My Brother, The Artist, At Seven

is the title of the poem, by Richard Levine, which I have chosen. Of all the poems I looked through for Poetry Out Loud, many were interesting and well written, and many more were not. However, none of them quite connected the way this poem did. So as to not confuse the reader, here's the poem in its entirety:

As a boy he played alone in the fields   

behind our block, six frame houses   

holding six immigrant families,   

the parents speaking only gibberish   

to their neighbors. Without the kids   

they couldn't say "Good morning" and be   

understood. Little wonder   

he learned early to speak to himself,   

to tell no one what truly mattered.   

How much can matter to a kid   

of seven? Everything. The whole world   

can be his. Just after dawn he sneaks   

out to hide in the wild, bleached grasses   

of August and pretends he's grown up,   

someone complete in himself without   

the need for anyone, a warrior   

from the ancient places our fathers   

fled years before, those magic places:   

Kiev, Odessa, the Crimea,   

Port Said, Alexandria, Lisbon,   

the Canaries, Caracas, Galveston.   

In the damp grass he recites the names   

over and over in a hushed voice   

while the sun climbs into the locust tree   

to waken the houses. The husbands leave   

for work, the women return to bed, the kids   

bend to porridge and milk. He advances   

slowly, eyes fixed, an animal or a god,   

while beneath him the earth holds its breath.

 

     It's a bit lengthy, which is why I initially wasn't sure whether I wanted to read it, but it strikes a deep chord 

with me. Where I originally lived, we had a large (or so it seemed when I was five or six, anyway) backyard 

built on a gently sloping hill, with a small lawn and a gazebo at the bottom. This backyard was the subject of 

the many adventures my brother and I conducted exploring this strange, alien landscape. We had named almost 

every conceivable part of the landscape: the small downhill between the trees was a waterfall, the gazebo had a 

giant oracular snake inside, the small stone chair was a portal to another world, the sandy, secluded, part of the 

hill was a cliff prone to rockslides, the climbing tree granted powers to us small children, and the front yard was 

in reality a massive maze filled with strange creatures. We would craft elaborate morality plays in this landscape, 

mostly concerning random elements of whatever we had read or seen recently. And so the boy in the poem who 

the author describes with such fondness could really be myself, looking back on my childhood in the backyard.

     Another element of the poem which I felt fondness for were the lines about the immigrant families and their

neighbors. Like the poem's author, my parents immigrated, in his case from Russia, in mine from Iran, but I have

had the experience of having to translate what my parents heard into names that others understand enough times 

that it has become almost whimsical for me. These shared experiences form the reason why I have chosen "My 

Brother, the Artist, at Seven" for Poetry Out Loud.

Poetry Out Loud

Medusa, by Louise Bogan
Anne Rutledge, by Edgar Lee Masters
It was not Death, for I stood up, by Emily Dickinson
In Praise of Pain, by Heath McHugh
Famous, by Naomi Shihab Nye
Fairy-tale Logic, by A.E. Stallings
My Brother, the Artist, at Seven, by Philip Levine

Out of these poems, I liked "Fairy-tale logic," "It was not Death, for I stood up," "in Praise of Pain,"  "Famous," and "My Brother, the Artist, at Seven." I liked these as they communicated a unique emotional meaning that I could relate to myself.


I did not like "Medusa," or "London" as they seemed overly archaic, or "Anne Rutledge," as I thought it tried to be too patriotic.

Out of these, I would probably choose My Brother, the Aritst, at Seven, as it was most interesting to me and was long enough that I would consider reciting it. Personally, this poem reminded my of time in my backyard, exploring imaginary worlds. The imagery of immigrants speaking gibberish without their children to translate also rings especially in my memory.

Looking at the audience and avoiding over-acting will probably be fairly easy for me, as my eyes tend to wander naturally when I am speaking, and because hand motions are not something I use subconsciously.

