Prof. Jessica Penner | OL20 | Fall 2021
Share your links to your favorite poems in the comments. Simply hit “reply” and paste what you’d like to share. Do this activity by 11:59 PM on Tuesday, November 9!
Come back and read and comment on at least four of your classmates’ poems. Possible topics: What did you enjoy about their poems? Are the poems they’ve shared new to you? Do you have any additional poets they might check out? Do this activity by 11:59 PM on Thursday, November 11!
Professor: Jessica Penner
Email: creative.writing.citytech2@gmail.com
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30 AM – 1 PM. I’ll be available through Zoom and will send an invitation via email that you should keep all semester. Try to join my meeting at the start of the hour, not at the end—since I may be talking to other students or have another appointment after the hour is up. If those times don’t work with your schedule, we can schedule a different time. This means you’ll have to schedule an appointment in advance via email. I suggest you have multiple times in mind, since your schedule may not mesh with mine!
© 2024 ENG1141 Creative Writing, FA2021 OL20
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147907/let-america-be-america-again
The “still I rise” poem was spectacular. What an uplifting and resilient author! I loved the message this poem sends. We should all aspire to be strong regardless of what others may say or what happens to us, we should always rise up.
i love Let America Be American. This poem make sense because America was never free for poor whites from Great Britain nor the blacks from Africa. The only time American was free was when the native occupy the land.
Maya Angelou is a very gifted writer her voice is always evident. This poem is one of my favorites. She is resilient and has no care. Her emphasis on “ I Rise” shares such wholesome feelings. Her she had rhyme and she has structure.
https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/what-i-love-about-you
https://poets.org/poem/hummingbird-0
https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/a-lost-love-3
The “what I love about you” poem was beautiful. It’s a poem of someone completely in love. I know because the writer included some simple things that makes him love that person and when you are truly in love, you love everything about that person. I hope to have a love like tho one day. The “a lost love” poem was also very interesting. It shows another love that is full of problems and mistakes. Someone who is regretting the bad that they have done to their significant other. Both poems were great.
I really liked the poem about the hummingbird. It was claiming and the way the words flowed. I really enjoyed the line about the flower. I would love to read more poems like this one.
I really love this poem, tells us what love can feel like. Love can be blind sometimes.
The ” What I love about you” is the softest to my heart. I am a hopeless lover and I love how much the poem makes sense of someone in love. The writer includes such melo and soft things where you know they are utterly in love.
https://medium.com/poem-of-the-day/charles-bukowski-bluebird-f4e80e5000ef
https://poets.org/poem/shield-achilles
The Bluebird poem really struck some emotion, many people struggle with letting out their feelings of years of captive hurt and pain so other around them won’t know that they are truly sad. lovey really
the bluebird’s authors style or writing is very repetitive, and clear. His voice resembles a man afraid of sharing his hurt to others or his perspective of a man afraid of sharing is pain.
I enjoyed reading Bluebird the most. While reading it, it seems to talk about pain and/or depression. The Shield of Achilles was more confusing. The two poems are new to me.
The blue bird poem really hit emotions. they have something going on with them and whenever they wanna do something its being stopped. I think the blue bird is what the person wants to be and let out but its trapped. there was a lot of emotions going on. Reading it you can almost feel it.
The bluebird poem is something I see in people everyday and it resonates with the quote ” Hurt people hurt people”. In the poem he’s scared of showing his feelings and all of that build up makes him a hurt person. From his perspective it’s hard to show his feelings and how he feels, it’s a lot of emotion in the poem which I love.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/149624/cat-moving-kittens
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/151139/reading-an-elegy
I enjoyed reading Cat Moving Kittens more because it talks about motherhood. Your poems are new to me.
Because I could not stop for death- Emily Dickinson https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47652/because-i-could-not-stop-for-death-479
I Know why the Caged bird sings- Maya Angelou https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48989/caged-bird
Motives and Thoughts- Lauryn Hill https://genius.com/Lauryn-hill-motives-and-thoughts-annotated
Weary Blues- Langston Hughes https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47347/the-weary-blues
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55705/the-history-of-red
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/156347/always-in-the-head
The “always in the head” poem was different. It was almost like a story versus a poem. I liked it. The writer had a peculiar personality but the poem was riveting and well written.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55705/the-history-of-red
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/156347/always-in-the-head
https://barbaravance.com/good-things-poem/
https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-will-to-win-by-berton-braley
The poem “the will to win” was great although I think the writer went a little overboard on the things you should sacrifice or do to get what you want. LOL! I mean I am all for hard work and dedication and somewhat sacrificing things to get achieve a goal, but you don’t need to lose sleep over it. Either way, great poem.
https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/dead-men-walking/
https://poems.com/poem/the-woman-and-her-thang/
Im not sure if it was about her vagina of her feelings. But I loved The Woman and Her Thang, the style was so energetic like jazz in a poem and the voice was a mans perspective of a woman and her thang and how other men or society accepts them.
https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/1969/
https://poems.com/poem/possible/
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice
Fire and Ice is like the earth have a voice and what it would say about the choices if the world had to choose. I like the way the poet gave a voice to something that do not talk.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148821/the-haunted
I like your chosen poem “The Haunted” more. It is very dark about how one’s soul still in a house.
