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When I first started this semester I had thought that this class was just going to be like any other English class but I learned a lot more and this class was really great and I am glad that I had taken it. One thing that I thought was really interesting about this class was reading the two stories from “The Last Poets'' it was really interesting and fun at the same time because I could even see myself as one of the characters in one of the stories who had a similar setting. Some parts of the class to me were refreshers from things I had learned in high school and some parts of the class were also new things that I had learned. One of the things that was a refresher to me was “The Hero’s Journey” lecture which was something that I had learned from many different stories like Star Wars, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings series. But it was also very interesting to learn about how one of the rappers today Kendrick Lamar is an example of the Hero’s Journey and how one of his mentors was Dr. Dre in his early life. I think what my favorite part from this class was the poetry lecture. During the poetry lecture I had learned things that I never actually would have thought of before. Before I had thought when writing poetry it always needed to have words that rhyme but they apparently do not always have to rhyme. I had also learned that there are many different types of poetry and what I also thought was crazy about poetry is that the person who is speaking the poem is not always the one who is writing it. The biggest takeaways that I learned from the poetry lecture were the types of poetry such as epic and lyric. I learned that Epic poetry tells a story in a poem like the story “The Odyssey” which was also something that I had remembered learning about in high school and that was actually one of my favorite poems and stories. Lyric is a type of poetry that expresses someone’s feelings in the moment which is what most rap artists do these days like my favorite musical rap artist Eminem. Eminem was the rap artist that I had also had used from my poetry blog as well because it his rap song “Lose Yourself” is poetry and it is both an Epic and Lyric poem because the song tells a story about his life and how he grew up living in a rough neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan and it is also a lyric poem because he is expressing the feelings of himself and the others who are going through the same troubles as he experienced. Overall, I had learned a lot from this class such as things that I thought I knew all about before but it turned out that there was so much more to it than the things I thought I knew and I will even use some of these skills in my career because the career that I want requires a lot of writing.

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Hi Michael, I believed that you did a fantastic job on your analysist and explaining. At first when I listened to those songs, I wasn't sure of what the meanings were behind those songs, but you were able to explain it and thoroughly to your audience. After reading you explanations and relistening to those songs, I was able to understand what the main plot or gist of those songs were.

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For the poetry blog I chose to read and analyze the songs“Lose Yourself” and “Without Me” by my favorite rap artist Eminem. These songs actually tell a very good story from Eminem’s past life and many of you might even recognize it from his movie 8-mile.

This song lose yourself tells the story of how Eminem grew up in rough neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan and how he had problems with his own family. The story that he tells in the song is that growing up the way he did can lead to life collapsing. In the song “Lose Yourself” there is one line that stands out to me “Lonely roads, God only knows, he’s grown farther from home he’s no father he goes home and barely knows his own daughter.” This line says that the way when he was growing up he had a kid at a very young age and growing up like him sometimes people making the same mistakes like him can be a father but they don’t exactly act like one and the kid barely even knows their parent if they are born by someone who makes a bunch of mistakes. The song also is trying to tell us that if someone is living the life that he had before and then they get the chance to get out they should take it because the opportunity might not come back again for them.

In the song “Without Me” it connects to parts of Eminem’s life because it talks about his mother because she was a bad influence on him in his past life. In one of the lines in the song there is one line that says “I just settled on my lawsuits Fuck you Debbie.” This line is describing Eminem’s mother because Debbie is actually his mother’s name. It also relates to his life because there were a few parts in his life when Debbie had sued Eminem for not wanting anything to do with her and for putting that lyric in the song that he wrote and honestly I don’t actually blame him for not wanting anything to do with her because she had done a lot of things in his past life that were not motherly like such as having an affair with one of his best friends.

Overall, I think the songs that Eminem writes and raps are very meaningful and some of them even tell heart breaking stories like Lose Yourself and Without Me because they are both songs that describe where he grew up and the bad experiences he had with mother. I also see Eminem as a great inspiration to this world because not only does he tell poetry through his songs but he has also started an organization where it helps the children who have or are currently going through the struggles of life or growing up in areas where places are poor or probably run by drugs and gangs.

Below I have attached a photo of Eminem and his daughter together.

