Symbolism

To be honest symbolism is something I often hunt for when I’m reading literature. So often I try to find the significance of the text and sometimes I even feel as if I spend too much time on a particular section, word, or phrase of the text in order to draw some kind of meaning from what it is saying. I feel that many of the text we’ve read in class have such deeper meanings to them than what we give them credit for. Sometimes it’s hard to think that the basics that we discuss about a text is the overall meaning of what the author meant when he or she decided to write that material. In a poem like “The Traveling Onion,” it’s hard to conclude that all the poet is talking about is the literal onion that we so happen to forget about after we chop it up and throw it in our meals, it’s also hard to just take the text as it is after reading a line in the poem that says “I could kneel and praise all small forgotten miracles.” I honestly believe that this line in the poem goes far beyond the literal meaning. This poem “The Traveling Onion” I truly believe that the poet is using the onion to symbolize how we take things for granted, how we focus so much on the big things in our life and how we complain about how much problem we have or we just focus on the negatives of a every situation and we don’t take time to realize that without these small onions that we have in our lives that we would not have make it as far as we are today. Maybe sometimes I over think literature, but I think if you just focus on the big picture and don’t focus on these small pixels that make up this picture, then you can never fully appreciate that picture.

The Garden, "En robe de parade"

Of all the text we have read during this semester, one that stands out to me the most is the poem “The Garden, En robe de parade.” There are many reasons why I find this poem so intriguing and captivating, I am not sure if somehow deep down inside of me I’m able to relate to the intense agony of this poem, or is it the great deal of sympathy I feel for the women described in the poem. However, I just feel like I’m able to understand this poem in more than just a sophistication level, but I feel I’m able to connect with author in such of a way that I’m able to visualize every word in the poem in some kind of way, shape, or form.
For a person just glancing at this poem, it will be very difficult to comprehend the actual significance or imagery of the poem. Honestly, I probably read this poem between 10 to 15 times and I still don’t think I have a complete understanding of what the original meanings of this poem are, I can only go by my opinions of what I believe this poem is talking about. This poem can be easily misunderstood if you don’t take time to do a research on some of the things that is talked about. The first stanza of the poem says “Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall she walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, and she is dying piecemeal of a sort of emotional anemia.” This stanza of the poem have such great imagery, you can almost imagine the skein of loose silk blown against a wall. However, the first couple of times I read this stanza I had no idea of what the meanings of it was, so I took time to read it over and then took some time to actually research some of the words I was having trouble with. Kensington Gardens troubled me; I had no idea of where it was at or any kind of background on this place. After some research I discovered that it was actually once a private garden, it was considered one of the Royal Parks of London, and this is a very big place, it covers around 275 acres. You’re probably wondering why I needed to know the information about Kensington Gardens. Well, I strongly feel that when you have an idea of what a story or a poem is talking about, then you are most likely to get a better understanding of what the significance of the text is. My understanding of just the first two lines of the poem indicates to me that this lady that is described to be “like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall” is a person of higher class and the fact that she is walking in a path in Kensington Gardens automatically gave me this image of a wealthy women.
The poem then goes on to say, “she is dying piecemeal of a sort of emotional anemia.” After reading this line of the stanza many times, I started to get this vivid picture of the poet observing this women and I could almost imagine the look on his face or the pain inside of him at that moment when he sees this lady in such distress. “Emotional anemia” is used to describe the emotions of this lady. After reading this line I took some time to reflect on what it really means to have that type of emotional pain. This line of the poem troubled me a lot, I just could not begin to understand how much a person had to be going through that could cause them to be in that stage.
The next stanza states that “ roundabout there is a rabble of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They shall inherit the earth.” I had the hardest time with this stanza of all the rest of the poem. What threw me off the most is that these stanzas, for the most part, just don’t seem to have any kind of connection with the first one, it just don’t seem like it was suppose to be there. However, I concluded that maybe this line is basically the author expressing his anger about a these kids that he sees around him, running around or maybe he had a bad experience with a group of kids and he wants to express how mad he is that these same kids that are filthy and sturdy are the same ones who will one day inherit the earth, so I believe the author is just expressing his anger of the matter.
The final stanza of the poem says “In her is the end of breeding. Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like someone to speak to her, and is almost afraid that I will commit that indiscretion.” Though the most depressing part of the poem, I also find this stanza to be the most interesting part of the poem as a whole. The imagery in this section is incredible. The author of the poem is able to view this lady and I’m not sure if they knew each other before this, but the author is able to see that this lady is going through a hard time just by the way she looks. My interpretation of this stanza is that I strongly believe that this lady is very suicidal, I believe that she is going through some kind of emotional decay at home and she is not sure of how to deal with it. The line that speaks of her boredom and how exquisite and excessive it is, push me to think that whatever the conflict that is going on in her life it is something that has been going on for a while, so long that she is bored of it and she is simply tired of it. I feel that the author really want to approach this lady and tell her that everything will be ok, however he is not sure of how to approach her and let her know that everything will be ok. Sometime in life I think we get to these intersections and we have no idea of where we are going and we just want someone to direct us to the right path and we sometime fail to realize that the right path is through God.