Proceeding at a natural and fitting pace may be difficult for me, as I tend to speak quickly. Also, relaxing and enjoying the poem may also be hard, because I become nervous fairly easily.

I watched Danse Russe, recited by William Farley, and was impressed by his facial expression, as it matched the tone of the poem extremely well, as well as his occasional but fleeting use of gesture, which provided accentuation without overdramatising the poem.
I also watched I Am Waiting, recited by Madison Niermeyer. The recitation was successful in large part because the reciter's tone maintained a balance between ironic and expressive.


     I think I will choose to recite My brother, the artist, at seven, and am also looking forward to the competition and hearing the poems everyone has chosen. I chose my poem because of its meaning to myself, length, and vivid imagery. As for the website where I found it, I found it well-designed and easy to navigate, thankfully. A descriptor of the poems by category or subject matter may have helped with finding a poem, however.


 - Sherwin

The Most Important Skill

     Arguably the most important skill I have learned in the first quarter of English came from the unit on writing a five-part-paragraph analyzing To Kill A Mockingbird, which involved writing, editing, and listening to the paragraphs. This unit came and went in October but the techniques learned have not. Not only is knowing the format itself important, but the editing techniques and writing styles are equally so.

     By simple merit of being the standard short-paragraph form, knowing how to write a five-part-paragraph is a necessary. However, in all expository writing, some variation on concrete details and commentary will pop up. Therefore, understanding how to utilize these, how to intersperse your concrete details from the entire text, how to comment without summarizing, and how to make both build upon the theme, is crucial in order to write about literature.

     Another hugely important aspect of learning how to write a five part paragraph was learning how to critique and edit the paragraphs of others as well as one's own. Although it initially appears short and simple, because of its size, a five-part-paragraph must be streamlined, with every idiom, device, and word contributing to its overall theme. One must first understand in detail all of the elements in the writing in order to critique it, and even then, to forge a better paragraph, one must be able to look critically at their creation and say, "A little more to the left."


One side effect of being surrounded by all of the interpretations of To Kill a Mockingbird within the five-part-paragraphs is that I now view each book I read as a story with an innate meaning to life as well as a tale. When I read The Count of Monte Cristo, for example, and began wondering how on earth the reader was intended to sympathize with the seemingly deranged Count, I realized that, rather than the Count, it was the message about revenge that was important in the novel. In short, through my study of five-part-paragraphs, I have grown as a writer and a reader.

Lobsters

     One idea from the classroom discussion of "Lobsters," by Howard Nemerov that interested me was the comparison of the lobsters to philosophers in their ivory towers. The comparison is not so far-fetched. Like philosophers, lobsters appear from the outside to be entirely shut off from the outside world in a dreamlike state, crawling through time with no apparent regard for the rest of the world. Similarly, philosophers might also appear to an observer to be nothing more than extremely lazy humans. However, both are more than daydreamers, the lobsters with their "imperial claws" and "beauty of strangeness," the philosophers with their thoughts and ideas.

      It would be an understatement to say that this influenced my view of the poem. I started to realize that the lobsters themselves were more than victims, and that the author was saying a bit more than an animal-rights statement. Rather, I began grasping at the deeper ideas of the poem, like death, ignorance, and the cyclic nature of the world. The comparison of lobsters to philosophers opened up my eyes to the greater depths of the poem.

Five Part Paragraphs

     To write a quality 5-part-paragraph, a writer needs to do many things. Two of the most important, and most commonly forgotten, are to really think about the topic of the paragraph and to pay attention to the rubric. Many of the paragraphs that have been read in class suffer because the topic of the paragraph is too broad, the concrete details do not relate to the topic sentence, or the topic does not present enough material to work with. All of these problems relate to an insufficient amount of thought being put into the creation of the topic. Many people try to write based on the first topic that comes into their head. Although occasionally this may be effective, most often the best idea is not the first one, but the third, fifth, or even eighth topic that they think of. In addition to this, many of the remaining errors simply relate to the rubric itself. Some people forget a transition, or add a bit of extra information in their conclusion, or have too much commentary. All of these problems can be solved by simply checking the paragraph against the checklist for disparities. The errors become simple to fix in this way.

