anna130 – 20-1 Writers

poisonous love

anna130 20-1C, Free Choice, Personal Response June 2, 2022June 2, 2022Double-edged sword, happiness, love, pain, Shakespeare 8 Comments

This poem is about how love can be a great thing and it can make people feel like they are the king of the world but it’s also something that can lead to trouble. When people put too much of themselves into a relationship or are in an unhealthy relationship it can lead to a detrimental outcome instead of the feeling of happiness. Shakespeare demonstrated this through the love story of Macbeth and his wife. Macbeth put his faith and trust into her and she manipulated him into killing Duncan which was the start of both his and her descent into insanity. Even though all of this was going on Macbeth still loved his wife as he was blinded to her cruel ways by the love he felt for her.

Love is a tricky thing

It can take you to the highest of highs, but it can drag you down to the lowest of lows

It can give you a new sense of self, but it can also strip away everything you’ve ever felt

With every ounce of love you give to someone else, it takes away the love that was meant for yourself

Love is a win-lose game you see

For some it’s the best they’ve ever known and they feel like their sitting upon a throne

For others love can seem like a test to see if their better or just like the rest

Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, sometimes their kiss can leave the worst bruise

For Macbeth knows this well

His love for his lady was as pure as can be, it was as bright as the stars and as big as the sea

There was no one else he trusted more than than the beautiful woman he chose to adore

He gave her respect and he gave her a voice he showed her all things and let her have a choice

Alas her love was a double-edged sword

On the outside she was poised, clean and concise but on the inside she was vicious, cruel, and vice

She talked him up and she talked him down, she talked her way into getting the crown

She loved her husband all kind and caring yet she called on the devil to make her more daring

Thy lady’s love was a poisonous thread

Blinded by love he followed through on whatever task she wanted him to do

Through her tongue and her charm she got into his head and whispered the names of those needing to be dead

She messed with his mind and drove him mad but with her by his side he continued to be glad

Through hell and back their love prevailed but it ended with their lives going off the rails

Even still Macbeth loved her so

https://www.dreamstime.com/d-heart-devil-horns-tail-wings-black-background-image155166527

https://www.hobbyconsolas.com/entretenimiento/macbeth

https://quantstamp.com/blog/defis-double-edged-sword

https://www.deviantart.com/erouct/art/Poison-of-Love-97666971

https://tylerhuckabee.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/love-is-death.png

If everyone is just human, why treat some differently?

anna130 20-1C, Response to Literature April 20, 2022discrimination, freedom, human rights 2 Comments

“everyday we get more illegal” by Juan Felipe Herrera

Discrimination is a term that’s been around for a long time and is used to tell the story of many lives such as those described in Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Everyday we get more illegal” Juan’s story depicts the unfair treatment and circumstances that immigrants coming to the United States have to deal with. This issue isn’t something that is new, however the divide between immigrants and American citizens is growing wider everyday as more and more people immigrate. This poem highlights the criminalization felt by immigrants, especially Mexicans, about the way that they live their lives. When it comes to police or any type of security it tends to be anyone but the white guy that gets checked or asked questions.

There is an unfair bias that many American citizens and members of government seem to have against immigrants and it leads to laws constantly being changed to either take away their rights or break up families. Normally it takes forever for laws to be passed because it has to go through the whole system but when it comes to immigration laws they seem to be passed rather quickly in comparison and aren’t able to be changed which is a point Herrera was getting at with the line “laws pass laws with scientific walls” and “another law then another Mexican Indian spirit exile”

People who are born and raised in a country tend to feel superior next to those who immigrated there and that leads to unfair treatment and judgment. Juan references a husband, son and wife who get broken up but the daughter stays behind because she married a citizen and that really just shows the hierarchy among citizens and immigrants. When this behavior is expanded into society as a whole it creates a country that is divided with one half feeling like they belong and the other feeling as if they are a criminal or in the wrong for simply wanting a better life for themselves.

Seeing as though Herrera has a Chicano background himself he was able to pull from his own experiences to portray his message. He was born to immigrant parents and heard all kinds of stories that he was able to translate in his work and in this poem specifically. Herrera has said that the whole point of his work is to bring light to the injustices that so many lives have to suffer through. He wants to bring awareness to Latino heritage and write something that many people can relate to.

Dear White America by Danez Smith

This poem is a very powerful poem about the discriminations faced by African American people in the United States. It’s about how the white citizens of America have privileges and rights that people of colour don’t have and about why that’s so wrong. Nobody knows what it’s like to have to walk in their shoes and I can’t even try to compare myself to them because I simply have no idea what it feels like.

