America?

So, This so called poet which i still strong believe was the first emo song righter in america and the only thing he wants to do is talk negative about everyone and everything.... is in my opinion and idiot. I mean first of all there are so many people trying to get into this country for the freedom that it can bring and offers, and so many people would never want to leave this country... I mean really my grandfather served in WW2 and my other served in Vietnam, and my Uncle went to Iraq three times now, once for Desert Storm and twice for operation Iraqy Freedom, and now my cousin is in afganistan and my best friend just shipped out to hunt for IEDs in Afganistan, so why doesn't he grow some fucking balls and go spit in their faces in person.... I mean really that is what this "poem" is doing.. just spitting in the faces of all americas who fought so hard to keep this country beautiful. Yes their are flaws to it, but you know what if he really wanted to "Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb" then he should go to north korea and shoved a bamboo stick up his ass.. because so many people have giving their lives for this idiot to have his precious freedom of speach and in any other country in the world they would of hung his ass... I mean i know has died. but that still doesn't mean they should dig him up and do this... IMO

Howl

Jesus, I mean howl to me sounds like my mom making drugs seem like the worst thing in the world, and how it will make you eat "fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine" and the talking all the time, "a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon"
"yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars". anyways i should stop this poem because it really just aggravates me. To be honest, I drink and I used to smoke, hell I would even say I had an addiction, but damn... this makes anything that a normal person might go through as light and not an issue. I mean it really pisses me off reading this for multiple reasons. Yes, it can be this bad, I went to an AA meeting for a class at Clemson and that was on of the more heavy things I've done in my life. to listen to real people with real problems describe their issues. Reading this it is like taking every persons stories from AA and putting them together. I just don't see the heart. I feel more or less insulted by this. I mean yes people can go off the deep end and end up having some amazing, and scary times in their life. and yes drinking and doing drugs can put you in a bad situation. but this poem, well like i said just pisses me off... I wish I would be in class tomorrow to discuss it... I mean argue all you want that you shouldn't do this to your body, and that you can't see clearly when you are high and then tell that to some of the musicians that wrote this amazing music while on drugs and their imagination that allowed that sort of exploration of their thoughts. I mean yes everything has a dark side but a lot of things have a light side too.... ok some of the harder drugs i don't get. but this poem is also about the lighter drugs and alcohol abuse that happens.... again this poem just really gets me pissed off, just takes the worst of everything and write a poem about it... yeah good idea

A dog can be a terrible creature,
who shits on your carpet and howls till morning,
who always wants your attention even when you're sick,
who can't even feed itself,
who never will let itself out,
who bite the neighbor and then ran when you called
.....

see you write something like that and now all dogs are killers and disobedient. everything has negative associated with them, but come on I didn't know how if you just cried in your room and could be terribly negative towards something that you'd come up with a piece of "art" that was "classic." Yes he had an issue with drugs, but where did he write about the good things he did on them, that is the one we should of read contrary to Howl, I mean obviously Supermarket In California, is about a hallucinogenic episode he was having, and he loved Whitman's work,
He is referring to America as becoming a supermarket, too commercialized, to much into material items. You know America is moving more towards that everyday, the commercialism, and losing touch with nature and I think that this is what the poem is trying to get at... but their is no way he was sober righting this... not that I have a problem with that I just see him kinda dreaming this up in a state (if i'm not mistaken Whitman wrote about a lot of nature right).. But anyways I enjoyed this poem a lot more then Howl, I mean i'm into a more upbeat poem and I felt that he wrote this when he was trying to fight conformity being a member of the Beat Generation and not "bashing it" like i feel he was doing in Howl

Scene 7 Glass Menagerie

Well the last scene mostly takes place in the around and after dinner in the house with Jim and Laura, at first you get a sense that Laura will finally be able to find someone and become "normal." the kiss was the first time that she let her guard down to someone and she got a taste of the real world, but almost immediately after that her heart was broken. I didn't really see that coming with the whole Betty thing, I think that he either made or up, or it was an arranged thing that he isn't to sure about. Even though he talks about how she has made him a better man, I just don't see how you forget to bring that up before going over and taking a date at someones house. obviously the unicorn breaking was a big symbol of Laura starting to become normal instead of a fantasy and extinct creature.
"Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be" this quote is referring to how even though tom left his family in search of his dreams, his sister is still with him and anytime he sees a piece of glass and quality lights it makes him think of her. I feel everyone can relate to this quote, not saying that a piece of glass reminds us of someone, but there is something that does.... a song, a smell, a food. I mean certain things remind me of my grandfather, like christmas time, and Clemson sports. a little different since he is dead and tom left amanda and laura. but you know what i mean.