     In my own case, I probably need to check my paragraph for simple errors a bit more as well as ensure that my topic is completely cohesive. At first, my current 5-part-paragraph jumped between several points sporadically, not emphasizing any of them. In the future, I must try and keep my paragraph on a single, apparent idea, therefore bypassing this problem. Also, several of the problems with my paragraph, such as a few punctuation errors, could have been fixed just by checking the paragraph thoroughly. These errors are really unnecessary. With a few careful changes, I can significantly improve my 5-part-paragraph.

High Diction

     This fine morning, I departed English class promptly and began descending the stairs towards my mathematics class. As I walked, the thronging mass divided itself into tributaries and I endeavored to ensure that I had discovered the correct one. Eventually, the lethargic crowd awoke and sorted themselves into their respective destinations. I entered my classroom, the second to arrive, and immediately began transcribing a copy of the night's assignment. Soon, the rest of the class entered and seated themselves in their desks, and the lesson commenced

     The lecture shed light on the division of polynomials, and stratagems to use when pursuing the quotient, such as synthetic division. Although dull at times, I ensured that my eyes remained focused so as to be prepared for the toil that was to come. After a half-hour of explanation, the toil in question began. I am now led to believe that sadists locked up in some godforsaken asylum were the authors of my textbook, as the difficulty of two of the problems bordered on the ridiculous. Although the concept that these writers sought to explain was simple in nature, they attempted to include every possible complexity. Soon, the class ended and I was forced to complete the assignment elsewhere.

Tides

A duet I wrote over the summer and only got around to uploading now. I'm sorry about the MIDI quality and editing. Blame laziness. Oh, and if someone knows how to embed YouTube videos, please say so.

Most Interesting Writing

     I have written enough in school and on my own that thinking of my reactions to my own writing is a bit of a challenge nowadays. However, out of the work that I can remember, my short story in 7th grade stands out.

     A bit of background: in 7th grade, my English teacher taught a unit on short stories. We read The Necklace, The Lottery, The Tell-Tale Heart, and many others, and discussed their elements, plot arcs, and characterization. To finish off the unit, we each had to write a seven-to-ten page short story, and as you may have guessed by this point, this is the piece of writing that I am referring to.

     Unlike most things I write, which I can usually sort by whatever had been read recently, and therefore heavily influenced by, I'm not entirely sure where my story came from. It featured a 14-year-old girl named Aura, her linebacker older brother, her rather average parents, their infant son, and very little else. My entire short story literally took place throughout the course of one day inside a rather ordinary house. The country that the house was in, which I took great pains to avoid identifying, was about to be bombed back into the Stone Age by a similarly unidentified aggressor.

     Most of my short story, I realized now, consisted of various ways my protagonist attempted to distract herself from the approaching bombs. Morbid? Definitely. Suspenseful? Occasionally, which was why I enjoyed writing the story. The tension and the constant thought that in a few hours, everything that the characters were seeing would be blown to ashes made the writing process entertaining. And the little touches that I tried to add (a computer game, her older brother's football injury, the doting parents) made the story of better quality than most things I had written up until that point.

     At the same time, my writing was nowhere near perfect. One of the parts that I take the most issue with is my attempt at some sort of climax for the story, which ended up being rather flat and dull. My attempts to avoid the aggressor country and the bombed country verged on comical. The ending also was very vague, and the question I received most from those who read it was "Did they die?" followed extremely closely by "Why didn't you kill them?" Still, overall, I consider my 7th grade short story my best piece of writing.

