Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Paragraph: "My Experience with Poetry"

Write a 150-word paragraph that refers to your personal experiences with poetry. The experiences do not have to be at school, although they may be if you wish. Be specific please.

Your answers will be read out and discussed at the beginning of class on Wednesday, October 28 so please have your homework done before then.

I will be absent next week. Renuka will be your teacher. She will provide me with an overall mark based on your participation in the two classes.

14 comments:

Brad said...

I started off disliking school poetry, but, despite the early negatives, my life since then has been filled with poetry. High school textbooks were full of obscure stuff I didn’t really understand very well and my teachers taught it as little as possible. That didn’t stop me from writing poems, however, as young men often do. Later on, in college, I belonged to a creative writing club and began to love poetry more; we invited local poets to our apartments, drank wine, read our work together. Poetry began to seem real. In the 90s, I wrote a number of poems and soon became involved in an early days workshop on the internet. The poets there (some well established and published) took my work seriously and their critiques taught me what is important to know. Now, I own more than 20 volumes of poetry and very much love to teach it every term.

Jessie said...

Frankly saying I don’t like to read or write poems. The Chinese poetry that I had learned in Taiwan, were composed by all strange and deep meaning words. Even they are rhythm or have balance writing, I still couldn’t feel the beautiful of the poetry. I’ve heard many people said that the poets through the poems to release something from their inside. They use indirect way telling things. Therefore, most poems have deeper meaning. It is hard for me, just according to some unrelated words to guess someone’s thinking. The “imagination” project is a big challenge to me. Since I don’t quite enjoy the poetry, I felt panic to write the poems. As I remembered in my Communication 12 class, Louis requested us to write a short and simple poem. I checked all of my dictionaries and tried to find some suitable words to fill in that poem. It really drove me crazy.

Raiya said...

My first time I read poetry was in 1998.I was an old enough to understand the world. The poem was extremely touched my heart. It was written in my language Swahili. The poem was talking about peace. “Rich people never ignore poor people. The world it’s like a ball. A rich person can possibly become a poor, and a poor can become a rich.” That’s what the poem was talking about. I was absolutely inspired by that poem. Then, I started looking for poetry’s books. Few months later, I started writing poems, and read them in front of my friends at school during the break time. My friends thought that I was going to become a crazy, but I loved what I was doing. Even now, when I advice my friends and give them ideas about how to create the best life, I write my advices in poetry’s formal, so they can not be bored while they read them. I can’t wait to start writing poems in English.

Douaa said...

During school years,I was passionate to poem and poetry.I learned lots of love and flirtation poems,and sometimes about society topics.For me,I found poem is a stimulating subject for the brain,knowledge,and spirit.Moreover,poems in my school were related to grammar lessons,and I was so happy when I go to board and share my classmates in my piece of homework.Although,like everything in life,I learned from poems the simplicity,the fidelity,and the sacrifice particularly,the old ones.Nowadays,I still read for my amazing poets like"Nizar Kabbani,Omroo el kays...",and some french poets such as"Emile zola,Jean de la fontain and his fabulous poem" la cigale et la fourmit".thatI still memorized until today.Finally,I appreciate all kinds of poems same as all cultures. Cause I know well ,that each culture has great poets that touch my feelings in their writing exactly as musical instruments.
- 160 words.

Sophie said...

Poetry is the most marvelous flower in the field of literature. The glamour of poems is using simple and metrical words and simile or metaphorical style to express special moods and deep feelings. Writing a poem needs much talent and power in the use of a language. In China, most people can recite some pieces of Chinese poesy. Most of Chinese ancient poems are written in four or eight sentences with five or seven words in each sentence, and with rhyme. When a little baby can speak, the parents will mostly teach the baby some verses or poems with rhyme. I have enjoyed poems from childhood to adulthood, from Chinese to English. I have learned some poetic forms and admired the poets’ genius. I appreciate some poets’ descriptions, infected by their passions, realizing their experiences, and connecting with my own. Learning, enjoying, imaging, I am looking forward to having a journey in English poetry.

Kevin said...

There is strong reverence to poetry in my mind; it likes a person looks up at a mountain which erect up to sky. I don't know when I read first poetry as I was a child; but I especially bought a poetry book when I moved to Canada although I have read it only one time and I don't know where it is now. I think most adult have had a dream to be a poet. Because it is cool to compose a poem. If a person can make a poem, that means he/she has mastered the language. I have never composed a poem except homework although I have read many poems and trying to do it. I think poem is the elite in any language all along. Especially after I learned "Lucy Gray" - a English poem. I found it is as beautiful as Chinese poem which I love so much. And yet it's still hard to me to enjoy English poem since almost all of poem are too concentrated to enjoy by a person like me whose English is as second language and need to be improved. But I think I will be able to enjoy it soon.

fatima said...

There was a very good relationship between poetry and me. It was a part of my life. As much as poetry can be complicated, it can be simple. Poetry is a resourceful awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language; it is also a choice to evoke an emotional response. Poetry has a tiny part in my life .I remember when I was at high school; I always was interested about reading poems to express my life style, movement, sadness, and happiness. I was always fascinated in romantic poems .I used to save money day by day to buy the poem books. When I buy them, I used to hide them from my dad’s sight and read them every night before I sleep, so I could guarantee that I will have a nice dream. Poetry was something that helped me to express what I feel, or see, or even what is going around me in my life. However, I wish no one would ask me to write one, it will be terrible. Words: 174

Audrey said...