Waiting for Godot

I can truly understand why some people would be confused by the play “Waiting for Godot”. However, I feel like this play or story has so many meanings, I feel as if the author tries to get people to think, but the moral of the story is so obvious. I personally think the story of “Waiting for Godot” is constructed around hope, a lot like our Christian belief system. Even from the title you can draw some connection to the Christian faith and God, the title is waiting for “GODot” and if you take some time to look the first three letter of Godot’s name clearly spells out God, so it’s obvious the writer of the story is basing the story of the Christian belief. In addition to, I feel as if the two main characters in the story Vladimir and Estragon represents us as Christians and the tree is a representation of the world, we live our life as Christians waiting for God on a day to day basis, like Vladimir and Estragon we have no idea if God is real or how does he look like, but we wait on his return. We wait by this tree and many different obstacles comes our way, we sometime feel like quitting and to just go home, we sometimes face things that are so tragic that we become spiritually suicidal, however we stick around base on a young boy with a message that indicates that GODot is real and he may not come today but there is a good chance that he will be here tomorrow and we as Christians cannot make the mistake of going home and leaving the tree of the Christian faith because tomorrow GODot just may come and we will be no where to be found. I may be completely wrong about my translation of this story, but I honestly feel as if that is exactly what the author is trying to say.

Confusing Poets

Poets are very artistic individuals. So when the question rises of, do poets purposely write their poems in attempt to confuse their audience? I would have to answer "no," simply because I feel that most writers write to express their thoughts and emotions in ways that distinguish them from other poets. In every kind of art, rather music, poetry, painting, acting, and many other forms of arts, I feel that people seek for originality and we as the audience don't want to see the same things from every artist, because that would then become very redundant and for some reason our human minds can’t seem to appreciate things that we see on a regular basis or things we hear too often. So I don't think poets strive to make their writings as difficult or confusing as possible I honestly think they try to be more different than other poets. Most people strive for individuality and I strongly believe that is what makes us as people so unique. Though we were created equally in the image of God, the Lord also makes us our own person, though we may have similar ideas however, no two individuals think the same. The fact that we as people don’t think the same is what I believe constitute our uniqueness and that is why poets express their poems in ways that truly define their feelings. I also believe people find different meanings in poetry based on their ability to connect with the poem. I feel if the person is able to draw some kind of personal connection to the subject of the poem, they are then less likely to be confused with the poem, and another beautiful thing about poetry is that we have the ability to translate it in whatever way we want. The Bible for example is full of poetry however; people have found so many different meanings to writings of these poets that we now have so many different denominations based on the translation of the biblical poems.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along