The Count of Monte Cristo

My novel that I am currently reading is The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. The novel was written two hundred years ago, and is set in post-Napoleonic France. The story started out slowly, laying out exposition about how great a person Edmond Dantes, the protagonist, is, and how many of his peers are jealous of his good fortune, only for Dantes to be sent to prison. Dantes promptly breaks out of prison, discovers an enormous fortune, and adopts the identity of The Count of Monte Cristo. All of this, the back of the book could tell you.

The story centers around Dantes, but it seems more like there are two main characters. Edmond Dantes is naive and believes the best of everyone, quick but not educated. Then, after the events listed above, he is practically replaced. Instead, the mysterious, powerful, wise Count has taken his role. No one recognizes him, and he is practically a new character. On one hand, this is a welcome relief from the slightly two-dimensional character of Dantes, but one almost feels Dumas is setting up a plot twist. At the same time, the story is, if not full of action, at least constantly moving, with plenty of murders, vendettas, bandits, kidnappings, and intrigue to keep the plot going.

The author's characterization of people, relying on sharp contrasts and descriptions through dialogue, creates very interesting characters. On one hand, one can name a character and immediately think of a defining characteristic. Yet the characters rarely move beyond that. Even our protagonist, Dantes, is infrequently characterized beyond what he begins as, and when he becomes the Count, it feels like a tectonic shift, character-wise.

Easily, I can compare this book to Les Miserables, another story which I read last year. On the surface, both are quite similar. Both concern a Frenchman in the early 19th century who is injustly imprisoned, and both have an inordinately long length. If one compares the two, there are significant differences. Les Miserables was essentially a character-driven story, its plot consisting of the emotional conflicts of its protagonists and antagonists, and the actions by which these conflicts were displayed. The Count of Monte Cristo is a very different novel, in that it, for better or for worse, tells much less about a character, even as the characters do more. Comparing Edmond Dantes and Jean Valjean is ridiculous; they begin similarly, but soon diverge into completely different plotllines.

For a creative project, since very few guidelines have been given at this point, I am still slightly lost. Still I think it would be interesting to write a piece of music consisting of themes for the main characters. I have already composed enough music to believe that I could accomplish this, and given my lack of artistic abilities, it would be the highest quality product I could produce. In order to make the piece more understandable, I would include annotations so that a listener could understand when the piece changes.


Thanks for reading
                             -Sherwin

My own Mockingbird

     To Kill a Mockingbird is a very odd book, in that it works on two levels. On one hand, the book is exactly what it is: a story told in text. At the same time, it takes a deeper meaning to each reader. If it didn't, after all, discussions of it would be meaningless, as the opinions expressed would be uniform. To one person, Scout may be a brave, intelligent child, while to another, she might be nothing more than a vehicle that the story is viewed from, and not a particularly good one at that. To each, To Kill a Mockingbird is a unique book, not quite the same one experienced by anyone else.

     The story spoke to me in two different ways, as the book itself told a dual narrative in many ways. I personally thought that Scout's childhood and the court case itself featured two intertwined arcs, and each affected me in its own way.

     The court case, and the larger issue of racism it explored, was something almost entirely new to me. Growing up, the closest I have come to the vehement opinions of the characters are being mistaken for a Mexican. So I was completely unprepared for the judgmental attitudes the characters freely displayed. From Mrs. Dubose to Scout's own teacher, the characters by today's standards are blatant racists. At first, I had trouble comprehending this, and to work to understand it. Eventually, I began to, if not sympathize with, at least understand the attitudes that had caught me off-guard. This development, to me, was one of the most integral parts of To Kill a Mockingbird.

