Pencils

This poem by Carl Sandburg is very direct; right away it gives the message of the poem. During the poem Carl is comparing life and death to writing. Through his poem he is trying to say that he has never seen the world come to an end, nor has he seen the procreation of men stop. As long as the world continues there always be those who write. Until the world comes to a complete stop there will be new stories told and new pieces of literature to read from. The "stars never stop moving" is a form of symbolism because in the same way that they are constantly on the move in this same way pencils are constantly writing. There are always new stories that need to be told. Men are filled with vast imaginations and because of this we always have novels to write.

Ars Poetica

Archibald MacLeish's poem is a very controversial and bewildering one. Of course everyone has their different point of view on what the author means by this poem, but the one thing that is clear is that Archibald was trying to compare what a poem should be like to things that we can see and touch, to things that are solid and just are because they are. In my interpretation of Archibald’s poem I believe that the last line is the strongest because he says, "A poem should not be, but mean." This means that the meaning of a poem is not only to entertain the reader but to make the reader interpret the poem in their own way, according to their own life situations. Behind every poem is a great poet with a significant meaning.

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Wallace Stevens, “The Emperor of Ice Cream” is an open text poem. The author wrote this poem in such a way that there are many interpretations. To me the poem is comparing life and death to an ice cream. The emperor of ice cream is death. In the first stanza the author mentions kids and little girls and childhood crushes. These are all thing that happen when one is alive. In the second stanza however the author mentions that a girl is cold and her face is covered. This is an allusion to death. When one is dead they are covered and their feet get cold. In the same way that ice cream is cold but can melt and disappear we are solid but with time we also disappear. The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream is death.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

Walt Whitman’s, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” is a poem that captivates me intensely. The poem is trying to say that to learn how to appreciate something we have to go and see it or do it. The author in the poem says that his professor’s lecture though factual was boring. It was not till he went outside and saw the stars that he appreciated them. This is true in very aspect of life. To appreciate something we have to be it, live it, see it, touch it and breathe it. Personally, it is not enough for someone to tell me how to do something they have to teach it to me and this is exactly what the author was trying to portray through his essay.

Viva La Vida Vs. Violet Hill

The second essays were we had to compare two poems or two songs was a huge challenge for me. At first I didn’t know what to choose and after much thinking I came up with “Annabelle” and “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. But after a lot of searching I decided to change my poems into two songs. “Viva la Vida” and “Violet Hill” by Coldplay were the two songs that I chose to do my second essay on. These two songs have a deep meaning to them. Violet hill talks about religion and war while Viva la Vida only talks about religion. It was interesting for me to research these songs because of the different interpretations that I found. Viva la Vida talks about religion and it mentions Juan the baptize and the act of cutting his head off. On the other hand, Violet hill talks about religion and war and as we all know those are two controversial topics. After all my research I found that religion and war do in someway connect to each other.

Hamlet

“Hamlet” by William Shakespeare is a play that we are all commonly familiar with. This novel is also based upon the idea of revenge. Hamlet’s father has been killed and his mother has married Claudius, the new king of Denmark. One night Hamlet’s father’s spirit comes to him and tells him that he has been murdered in the most treacherous of ways by his brother, Claudius. Hamlet’s father tells his son to seek revenge so that his spirit can roam freely. Hamlet does precisely this, he begins to seek revenge. Hamlet causes the death of Ophelia his love, his mother and Polonius as well as two other innocent men. Finally the ending is a tragic one because Hamlet also dies.

This play though not written in our time has deep meaning. The play as well as the movie try’s to show us that revenge only causes more pain. We can never be at peace after we have been hurt even if we hurt those who hurt us in the first place. Revenge is a human characteristic that we all have in common but we should all strive to empower this horrible characteristic. Revenge does us no good it only hurts us.

The Thief and the Dogs

“The Thief and the Dogs” by Naguib Mahfouz is a novel that can easily be tied to others such as “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare. The entire novel is based on revenge. Said was incarcerated in jail for four years because of his best friends and his wives fault. Throughout the entire novel we see that Said is solemnly seeking revenge. Because of the fact that he can’t let he looses his daughter Sana, he looses Nur, he kills innocent people and he ends up dying at the end of the story. Revenge always brings out the worst in us.

Revenge is a twisted idea. It is human nature to seek revenge after someone has hurt us or someone dear to us. But forgiveness is one of the steps that let us forget about the past and not make us want to seek revenge. It is crucial to forgive rather then hurt because we have been hurt. If we seek revenge there will be a never ending cycle of revenge because if someone hurts us and we seek revenge then the person that was close to that person will also want to seek revenge. Revenge is never a good thing it only makes us do horrible things.