Eryn+James

=NUMBER 1: QUOTE =

= = =NUMBER 2: 4 POEMS =

God embedded diamonds in your womb for safekeeping, But you signed the permit for your land to be mined, You turned your vagina into a dark cave, See you never thought that these walls were just as alive as you are, So you let miners degrade your womb, Turning it into a tomb, You let them dig deep inside your beloved and snatch out your precious.

Now you cant stand to look yourself in the mirror because every time, you see the image of how those diamonds would have twinkled in your eyes and you cry, And you cant bare to look up at night time because next to the beautiful full moon you see your baby’s face engraved in the sky, So you pray for on going sunlight.

You can never forget the image of dead life dangling between your thighs, Shovels and pix axes excavating your cervix, You just turned you head and ignored it, Ignoring the pain, You pretended that you didn’t care, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Just as long as this product was no longer your property at the end of the day.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Your so ignorant, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You didn’t even know that your baby grew fingers nails, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And had a heart that beat in harmony with your own, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Your baby had feet and walked inside you with pride knowing that one day it would be apart of this thing we call life, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">She thought that with her you would be more close to heaven here on earth but you proved her wrong,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now your singing your own song, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You have to find your own melody, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Because you gave away your, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now your lyrics make no sense to the world,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So this the song for the baby who carved her own name on her tomb stone with her finger nails, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Because when god embedded diamonds in her mothers womb for safekeeping she signed the permit for her land to be mined. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Its tragic how so many diamonds never had a chance to shine.

=NUMBER 3: MY OWN POETRY= Throughout this unit, I've learned new techniques and brushed up on old ones. I've learned to look at the deeper meaning of a poem past just the amazing word play. There is always more to the poem than its words. Some poets use a certain writing styles such as rhyme scheme or a certain topic, but I prefer more of a free write or poems about my life or life in general or just reality. To me poetry is more of an outlet to free how you really feel through words. Poets that I feel do the things I admire in poetry are more of spoken word artist like Perry ‘Vision’ Divirgillio, Sunni Patterson, Seff Al-Afriqi, etc. These writers are all performance poets as well as amazing writers. Techniques that I like to use are metaphors and imagery more than anything. I think with metaphors, they paint the image of what the poet wants you to see in your head. A thing I noticed by doing research on some spoken word artist, is that a lot of the poems paint very vivid images but some poets use metaphors just to hear people say that it sounded good but if you really listen and pay attention to the words, you can hear what they’re saying. For example, a poet I recently heard at a youth poetry slam named Jamarr Hall, performed a poem on the top. A few lines from his poem are, “ He had a walk like a paper clip, And a heart like a silly band that bounced off these city walls like prostitutes. And she had eyes, eyes like smooth baby ankles, and neck like an anorexic heart beat.” The point of this portion is that sometimes poets don’t understand what they’re saying but they think it sounds nice so they say it any way. To get this point across he uses metaphors, that have no meaning, but also uses images because as you read you see the image being painted in your head. Through this unit I feel like I conquered the technique of being able to paint images in peoples head with metaphors.

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">NUMBER 4: THREE POEMS =

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">NUMBER 5: CLOSE READINGS =

====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The poets use of imagery and metaphor creates a very grounded metaphor that put things into perspective. In the poem Bocas: A Daughter's Geography is written in the form of an epic metaphor. The comparison she uses to express how she feels about the topic really puts things into perspective for those people who don't really understand her topic. She uses imagery and metaphors to get through to the reader and her ability to paint images in peoples heads is a plus for this poem. She says, "i have a daughter/ mozambique, i have a son/ angola, our twins, salvador & johannesburg/ cannot speak, the same language, but we fight the same old men/ in the new world". The image that can be grasp from this is a sister and a brother and two twins holding hands with their mother (the writer) all getting along thought they aren't the same and they have nothing in common. The only thing that could be considered a problem with is some people might not get what she's saying at times during her metaphors but they catch it as she grounds it but she doesn't ground her metaphors as often as she could. She uses line breaks very well. She breaks the line at a good point. She puts them where she feels the reader needs to slow down and take time to get the message, to take time to thoroughly read. ====

====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This poem, My Father is a Retired Magician by Ntozake Shange, uses word play in order to show us the overall point of the poem. This poem expresses the poets thoughts about on people who aren't proud to be African American. She doesn't use a lot of detail of imagery but she does use word play metaphors to get her point across. The lines of the pome don't stay at the same length but they go from short to longer. Her line breaks show enjambments and she uses them effectively. When she uses them she puts them in places where she knows the reader needs to where she knows the reader needs to slow down to get a better understanding whats going on and whats coming next, she tires to make every line count. She doesn't use capitalization at all in her poem except when she says, "YES YES YES 3 wishes is all you get." There is no clear conclusion as to why she use capitalization here but know where else other than she feels as though capitalization isnt very important. She also says, "& i'm fixin you up good/ fixin you up good n colored". This line grabs the readers attention because it was really grounded and it summed up the entire poem in one line. This line also stood out to me because most of the poem she uses word play of some type but for the last few lines she's just so blunt and straight forward and some poets don't know how to ground a poem so that people understand it. ====

====<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In this poem Sorry by Ntozake Shange, she used metaphors and imagery to portray how she felt about an over used word, "sorry". She puts a lot of personal emotion in this poem like there was a conversation going on between herself and her lover who has taken advantage of her and always says sorry. She says, " I got sorry greetin me at my front door, you can keep yrs". This line stood out because she does a few things. She makes the word "sorry" a real thing or a person but then goes back to using it as word when she says "you can keep yrs". The entire poem really caught my eye because she builds the poem like a conversation not just a poem. The tone of the poem is anger and that remains the same throughout the poem, but the volume she uses in the poem changes. Like when she says certain things, when it is read, you would read it with a different attitude than you read a different part. For example, she says, "I will not goin to be nice, i will raise my voice my voice & scream & holler & break things & race the engine & tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face & i will lis in detail everyone of my wonderful lovers" and this would be read differently than when she says, "i loved you on purpose, i was open on purpose, i still crave vulnerability & close talk.". She uses a lot of voice and volume play with this poem. ====