Glass Menagerie Scenes 1-6

The production notes had two really interesting quotes to me, the first being "Reality is an organic thing," meaning that this play is about how reality is can evolve and change, how reality is only how one perseves it and how it changes from person to person. This can be seen through out this play, even in the title The Glass Menagerie, which is Laura's collection of animals. this animals are her reality. I feel that the way Laura acts towards strangers is very plain and boring, much like just a single piece of class, but when you get her to open up she seems very intriguing and an interesting person. Amanda on the other hand has a different look on how reality should be for her, although she has a better grip on societies values and wants to have financial success, she feels that she deserves to be pampered, and she doesn't want to see how strange Laura is and how top isn't going to become a great business man. I really think that Amanda is the cause of these problems, and like most parents, may see the flaws in their children but do not want to accept that. Because that means in their eyes they have failed as parents to raise their children. When really if they would help fix the flaws it would be the exact opposite.
A very important part of this play, is stage show that tom went and saw in scene 4. "You know it don't take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?" this is referring to his life, and how he would life to just escape. also in this scene tom finally apologizes to amanda, which is a very tear filled scene, and amanda is worried that tom is going to become a drunkard. In this scene i feel like Amanda actually admits to the fact that her daughter is a little different and how she needs tom to help. that her attempts to help integrate laura into the real world hasn't worked. she is also trying to help find a suitor for laura and ask if tom will help, he agrees. I really enjoyed reading this part, although i don't have any younger sisters, I have a few friends that do. and this is about how it goes when their parents ask them to help out, the oh, my go-osh, and the reluctent YES! as the parents ask over and over. Even on the simple things you still see this even just picking them up from a sports practice or movie, must be a sibling thing huh.

Blog for 1/13/09

Flowers by Alice Walker, wasn't exactly what I was thinking it was going to be, very interesting how the story at first is so descriptive of a beautiful area, and of a time that is supposed to be nice, and then the ending of the story being very descriptive of a gentleman that had been hung, it really surprised me while reading this short story because it did come out of no where. I guess the setting would be easy 20th century and this is related to a hate crime. Also I liked how at the end she picked up a strange pink rose, but then after a moment laid down her flowers, to symbolize how she was no longer innocent and then the summer was over...

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, to me was about a mother teaching her daughter how to be a lady, she is showing her daughter things that she either was shown growing up or had to learn by experiences. she wants her daughter to be both brains and beauty but doesn't want her daughter to become a "slut." I believe more parents these days should teach their daughters this kind of thing, not because I'm sexiest but because I am a guy and see what girls do... my favorite line was the after asking what she should do if the baker won't let her feel the bread and the mother replies with "you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?" to me that was hilarious, because so many times my parents talk and talk and talk then i would have a response and i guess they would feel like i wasn't listening to everything and that was the last thing i heard. So i just found that response pretty amusing.

Blog for 1/11

The Robert Frost "birches" poem reminds me of driving down the road and seeing a site that reminds you of your child hood, as with him he saw trees that had been damaged from years of snow storms and they reminded him of climbing and playing in trees as a young child and how how he would love to go back to those times where he was a "birch swinger." I'm sure there are plenty of symbolisms that you could look into but I'd prefer to think that this poem is very simple because it reminds me of a time of my childhood that I spent playing in the woods and a very relaxing and simple time. Now I looked at other reviews to see how others read into this poem and it seems like I am pretty close with the reflection of life before you start having responsibilities and the hard ship of later down the road. The other interesting thing that I read was this poem, some feels is about masturbation and very sexual. Although I can see some lines and how people would feel that way I don't agree, but I am also not very good at looking at the symbolism of poems.

Well the more I read poems the more I have decided that I'm not going to look into the meaning/symbolism of a poem, to me, it is what it is and the great thing about a great poem is that you can relate it to either your own life or other around you, or the world in itself. Well on with what I'm thinking, "mending walls" to me is about respecting boundaries, and when fixing them takes the effort of both parties, this could relate to a relationship with a significant other or with friends, and relatives. and even if you don't need to have any "walls" between people we still do. You may put up a "barrier" of emotions or "not let someone in" but why is that really necessary why do we act so "tuff" in life.