     At the same time, Scout's childhood both reminded and contrasted with my own childhood. At the house I lived in up until the age of about 8, I had a huge backyard. Nowadays, it seems to have shrank, but at the time, it was a maze of snake-filled hedges, a cliff, a massive (to my mind), temple-like gazebo, a huge tree, and occasional outcroppings of grass and rock. Scout's explorations of her neighborhood brought this to mind, and her plays with Jem and Dill brought to mind countless stories of good guys and bad guys my brother and I had invented to amuse ourselves.
     The similarities brought nostalgia, but there were contrasts, chief among them the existence of Dill. Everywhere I have lived, I have never been particularly close to a neighbor of mine. My friends have lived a moderate distance away, so that seeing them outside of school becomes a bit of a special occasion. Comparing this to Scout and Dill's constant adventures, I felt a bit of loss.
Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, the parts of it that have spoken to me have created the unique story that I know it as.

My Boo Radley

Hello again,

     Very few, if any people that I know fit into my life the way Boo Radley fits into Scout's. The simple problem is, no one is mysterious enough. However, particularly in my early childhood, my geographic location was simultaneously important to my upbringing and mysterious to my 6-year-old mind, similar to Boo Radley, in a roundabout sense.

     Anyone, particularly a real estate agent, can tell you that location is terribly important to anything. And as a small child, I had some idea of where I was, similar to the fact that Scout knows that Boo Radley is probably human, and lives in a creepy old house nearby. I knew that school was twenty minutes from home, that this was a long way, and that the drive between the two involved roads, a car, and several large bridges. If you had asked me what streets and roads I was on, however, I would be clueless. Likewise, any stranger asking for directions to "east Olympia", for example, would receive a blank stare.

     I honestly don't know where my geographic knowledge, or lack thereof, came from. I knew perfectly well, after all, which street I lived on, which state I was in, and could probably point where I was on a map, if asked. Yet everything I knew was measured in a magical unit called "distance from home". In my mind, my house was the center of the universe, a point from which everything else radiated outwards. As for relations between each other, my mind grew more hazy. Once two buildings became more than a few streets apart, I had no idea.

     At the same time, my location, unbeknownst to me, was exerting great influence on my life. My school, for example, was a rather long distance from home. As a result of this, I didn't have friends over very often, as most lived closer to school. This only occurred to me long afterwards, but I realize now that a large portion of my development was affected by my geography. The most obvious shift it caused, of course, was my move significantly closer to school in order to remain inside of the school district. Although I understood the effect, the cause remained beyond my reach..


     Similarly to Scout, as I grew older, my understanding of my location increased. I began paying attention to street signs, noticing similar locations, and eventually meshing together a map of Olympia. The map was incomplete, but at least it worked. As time passed, blanks filled in, freeways popped into existence, and I became more aware of my geography. Likewise, by the end of the story, Scout knows Boo Radley not to be a bogeyman, a monster, or a murderer, but simply as a rather childlike old man who lives on her street. The unknown gradually becomes the accepted.

Thanks for listening to me ramble on,

     -Me

Introductions

Hello,

Welcome to my rather generic English blog for 9th grade. At this point, I think I'm supposed to describe myself. Here we go:

As a reader, I tend to read fantasy and sci-fi, with a random dabble of nonfiction and realistic fiction thrown in at unspecified intervals. As a writer, I'm impatient to finish and tend to speak......colorfully.

Anyone wanting to follow this blog will find various school-related posts. Like this one, for example. As for enlightening the online world, if it needs enlightening, it should probably look somewhere else. I recommend Wikipedia. Google is also useful.

The meaning of English class....well, literally, it is the gathering of students and a teacher who study the language spoken in the United States. However, in reality, it's a bit more complex than that. English, or any language really, is about communication. The purpose of English class is to strive for a greater degree of clarity and eloquence in comminications with others, whether written or spoken. It is also, through reading, to expand horizons far beyond the limits of what actually exists and to inform others of views, actions, and ideas.

I honestly have no idea why English is a four-year-requirement for colleges, except that colleges might prefer well-written applications. For reality, it certainly seems as if English is necessary in order to function best, but I would think that requiring four years of whatever you will be studying might be a bit more effective.

Thanks for listening to me ramble on.

   -Me