During the last class session we watched the film Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along. It was a pretty good film for the most part. However, a few times during the film, the actors almost appeared as if they were trying a little too hard. During the film it was hard to differentiate between if the writer was trying to demonstrate sadness or if he was just trying to win a few good laughs. During the film Dr. horrible has this big crush on this girl that he frequently sees at the laundry mat name Penny, but he never gets to talk to her. So when he finally gets the chance to make a good impression on her, he was so busy worrying about his evil plan to steal the van, that he blew it and his plan pretty much backfire and he almost ran her over with that same van and to add insult to injury, his worst enemy Captain Hammer comes to save Penny’s life and then she finally falls in love with him. Though Captain Hammer was supposed to be the hero in the film and the good guy, he appeared to be very egocentric and acted as if he was bully. The way the writer wrote this film you begin to fall in love with Dr. Horrible, even though he is portrayed as the villain. Me personally I wanted Dr. Horrible to achieve out of this hatred I grew to have for Captain Hammer as the film continued, I was cheering for the bad guy. I found a lot of different scenes to be funny in the film, one that stood out was when Penny was introducing captain Hammer to Dr. Horrible in the laundry mat and Captain Horrible made this comment about his hammer and he came back to verify to Dr. Horrible exactly what he meant by his hammer.

Lake Bonny Park

My trip to Lake Bonny Park was very nice. The day was very windy and it was overcast throughout the whole time I was there, however I still enjoyed myself. I went there by myself so I didn’t have anyone to distract me from interaction with nature. I started this moment with nature by walking around the park and looking for anything out of the ordinary, so for the first 15 to 20 minutes I pretty much just observe everything, while also being very aware of my surrounding and watching out for snakes and gators. While observing I saw a few different types of butterflies, some were yellow some were blue and some were other colors, they were very pretty, I tried taking some pictures from my phone, but they were too fast so I couldn’t get a focus on them.
Throughout the time I was at the park, I took a few different pictures of things I thought that was interesting, some turned out pretty good and some didn’t really turn out that great. I took about 20 minutes just to meditate on some of the things that is going on in my life, I mostly thought about my plans for after I graduate in the spring and I thought about some of my relationships and what I can do to make them better. I also took time to write a poem, I would post it on this blog, but it’s not that good.
The whole time I was there I was pretty much by myself so it gave me time to do some of things that I wanted to do. It’s been a long time since I had a long conversation with God, so I felt like that was my opportunity so I took about 10 to 15 minutes just to pray to God and just thank him for all that he has brought me through this year, I also took time to listen to what God had to say. This trip to Lake Bonny Park was really nice; I got the opportunity to connect with nature on a complete different level, while taking time to have a really good conversation with God.

Praying

During the last class session we read the poem “praying” by Mary Oliver and I completely agree with this poem from the first line all the way till the last one. In the poem it basically says that prayer do not have to be a novel, it could be just “a few words patch together.” I think we as Christians sometimes think that we have to say so much to God so he can understand everything we mean, to the last detail. In doing this I think we fail to acknowledge how great God is, he already knows what we want or what we need, even before we realize it. Another line in the poem that really stuck out to me was when she said, “this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks,” I think we as Christians are very guilty of that, we sometime take prayer, especially when we are praying out loud, as some kind of contest, we try to use these big words in order to impress our peers, it seems as if sometimes we are seeking some kind of compliment from the people around us, as if we are waiting for someone to let us know that was great prayer. Another line of the poem that really spoke to me was when she said “a silence, in which another voice may speak,” this line is basically telling me that prayer is not just speaking to God. Sometimes we just need to silence our voices and listen to what God has to say to us. I have known for a while now, that a conversation requires both speaking and listening, so if we are not listening to what God is trying to tell us, the conversation “prayer” cannot work. I’m not trying to criticize people that prays out loud or that prays for a very long time, I just hope that we have the right motive behind our prayers.