"Acquainted With the Night" I can see two different meanings, the first relates more to the outdoors enthusiast, like myself i see this being a not walking the beaten path type of poem and enjoying nature and the solitude that you get when you are outside on a dark, night rather it be rainy or not it is a tranquil and humbling experience in my opinion. but you can also look at this poem in the sense that it is relating to someone trying run away from there wrongs or coming back, you know anytime someone cheats in the movie they always come home and it is dark and rainy... but personally i like to think about back packing an enjoying the out doors and that time of being relaxation....

So what is the promise that he must keep? is it love, i mean really there are only so many promise that people "must" keep, pay taxes and die... so the sleep he is referring too is death and how he still has a long way in his life to go till that point. the rest is referring to stopping and sniffing the roses in life and enjoying what natures beauty offers to al

Even though i feel this may be the easier of all the poems it was my favorite, the heat of desire, and yet the coldness of hate, but really why would anyone want to experience the coldness of an empty heart, that to me doesn't make sense why would you want to die while being lonely. so how would destruction with ice suffice..... scratch that now that i keep thinking about this i'm not really sure why this death would suffice....

Blog for Friday 1/8/10

I guess I must be emotionless, because every readers response I have read about Carver's "Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-second Year" is that it is "one of the most touching poems I have ever felt," and another reader wrote "In this poem Carver provides us with a beautifully touching slice of life that is not only flawless in writing and technique, but that connects and emotionally evokes feelings that are universal in all readers." which I found on 123helpme.com and Americanpoems.com. Here are my thoughts about this poem, and since i don't know anything about Carver, I would say that he lost his father when he was a young child, this poem is reflecting on a picture of his father pretty soon before his death, which I would believe was cause by alcohol. Thus the comment on how he can't hold his liquor well either, but even though he didn't get to experience things with his dad, like going to the local watering holes to learn to fish, he forgives his dad and still "loves" him. Like I said I wasn't too moved by this poem but that is what I think about it, and I didn't want to research to see if I was right. But I may......

Ok, well now lets talk about this whole stanza thing was about.... well the first line talks about peoples faces appearing, but where do they go they never disappear back into the crowed, are all faces the same to him, or are the faces even able to be made out. The ";" in the stanza is supposed to mean that both lines are equal, thus the leaves on this black branch have some sort of importance. To me I would be like what the hell is a tree doing down in a metro station, it would be nice if this writer wasn't on acid when he wrote this (just a guess) but i think maybe he is referring to the contrast of an occurrence of many people and then in my mind the elegance of nature and the tranquility of a rain shower on pedals of a tree..
that paragraph might make as much sense as the actual poem but i defiantly ranted a little bit

I did try to read Daddy, by sylvia Plath's but i gave up at least 4 times trying to read... so I really don't have much to say on it, although i did read that it was about Nazis.... oh well guess we can talk more about that one tomorrow so i can understand it and maybe attempt to read it again

Letter of introduction

Hello,
My name is Robert King, my writing skills have never been that great and not very extensive. My freshmen year in high school I wrote a musical that was called a physco in the window, and I was the co star of it, It was a ten minute long play/musical that we preformed on the last day of school for some of the theater classes. I also wrote a fictional story freshmen year in college that was about a freshmen coming to college and facing alcoholism. Most of my papers in college have been either lab reports or research papers that have needed to be in MLA format.
Last semester was one of my busiest semesters in regards to reading, i was able to read four books, Abmler Warning by Robert Ludlum, The Broker by John Grisham, The Whole Truth by David Baldacci, and a book by the Dali Lama. My favorite book of all time has been Hour Game by David Baldacci, which is a book about a serial killer and an agent that is trying to stop him. Another book that I have really enjoyed was the Good Earth, I read this one in high school and still remember it very well.
This semester I plan on being able to blog a at least twice a week and getting an A in a literature class, which for me would be a miracle because I'm a hard science major. My major is biosystems engineering which I love. I love being able to apply engineering skills to biological systems and being able to quantitatively explain the results that will occur. I also feel that my major is going play a critical role in helping the world realize how we can engineer for sustainability and improve the well being of all man kind. But to be honest I really wouldn't mind just opening a micro brewery with a small restaurant connected to it and being a small business owner. This class is required for me to graduate in the spring but I choose it because i thought it would be interesting.

I woke up to smell the summer dew
Off i went to experience something new
When I arrived the circle was packed
With new students hauling stuff that's sacked
Classes were full with students absorbing
I awoke with my first hangover several morning
My sophomore year I spent at coastal
this is where i almost went postal
back I came to Clemson
and decided it was time for a reason
I met Jessica the best of gal
and now she is my favorite pal
At the end of this year my cap I will throw
but my life experiences will continue to grow