The thing that I do understand however is the feeling of being told that you can’t do something because of something about yourself that you can’t change. That feeling shows up in my life because of the fact that I’m a girl and even after all this time some people still have issues with that. If I were to get mad and start yelling I would be called crazy but if a guy does it he’s just getting his point across. There’s certain clothes that I can’t wear because it might make a guy feel a certain way but if a man walked around half naked it would be ok because he’s a guy. There’s stereotypes and prejudices against girls that so many people believe and assure about a girl before they even meet her and I’ve had that experience and I can tell you that it isn’t fun. The list goes on and on with things like employment and age gaps but the point is that women have to overcome so many obstacles that men never seem to have too, not to say that they don’t have their own but it’s just different.

I don’t even what to imagine what it’s like to be a woman of colour in today’s society because I know they have to go through a whole lot more than I do and they have conflicts that I don’t even know exist and that’s the problem. That’s the whole point of the poem, bringing light to the issues that people are to blind to see.

sources:

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-women-of-color-can-drive-corporate-transformation/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/150542/dear-white-america

https://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/forward-prizes-for-poetry-2/danez-smith/

https://poets.org/poem/everyday-we-get-more-illegal

https://www.cnn.com/2011/09/29/opinion/valencia-racism-latino/index.html

https://www.apa.org/topics/racism-bias-discrimination/types-stress

Facing the reality of one’s true self

anna130 20-1C, Response to Life February 23, 2022February 23, 2022facing reality, hardship, Humbleness 10 Comments

“When a conceited individual is presented with a time of hardship it forces them to face reality and can lead to them gaining a sense of humbleness and a greater understanding of their own abilities.”

Throughout life most of us realize that no matter who you are and no matter where you come from there are always things that you can do. There’s going to be a challenge that you have to back down from because we don’t live in a dream world and the fact is that the reality of life can’t be changed. However there are times in life when even the best of us get overconfident about our abilities and some even take it to a point where they are so conceited they lose track of reality all together. These kinds of people go about their life thinking that there is no obstacle that they can’t climb until they come face to face with an impossible challenge that they can’t overcome. It’s during times like this that these individuals have to take a step back and see just how unrealistic their confidence was.

Even with the odds stacked against them, conceited individuals are the ones who are going to try to accomplish whatever task it is that is causing them hardship, but they are inevitably going to fail. It’s this failure that causes them to be humbled and to realize that just because they thought that they were the greatest doesn’t mean that they actually are. When these people are forced to see the reality of their situation they are brought back down from cloud nine and are saved from making a grave mistake.

Picture this; you are standing on the edge of a cliff and in front of you is the life you have dreamed of, and all you have to do to get to this life is make the 20 foot jump to the other side. Nine out of ten people would choose to stay right where they are but that one person who really feels that they can do anything decides to go for it; this would be the conceited individual. They take a few steps back and are about to jump but once they are only a foot from the edge they come to a complete halt. The closer this person got the more they understood the gravity of the situation and chose to remain on their side of the cliff. Throughout this they ended up coming to their senses and realized that they couldn’t do everything that they thought that they could. It’s almost like they threw away their crown and with that their conceitedness was replaced by a sense of humbleness.

I struggle with the idea of reality versus fantasy all the time as I am very much a dreamer. I spend time thinking about my dream life rather than facing the music of how my life is actually going. Since these dreams are constantly on my mind I tend to be overconfident sometimes and by doing so I can get myself into some pretty unfortunate situations sometimes. There’s little things like a quiz here and there or playing a sport that I’m convinced I’ll be amazing at with no practice, but when I’m really feeling myself and have my head up in the clouds I end up in a lot of trouble. Over the years I’ve learned a lot of skills and have become pretty good at a lot of things and this leads me to rush into other skills without taking the time to practice. Almost every time I am forced to face the reality of the situation because after about a minute or so I realize that I can’t do whatever it is I’m trying to do and if I don’t stop I’m going to get hurt.

This concept also applies to certain friendships where I think I know exactly the friend that I need to be and don’t put in the effort to be the kind of friend that the other person wants me to be. After a while those friendships start to break because I can’t seem to get off of my high horse and realize that just because I think that I’m an amazing friend doesn’t mean that I actually am. It isn’t until that person breaks up the friendship that I realize what I’ve done and by that point it’s too late. In the end it leaves me with a lesson that I can take with me everywhere I go and it ensures that the next friendship I begin is focused on the reality of the individual and not my idea of what they need.

https://kabbalah.com/en/articles/illusion-versus-reality/

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/dream-and-reality.html

https://www.successfactor.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Reality-Check-13-Feb-19.jpg