This Moment - Igor Oro

         This poem starts out by the speaker asking something of the audience, he makes them think about who they are. This is the beginning. His posture and the way he presents himself to the audience is very melancholy. He isn'y forcing his emotions into the audience, but more so giving himself to them if they'd like to accept. The middle of the poem begins when he describes not who you are, but what you'll have to do. Essentially, you figure out towards the end that those mean the same thing because it is what you do during that middle part and how you handle hardships which will determine who you are. The ending is marked when he is no longer trying to be subtle, instead he tells it like it is and fills people in on what kind of person they could be. He plays with rhymes throughout the entire poem, which can seem a bit corny and almost take away from the very dull tone of the poem, but it works with the way the speaker articulates himself.

spoken word poetry - "Like a Woman" by Annabelle Fern

In this piece of spoken word poetry the speaker in the beginning tries to conform with society and change herself to please the "crocodiles" or the on lookers. By the end of the poem after reflecting on the views of the on lookers and forgetting their judgement, the speaker raises her child to be a true woman. A woman who doesn't care about the views of the onlookers. The child is raised free of the pressures of society.

http://youtu.be/GZDNUGMMxLk

I liked this poem because it seemed to stay true to its title. Not only was it four minutes long but it also summed up the things that make America American. The poet bounced negatives off off the positives that really characterized out country. The music in the background accompanied the words following the energy of the poem. There was a comfortable flow through from topic to topic so that it never tripped up on any ideas. As a spoken word poem it was directed not at the reader but the listener. I felt that the tone that the poem was written in and the way the poet read it made me feel like he was talking directly to me.

Pause Poem

The sound of this poem is interesting in that sometimes one person is speaking, sometimes two, three, or even all of them. In the beginning, when Lillian says something that Paul said to her, they both spoke at the same time, which was really neat. When they all speak, it creates drama in the poem and is cool to see how they are all in sync, even down to the hand movements. Every time they say the word "pause", it is a transition of thoughts. The thoughts are things that they notice with different tragedies or inequalities in the world, and how each time they hear about these things they pause. This poem has great movement and flow, and it is very easy to get into. The repetition helps the flow of the poem and is the most prominent literary device in it.

http://hellopoetry.com/styles-blackwell/
This is a poet that i really liked when i was looking throught a poetry website.

Let America be America again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love

By Langston Hughes

I decided to choose this poem because of the relevance it incorporates in our country today. Although not specific, it brings up the idea of how much we have changed as a country since we first got started. America used to be a place for hope and happiness and while this still may be the same for some people, for others it is a fight for survival. And recently we have seen many issues such as violence that were not evident back when we arrived.

The Anxiety of Influence

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-anxiety-of-influence-9780195112214?cc=us&lang=en&

    I thought this was kind of interesting. Its a book by Harold Bloom and the message is that while current-day poets accumulate a lot of their ideas from the fascination of their precursors, their creative process is hindered by essentially not wanting to be a copy cat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anxiety_of_Influence

There's the wikipedia if you're interested. If you scroll down to where he breaks the book up into six different ratios it's pretty cool stuff.