Ideas for Writing (Group Ong Li Yuan)

“Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice.”

This quotation from the poem Turtle Soup by Marilyn Chin means that sometimes we are the one that giving hope to move on and sometimes we will become the one that need to sacrifice and that lead to despair. The speaker describes her mother’s voice that can’t comprehend the thought about having to sacrifice a lot in order to gain a better life in a foreign land.

In an immigrant family of course there just a lot of hardship that they must gone through, it started with what they must sacrificed back in their home land; they must leave behind their family and friends, to be apart for a certain number of months or years, but usually those who left the country for a better life didn’t usually will ever going back home. Another thing that they will lose is their mother culture and tradition, having to mix with a new community, language and even religion. For example, in one of the local novel written by K.S Maniam; In a Far Country, he seriously portrays about how an immigrant family will lose the sense of their own identity and the feeling of belonging.

While in the same time they will gain something by moving into a new land, though it depends on the intention of their migration. In the poem “Turtle Soup”, the speaker seems to gain a better life maybe from the one that the family had back in China. Having to lose the ancient culture from the mother land, it was replaced by a new modern culture, and a fresh thought about life. Usually such countries that become the dominant attraction for the immigrant all over world like America, having a good economical state, stable in politics and most of all is a better opportunity for education. This is what an immigrant family usually looks for; they wanted their children to have a better education and able to strive for a better future and life.

It is not mention in the poem about what the speaker’s family gain by migrating from China to America but in the novel In A far Country, the immigrant family that coming to Malaysia all the way from the India gaining a better insights about community relationship. The antagonist; Rajan, learn that he need to appreciate the country that now he is living, he need to feel that he belong to this new country and in the same time, he still can preserve his own believe and traditional cultural value.

In conclusion, I believe it is a huge decision for one to migrate into a foreign land and when they did so, they must be ready for any obstacles and hardship as the results of their action. But it will not always be a bad things, for many reasons I also believe that migrating to a new land will also give you a new hope and a better future ahead, especially for those who is willing to sacrifice.

Turtle Soup by Marilyn Chin (1994)

Explorations of the Text

1)      The word “cauldron” portrays the image of ancient tradition of the speaker’s family, which is connected to the traditional Chinese culture. The author chose this word instead of “pot” to emphasis on the importance of giving value to one’s own identity even if it sounds old.

2)      “The Wei”, “the Yellow” and “the Yangtze” represents the ethnic identity of the speaker. Maybe she wanted to value the place where she came from; the China, and also as a symbol of respect towards these rivers as the turtle “that lived four thousand years”, swam those rivers to witness so much significant historical events in the past. Rivers such as the Nile, the Amazon or the Mississippi does not related to any cultural value to the speaker as she is a Chinese after all.

3)      The tone of the poem is nostalgic as the speaker tried to appreciate the symbol of the turtle and how it relate to her identity as a Chinese immigrant in a foreign land, she can’t feel as an American while in the same time the home tradition is almost gone from her.

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note by Amiri Baraka (1961)

Explorations of the Text

1)      The speaker’s mood seems to be numb and discouraging as he was so used to the same happening in his life and he portrays “the ground opens up and envelops him”. As if it buried his own self and soul of living.

2)      The significance of the daughter’s gesture of peeking into “her own clasped hands” is to show that she is praying. The daughter probably praying to the God so that things will go well for her parents, because she was to talking to someone but “there is no one there...”. The speaker saw that her daughter praying to the God that unseen to anyone in the world.

3)      The title “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note” means a note that will probably wrote by someone who can no longer go on in life. The speaker keep going about his depression of the same things in his life but in the last line he saw his daughter praying; “Her own clasped hands.” The daughter prays so that her parent will not giving up life by going into suicide no matter how rough the front path of living.

4)      The three short lines seem to picture the different transmission of the stages in the speaker’s life. The poem initially describing how the speaker felt about his everyday life and he said; “Things have come to that.”, which is his life before was always the same stuffs, while  in the second part the poem describe about his life now and the line “Nobody sings anymore.” This portrays about how his life became almost lost of all its excitement and fun. While the last part in my opinion he finally did came to a little hope, when he saw his daughter praying in “Her own clasped hand”. He might actually go on in the end.

5)      Baraka’s initial point of the flow when he begin with “Lately”, as it was before he realise his life going wrong, and then followed by “and now”. This could be the climax of his hopeless condition and he ended by “and then”. This will be the final stage of the poem which we witness the ending of the whole tale.

