lena vasylak

Poetry Blog #5

“The Type” by Sarah Kay

This poem really taking control of personal appearance and identity. Sarah Kay begins by connecting the meaning to today’s society when she talks about how to be a woman. She starts the poem by discussing how women can grow up to be looked at, touched, held, and loved. THe rhythm of her poem keeps the audience on the edge waiting. Her words are found to be more insightful rather than predictable. She continuously has this conversation about how men view women and how women are changing how they look just to please the eyes of someone else. I agree that women are doing this because I tend to see it on a daily basis, but I disagree with the women who think its a good idea. No one she feel the need to change their identity to get loved by a guy. Women should be viewed as the real human they are instead of molding themselves into what men want. In the 2nd stanza Sarah uses the words “hands”, “windows”, and “mirrors” to provide a more general idea of how women see themselves. She uses “hands” to represent building/molding into a new person, “windows” to show an unclear passage to what people think she really is, and “mirrors” to actually show a reflection of what she’s not instead of looking at who she is. Towards the end of the poem, I noticed that Sarah uses transitions from what others do to how we act. She uses the ocean and puddles as a metaphor.

I love all the topics Sarah decides to write about, especially this topic. Everything she writes about is very insightful, and it’s easy to connect with. I love the overall message of this poem. You shouldn’t have to change yourself because of a guy. You are you, and you are enough because of it!!

Poetry Blog #6

Witness” by Sarah Kay

This particular poem really spoke to me with the meaning of self insecurity and the background of other people’s lives. Sarah Kay sets the scene in a bathroom stall with walls covered in graffiti. People tend to do graffiti when they want to express themselves through art because you can add color which sets the mood and draw figures to help others understand what’s going on in your head. She sits in the bathroom stall where thousands of people have been and her mind is scattered in so many other people’s lives. I find it extremely depressing that drawing graffiti is the only way for some people to ask for help because they are too scared to talk to someone. The line “I am here to witness your toilet paper autobiography” is a very interesting way to pretty much say “the story of my life.” Sarah creates so much imagery within this piece because I remember watching some movies where people cry in the stalls and write all the doors because they are mad at someone. I am a little confused with the line “That couple from minnesota in Times Square at Christmas, The bottom left-hand corner.” I wonder if she wishes to be like them because she sees her life as blurry and unclear compared to others.

I love that Sarah uses graffiti in a way to describe self insecurity. It seems that self insecurity is a very common thing and so is graffiti. I agree with what you said about graffiti being a very common way to express emotions, and yes it’s very sad that some people feel as if that’s their only escape. I regards to the line that you aren’t sure about the meaning, I think you’re probably correct. The only other thing I can think of is that’s something she see’s in the graffiti, but it makes more sense as to what you thought.

Poetry Post # 6:

For my last post I decided to use the poem Prediagnosis. Immediately what stood out to me was the first line “when I was born I felt nothing”. In all of his other poems it’s obvious that he feels a lot of emotions daily, and so this line made me think about what could of possibly changed? While reading this poem, the first thing that came to mind is, overall this poem deals with the intensities between feeling nothing and feeling everything. The few lines that really highlighted that for me are “when I was born I felt nothing but life ripping open before me” (in the first stanza) and then “but life ripping open before me led to me ripped open before life” (in the second stanza). Just alone in those two sentences it shows Sam Sax is addicted to feelings. And possibly that addiction is what centers around the title of this poem. One line that made me stop after reading it is “anything can be a drug if you love it”. After reading that I just paused, because that line is nothing but true. That line plays perfectly with the theme of this overall poem.

One thing I noticed with most if not all of Sam Sax’s poems is that the last sentence normally ties back with the very first sentence of the poem. And in this case, the sentence “when I was born I felt everything” ties with the first sentence. From the beginning to the end Sam Sax went from not feeling anything, to feeling everything. Which is exactly what the theme of this poem is: the intensities between feeling nothin and feeling everything.

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“Postcards” by Sarah Kay sets the tone for people who are dealing with long distance relationships. I thought this was a good poem to reflect on since we are going off to college and leaving our loved ones, family and friends. It covers the majority of the feelings that you would go through during a hard time of leaving someone that meant a lot to you and it also shows the reactions of the one leaving.

In the first section, Sarah mentions a postage stamp which is used when you are sending someone a letter from far away. She also talks about how easy it is to fall in love with someone whether its long distance or short. I connect to this section because I’ve met so many new friends this year from different schools and knowing that I am going away to college is going to be so difficult.

