Isabela's Insights on Poetry

My goal for this poetry assignment about the unfamiliar was to find something religious for me to look at, and I began looking up said poetry. However, I came across this incredible poem I have to share that does qualify as something unfamiliar to me. Not only have I not read this poem before, but it has both Chinese Mythical elements and a situation that I am unfamiliar with. The Legend by Garrett Hongo is a poem that takes you by surprise, and I really recommend you read it before continuing onward reading this blog post. Okay, now that I assume you have read it- it is not very long- let's dive into the interesting aspects of this poem. Right off the bat, there is a sense of connection to the man with the laundry, lines like: "and, for a moment, enjoys ; the feel of warm laundry and crinkled paper," You feel for the man in the poem, and the usage of words like, "twilight of early evening" and "Rembrandt glow on his face" paint a beautiful scene....

For this week's assignment, we were to look up poetry from other countries and talk about how that poem opens us up to that part of the world. So, I began looking up Colombian poets and their poetry, to try to get a better understanding of the place my father came from. I eventually came across this poet, Piedad Bonnett, a Colombian poet born in 1951, who is a literature professor at el Universidad de los Andes. She wrote a poem called, From Time to Time , that made me feel nostalgic in just the first few lines in a way no other poem has before. (Also, wanna say there is some uniquely Colombian things to me in this poem, such as the strong coffee/tea drinking that is so common there and the references to the beautiful scenery/nature there.) My Abuelita and I on my first trip to Colombia Abuelita and I My whole life I have been close with my abuelita, skyping her was a normal occurrence at my dad's house. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to go on a trip to Spa...

A genre I think would be valuable to research and learn more about is poetry from African-American poets. For African American Literature, we had to get the oxford anthology of African American poetry, and it is phenomenal. The poems are split into topics such as, "What is Africa to me?" and "I Dream a World". I truly believe that so much about the black experience in America from the last centuries can be learned about through poetry. One of my favorite things about this book is it shows how varied and differing the black experience is for people. First, we will talk about one of my favorite poems by Claude McKay , a famous Jamaican poet from the Harlem Renaissance. His whole life, through poetry, he fought against racial injustice and for black rights. " If We Must Die " is a poem that speaks to both of these themes. He speaks triumphantly of dying for the cause of civil rights. "Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack; Pressed to the wall...

When I was thinking of different kinds of forms of poetry to look at, the Sonnet stuck out to me. I have heard of them before but was confused as to what it actually meant. After some research, I realized that there are actually two kinds of Sonnets. I started looking into the "Italian" Sonnet vs the "English/Shakespearian" one. Both kinds of Sonnet's have 14 lines, but that is where the similarities stop. The "Italian" Sonnet, or the Petrarchan Sonnet, divides the 14 lines into 2 sections. The rhyming schemes for the Petrarchan Sonnet's first section is ABBAABBA, and the second section is CDCDCD or CDECDE. For example, I looked at "Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent" by John Milton, a poem in the Petrarchan Sonnet form. Here, we have a great example of the rhyming schemes in this poem, as highlighted with different colors. Yellow is A, Purple is B, Green is C, Blue is D and the darker blue is E.  Typically So...

"1, 2, 3- Mos Def and Talib Kweli. We here to rock it on to the tip top, best alliance in hip hop wyaohh."  Born in Brooklyn, New York, Mos Def and Talib Kweli were raised in the 1970s and 80s, during the creation of Rap. In the 90s, they partnered together to become: Black Star. They created their critically acclaimed album, "Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star" soon after, where they intelligently examined black culture. This album also has many songs, and lines referring to the black empowerment- such as the song  "Brown-Skin Lady", where the pair rap about rejecting the European standards of beauty. Even the album name refers to the pan-Africanist shipping company created by Marcus Garvey. I could go on and on about Mos Def and Talib Kweli as people, but now we are going to shift our focus to their incredible rhyme scheme, and why this song deserves to be taught as poetry. I recommend you listen to the song, because one of the amazing things tha...