6)      All of this time the speaker might didn’t feel anything about his own daughter because he thought himself as living in the same desperate and depressing things for every day of his life by stating;

 “And now, each night I count the stars,
   And each night I get the same number.”
But in the end when he saw his daughter praying, something come to him and mostly the reader, that there is more to hope than nothing good of coming from suicide, the girl represents hope and the need for him to move on for the sake of her.

Works Cited

Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik. And Lynne Crockett. Portable Legacies: Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Nonfiction. United States of America: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009.

References

"Themes and Meaning" Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition Ed. Philip K. Jason. Salem Press, Inc. 2002 eNotes.com 28 Sep, 2013 <http://www.enotes.com/topics/preface-twenty-volume-suicide-note/themes#themes-themes-and-meanings>

Semajamcclain. “My Poems Analysis.” Home page. October 2011. 28 September 2013. <http://semajamcclain.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/my-poems-analysis/

Incident by Countee Cullen (1925)

Explorations of the text

1. There is a great tension between the nature of the interaction between the two boys, the Baltimorean treat him as an outsider by staring strangely at him and even though he smile towards him. Then he called the speaker a “Nigger” which showed that he is a racist. The interaction is awkward and deeply living a scar on the speaker’s memory.
2. The speaker just couldn't take out the incident with the Baltimorean because he was expecting a warm greeting or a smile from him but instead of that he just embarrassing the speaker by poked him out and called him a “Nigger”. It caused then speaker losing all the excitement of coming to that place and the incident become a permanent hurt for him.

The Reading/ Writing Connection

1.   I also happen to experience a prejudice before, though I never take it seriously but it does hurt on that time. My situation will be because of the course that I took that might a bit lower in value rather than those in science courses, I didn’t take it personally because it just a way people want to make you feel down, in fact I know that we all more better than we thought we could be. The persona having a hard time forgetting this incident due to his age; he is too young to perceive people’s judgement, he only looking for exciting friendship but end up being hurt because of the nature that he was born with that colour of skin. I could understand him and I thought also this an incident to the Baltimorean boy because he fail in appreciating ones true beauty that lies within the heart.

Ideas for Writing

1.   The form and rhyme actually helps the reader to truly engage with the flow of the poem. It is like narrating a simple child story but inside the poem bound with a deep and serious message. Playing with the sound of the word broaden our imagination of the situation the persona trying to convey.
2.  One of the magnificent functions of language is to provoke. The persona are totally effected by the word “Nigger” which is not meant anything to him if he happen not to understand its meaning, but he know what is the meaning behind the word and that refer to his race and skin colour. For that reason he couldn't accept the word being appointed to him whether the Baltimorean ever meant what he say or not. Language can be very powerful when we can use it to change one opinion about every aspects of their life, just like the persona that could be changing his mind perception about the white people attitude because of the incident of the word “Nigger”.

References

Schmidt, Jan Zlotnik and Lynne Crockett. Portable Legacies: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction. United States of America: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009.

The  Response Poem

For this task I am inspired to write this poem as one of the way of answering the questions that Naomi Shihab Nye put forward in ‘All Things Not Considered’. Maybe things could turn for the right if we were to alter the whole things as to be considered. But in here I try to tell a bit about the existence of hope behind every trouble.

Consider only the Holy

No divine too sacred of language,
no divine inspire to writing blood,
as we not bare too of having another new,
that off hurting or killing,
though people in distance to get together,
still all can be wrong or right,
but no deepest water that have no bottom,
no darkest land untouched by light,
there will be the end of all black,
white clear as the water,
will flow crossing the believer of the holy.

Incident by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember. 

First Exploratory Draft and Notes

(All Things Not Considered (2002) by Naomi Shihab Nye)

In the poem ‘All Things Not Considered’ by Naomi Shihab Nye, humans conflict are describes by using the historical event on the setting of the poem, Middle East. The poet portrays it by using her own life experience in the place, she describe how human are struggling to live within desperation of life, and one of that is the differences in believes and religion.

First she said that we can’t giving back one life when it has end, it is a tension within human’s life. Explosion is cause by war and that destroys happiness of children playing toys, she puts question marks to spark a thought within our mind on the causes or effects of war. Then she pictures how a Jewish boy killed and a Palestinian died because of religious extremist that could not find solution to their own struggle. She wants people to considered of having a new religious maybe only to giving us a new insights that everything are need to be considered.

