10-20-09 Lullaby -Auden

The speaker-reader audience reminds me of the times when I was younger and slept in the same room as my brother. Max and I would lay down and just hang out while we fell asleep.

What do I Believe?

I believe in fate, love, and karma. 

An Old Life- Donald Hall

An Old Life

Snow fell in the night.

At five-fifteen I woke to a bluish

mounded softness where 

the Honda was. Cat fed and coffee made,

I broomed snow off the car

and drove to the Kearsarge Mini-Mart

before Amy opened 

to yank my Globe out of the bundle.

Back, I set my cup of coffee

beside Jane, still half-asleep,

murmuring stuporous

thanks in the aquamarine morning.

Then I sat in my blue chair 

with blueberry bagels and strong

black coffee reading news, 

the obits, the comics, and the sports.

Carrying my cup twenty feet, 

I sat myself at the desk

for this day's lifelong

engagement with the one task and desire. 

- Donald Hall

www.poet.org

I chose this poem by Donald Hall because it expresses his feelings about the past. He talks very descriptively about his encounters during a normal day of his life. He explains that he has an engagement with the one task and desire. I really enjoy this poem  because it explains his life. Enjoying your everyday life is a very important thing to have. 

"It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there."- William Carlos Williams

I think Williams Carlos Williams accurately states a position that many people are in when they read poetry. Poetry can be a hard thing to pick apart and realize some forms of symbolism and meanings. Not all people look at poetry the same, some people look into it very deeply and some others just look at the face value. People need to appreciate and enjoy the art of poetry. 

Future

I am now 45 years old and am having a very successful career as a sports agent. I am a prominent force in the industry and have over fifty clients throughout all sports. I live in California and travel to New York City three times a week in my private air liner. When i need to meet with my clients I am one text message, e-mail or phone call away. I have two children and they both are in high school and are living happy lives. My home is the perfect size for a family of four and a pet and I have a nice car and both my children share one. The life I live is a great one and I am very happy for my healthy family. 

Describe This

It was gleaming with a reflection of the sun. The corners were so round and the surface was so smooth. It was the support of so many students in the past, and will be for so many students in the future. The flat top was wide and sturdy. It was the holding place for many objects. 

Cathedral & Everyday Use

Both short stories we read in class have a role reversal in the ending. In the "Cathedral", the ending switches for the husband and the blind man. Now the blind man is the one teaching and encouraging the husband to finish drawing the cathedral. In the beginning of the short story, the husband was mocking the blind man to his wife, and was trying to explain and ask him questions that he could not answer due to his disability. In the end this was not the case, it was the blind man who was encouraging and aiding the husband to finish the drawing and to explain the feeling and looks of a cathedral. The blind man says something like "Draw some people in the cathedral, what is a cathedral without people?".
The short story "Everyday Use" describes an African American family with two daughters and is narrated following the mother. Dee is the eldest of the family followed by Maggie. Dee is always the better looking one and Maggie is never the focus of anybody. Maggie's mother never acknowledges her or favors her. In the end of the story, Maggie is given quilts from her mother, a first time that her mother feels for Maggie rather than the know renamed Dee. Maggie has eclipsed her sister with more loyalty from her mother now.