Poetry Out Loud

Part One: Website Cruising
1. As Children Know by Jimmy Santiago Baca
2. Ways Of Talking by Ha Jin
3. After Working Sixty Hours by Bob Hicock
4. Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
5. The Lost Land by Eavan Boland
6. The Obligation To Be Happy by Linda Pastan

Part Two: What do you think?
Out of the numerous poems that I've searched through I liked the poem "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox because of the emotional connection. The easygoing feeling you get. The reality and truth to it. The sounds you hear while reading this poem are great and thought provoking. I love the simplicity of the poem and happy feeling this poems surrounds in you.

"As Children Know" by Jimmy Santiago Baca was the one poem I didn't like as much as others. The emotional connection wasn't there. I wasn't a bad poem but, I didn't speak to me in the way a poem should.

"Ways of Talking" by Ha Jin is the one poem that I'd like to study further. It isn't the poem that  I'd choose to read but, It is the one out of all my choices that really calls for you to really think and for you to relate your own life to land, tongue, or even a letter.

"The Obligation To Be Happy" by Linda Pastan is the one I personally connected with. I touched me in a way no other poem had. What is happiness? Why do you have to be? Is it all its cracked up to be? To me happiness is another emotion like sadness, jealousy, or anger but, for some reason it tops them all. I think another reason this poem connects with me is because I'm have similar thought with the author. While reading Linda Pastan's other poems I've really understood her depiction of life and daily concepts.

Part Three: Scoring Criteria
The two criteria that I feel will be easiest for me are physical presence and voice articulation. Physical Presence requires confidence in your work, showing that through how relaxed and positive you are. In my poem, it calls for a lot of clarity through reading it aloud. This means that I need to emphasize words to really pin-point the emotion I'm trying to create.

Level of Difficulty and Evidence of Understanding are the main two criteria I'm might have problems with. The poem I chose isn't a hard or complicated, quite short in fact. It has no hard words or an abstract theme. Evidence of Understanding is going to be my toughest issue because the true meaning of my poem is so far above me, it reaches into different levels of life and thinking. I'm just hoping that by the time the contest rolls around I would have had a good handle on the concept.

Part Four: Videos
"Frederick Douglas" recited by Shawntay A. Henery was the most outstanding performance I saw. Her presence was phenomenal. The tone of voice emphasized the importance of the the idea she was betraying. The other one that I watched was "Writ on the Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem" recited by Gregory Corso. His intensity was matchable. He made this poem fun to listen to. The exaggeration in his voice emphasized and hit the mark showing us that he understood the meaning of this poem.

Part Five: Summary
So from all this study and memorizing, reading, debating, and searching for that poem that really defines me I've come to the idea that, that is what poetry is about study, fighting with yourself, and finding what tells what is known to you. I've always like poetry  but, this whole experience has given me a wider range of poems to actually look at and into deeper. I'm pretty confident about the competition because I feel confident in my poem. It may be lacking difficulty but, I think the concept of it will cross cancel. I've chosen the poem "The Obligation to be Happy" by Linda Pastan,. I plan on visiting the Poetry Out loud Website numerous times in the next few weeks to get more information and watch more people preform. Overall, I'm enjoying this class activity more than any other before.