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The hero’s journey tells the story of a character that can goes from being in his or her comfort zone to going out on an adventure and then eventually returning with a bunch of wisdom and knowledge. The hero’s journey is something that I have learned a bunch of times over and over again from high school and I have seen how it is used in movies that I have seen as a kid such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit. After watching the lecture about Kendrick Lamar he has lived through a life and his life does tell the story of a hero’s journey. Kendrick Lamar’s story starts out with him being born in Compton and during a time when there was tons of riots and a lot discrimination. In his album “Good Kid m.A.A.d city” he has a lot of songs that mention how his life had happened. Kendrick Lamar had grown up in places that were really rough and even had family members who did things that were wrong like his father when he eventually tells Kendrick Lamar that his father had made tons of mistakes in his life and he doesn’t want Kendrick to make the same mistakes that he made. Kendrick Lamar had also seen his first murder as a kid and his uncle dealing drugs which was also something that is a mistake one of his family members had made throughout his life. But the real event when Kendrick Lamar’s hero journey begins was when he was in 7th grade and then after English becoming his favorite subject and writing about reflective poetry that he learned by his teacher Mr. Inge Kendrick Lamar began to write rap songs. After that he went to write rap songs with Dr. Dre by his side and in this case Dr. Dre is Kendrick Lamar’s mentor like the Hero’s Journey mentions. I feel that in the Hero’s Journey with Kendrick Lamar is he starts off growing up in a rough city where places are run by drugs and gangs and he wants to find a way to get out of it. Judging by his story I would say that his call to adventure is when he does well in English class by writing reflective poetry which gives him his skills to start writing songs to rap, and Dr. Dre being his mentor which is the next step in the Hero’s journey process and Dr. Dre serves as someone who helps Kendrick Lamar get his music career up. I also feel like Kendrick Lamar’s father serves as a mentor because he tells him about the mistakes that he made in the past and he doesn’t want his son to make the same mistakes and end up getting into a bunch of trouble with the Law. Overall, I think that this is where Kendrick Lamar’s hero journey starts and it gets better as his songs become a hit.

Below I have attached a photo with Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre.

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From reading the novel The Last Poets I have learned a lot of things from the different stories about them. I feel that the author Christine Otten tries to tell us that just like the characters in the book, we will have to face challenges and other obstacles in our lifetime just like the characters in the book. The two characters in the novel that I think face great challenges are Jerome and Felipe and mostly I can relate to Felipe because my story is similar to his. The theme for Jerome's story is that he has trouble with his family and mostly his grandmother. Jerome faces great challenges because he lives in a wooden house with his very mean grandmother who calls him dumb and has a father who is not around very often and judging from the story it sounds like Jerome never really knew his father that much because he was barely around. Jerome also faces challenges because after when he hears his grandmother talking about him at night he goes back to bed and has a hard time sleeping because he just could not believe what he hears. But Jerome overcomes his challenges that he faces because he has a good mother who cares about him even though his grandmother doesn’t like him that much, he also is happy to at least have a home to live in even though it is owned by a crazy woman who is his grandmother because I also think that if Jerome’s grandmother was really crazy and mean then she would probably leave him and his family outside with no where to go. For Felipe he faces challenges because he lives a double life that is very stressful for him and I can relate to him because I have faced a double life of my own before like moving from one place to another and then constantly traveling back and forth every other weekend just to see each parent. Felipe lives his double life in California and New York and his double life comes from a really nice place in California to a hard life in New York where he joins a gang and lives his life as a life of crime. Then when Felipe joins the gang in New York he gets arrested and then he eventually goes to jail where his life starts to go down. I think the theme that goes on in Felipe’s story is that when you live a double life it can be stressful but you should choose to go down a path where life can lead you to getting in trouble especially getting into trouble with Law. Overall, I think that the author Christine Otten gives out great points by telling the readers that life can be a hassle but don’t let the challenges you come across make you do something that can really screw up your life, I have also learned a lot of lessons and good points from reading this novel and which was even more interesting because I am a Criminal Justice major so I especially enjoyed reading Felipe’s story.

Below is a photo I have attached of a personal struggling with work on the computer but he's pushing through it.

