Enjoying Poetry 4º ESO Miriam & Cristina

Enjoying Poetry

Miriam Feal Brage and Cristina Rodríguez Piñero 4º ESO

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Table of contents

1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….3

2. Our poems……………………………………………………………………………...3

a. Written together………………………………………………………………..3

b. Cristina’s haiku and calligram…………………………………………………4

c. Miriam’s haikus…………………………………………….………………….5

3. Poems.

a. Cristina…………………………………………………………………………..6

b. Miriam……....……………………………………...…………………………...8

4. Presents a. Cristina…………………………………………………………………………..10 b. Miriam…………………………………………………………………………...11

5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..………..12

6. Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..13

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1. Introduction.

In this project we are going to talk about poems. We have chosen two famous poems: one of them is As I grew older by Langston Hudges and the other one is A dream Whitin a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe. We are going to give our personal opinion about the authors’ words trying to guess what they wanted to express. We have included also our own poems: three haikus, one calligram poem, one dadaist poem and one acrostic. We don’t analyze songs because we will make a present.

2. Our poems. a. Written together.

Acrostic poem: Cake Cooking with imagination And you enjoy it knowing about flavours Excellent you will be.

Dadaist Poem The impossible isn’t together.

The labour on wednesday.

There aren’t any discussions without subjects.

The worst election is to believe in the shadow because it closes the night.

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b. Cristina.

Haiku:Imagination.

Imagination It is an incredible and pretty travel.

Calligram: Imagination

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c. Miriam, haikus.

Good love, a feeling, which makes people feel such as different people.

You think in the past, you remember a person that isn’t now here.

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3. Poems a. Cristina

It was a long time ago.

But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun— My dream.

And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream.

Rose until it touched the sky— The wall.

Shadow.

I am black.

I lie down in the shadow.

No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me.

Only the thick wall.

Only the shadow.

My hands!

My dark hands!

Break through the wall!

Find my dream!

Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!

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I chose this beautiful poem which is about protesting against racial discrimination because it gives the reader a great message: we must believe in ourselves and fight against any kind of discrimination. When I read it for the first time it moved me terrible. The author of this poem lives surrounded by shadows and darkness. A long time ago a thick wall began to rise around him. The wall doesn’t let the sun bring happiness and dreams into his life. Now he is strong enough to try to break down his terrible prison and find again his dreams.

I chose this beautiful image because it represents the new sunrise of his life.

According to literary critics “As I Grew Older” is a poem about the negative effects of racism, prejudice and discrimination. The poet was unable to achieve his childhood dreams because of racial oppression. Dreams and hopes are represented by “light”. On the other hand, “darkness” symbolizes prejudice, discrimination and racism. The wall is a metaphor, an obstacle to the poet’s dream. It represents racism and discrimination against the blacks. The poet is black: “I am black” and “my dark hands”, but he is going to break down the wall created by the whites during the racial oppression in America to reach his dreams.

b. Miriam

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Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow­ You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar Of a surf­tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand­ How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep­ while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

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This poem is a little bit sad in the way that Poe wanted to cry. The beginning is with a kiss on the brow, it signifies that with this person there is confidence. In this part you don’t really discover that is a sad poem, because the worst part is afterwards.

In the 5 line you can appreciate that he used a past time, because now (the moment that he wrote the poem) the days aren’t a dream. I think that he talked about different dreams because one of them is his life and the other is the dream of sleeping.

The sand could be a symbol, because it falls down among his fingers and maybe he wanted to express that he had lost his important people.

At the end he used interrogations trying to capture the attention of the readers.

The first time that I read the poem, it reminded me my grandpa because I lost him last year. I like the poem but in general I don’t like poetry. I chose this poem because I think that it’s very expressive and a lot of people feel the same in some moments.

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4. Presents a. Cristina Secret potion to find happiness.

Ingredients: no shadows, no darkness, only the light of the sun.

Instructions: break down the wall which rose round you filling your life with unhappiness. Let the sunshine turn back again into your life.

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b. Miriam 1. You open the box.

2. You take a poem.

3.You read the poem 4. You take one pencil and you underline the most important word of the poem for you.

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5. Conclusion After having made this project we realized that the deepest feelings can be expressed through poetry. Emotions can be expressed in many different ways… For example, when authors try to transmit sadness they use different words such as darkness, shadows, night, death, loneliness… But when they want to show happiness they use light, joy, sun, love…

At the beginning of the project we thought that it would be very boring but when we talked about this, we agreed that it wasn’t a bad topic, taking into account that we don’t really like reading poems. We also learned new vocabulary and how to make different kinds of poems: haikus, dadaist poems, calligrams, acrostics and so on.

Finally we must admit that it was an interesting project with which we learned different things.

6. Bibliography

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● Image of cover page: Humanidades de Pablo VI.Juan Bermej <http://humanidadespablovi.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/musica­y­poesia.html> [Consulted on 9/05/2014]

● Image of acrostic : Wikipedia. <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupcake> [Consulted on 10/04/2014]

● Image of the dadaist poem: Wikipedia. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Noche_de_luna_llena_­_Full_moon_night.jpg >[Consulted on 24/04/2014] ● Image of Cristina’s haiku: Una palabra al día. Jorge Pérez. <http://unapalabraldia.blogspot.com.es/2013/06/imaginacion.html> [Consultedon 5/05/2014]

● Image of “As I Grew Older”: Wikipedia. <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanecer#mediaviewer/Archivo:AmanecerDesdeElGarb %C3%AD.JPG> [Consulted on 24/05/2014]

● Image of Miriam’s haiku 1: Whispers Of The Heart. <http://heartwhispers.weebly.com/greatest­grandpa.html> [Consulted on 8/05/2014]

● Image of Miriam’s haiku 2 : List after list <http://listafterlist.com/1000­reasons­why­i­love­you­for­her­from­him/> [Consulted on 28/05/2014]

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Image of Miriam’s poem:

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<http://constantmotions.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/lluvia­vii­como­arena­entre­mis­ded os/> [Consulted on 03/06/2014]

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