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Spoken Word

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Spoken word poetry is poetry that is written on paper and yet performed out loud for an audience. I for one would like to say that this type of poetry is one of my favorites. It allows you to emotionally connect to the poet while vividly seeing there body language. It is one of the most effective forms of poetry if you’re trying to get a message across to your audience. For instance, in the movie “Louder than a Bomb”, Nova Venerable presented this poem named Cody. In my opinion it was an emotional poem. She was explaining the struggles her little brother had to go through and how she pretty much raised him as her own kid. However, her body language was Positive when she would speak of him but when she spoke on her parents contribution you could tell her body language changed along with her tone showing this deep sense of sadness.

I myself have never been to a spoken word poetry performance. I would like to go to one and experience it lively because even while watching it I get into it. It’s a well developed passionate form of poetry in which I can say I enjoy better than poetry written on paper. In class, we actually read a spoken word it was Pedro Pietri’s “Puerto Rican Obituary” and you could just tell the difference from an average poem besides the length.

My Research on Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes, whose full name is actually James Mercer Langston Hughes, was born on February 1, 1902. He was born in the town of Joplin, Missouri and when he was young, his parents separated and he was raised by his grandmother. He eventually moved back with his mother and her new husband at age 13 and the family settled in Cleveland, Ohio. While living in Cleveland, he began to write poetry. The title of the first poem he wrote after graduating high school was called “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”. After attending Colombia University for a year, he went on to working many side jobs as well as becoming a steward for a freighter bound for Africa. When he came back to America from traveling all over Europe and Africa in 1924, he met Arna Bontemps and Carl Van Vechten. He would go on to have a lifelong influential friendships with them. Van Vechten would eventually introduce Hughes to the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, who would publish his first book he wrote his first book called “The Weary Blues” in 1926. His work during the Harlem renaissance helped greatly shape the artistic contribution. His poems were particularly known for their insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. Hughes was also among the first to use jazz rhythms and dialect to depict the life of urban blacks in his work. He published a second volume of poetry, “Fine Clothes to the Jew”, in 1927. In 1940 at age 28, his autobiography called “The Big Sea” was published. Around the same time, Hughes began contributing a column to the Chicago Defender He created a comic character named Jesse B. Semple, better known as “Simple,” for the column. Semple was a black Everyman that Hughes used to further explore urban, working-class black themes, and to address racial issues. He passed away on May 22, 1967 from complications of prostate cancer.

 

Work cited:

https://www.biography.com/people/langston-hughes-9346313

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Langston-Hughes

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/langston-hughes

Mon, November 26 we will meet at the library

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Hi everyone,

One last reminder that we will meet at the library on Monday, November 26th to work on Paper #2 with a librarian.   We will meet outside the entrance to the library on Monday, November 26th, the class after Thanksgiving. If you are late, you can find us in the library classroom by going up the stairs inside the library, and making a right turn to room 540.

 

 

Now that You Have a Thesis, Start to Develop it

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Hi everyone,

Most of you now have a least a working thesis, or you will by Monday,  so it’s time to start developing it.  This will involve not only re-reading the poem but doing the research.

We’ll meet outside the library (4th floor of Library Building) for Monday’s class (November 26).  Prof. Anne Leonard from the library will be talking about finding and evaluating news sources.  If you arrive late, you can find us in the computer classroom on the 5th floor of the library. Go inside the library and up the stairs and make a right.

  1. Read over the poem you’ve chosen.  Which lines, images, points, or ideas are most important to the argument you want to make?   Circle what looks most important. Add a few more thoughts to these.  Annotate your copy of the poem.   Don’t be afraid to use poetic terms to help you explain what you see.
  2. In a Word file, make an outline of the most important ideas or points in an order that makes sense to you. Start developing/writing your points out and listing/adding examples and quotations to the outline.  Also save this to a cloud service like com.  If you prefer, write this out by hand on paper–maybe take a picture so you don’t have to worry about losing the outline.
  3. Now write out a rough introduction paragraph where you make an argument about the poem where you connect it to the contemporary news event.  Continue to follow your rough outline and start writing the other sections of the paper.
  4. Handling research: even while you are in in the brainstorming phase, you should be looking over your research materials.  Pick one to start, then another one, etc.  Take brief notes on your sources: always jot down page numbers if you have them.  You’re thinking about where the research has points or examples that can help you make your own argument stronger or more specific.  When adding information from a research source into your paper, work from your brief notes, so you avoid plagiarizing the research!  Of course, you will transcribe a direct quotation word for word.   Think, though, about where you can put the research author’s point into your own words and then support this point with a direct quotation.  Always give an in-text citation for quotes or paraphrases. 

Poetry in Motion – To the night out by LYFT!

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To the night out~LYFT!

Before reading the poem my attention goes straight to the highlighted sentences and the eleven words that are not. It is clear from the start without reading that the poem wants to convey a message, which is represented by the eleven words not highlighted. When I began to read the poem I began to smirk because of how relatable I found it to be. The poem talks about a night out and the struggles that occur with the transport from your location to the next. The poem implies that the subject is a woman on her night out, many women can relate because they have had some sort of experience as such. I can relate, on the weekend I go out with friends and we often dress up not particularly in favor of the weather or our feet. When I go out I always depend on some sort of taxi so that my feet don’t blister and I am much safer.

What I also realized is that this poem doesn’t have verses and the last line “That feeling that you should have taken a Lyft!”,make the audience remembers the service being offered through the poem. All of the obstacles the subject faced on a night out allows the readers to be persuaded to take Lyft on a night out. So they don’t have to experience the long walks in heels or the long wait for the train. It is relatable on purpose so that readers attention is easily captured.

Welcome to Fall 2018

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Hi everyone,

Welcome to ENG 2003: Introduction to Poetry.

I’m glad you were able to join our course site on City Tech’s Open Lab.  The college has workshops for students to help them with Open Lab.  These are not required, but may make you feel more comfortable:

GETTING STARTED ON THE OPENLAB

Find out what you can do on the OpenLab. You will need access to your City Tech email account to sign up.