I didn’t like poems when I was in high school. I thought that all the famous ancient Chinese poets were crazy. They had unusual life. They drunk and wanted to live in another world. Most important was that the teacher wanted you to know the meaning of the poems. They have deep meaning, and the words they used are really hard to understand. But, when I get more experience from the world, I realized I am very superficial. To write a good poem is not easy. It’s the way that they express their feeling from their heart. When I read the good poem, it’s beautiful and romantic. I feel like I am in their world. Sometimes, I have same experience. Why I didn’t know to use those words? I never write a poem. Maybe I can try one in this class. –141 words

sherry said...

I was very interested in to read the poem when I was at high school in china, but I never tried to write it.
Since I have been learning English at PALC, I started to learn writing the poem in communication 12. Although it was challenge, I was excited to enjoy it. In the class, I learned a lot: the rhythm, the vowel sound, and the versifications. For now, I still remember my first poem “Home”, and I was proud myself “I can do it” that I was doubt before because it was not only English, but also I never did even by my mother language.
However, I would like to read the poem because it has more room for the readers to image, to see the “pictures”. Also, the poem is briefly, and like sing a song when you read it. So, I will enjoy the next class.

Nusrat Begum said...

I read poetry in my own language Urdu. Our national poet is Allama Iqbal. His poetry is based on attempts to awaken the society of the Indian subcontinent after the British invasion of India. I cannot understand it because it is very deep.So, sometimes my husband says one or two couplets from the poet and then asks me their meanings. I keep quite for a while with blank face. My husband smiles,” It just passed over your head”. Then he tells me their meanings and theme. Then, I enjoy a lot. I say to my self, really birth of such poet needs centuries or even more. I read English poetry in my school life. I slightly remember a poem of “The Shepherd and the King”. I do not remember the name of the poet, but a question asked by king was: “How long will it take me to make a round trip of the world?” The answer of shepherd was very wise .He said,” You can make his trip in your thoughts only “. So the shepherd was awarded with a big prize.

WENDY CHEN said...

Poetry is the most precise art work in the world. Applying limited words, creating unlimited wild and fanciful thoughts; that is, the poetry can be interpreted by any one with his own emotion, feeling, and explanation. Thousands of people have been trapped into the secret, fantastic, and beautiful poetry paradise for years. Since my major is Chinese literature, Chinese poetry and poets just like my familiar, old, neighboring friends. As age increases, whenever I am in the same spot as the author; for example, in Beijing, I can realize why the author has the strong passion and emotion for the scenario. The most favorite topic for the Chinese poets is, of course, the moon. The artists don’t want to unveil the cruel scientific facts; on the contrary, they like enjoying its various shape, fantastic contour and different shadow and establish their thoughts and last forever. Tonight, a beautiful full moon night, the silvery moonlight spread all over the tranquil region. Do you want to bring your poetry album and join me?

Kamaljeet said...

I love poetry, but instead of reading poems I like to write poems. Fifteen years ago, in grade ten I had an assignment to write a poem. My teacher gave us a definition of poetry “when you express your feeling with a measurement that is poetry.” Then I started to write poems in my own language. In Canada, once again I received an assignment to write a Cinquain. My teacher was surprised when I wrote four. My dream is one day I will be able to publish my poems.

George said...

Poetry is interesting. Chinese poetry showed its beauties when I was a student in junior high school. Voices, shapes, and meanings consist of different scenes in Chinese poetry. From some famous Chinese poets’ poems, I found their imaginations, dreams, expectations, or the events what they met. For the rhymes of a poem, a Chinese poem always has the same voice at the end of sentences, no vowel and consonant, and the number of sentences and words in every sentence are fixed. When I read a poem, seeming to enjoy singing a song, imagining where the poet was, dreaming what he dreamed, and pitying what he met. Some poems described the cruelty of the wars made me sleepless at night for several days, but feeling happy in reading the poetry that showed the beauty of the nature or a poet’s lover. Studying the class of communication 12, English poetry appeared in my life, and reading a poem was the same as singing a song. Although I didn’t understand what it meant at first, the sound of an English poem made me happy. For me, all of poetry is interesting, however they were written by Chinese or English.

somayeh said...

When I was in elementary school ,students had to memorize the long sonnets .Ii took two or three hours to do it , but I did not remember after one week. I did not like poetry until reading two sentence of a famous poem changed my mind. I was fascinated to buy the poets book and read it, but it was not easy to understand .However, sometimes I don’t know the many levels of a poem meaning ,I read it several times to begin to understand. Every night , I read a lovely rhythmic musical deep meaning sonnet of Hafez_ famous Persian poem_ to calm. Love poems because I share my happiness, sadness and my disappointing moments with it. Poetry is amazing because the deepest emotions, vivid pictures, and enormous ideas express in a short musical rhythmic sentences. Writing a poem seems complicated for me but I’ d like to try it.