Spring Musical

Sample poetry analysis

A famous classical poet has said that the aim of literature is ‘to teach and to delight’. In the work ONE poet you have studied, examine some poems where both of these aims (instruction and something that pleases the reader) have been included, and show how that has been achieved.

Poetry was widely used before to help poets express their emotions and tell stories. It is shorter and more lively than a normal prose; in my opinion, it is another form of song, due to its strong beats and ambiguous form of expression. Overall, reading a poem is delightful because it is same as enjoying a music or a piece of art work, and another wonderful thing is many poetries can always teach readers a lesson and even guide their way. 

The style of Emily Dickinson’s poetry is simple but powerful which fits the “to teach and to delight” description perfectly. She is one of the greatest and most original poet in America. Sometimes, her poems are kind of abstract but brings sharp views, which attacks the limitation of their societies directly. Therefore, her poetry is usually full of educational values.   Also, her poetry is enjoyable to read; as far as I know, she was famous for using unexpected metaphors, which will definitely bring surprises to readers. 

In “Hope” is the thing with feathers, the title itself is an very important metaphor, which tells the characteristics of hope---free, joyful and unreachable. The object “hope” is described as a bird by the speaker through the entire poem, but it is not even mentioned directly. However, the reason why we get it is the brief but precise metaphor. When I read this poem, many images are floating in my head; I, as a reader, could follow poet’s steps entering the world she describes: a beautiful bird is singing around me in the stormy chilly land. 

“ And sings the tune without the words

And never stops - at all -”

“I’ve heard it in the chillest land-

And on the strangest Sea” 

It can clearly tell that the vivd descriptions bring joys while reading the poem. And also the “-est” reputation creates the beat and heats up the emotions, which emphasizes the harsh condition the speaker is facing. In spite of this, the hope bird is still accompanied with the speaker, which shows the great and selfless of hope. 

“Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.” 

The tone of three stanzas’ rises steadily from peaceful and cheerful to strong and fearless. Readers are attracted by this delightful little poem, but also they are learning from it.

One of the main themes of this poem is the importance and selflessness of Hope. 

“ And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -”

It tells the readers that no matter how terrible life is, hope is always there, and it can cheer people up and give people warm. No one should give up hope even “in the chillest land”. It will always guide the way and light up the future. However, it costs no money and no payback, people just need to believe it from the bottom of their hearts. This is the life philosophy the poet was trying to tell us. 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers is a typical example of Emily Dickinson’s work, which influences thousands of people all around the world. They are taught by it and cheered by it. 

Sample Poetry Analysis

Ancestors, parents, children. The connections and oppositions among these groups often provide interesting material for poets. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, examine the means by which such relationships have been explored.

Normally, parents are the first teacher of children, and they are children’s models. Parents have tremendous influences on their children during their entire growing procedures. So the connections between parents and children are usually lifted out by the poets to portray deeply, and this theme is easy to arouse readers’ sympathy. Moreover, one of the most charming characteristics of poetry is it can express a concentrated meaning in a brief way, so the feelings are strong and powerful. Those variable emotions flowing in the poem creates the beauty of it.

Due to the constitutes of Naomi Shihab Nye’s family, the combination of Arabic culture and American culture can be reflected in her poetry. Some of her poems are aimed to break the stereotypes of the impression of Arabians in American people’s eyes, so they have historical and educational values. She did not express her emotions directly in her poems but use her father and her childhood memories very frequently. 

In Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, her father is a character, who is always longing for the connections between himself and his homeland, and he influences poet a lot because he is the person who taught the poet to reexamine her heritage brought from Arabia. He brings poet happy childhood memories, and he is a gentle and nice father in poet’s eyes. In My Father and the Fig Tree, the fig tree symbolizes the gift of nature and father’s homeland, so father loves the fig tree so much. 

“In the evening her sat by my bed 

weaving folktales like vivd little scarves. 

They always involved a fig tree.”  

Here shows the close relationships between poet and her father. Also, starts to tell poet about the “fig tree”, when poet is just a little girl. It can be interpreted as her father naturally tells poet about the element in Arabian culture in normal daily life. Undoubtedly, those memory pieces build up poet’s identity and personality. Since her father does not want the man-made view to ruin his far but warm dream, he never plants a fig tree himself; however, finally he finds a place where he can place his drifting heart, and poet can definitely understand this happiness. 

“ ‘It’s a fig tree song!’ he said,

Plucking his fruits like rip tokens,

emblems, assurance

of a world that was always his own.”

Because of her father, poet relies so much on her family and he belonging. According to the descriptions of his father chanting the fig tree, we can see her father’s emotions passes down on her, and she keeps them carefully, which is the power of the connections between generations. 

Also, in Blood, Naomi Shihab Nye shows this connection even more obviously. At that time period, Americans had many misunderstandings of Arabians, such as they were violent and radical. The poet feels terrible about that, and she sees her as part of Arabia because her father. She chooses to accept and stand for Arabians’ position especially in the fourth stanza, and her father teaches her become to a “true Arab” step by step.

“Today the headlines clot in my blood. 

A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page. 

Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root 

is too big for us. What flag can we wave? 

I wave the flag of stone and seed, 

table mat stitched in blue.”

She tries to rise voice for Arabs in all her mind because she wants to embraces this gift and blood given by her father. Through the tight bonds between poet and Arabian culture, her close relationships between she and her father can be clearly seen. She learns to live in “true Arab” way from her father, who is the person she loves so profoundly. 

In a conclusion, children learn a lot from their parents, including heritage, self-identity and personality. They mirror their parents all the time. Poets express what they have learned from their parents and what they have developed themselves in poetry. This unbreakable connection will always be the focus no matter how time changes.

staging proposal for MLML

MLML for me is like a fairy tale, if I am the director, I would like to give audiences the feeling similar as listening to an old nursery rhyme. It is a long and dramatic bed-time story. The characters should seem like imaginary. 

Firstly, I need a pretty big stage, which is bigger than the black box. A changeable back wall, which is easier to show the place changes. One back wall should be painted on “forest” images, with many trees, flowers and a stream. And also the Black Mountain should also be drawn on this wall. That is the village where DDD lives in. Another back wall should be painted with the view of the city and Daniel’s hotel(put some little bulbs on the painted buildings, which are used to decorate the Christmas tree). This two back walls are the main places where the play take place. One row of ground lights will be placed in front of the back walls in line. 

Secondly, the main sound effects are also separated into two different parts. One is in the quiet village, and the other one is in the busy city. For village’s part back ground music, it should have sound effects of “birds’ singing in the morning”, “river floating” and other “animals”, in order to create the feeling of nature and fresh. And also it should have some happy lively tone background music (flute can be a perfect instrument to play it). For the city part, we should prepare “car noises”, “noisy crowds” and also “party music” sound effects, and also use more modern style back ground music(I think piano can do this job), in order to show the audiences how busy and crowd the city is and to emphasize the contrasts between two different scenes. Generally, the sounds of “rain”, “storm” and “thunder” are also needed for both parts. 

Thirdly, lighting choices are very important as well. It is not only affected by different scenes, but also by different weathers, time and emotions. Basically, I would make the lights as colorful as possible, for creating the atmosphere of “fairy tale”. The variable of lighting colors can also catch audiences attentions, so it is one of my focus. 

Fourthly, costume is another one of the biggest parts. The main characters DDD would wear a light yellowish dress with little colorful flowers embroidered on the edge. And she also makes herself and shiny pebble necklace to let her stand out among other peasants. She is bare foot when she lives in the village. Her hair worn in a bun with a pure white flower on it. Other villagers would wear brown and grey clothes with some patches on it, and also some of them could wear a straw hat. Their skins are dark, and their trouser are rolled up. And also they can hold some farming tools in hand. The other main character, Daniel, should wear suits to symbolize his high social status and also his family’s wealth. And also people in the city will wear shoes and more expansive colorful clothes. Then talking about the four gods. PPG should wear all black, and mainly he wears a cloak with bat patterns on it because he is the massager of death. Erzulie wears nearly white long dress, but it has red rose patterns on the bottom of the dress. She has a white and yellow flower roll on her head, and she also has long golden curly hair to show that she is very beautiful and graceful. Asaka is in green, orange and brown because she symbolizes the ground and plants. She could wear some tree branches and birds on her shoulders. She has a scepter in her hand which shows her power. And she should wear gold eye shadow. And for Agwe, he is in dark blue, and he has long hair. He wears a huge pearl ring on his thumb in order to show his status. He also has a cloak but it is much similar like a hard jacket. He wears many shell necklaces and bracelets. He has a tattoo (maybe shark pattern) on his shoulder.

In a conclusion, MLML is a very lively play for me. It should be bright, dramatic and colorful, and it is able to give audiences strong visual impacts. Everything happens in an unspecified time period and places. It should let audiences feel free and relax.  

Inclass writing

MB vs. TM

In page 60, TM wants to leave the village and to find Daniel, and she didn't tell her mother about that. She meets MB, and MB tells her some life philosophies. It is surprised that TM listens to MB’s words so easily because in the book TM is a very stubborn and selfish girl, and she always follows her own wish. But when pay a close attention to the dialogues, “To be tranquil, one must hang one’s hat where one can reach it. Keep one’s heart where one can feel its beat”, where he indicates that people should be wisdom of self-knowledge. “Tranquil” means “good ending”, and “hat” and “heart” are kind of the same thing, which represents TM’s “desire” and her “love”. MB says that TM gives her love to the wrong person, and because of that, she might not have a good ending.  And he believes in “fate”, which TM believes in a lot. “ History has cast our fate in stone.” I believe that’s why TM listens his advice. He is the one TM listens to, rather than her own mother.   

DDD's costume

Other peasants wear grey and brownish clothes and pants. 

DDD wears a simple light yellowish dress, and at the edge of the dress, her mother embroidered some little colorful (red, pink, white, blue, purple) flowers for her. She doesn't wear shoes, which is same as other peasants. But she made a little shiny pebble & shell necklace by herself (gathering beautiful pebble along the stream/Agwe’s area)

Notes Chapter 6-9