Harlem by Langston Hughes

Harlem by Langston Hughes
 
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I really like this poem by Langston Hughs because it shows different ways to think about topics that you wouldn't normally think about, like dreams. a dream is a really interesting topic to write a poem about because there are so many ways to express yourself in poetry, on top of being able to write many things about dreams. In this poem, Hughes describes what can happen when you put off something that you've been dreaming about for a while.

"Deferred" means to be put off, and not looked at for a long time. The beginning line in the poem is very good because it sets things up for the rest of the poem. What happens to a dream deferred? is also a very good opening line because it is a question, and questions make you think about a lot of things, and often bring you into the next lines of the poem.

In the first stanza, Langston Hughes gives examples of many things that a dream will do if "deferred". Hughes gives examples like "Does it dry up/ like a raison in the sun?" and "Or does it fester like a sore--/ then run?" Notice how both of these examples are also questions, like the beginning line. I think one of the techniques that Hughes used to draw the reader in was to ask the reader questions to keep them engaged and thinking. The examples from the text also have other literary devices such as personification and similes.

In the second stanza of the poem, things kind of calm down a little. He only states one this time, and its more general than the other components, so you can tell that it's more important. The fact that this line in the poem does not pose a question makes you wonder if that was the thing that the dream deferred actually does. Maybe it's what happens to a "dream deferred" in Hughes' eyes. This could keep me thinking for hours!

The last line of the poem is very mysterious, and I have to admit that it scares me a little. I've never really analyzed this line before because I didn't really think that it meant much, but from reading it over and over again I realized that this is the most important line in the poem. This line is a question again ("Or does it explode?") and it makes me wonder if dreams deferred actually do "explode". I think that this is a metaphor for that they do explode, in peoples minds. The dreams plot themselves in peoples minds when they're not thinking about them and then one day, the person realizes that they're still there, and suddenly cares when its gone, when they forget about it.

Letter to Erika

Dear Erika,

So far in Romeo and Juliet, I have to admit that I don't really understand that much. But from what I do, I can tell that there are a lot of interesting characters so far in the play (who may or may not all be considered "good"). Romeo and Juliet don't really have a big part yet, but their parents certainly do. The Capulets and the Montagues have been fighting constantly, because theres some fued that's been running in their blood for like forever. They'll flip when Romeo and Juliet are together. Besides them, people like Sampson and Gregory really disgust me, how they talk about "throwing maids against the wall" (which is reall bad in today-talk) and sound like perverts (ha). I can't wait for us to get to the Romeo-Juliet parts.

As for reading this text, I would say that it's pretty difficult. The language is all different and things can get really confusing with jokes and puns. Because I'm not familiar with most of what they're saying, it gets hard sometimes to follow along with the story line. Something that might help you is the left pages o the book- on each page it gives you a little description of words you might find hard to figure out or define. You should also try relating what's going on in the story to things that could happen today or in your life.

Overall, I'm really liking Romeo and Juliet, even though I'm only like 20 pages in. I'm sure that once I get into the story I'll enjoy and understand it even more!

                                                                                                                                   With Love,
 
                                                                                                                                         Sydney

Reading Response- Girl, Inturrupted [SPOILER ALERT]

I recently finished the memoir Girl, Inturrupted by Susanna Kaysen and enjoyed it thoroughly while I was away. I'm going to try and elaborate on this single question throughout, though- Why is it called "Girl,Inturrupted"?

In the end of this book, Susanna Kaysen tells a story to the reader a couple of years after she gets out of the hospital about her and her boyfriend (at the time) going to the Alexander Frick Museum:

     "When we got there I recognized it. 'Oh,' I said. 'There's a painting I love here.'

     'Only one?' he said. 'Look at these Fragonards.'
     I didn't like them. I left the Fragonards behind and walked into the hall leading to the courtyard.
     She had changed a lot in sixteen years. She was no longer urgent. In fact, she was sad. She was young and distracted, and her teacher was bearing down on her, trying to get her to pay attention. But she was looking out, looking for someone who would see her.
     This time I read the title of the painting: Girl, Inturrupted at Her Music.
     Inturrupted at her music: as my life had been inturrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?
     I had something to tell her now. 'I see you,' I said.
     My boyfriend found me crying in the hallway.
     'What's the matter with you?' he asked.
     'Don't you see, she's trying to get out,' I said, pointing at her.
     He looked at the painting, he looked at me, and he said, 'All you ever think about is yourself. You don't understand anything about art.' He went off to look at a Rembrandt.


This final part in the book really moved me, and I finally understood why the book's title was what it was. Susanna related to the girl in that painting. She related to her so much that they had some kind of a special connection, and she had such strong emotions towards their connection she cried over it. The little girl in the painting didn't get put in a hospital for having a personality disorder, she got inturrupted at something not so important, like practicing an instrument. But it doesn't matter- Susanna felt that girl's pain, because she knew how it felt to be inturrupted while doing something you love.

Susanna Kaysen was put into a Mental Hospital for two years for a Borderline Personality Disorder. Something that can't really be cured by pep-talks for the day and pills with funny names that make you drowsy, something that Kaysen knew all along. Yet she suffered in that home. She suffered because not only was she stuck there for two years of her life, but because she was stuck there for two years and she didn't even really need to be. Yeah, she had some issues like not talking that much or throwing a tantrum once in a while [not that other people don't], but it's not like you can just go to the doctor and have that fixed. Those things are things that are going to stick with you for life. Kaysen needed priveleges like going outside of her room, or going outside the ward. She needed to be escorted around the hospital if she needed to go to the bathroom or go to the cafeteria to eat. She was banned from the basic things in life like having a boyfriend, or seeing family.