In the fifth section, it Sarah explains the idea of no matter how much you talk to someone that is far away, it will never be the same as talking to them in person. It is a lot different to write letters and try to express your feelings rather than talking and feeling the emotion with their words. Also, many people who come home to visit family or friends find it hard to engage in conversations because they’ve missed so much. This is what I am worried about when I go away. I am afraid of coming home and no one acknowledges me or doesn’t know what to talk about.

Finally, the eighth section is the last one that connected to me because it sets the idea about knowing how and when a relationship with fail. Personally knowing when you are going to lose someone is the hardest thing, especially when the other person doesn’t care or notice. Sarah’s message in the section really stands out to me, mistakes get the worst of us but we just have to look past and leave them behind.

Overall, Sarah releases a very strong message about long distance relationships. It is very easy to connect with her words, especially in this poem because so many young people are dealing with this problem right now.

I agree with everything you’ve said. As I’m going away for college I often think about all the friends and memories I’m going to be leaving behind and it’s really hard. I think Sarah does a great job in this poem of showing readers who might not be feeling the same feelings that we are, that leaving loved ones behind is hard. It’s going to be very hard knowing you won’t be able to see them as often, and you’re going to have to cope and settle with writing them, or talking on the phone. And while that doesn’t compare to seeing them in person it’s the only option you have so you’ll have to make the best out of it. It’s very hard, but it’s not impossible to do so!

POETRY BLOG # 5

For my 5th Poetry Post I decided to post the poem #mania. Just from reading the first sentence I wanted to know who he was talking about. “We’re not on speaking terms”, who is the we? After that I noticed his use of literary techniques (personification and imagery), which is something I’ve noticed he does heavily in all of his other poems. Something else I noticed is his use of triple spaces in between words and I’ve noticed that’s consistent in a lot of his poems. That makes me wonder if there is an actual reason as to why he does that. This poem like his others seem to be structured in very unique ways, and I also wonder if there is a specific reason as to why he does that as well? I also find the title of this poem very interesting as mania is also known as the manic syndrome. Mania seems like a common theme in all of his poems, and with all of his poems sharing a similar theme that leads me to believe that throughout Sam Sax’s whole book, there is one single underlying theme.

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Poetry Blog # 4

For my 4th poetry blog I decided to chose the poem “Theia Mania”. The title immediately interested me since I wasn’t sure what that meant. When I looked it up I found out it meant loss of self and sanity, which I immediately connected to every other poem he’s written. It seems throughout this book, Sam Sax’s main theme is the loss of himself and his sanity. And that theme escalades and increases as the book goes on, so it makes sense how this poem is titled, where it is placed in the book, and how it is written!

At first glance the word Plato caught my eye since we talked so much about Plato in AP Lang. I’m not exactly sure what the reasoning is for including Plato in this poem, but I saw that connection and was interested by it. Knowing that Sam Sax is a man of religion, when I saw another sentence in there that included religion, I immediately thought that would be an important sentence. The sentence that interests me the most is “love at first sight is only possible if the government hasn’t first taken your eyes”. When looking at that sentence I thought I could relate that to the title of the poem. Since the title of the poem is about losing yourself and your sanity, the government “taking your eyes” is almost the same thing as losing yourself. (236)

Cheat Poet

I’ve been talking to Lauren and reading some of her poet’s poems, and I’m intrigued by Sarah Kay. As I’ve stated before I originally looked at Sarah Kay and I really liked her poems a lot. I chose to cheat with Lauren’s poet because I loved how she writes about very personal topics, and those topics it seems as if anyone could relate to them.

This is a poem that Lauren annotated. From reading this poem it makes me think this poem is told in the mother’s perspective. I really like the whole basis of this poem, as I like all her other poems as well. I agree with what you put in the first stanza with it being a guide. But I also slightly disagree as it’s most likely not an exact guide. I believe the mother is just stating that she wants her kid to be able to come to her with anything and that no matter what she’ll always support and care for them. I also really love that this poem is about the mom talking about life lessons she is going to tell her kids. Overall I just really like the whole message being given in this poem!!