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Reading about Felipe in this setting I think both me and him have something in common about living a double life. When Felipe says “I have always lived a double life. It’s exhausting.” That had caught my attention. I was born in Las Vegas Nevada and then after 11 years my parents got divorced and then I moved with my mother to southern California. Which was a big change for me because I felt like I was living a double life because every other weekend I would fly back to Las Vegas to visit my dad. I think of these experiences as Felipe because these experiences remind me of myself going from one place to another back and forth every other weekend and remind me of living a double life even though Felipe double life was in Southern California and New York. I also feel that Felipe relates to me because living a double life is very exhausting and on page 259 when Felipe is in California he sounds like he is very happy and never getting arrested and having the time of his life and then in New York on page 262 he goes to New York and then he joins a gang in New York, then gets arrested and goes to prison. I see this as an experience I had because when I lived in Las Vegas I was always happy with a lot of people liking me for who I was then when I had went to California it was almost like people didn’t even care what I was like and just constantly like to harass me and give me a hard time. The only difference is that I didn’t do anything that would get me arrested like Felipe did and spent years describing his life in prison. On Page 262 Felipe also describes his life in New York I would say very roughly when he is part of the gang, when he says “the California warmth stayed in my body for the first few days back in Brooklyn” I think he describes New York as a cold place and kind of rough place because it sounds like he is describing California as a peaceful place and the warmth can’t last forever because it’s cold in New York. I also think that Felipe describes the living conditions in New York where he is staying very close because on Page 262 he says that when he sticks his head out the window all he could see was brick walls in front and in back. On page 263 Felipe also describes the gang that he is in very rough and I would say deadly as well. On page 263 he says that his brother first got beat up by a dude in Brownsville and then Felipe went for revenge on Sunday and then eventually his cousin Jose had become the leader of the Chaplains gang. Which then led to the police arresting him and taking him in and then going to prison.

Below is a photo that represents gangs in New York and roughness around Felipe.

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The character that I decided to analyze is Jerome because to me he seems like he is the main character to the story. Although Jermone does not use his full name which is “Geronimo” I still find his character to be the main character because he seems like the most important and the most interesting even his name brings out a cool perspective. On page 36 in the beginning of the chapter “Akron, Ohio, 1953” Jerome sounds like a cool mysterious character when he overhears his Grandmother, Grandfather, and his mother talking about Jerome’s father. Even though he doesn’t tell the story in first person (using I) he makes a clear statement of who they are talking about which in this case is his father because the Grandma says to the Grandpa “He’s your son” and “Not anymore” which is definitely described as Jerome’s father. It also even says at the top of page 37 “They can all stay till their father’s free and then they can all get the hell out of my house.” In this case they are describing Jerome’s father and by the sounds of it, it sounds like Jerome’s father is in prison when the Grandfather says “till their father’s free.” As the chapter goes on Jerome also seems like he is the main protagonist of the story even when he goes back to bed and he is having a hard time trying to go back to sleep after he had heard all the words that his grandmother had said when describing Jerome’s father. After Jerome hears the words of his grandfather saying that they could get out of his house after Jerome’s father is free, he begins to wonder in his head that if he has to leave where would he go even if he has to leave for a few days. If I was Jerome in this situation I would be wondering the same thing and if my grandparents would just throw me out of the house as soon as the father is free. Jerome’s grandmother also sounds like a very mean woman too. On page 38 he says that if his grandmother had caught him sneaking around to hear what is going on then she would spank him and he overheard his grandmother say “maybe he is dumb” and then his mother defending him saying “he’s not dumb.” Jerome’s Grandmother sounds like someone who also gets very upset really easily like on page 39 when Jerome’s mother is feeding baby billy and mashed potatoes spill on the floor and Jerome says that he had hoped that his mother would clean it up quickly before his grandmother would see it from this point of view it sounds to me that the grandmother gets mad about anything that happens that she hates. Jerome also seems like someone who lives very poor and in the gutter. On page 40 when Jerome hears his mother and Larry talking about his father they talk about how he wanted to earn them money so they could rent Jerome and his family a house and by the sounds of it, it sounds like the father tried to steal money to support his family and now he is locked in prison. Overall, Jerome sounds like a character that I want to analyze because other than him being the main character he sounds like the character that seems interesting and someone who is living poor and in the gutter with a crazy life.

The photo below reminds me of what Jerome is feeling when he is in bed and having a hard time trying to fall asleep after he hears his grandmother saying mean things about him. The image represents his frustration.

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Hello Everyone,
My name is Michael Mead I am a second year student and a Criminal Justice major. Criminal Justice has always been my passion and I am also part of the Criminal Justice club at school. For my career I hope to get in the DEA as a special agent and after working there for a while my hopes are to work my way up to become the "special agent in charge" of a DEA division. I currently work in a restaurant as a server. I am a crazy cat lover and I also have a black cat named Pepper.