Susanna Kaysen was a girl, inturrupted at doing...life. She was a perfectly happy seventeen-year-old, satisfied with who she was and who she thought she wanted to become. She had a boyfriend, a good family, and a life. The hospital took that all away, in the blink of an eye. It's crazy how you can just go from waking up at noon every Saturday in your own home in your own bed, to swallowing Thorazine- or another crazy pill- every night at nine o'clock because that's the mandatory time for bed everyday.

SONNET

“Untitled” by Sydney DellaRatta

Nature surrounds me like a lullaby

Whispering in my ears and singing songs

When I’m out alone I feel I can fly

But I know that time alone can’t be long

Sometimes I sit and wonder about things

On a hill, or near a tree full of life

While the sound of perfect chiming bells ring

Ridding you of all of your pain and strife

                                                   

Sitting in the forest with none but you

In the unmasked silence that blankets land

I know that I can only be so true

To reach out and give this nature my hand 

When the bright sun goes down, just as it meant,

End the day with a feeling of content

3 Poems

1. What is poetry?
Poetry is thoughts
strung together by words
Imagine flying high in the sky
A swirl of colors
The rhyme and rhythm of
future and past
to make today.


2. What happens to a dream deferred?
The angry waves of despair
sweep it away into the sea of forgotten
It sits there forever
last in line for your thoughts
Drowning in that sea next to nowhere
and no one

It will float in the sky
and never come back
And you won't even know it.


3. Edgar Degas (told by himself)
The tiny little dancer
In her pointed shoes and dress
Looks up to meet my eyes
In a moment of distress

I wonder what she'd think of me
With painted eyes so wide
She'll come and ask me who I am
I'll reluctantly confide.

Edgar Degas- "The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years"

"The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years" Degas, 1881

Edgar Degas was born in July of 1834 in Paris, France as the oldest child in his family. Degas' mother died when he was only 13 years old. He came from a wealthy family who wanted him to go into law. Even though he listened to them and did go to law school, he would often skip classes and take art class instead. But not long after, Degas knew that all he wanted to do was paint. Later he became known for painting dancers and ballerinas. Some people say that he always painted young dancers because he had somewhat of an "amorous liaison" with them, always laughing at what they had to say and "excusing them for all they do." But others think he was mainly seen as a misogynist. Later in his life (around 1871) Edgar Degas' eye sight began to slowly get worse and worse. But while his eyesight got worse, he increased the intensity in his paintings and made his art with more passion, like failing eyesight had motivated him to do even more. Degas was near blind by the last couple of years of his life, and by then was very isolated from the world. Wanting his death to be "unnoticed to the world," Degas died in September of 1917.

The piece of artwork I chose was a bronze sculpture done by him in his mid-thirties or so. The sculpture is of a fourteen year old girl who dances, and I'm pretty sure she's actually in the middle of a dance. When making this painting, Degas decided he would try something different rather than just paint like he usually did. This sculpture is modeled in wax and dressed in a real body suit, tulle skirt, stockings, shoes, and a horse hair wig.

I really like this sculpture because of the unusual elements he used to make it. Degas really went outside the boundary line of what people expected him to do, using wax and horse hair instead of oils and pastels. I read somewhere that Degas made sculptures like these because he wanted to "strip the dancers of glamour and reveal them as scrawny adolescents." This is believeable because Degas was known as a misogynist. He felt a somewhat hatred feeling towards women, and I guess wanted to expose them in any bad way possible. Even though in most of his other paintings the ballerinas all look beautiful, these sculptures are rough and harsh on the eye, and bring out a different side to the dancers that you wouldn't see right away. I think that with this sculpture Degas is trying to say that even though he's painted all of these wonderful pictures of pretty ballerinas in shows looking all perfect, this is how everyone is in the real world. He's trying to say that this is the real thing underneath everyone. This little dancer still looks beautiful, but it's raw beauty.




http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/edgardegas.html
http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/degas/degas.html
http://www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Degas-Edgar.html

Reading Response- Paper Towns

In Paper Towns by John Green, I've noticed the peculiar relationship between Margo and Quentin. I'm only in the beginningish-middle of the book so I dont really know how it will develope, but it seems like Margo Roth Spiegelman is out of Quentin's "league" even though he has a forever-lasting, undying love for her.

When I was at the very beginning, the author clearly showed that even though Margo and Quentin are nextdoor neighbors and family friends, from when they were little Margo has now moved on to bigger and better things. I also think that the author is trying to portray that Quentin and his friends aren't exactly popular, and that Margo is at the head of the list, always going on crazy adventures with her boyfriend. I like the fact that in the beginning Quentin admires Margo greatly, even though it may be from a distance, in school. A far distance.

After the very beginning, Margo comes to Quentin's window in the middle of the night and tells him he needs to come with her on some crazy adventure of excitement and revenge. So he agrees and they end up having a really great time. At the end when they both go back home, Margo tells Quentin that she really misses hanging out with him. I like how Margo is starting to be honest with herself in saying that it's fine to still hang out with Quentin. I also like that they're becoming closer and closer of friends because I predict that maybe in the end Margo will see that he loves her and finally love him back.

I think that throughout the entire book Margo and Quentin will develope a friendship that in the end will be greater than what they started out as. I think that Margo will realize that being popular and crazy adventurous is not always the best thing. Sometimes the best thing is just being with the one person you want to be with, whether or not everyone has to know. For Margo, that one person should be Quentin, since he is already in complete love with her. I think that by the end, when she's found (she recently went missing), she will realize that Quentin is the one for her.