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Poetry Blog 2

The poem I chose for my second Poetry blog is Postdiagnosis by Sam Sax. This poem interested me with the way it was written. All of Sam Sax’s poem’s are written in a very unique way, and it make’s me wonder if they’re written in that way for a reason? A certain quote that stood out to me was near the end of the poem. It states “the drowning dogs painted for the gods to rage & riot & rot the vacant parking lot knives do what some cannot.” This instantly stood out to me because of the rhyming theme this whole chunk has. On top of the rhyming chunk it also sprinkled alliteration throughout. Something I have seen in his other poems are that weird double/triple space randomly in the poem. I still am unsure of why he does that, and the fact that this poem has it makes me think that there is a deeper meaning to that extra space.

I didn’t originally pick this up when first reading it, but a friend was reading it with me, and she noticed that you can read the poem in two different ways. It seems as if it doesn’t matter what way you read the poem (down the column, or across the page) because either way still seems to make sense. There was a section in the poem that references some sort of religion and faith, which makes sense to me considering Sam Sax is Jewish. One part that also confuses me is the “reason” and “unreasoning” part of the poem. The “reason” section doesn’t seem to have any rhyming to it whatsoever, but the “unreasoning” part does.

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“THE TOOTHBRUSH TO THE BICYCLE TIRE” By Sarah Kay

The first thing that grabbed my attention was the title. I was very confused about what this poem was going to be about due to the comparison between a toothbrush and a bicycle tire. As I continued to explore the rest of the poem, Sarah Kay uses techniques to help get the meaning out. After analyzing the title, the thought of the toothbrush in relationship to the bicycle tire came to me. The people are telling the “toothbrush” that the “bicycle tire” will only bring trouble and negativity.

In the first section Sarah is speaking from the perspective of a toothbrush, which is normally used to CLEAN teeth. I thought this was a very interesting way to start off. In the first sentence when it says “They told me that I was meant for the cleaner life,” I also approached this as a relationship, thinking that two people are opposites and other people don’t want them together. In the second line, “that you would drag me through the mud,” she is using the tire to explain the friction on the ground. Also saying that the boy on the bike may ride through a mud puddle which can also mean treating the toothbrush, or the girl, dirty. Sarah is very descriptive with her words to create a sense of imagery to connect to that audience.

In the next section, it is shown that Sarah substitutes “good” words for “bad” words that may be too harsh in a love poem. This technique is used two other times and I am curious as to why she changes the words? People have seen bad words in love poems before so I would want to know her reasoning behind it. In this section, the first sentence “They said that you would tread all over me,” this is saying that the guy, characterized as the bicycle tire, would walk all over the girl, the toothbrush. He would break her heart and make her feel bad. The next sentence uses a metaphor to say that you can see right through someone. The sentence explains that the boy is speechless and is empty. He would make promises to her but he could never keep them.

Just by analyzing the first two sections, I’ve noticed that Sarah style of poetry is different from a lot of other poets that I’ve researched. When I researched Sarah, someone commented that “the poems are very hard, but softly written.” I agree with this 100% because in “THE TOOTHBRUSH TO THE BICYCLE TIRE,” it has a very strong, hardcore meaning but once you identify the meaning of it, it sounds very soft and gentle. Her poetry is found to be very personal and relatable, this poem especially. This poem doesn’t have to be interpreted just about a boy and girl relationship, it can also be about friendship. I know that I’ve had some friends that my sister didn’t like but I saw past their rough edges and imperfections and just looked at the positive qualities.

One section that confused me a little was the 7th section, “I will leave this porcelain home behind. I’m used to twice-a-day relationships, but with you I’ll make all the time.” I didn’t understand the full meaning of this but I think Sarah is trying to say that the girl is risking her life to love him, and leave her comfort zone. The word “porcelain” is defined as a white vitrified translucent ceramic. I wonder why she decided to use this word and is there a special meaning behind it?

I’m slightly confused on that same quote as well. But when I read it the first thing I thought of was she’s using the word porcelain to describe how bland her life is with no one in it, and she calls it her home because that’s the only thing she’s ever known. She mentions that she is used to twice-a-day relationships and so maybe that is her “home” in a way/It’s what she knows best. Then she says “but with you I’ll make all the time” possibly meaning that even though leaving her “home” may be scary she’s willing to do it for this one guy. She recognizes the challenges that come with this certain relationship but she’s willing to look past them in order to be with this guy!!

