Poetry

I've been telling people or posting in Facebook, Multiply and Plurk that I loved my class last semester where we just did a lot of analyzing of poems, and a little bit on short story. English 11, if I get it right.

Shakepeare's Sonnet 116 or Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds...

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

And also Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Another one is the famous poem by Elizabeth Browning How Do I Love Thee

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

It's the feeling of reading poems and analyzing, understanding them, that just makes me feel like, wow. After every class I feel good when I just read and appreciate poems. I wish others appreciate poetry too.

Poems taken in the class had deep meanings or are already acclaimed. But the first poem I have actually memorized from first grade is what would be forever memorable. It's from our first grade book, which I forgot the title. My apologies to the publisher and author.

When I was one, my sister was two

When I was three, my sister was four

When I was five, my sister was six

Now I'm seven and going to eight

Won't someone please tell

My sister to wait. 

writing on your hometown

I just finished editing one of my papers due on Tuesday (which is technically tomorrow since it's 12:06 am as typing this sentence). It's the travel story I had to do on one place I've visited, since our class was able to have a common "field trip" with our professor.

Our Prof. thought it was ok for me to write about my being a "tourist in my hometown" two summers back. The other week I was plurking and posting in Facebook about how my travel story was morphing into a food review. Made sense since I was typing it at around this time when my tummy was beginning to grumble. But as affirmed by Ate Coco, stories written about Vigan do turn into stories of food trips. I love Vigan food. I grew up eating them but I'll never get tired of pinakbet, Vigan longganiza, miki, pipian, sinanglao, Vigan empanada, bagnet, and kinilaw na ipon. Thinking about Vigan really doesn't simply trigger nostalgia, but hunger pangs.

I also realize that when you write about something you're interested in, you're more likely to tell more about it. So therefore, my travel story is now four pages long, single-space. I love it, the longest article I'll pass for this semester next to the interpretive feature (with a required number of at least 8 pages, double-spaced).

I'll continue editing two more stories, and go to school tomorrow (or later when the sun rises?) to find them dam experts. Yay for productivity!

Perhaps I could publish my papers here? Maybe, just maybe...

*photo upload fail.*

Desire

I stopped everything I was doing a while ago to clear my mind. And this is what I came about: desire. What is desire? Jamieson-Fausset-Brown says it's actually means lust in the original translation. Lust arising from one's own temperament and habit. 

I remembered that film we "watched" in Film100, the old Streetcar Named Desire. The most memorable line would be of course, Stanley Kowalski shouting "Stella!!!!" Haha. The movie's quote on desire:

Blanche DuBois: You're married to a madman. 

Stella: I wish you'd stop taking it for granted that I'm in something I want to get out of.
Blanche DuBois: What you are talking about is desire - just brutal Desire. The name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another.
Stella: Haven't you ever ridden on that streetcar?
Blanche Du Bois: It brought me here. Where I'm not wanted and where I'm ashamed to be.
Stella: Don't you think your superior attitude is a little out of place?
Blanche DuBois: May I speak plainly?... If you'll forgive me, he's common... He's like an animal. He has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you - you here waiting for him. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that's if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night you call it. This party of apes. 

Blanche was pertaining to Stella's husband Stanley. So what is the movie all about? Blanche ad Stella are sisters. Blanche is crazy, and gets to move in to her sister's house. Now Stanley is a cruel man who plays poker with his buddies in Stella's house. Tension builds up and they find out Blanche is indeed crazy. Worse happened when Stanley rapes Blanche (although it wasn't explicit in the movie). The story ends with Blanche being taken away, and Stanley shouting "STELLAAAA!!" to come back.

Oh desire. That streetcar that comes banging on one street corner, then to another. It takes you to places where you do not want to be, and you regret finding yourself in. Desire, the streetcar headed for destruction.

Note: By desire, I meant lust in this post.

Quote from Streetcar Named Desire from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044081/quotes

Image from http://www.impawards.com/1951/streetcar_named_desire.html