read this one was the most relatable to me. Poetry has a way of getting us to feel what the speaker is feeling, but there are those moments when a poet's words are your words and souls speak to each other, that's the magic of it. Although sad, "Funeral Blues" epitomized the depths of sorrow perfectly, and graciously described the bitterness and solitude that comes with loss. The one concept that captured me above all was the idea that the speaker wanted the world to stop, and for beauty to cease to exist. There is nothing more sad or more true than this.

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Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

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Angelou skillfully encompasses the despair of a caged bird by description of all the things a free bird has.  Unlike in  " I, Too" by Langston Hughes, the speaker is describing frustration and hopelessness in being a slave or a servant.  The desperate act of the caged birds exemplify the theme of the poem...

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The is terror and wonder in the word sing. Singing carries a connotation of joy, but the song of the caged bird is one of complete despair.

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Love | [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by E.E Cumming

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Love | [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by E.E Cumming

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Love is the epitome od the poem. The speaker is sharing with their lover the extent of their love. There is a beautiful intimacy in this poem, it brief and playfully superficial...

carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

...yet profound at the turn of a stanza.

i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

The love described in this poem is pure and beguiled, It is blind and submissive. There is no bitterness or apprehension between the line, just free abandon.

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Disgusted | next to of course america i by E.E Cummings

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Disgusted | next to of course america i by E.E Cummings

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The speaker is disillusioned by what America has become. The poem is a protest against the war, and explicitly calls out the meaninglessness of all the lives lost. He is angry and disgusted by the blind pride and patriotism that lead to the demise of so many lives.

"why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?

There is a bitter disgust in the mockery of the last line, especially. He questions the point death if there is no one left to testify of the cause.

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Vunerability | We Wear Masks by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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Vunerability | We Wear Masks by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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Dunbar brings a critical analysis of the human nature to hide the ugly truth and display the beautiful lie. Vulnerability comes into play as the speaker describes what is truly beyond the mask.

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile.

The speaker explains the loneliness found behind a mask, and the price payed to hide the sorrow. But the speaker reiterates the stubbornness to be illegitimately perfect, instead of genuinely happy.

Let them only see us,while we wear the mask.

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Poetry is everywhere. It is in our daily dialog, in our art, in our expression of love. Poetry is in our music, in our dance, in our books, and in our speeches. Poetry is universal because expression is not bound by language. As Amy Lowell explains so beautifully, Poetry is the window to the soul of humanity. It reveals thoughts unspoken and feelings undiscovered.  Poetry is beautiful, disturbing, enchanting, complicated, and wonderful because we are all those things. This Padlet is a dedication to the soul's manifestation, our feelings.

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There is not a piece in this poem that is not engulfed in the deepest of sorrow. For anyone who has ever lost a loved one this poem is the words our souls speak. The speaker begins by challenging the concept of the world going on...

"Stop the clocks..."

The most moving statement is in the last stanza. There is a bitter anguish in the tone of this poem that reflects despair and the uselessness of beauty.

'The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods
For nothing can ever come to any good."

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I, too was written in the height of segregation. I love how Hughes put into perspective the tenacity of the oppressed. How they dared to dream to believe and to expect change, with little proof of it.

"Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed-"

Not only did they expect change, they expected remorse too, and that was a faith in humanity, that humanity had not earned. This optimism reaches out into imagination and believes it into reality.

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Confused | Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford

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Confused | Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford

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Stafford encompasses a stock-pile of feelings in "Traveling Through the Dark". He plays off of the gray area in our human morality. He dangles a fawn's life before his readers and dares us to choose what is right and wrong. The Speaker voices his confusion and deliberation as he decides whether to save the condemned fawn or to prevent a possible accident. In the end, the dead mother deer and the unborn fawn are lanced off the ridge, and the reader is left in shock. This metaphor is meant to question what humanity is and if it is equivalent within us all? Do our morals disrupt our primal instinct to survive? Confusion brings a nakedness to our souls because our decisions define who we truly are.

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In the poem "America", McKay expresses and regretful love for America. He love, however, is clothed in fear for the demise of such a self-destructive society. The speaker is resilient against the terror,malice and jeers, and is committed to taken in only the good. In this poem you see the complexity of love, and that love and fear are never far apart. In the last stanza McKay speaks about Time's unerring hand, and priceless treasures sinking in the sand; both the personification of time and the metaphor of something valuable slowly being lost is her description of Americas downfall.

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*Warning content is explicit

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Rap is modern day poetry in is rawest form. Like everything - there are levels to talent, but there are true poets in street clothes expressing our generation in the truest form

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In the song "Everybody" Logic explains the struggle of being both black and white.

"In my blood is the slave and the master
It's like the devil playin spades with the pastor"

Feeling the racial tension and being in the center of it leads him to call out the injustices he sees on both sides.

"Run, mothafucka, run
Before the popo get the gun, put it to your brain like goddamn!"

Excelling in a genre that is predominantly Black with white skin is his form of tenacity.

"White people told me as a child, as a little boy, playin with his toys
I should be ashamed to be black
And some black people look ashamed when I rap
Like my great granddaddy didn’t take a whip to the back
Not accepted by the black or the white"

Through the lyrics of "Everybody" he challenges the social stigmas in society.

"Looking for something to complete us
And maybe lead us, fuck an elitist
Hell of a long way from equal is how they treat us
Body of a builder with the mind of a fetus"

He also speaks on the tensions we face as a generation and a nation, and the need to accept everyone.

"Everybody people, everybody bleed, everybody need something
Everybody love, everybody know, how it go
Everybody people, everybody bleed, everybody need something
Everybody love, everybody know"

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Anger | "High School Training Ground" by Malcom London

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Anger | "High School Training Ground" by Malcom London

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Malcolm London challenges Education in a provocative and aggressive approach. I believe the last Stanza epitimizes the poem entirely...

"The need for degrees has left so many people frozen. I hear educational systems are failing, but I believe they're succeeding at what they're built to do. To train you, to keep you on track, to track down an American dream that has failed so many of us all."

The anger and frustration in this piece reflect the soul confronted with the terror of this generation at the hand of the educational system.

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Malcolm London: "High School Training Ground"

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Young poet, educator and activist Malcolm London performs his stirring poem about life on the front lines of high school. He tells of the "oceans of adolescence" who come to school "but never learn to swim," of "masculinity mimicked by men who grew up with no fathers." Beautiful, lyrical, chilling.