I liked the poem “Ozymandias” you shared. The setting and language used remind me of high fantasy, which is something I enjoy. It makes me think of a faraway land that can only ever exist in words.
poems
https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/poem/24987/auto/0/0/Mark-Strand/OLD-MAN-LEAVES-PARTY/en/tile
In The Village – Derek Walcott 1930-2017
Who has removed the typewriter from my desk,
so that I am a musician without his piano
with emptiness ahead as clear and grotesque
as another spring? My veins bud, and I am so
full of poems, a wastebasket of black wire.
The notes outside are visible; sparrows will
line antennae like staves, the way springs were,
but the roofs are cold and the great grey river
where a liner glides, huge as a winter hill,
moves imperceptibly like the accumulating
years. I have no reason to forgive her
for what I brought on myself. I am past hating,
past the longing for Italy where blowing snow
absolves and whitens a kneeling mountain range
outside Milan. Through glass, I am waiting
for the sound of a bird to unhinge the beginning
of spring, but my hands, my work, feel strange
without the rusty music of my machine. No words
for the Arctic liner moving down the Hudson, for the mange
of old snow moulting from the roofs. No poems. No birds.
https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/i-am-offering-this-poem/
https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/epitaph/
https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/i-am-offering-this-poem/
https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/epitaph/
“I am Offering this Poem” is my favorite poem because of how heart warming it is. The poems I read are new to me.
The “I am offering this poem” is very heartwarming. I love how it illustrates the care that’s being given knowing we’re all the same at the end of the day.
Being Short
People laugh point and stare
Though I don’t pay them a single glare
They call me short different and weird
But with my friend’s support I am tightly geared
I take a step forward anxious to say
I’m beautiful in my own way
For God makes no mistakes
Noor Narnia
A Good Friend
There is nothing like a good friend
To tell your troubles to.
Someone to open up with,
Someone to talk you through,
The highs; the lows,
The everyday struggles,
Someone who knows,
Your every quirk and flaw,
Someone who understands your ways,
And love you after all.
Mobi World
I relate to the first poem a lot since I’m short! I think the writer is empowering and attentive. She is aware of what si around her. She takes her insecurity that others have placed in her and found beauty.
I really enjoyed the “Being short ” poem. This poem is very relatable to me. I am the short friend. It was nice to read a poem that is relatable to people. I feel it gives it more feeling. Being the short is not fun. Your height get brought up a lot and at such random times too. I would like to read more poem that people can relate to.
When Tomorrow Starts Without Me:
https://www.nr.edu/jshelton/lyrics/erica_shea_liupaeter/tomorrow_without_me.pdf
“when tomorrow starts without me” touched me. This poem really makes you feel the grief for someone you know or brings memories altogether. I love it, and this poem also shows how memories in general are important.
I liked “When tomorrow starts with me” It was a really powerful poem that I can relate with. The emotions of loss and past happiness are described really well with the way the words the author uses.
The Poem “Be kind” was interesting to read. I didn’t expect it take that turn. I though going in it was going to be poem about being nice to people and but it wasn’t. I liked how it wasnt so predictable.
This poem brings alot of memory back since everyone may or may not experience something like this.
I’m loving the poems you shared AND the comments that you’ve made about each others’ choices! Bravo!!!
1.CINDY WILLIAMS GUTIÉRREZ “THE SMALL CLAIM OF BONES”
2.The Path by Paul Laurence Dunbar
https://theobjectivestandard.com/2019/02/seven-poems-celebrating-free-will/
The bluebird poem is something I see in people everyday and it resonates with the quote ” Hurt people hurt people”. In the poem he’s scared of showing his feelings and all of that build up makes him a hurt person. From his perspective it’s hard to show his feelings and how he feels, it’s a lot of emotion in the poem which I love.
– The Waking
BY THEODORE ROETHKE
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43333/the-waking-56d2220f25315
– Living at the End of Time
BY ROBERT BLY
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/53288/living-at-the-end-of-time