Keeping Things Whole- POL

To start things off, I am reading the poem "Keeping Things Whole" by Mark Strand. When choosing our poems for the Poetry Out Loud competition, I was instantly drawn to this poem due to its title. When I read  it, it made a lot of sense to me. Although there were very few stanzas, I felt like it had quality and more meaning than the others. Due to its shortness I continued to keep searching for something that seemed more "complex". When I searched, everything seemed to have useless words and phrases which really did not help me see what they were truly about. I felt like "Keeping Things Whole" would be the best choice because it is simplistic yet has a strong meaning.

In the idea of relevance to my life, there isn't a really definite comparison. I felt that this poem is somewhat relative to the idea that the narrator's life is lacking purpose. He understands that he must keep moving and going on with his life even though he is interrupting the existence and paths of others. This can compare with my life because I often ponder over the idea of waking up everyday and going through this scheduled routine. After reading this, the ideal thought that came to my mind was "Why do I keep moving?'.

How will I convey this in my performance? I'm definitely thinking of a sort of sad voice, but also in a wondering/questionable to show that I'm not sure about life. At the end I will draw more sadness or somewhat monotone to convey that I have accepted life being this way and I just need to keep moving. With facial gestures, I will obviously express the facial gestures that go along with my tone. Hand gestures, on the other hand (pun), are a different story. I'm not going to use anything very dramatic but more subtle such as a tap on my leg or a finger tapping my head/lip to show that I am pondering. Hopefully all goes well in my performance!

The "Urgent! Extra Credit Blog" on 5 Part Paragraph Skills

Going over my old blog post helped me a lot. Even though I wrote it, I kind of completely forgot about those skills which would enrich my paper. These skills helped develop my new paper in many ways. One being, that I chose stronger transitions. I made sure to have strong transitions so they they did not flow in with everything else and were recognizable. That was helpful because it is so important to make sure it is clear when you are trying to make a new point. Another way being that I made sure my commentary was well written. I did not just restate and restate everything but instead I made it my own. The commentary written in my new paper was my actual thoughts on what I thought the quote meant and what the author was trying to  get across. Thanks to Mrs. Gilman for posting this so that I could rethink and improve the quality of my paper.

Poetry Out Loud

EATING POETRY

QUEENS CEMETERY, SETTING SUN

CARMEL HIGHLANDS

GOOD PEOPLE

I DREAMED THAT I WAS OLD

Of these five poems, I most enjoyed "Eating Poetry". I thought it was humorous and although it had a small message that this man absorbed poetry and was a better man for it. Would I want to recite this poem? Probably not, I feel as if it would be on the side newspaper column for one's small self enjoyment.

I did not like "I Dreamed That I Was Old". This poem was very sad and depressing to me. I do not like thinking about my death and longing for my youth.

Of these six poems, I am most interested "Good People". Although I'm not confident this is the poem I will be further studying.

I personally connected with "Good People" because it talks about parents and children. Obviously I can relate being that I am a child and I have parents.

The criteria that will be easiest is to make a connection with the audience. I feel like this will be easiest because I find it very simple to generally scan and make somewhat of eye contact with the audience as I am reading.

The criteria that will be hardest for me will be to "relax and act natural". This will be a problem because when reading I will want to get into a character.

Another criteria I will struggle with is to "not say rhyming poems in a sing-song manner". That will be difficult because I find myself wanting to just kind of let it flow instead of breaking it up so that it does not sound like a song.

Videos:
I watched "I am Waiting" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. This was a successful performance to me because the way the girl recited it made me think that she was actually thinking those words and that she was a part of it. Her small hand gestures fit great while she was speaking and were not too big so that it was not distracting.

I also watched "Man-Moth" by Elizabeth Bishop. This was successful because the guy reciting it was very well paced and his pauses in between words gave a dramatic effect. His gestures and flow through the poem were great.

I feel like this competition will be very competitive and there will be kids who are very serious about winning. I think I will do fine, I'm not expecting to win obviously. I have not yet decided the poem I want to memorize yet but I will in due time. I think this is a great website if you are studying or learning about poetry. It very resourceful to say the least.