T'Mar's Blog (:

Welcome to tictactoetactics!

Sunday, May 24

Five-Seven-Five Jive: And His Friends I Am, Concrete, Free Verse, Limerick, and Five Sense
(For Elisa's purposes only)

Poetry Portfolio

Tamar Celis
May 27, 2009
4th block

Table Of Contents
Poetry Terms
I Am Poem
I Am Reflection
Five Sense Poem
Five Sense Reflection
Concrete Poem
Concrete Reflection
Limerick
Limerick Reflection
Free Verse
Free Verse Reflection
Overall Reflection

I Am Reflection
My I Am poem is not my best. On the other hand, it is quite good for a poem assignment that was to be done in two days. The two brief descriptions we had to choose were probably the hardest part. I think that no person in this expansive planet can summarize their persona in one sentence. This is why I tried to use the rest of the poem to describe me in some vague way. For example, my pretending to be a steerswoman, or feeling that the volleyball court is enveloping me shows that I like those two sports (volleyball and paddling). Another good example is when I state that I "hope to meet the man of my dreams at the right time". This line shows that I am constantly thinking about my future but do not want to rush things. The last item I want to point out is the line that begins with the words "I touch…". Because the guideline told us to state something imaginary, I couldn't think of a better example than my grandparents' hands, given that they all have departed.

Five-Sense Reflection
My Five-Sense Poem is not my best either. I think this is partially due to the fact that I was watching 20/20 on WE at the time that I was writing the poem. The episode was one in which five teenage black boys were imprisoned for raping a woman. Towards the conclusion of the show, it revealed that a man named Matias Reyes was the real rapist. His confession was caught on tape, and he sounded very impassive. That led me to look up impassive in the thesaurus, which in turn suggested stoicism. It had a poetic feel to it, so I decided to use it for my title. In addition, the show also inspired my second line ("…impassive tone of a rapist"). Another inspiration for this poem was my sister. She had borrowed a book about the Holocaust from her English teacher and left it on the ironing board. I took a look at it and read a little bit about crematoriums, gas chambers and other deadly machinery the Nazis used. This inspired the second-to-the-last-line of my poem ("…smoke of a crematorium on a Sunday morning").

Concrete Reflection
Apparently, my inspiration was a paddling race. I wrote the poem parallel to what I feel during a heat. However, I did leave off a few things, like how tiring it is in the last 250 meters and how hard it is to dig your blade for the first three strokes. The main thing I wanted to make stand out in this poem was that paddling is more challenging than it seems. I also wanted to capture the poetic side of it, because many people think it is robotic and tedious. The turn is also one thing I emphasized in the poem. What makes the Uni-Kahi part of my poem so special is that it is the particular way a stroker (person in seat one) performs the turn. For example, if Elisa, the second stroker (person in seat two), wrote a poem about the turn in a paddling heat, she would have to mention how she sticks her torso out of the boat during the Uni. Everybody on the boat has a specific duty during a turn. In my opinion, the steersperson (person in seat six) has the hardest part. Second-place in terms of difficulty would have to go to the stroker.

Limerick Reflection
My limerick was done last-minute. This is because I had no idea that a poem was due that day. Although some people knew a poem was due that day, I did not. Sadly, I was probably not listening or was doing my work and did not hear. Nevertheless, I really like this one. I also made another one:
"The dresses I saw at the mall
Were either too large or too small,
So the dress I chose,
With the single red rose,
Was bought by m sister last fall."
I had two of my classmates--Jannel and Elisa--choose which one they liked better, and they both chose the limerick that dealt with summer; hence the poem I turned in. And, thanks to my carelessness, I wrote my title at the bottom of the paper.

Free Verse Reflection
Personally, this is my best poem. My free-verse, an unstructured poem with unrhymed lines of varying lengths, was excellent. Receiving the rubric and seeing the 75/100 was very shocking. In detail, I got points off for organization, although an organized free-verse poem is quite the oxymoron. I also got points off for word choice. This is hard to believe, considering the 95/100 I was given for my concrete poem, in which the biggest word I used was overwhelming. In conclusion, I feel my poem followed the exact requirements of a free-verse and deserved a better grade. In my opinion, it was organized: every stanza stated the different parts of my day. In addition, each included paradigms of what went on in that room (or cafeteria). Another reason why I think I deserved a better grade is that my word choice measured up to the topic of my poem: an average ninth grader's Monday. If I started using words that are not in the average freshman's vocabulary, it would have really thrown off the flow of my poem.

Overall Reflection
I think this poetry portfolio was an interesting assignment. Although I find some of my poem's scores questionable, I do not regret writing any of them.
My I Am poem was the easiest because it had an exact rubric to follow. The Five Sense poem was also extremely trouble-free. The rest of the poems in this portfolio were a bit more challenging, particularly my Free Verse. The thing that was especially hard was finding a topic to write about. I cannot recall the numerous poems I wrote. The topics ranged from my mother ("We, She, Me") to love ("Free and Limitless") to the color orange ("Orange"). When I finally found a cool topic to write about, things did not get any easier. On the other hand, Monday was a very fun subject to do a poem on because I never knew that I could transform the typical classroom scene into a unique poem.
As a whole, I think all my poems met their requirements. Ironically, the poems that had a very specific guideline to follow were my least favorite. I think it is safe to say that I am a free-thinker. Although I do follow a poem's parameter, it does not enable me to use all of my brain's creative side, which is something I love to do.