The title of this poem immediately drew me into reading this poem. With the title being “fairy tale” that contradicts everything this book is about. Sam Sax’s life is everything but a fairy tale as he’s described in all his other poems, so when I saw “fairy tale” I thought that was interesting. The first line that talks about a boy being kicked out of their home is definitely not a fairy tale. A line that caught my eye is “can you believe there is freedom in being so out of control”. At first thought I thought this line was an oxymoron since that sentence is slightly contradicting. But I’m not really sure what that sentence exactly means, which is why it’s so interesting to me. The ending of the poem is really what caught my eye and I was able to relate that back to the title. The boy’s happy ending or his “fairy tale” is that he has nothing else to be happy for except for the simple fact that he matters. He’s alive and nothing can change the fact and that’s the only thing he see’s as a positive in his life and that in itself is very sad.

Meet My Mentor Poet

During the process of selecting a mentor poet, I had no one special in mind who I was looking for. I don’t read poetry so none of the names sounded familiar to me. I decided to kind names that were unique and some that were well known. When I clicked on Sarah Kay, I read “The Type” and was hooked immediately. I found Sarah’s poems to be about life and herself which was easy to connect to. Some other poets that I came across, I was very confused with their writing style but Sarah’s really clicked with me. I did some research on her and found out that she is known for spoken word poetry, and she is also the founder and co-director of Project V.O.I.C.E., which is a group dedicated to using spoken word as an educational and inspirational tool. Sarah Kay has done TedTalks and interviews to get her poetry out there. Here is a little bit of “The Type”

If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,

you can let them look at you.

Do not mistake eyes for hands.

or windows. Or mirrors.

Let them see what a woman looks like.

They may not have ever seen one before.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,

you can let the touch you.

Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for.

Sometimes it is a bottle. A door. A sandwich.

I think Sarah was trying to express the fact that women are very easy to control. Women need to stand up and show what they really can do and what they are capable of doing on their own. Sometimes women are being used to get stuff and are not being truly loved by their partner. This poem has such deep meaning and there are many ways to interpret it.

While reading over one of Sarah Kay’s interviews, I came across a question about how her writing process changes when working on a page poem versus a stage poem. I found this to be very interesting because I never thought that you would have to make changes if the poems are presenting the same outcome. Looking over Sarah’s response, she said that “when I’m planning on something being a piece that I would like to perform, I approach that with a set of tools that are different from the tools that I use if I’m approaching a poem for the page.” So she uses different techniques that would catch peoples attention and words or phrases that she has good facial expressions to perform on stage.

I agree!! Sarah Kay was also a person I looked at and I loved how relatable her poems were as well! That was a big reason that I was drawn to her poetry. I also really loved the theme of women and how us as women need to stand up for ourselves! It’s very empowering and I love that. I also saw similarities between our poets since both our poets seem to write about topics they can connect to.

Meet my Mentor Poet

When I first looked at the list of all those poets I was so overwhelmed and didn’t even know who to choose. I decided to go through the list randomly picking random poets. After about 10 minutes I came across Sam Sax. I was immediately interested in the poem he had called “On alcohol”. The one quote that interested me was “every time i drink I lose something”. I thought that quote was very deep and I was also curious as to why there was a big space between “drink” and “i lose”

The structure of the poem was very interesting because of those 4 dots after every stanza. I was interested as to what those were for and when I looked at more of his poems I found many other poems with that same format! The theme of his poems seem to be personal so I thought maybe there was a bigger reason as to why he used that structure... but can’t seem to figure out why. I also was drawn to all his poems because they’re very personal. I think it’s interesting when people write about things they’re first hand passionate about or something they have first hand dealt with.

When randomly going through the list of poets there were a ton of people I thought about doing, but if I had to choose one, it would be Sarah Kay. I really liked the poem “When Love Arrives. I really liked the opening line “love is not who you were expecting, love is not who you can predict”. I 100% agree with that and that’s one thing that drew me in. I loved that all her poems including this one were very personal and they are something other people could relate too. I didn’t end up choosing her because she was already taken when I was scrolling through the list of poets.

emmaapfeiffer

The passage above is an extremely blatant summary of the events that occurred over the span of a few hours. Krakauer is experiencing shock because he was 15 minutes ahead of many of his expedition partners on the way down, and he realizes the 15 minutes saved his life. His friends above him were perishing while he was still making the descent. Because he wasn’t there to witness the terrible events that occurred near the summit, he had to gather witness accounts and explain them in the book. What happened was extremely terrifying and life-changing. People died by hypothermia, being blown off a cliff by the wind, or even walking off a cliff by accident. The blizzard was so thick that some people couldn’t even tell that they were yards from their salvation (the tents). I can’t imagine what the survivors are feeling at this time.