The Arab father burying the baby girl alive also one of the historical occasions, where Arabian men just couldn't accept having a daughter and in here Shihab portrays how much discrimination was happening towards women in the Middle East society. Then women have to struggle in finding a way to survive through that time and this conflict actually remains until today, it doesn't involve burying anyone alive but discriminate in various other ways.

In the end of the poem, the poet gives the reader a grasp of hope that desperate death will come to an end, the ‘calm bucket waiting for water’ to wash away all their pain and suffering.

The humans conflict over the contrast between religions here are describes with the historical event between Jewish and Muslims. Shihab next sharing her despair with the reader that this conflict will continue if people didn't realize that we’re wrong and made similar mistakes in life, and giving no chances for peace to walks through.

All Things Not Considered
By Naomi Shihab Nye

You cannot stitch the breath
back into this boy.

A brother and sister were playing with toys
when their room exploded.

In what language
is this holy?

The Jewish boys killed in the cave
were skipping school, having an adventure.

Asel Asleh, Palestinian, age 17, believed in the field
beyond right and wrong where people came together

to talk. He kneeled to help someone else
stand up before he was shot.

If this is holy,
could we have some new religions please?

Mohammed al-Durra huddled against his father
in the street, terrified. The whole world saw him die.

An Arab father on crutches burying his 4 month girl weeps,
“I spit in the face of this ugly world.”

*

Most of us would take our children over land.
We would walk in the fields forever homeless
with our children,
huddle under cliffs, eat crumbs and berries,
to keep our children.
This is what we say from a distance
because we can say whatever we want.

*

No one was right.
Everyone was wrong.
What if they’d get together
and say that?
At a certain point
the flawed narrator wins.

People made mistakes for decades.
Everyone hurt in similar ways
at different times.
Some picked up guns because guns were given.
If they were holy it was okay to use guns.
Some picked up stones because they had them.
They had millions of them.
They might have picked up turnip roots
or olive pits.
Picking up things to throw and shoot:
at the same time people were studying history,
going to school.

*

The curl of a baby’s graceful ear.

The calm of a bucket
waiting for water.

Orchards of the old Arab men
who knew each tree.

Jewish and Arab women
standing silently together.

Generations of black.

Are people the only holy land?

All Things Not Considered by Naomi Shihab Nye

(Mini-outline and thesis statement)

• It is a narrative poem, the speaker could be an observer - a third point of view.
• The narrator describe a suffering and desperate condition on that part of the world.
• Its diction and word choice
• Images of the condition.
• the tone is not change; sadness and curiosity- because of the question mark
• war, discrimination, oppression on women, conflicts of life
• generations of black- Middle East-Arabian, Jewish
• historical events
• the thesis: the use of historical event to portrays humans conflict :
          1) room exploded-war
          2) the Jewish was killed
          3) the Palestinian was shot
          4) baby girl was murdered - buried alive
          
• discussion isn't working, war conflicts-desperation
                                                          

Women in Poetry

Ones could write for a lot of purposes and that depend on ones stand about something. When it comes to poetry not very much people can go around digging its meaning especially that it is different from one another and one of the contrast is the gender point of view.

In my opinion women poet seems to be influence so much of their inner deep feeling about something they engage about. For example in the two poems that we discuss before “Biography of an Armenian Schoolgirl” and “All Things Not Considered” by Naomi Shihab Nye, was written by giving emphasis on her own past experience, which is what most poet will do. It is more on describing the condition and situation of a certain place, happening to a certain group of people but there are so many issues to be considered.

She talks about politics, culture, religion and discrimination in the same time. That is all added to the aesthetic value of a literary work. I myself had one women poet that I really admire since I first read her poem; “There’s been a death in the opposite house”, written by Emily Dickinson. But she had one poem that is so lovely and temperate, it will absolutely gives you a good feeling when you read it.

 Besides the Autumn poets sing

Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze –

A few incisive mornings –
A few Ascetic eves –
Gone – Mr. Bryant's "Golden Rod" –
And Mr. Thomson's "sheaves."

Still, is the bustle in the Brook –
Sealed are the spicy valves –
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many Elves –

Perhaps a squirrel may remain –
My sentiments to share –
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind –
Thy windy will to bear!

It is as she wants to tell that inside the season of autumn there is both happiness and sadness that mingled in our feelings, which giving us both hope and despair in the same time, which I think a good thing to have such feeling sometimes.

Summarizing my thought, I think women are capable of exploring many more issues by using poetry as a medium.