Home learning lesson 2

Question:

Choose a poet by going online to a couple of the internet sites such as Poets.org (Academy of American Poets website) or American Poetry Online. Blog on your favourite poet. Your entry should be approximately 400 words. You should include the following:

Ask yourself why you chose this particular poet. Why is he/she intriguing? Begin with an interesting fact, quote from a
literary critic, an interview with the poet, etc. and move on to a thesis (yes, a thesis) which is not just a statement of fact, such as Sylvia Plath is a deeply disturbed woman. Think about what you feel about the poet’s work after having done the research; create a claim or opinion about him/her and let the reader know in the thesis what exactly you will be covering in the paper.

Background and historical context. Biographical information is fine, but make sure that it provides insight into the writer and his/her work
.
Three poems by the poet

All outside source material or links must be cited.



Donald Hall

My favourite poet is Donald Hall. I choose him as my favourite poet as he has wrote many outstanding poems and he has been writing even before he was a teenager. I feel that he is truly a very good writer and poet and his novels an dpoems are very touching. He is also quite a famous for his novels too. I like him because he is a all-rounded writer. I have also read a few of his novels and I enjoyed it.
Background

Donald Hall was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1928. He began writing as an adolescent and attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at the age of sixteen—the same year he had his first work published. He earned a B.A. from Harvard in 1951 and a B. Litt. from Oxford in 1953.

Donald Hall has published numerous books of poetry, most recently White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006 (Houghton Mifflin, 2006); The Painted Bed (2002) and Without: Poems (1998), which was published on the third anniversary of his wife and fellow poet Jane Kenyon's death from leukemia. Other notable collections include The One Day (1988), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination; The Happy Man (1986), which won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; and Exiles and Marriages (1955), which was the Academy's Lamont Poetry Selection for 1956.
n a review of Hall's recent Selected Poems, Billy Collins wrote in the Washington Post: "Hall has long been placed in the Frostian tradition of the plainspoken rural poet. His reliance on simple, concrete diction and the no-nonsense sequence of the declarative sentence gives his poems steadiness and imbues them with a tone of sincere authority. It is a kind of simplicity that succeeds in engaging the reader in the first few lines."
Besides poetry, Donald Hall has written books on baseball, the sculptor Henry Moore, and the poet Marianne Moore. He is also the author of children's books, including Ox-Cart Man (1979), which won the Caldecott Medal; short stories, including Willow Temple: New and Selected Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2003); and plays. He has also published several autobiographical works, such as The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon (2005) and Life Work (1993), which won the New England Book award for nonfiction.
Hall has edited more than two dozen textbooks and anthologies, including The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America (1990), The Oxford Book of American Literary Anecdotes (1981), New Poets of England and America (with Robert Pack and Louis Simpson, 1957), and Contemporary American Poetry (1962; revised 1972). He served as poetry editor of The Paris Review from 1953 to 1962, and as a member of editorial board for poetry at Wesleyan University Press from 1958 to 1964.
His honors include two Guggenheim fellowships, the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Silver medal, a Lifetime Achievement award from the New Hampshire Writers and Publisher Project, and the Ruth Lilly Prize for poetry. Hall also served as Poet Laureate of New Hampshire from 1984 to 1989. In December 1993 he and Jane Kenyon were the subject of an Emmy Award-winning Bill Moyers documentary, "A Life Together." In the June 2006, Hall was appointed the Library of Congress's fourteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. He lives in Danbury, New Hampshire.

Three of the poems he wrote

1.An Old Life
2.Affirmation
3. Name of Horses

Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Hall
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prm

Home learning lesson 1

Q1.How are the figurative language used in the poem? Give the specific word(s), explain what type of figurative language it is and why the poet chose to use this figurative language?

Q2. Tell us why you like this poem in no less than 100 words.

Q1. Ans :
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white, (Hyperbole)
And there the sun burns crimson bright, (Hyperbole)
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight (Personification)
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black (Hyperbole)
And the dark street winds and bends. (Personification)
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow (Hyperbole)
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go (Symbolism)
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, (Symbolism)
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Q2. Ans :
This poem is very touching and has very good descriptions. It is a very relaxing and calming poem. It describe a place where the sidewalks ends and what there is there; the grass, the sun, the moon-bird, the black smoke the flowers, the children. When you read this poem you can imagine a sidewalk and you can imagine yourself walking down it slowly. It also uses hyperbole, personification and symbolism which I stated in question one. It described the colour of the arrows by saying not only white arrows, but chalk-white arrows. While walking down the sidewalk you can feel the peppermint cool wind blowing on your face.
(101 words)

My Own Blog Prompt: My June Holidays So Far

We are now into the third week of the June Holidays.

Despite the pile of homework I’ve had to do, I managed to enjoy my holidays thus far to the fullest.

One of the most memorable days of this vacation was 5th June – neither my birthday nor any other ‘special’ day, but it was nevertheless my first payday ever! I don’t think this counts as child labour although I’m still below the age of 16! My sister, my employment agent, approached me to help her out during her friend’s company’s Family Day carnival. As she was short of hands, she requested my help. I was worried about my inexperience, so it took me quite a while before I agreed to help her. I finally decided to help her when she offered to pay me a minimum of $50 for my help. Money is hard to come by, but more importantly, such opportunities are rare!

On the 5th of June therefore, I woke up at around 7.30am to have breakfast before my sister and I set off for Pasir Ris Park, Elias Lawn. We ran an instant photo booth: my sister’s job was to take photos, mine to print them. As the crowd swelled, we became very, very busy! Some people repeatedly took many pictures with different groups of friends, while others did not even want to be photographed even though the photo-printing was free.

Half-way into the event, it was lunch time and there was a buffet! The inviting aromas from the large spread of food and the barbeque made my mouth start to water. I was extremely hungry as I had been working so diligently, hurriedly printing photos and handing them to our customers with a polite smile.

I really wanted to go and grab some food but my sister kept insisting that we were not part of the company and therefore not entitled to the buffet! Finally she agreed to let me take some food when she heard my tummy growling and my work performance dwindled due to my overwhelming hunger.

At 1pm, the event was finally over, but not for us! We had to stay back at the stall to clear all the rubbish! At 2pm we finally were done for the day. For my good effort and optimal attitude, I was to receive $70 from my sister, but until now she has not given me the money yet.

In retrospect, 5th June was truly a fulfilling experience. Luckily my elder brother was in Germany, or else I wouldn’t have been roped in and would have lost this golden opportunity! Despite the fatigue, this experience would forever be etched in my mind. Not merely because it was my first payday, but also because of the fun my sister and I had while working hard to please our customers!

Blog Prompt: Who is your favourite/least favourite character in Village by the Sea?

The character I like most in “The Village by the Sea” is Jagu, the man who ran the Sri Krishnan Eating House, the cheapest restaurant in Bombay whose usual customers were beggars, coolies and cart-pullers. The first time Hari met Jagu, Jagu was “hardly dressed at all and had nothing on but a dirty lungi wrapped around his waist, while his chest and back were bare and sweating.” Despite this humble first impression, Jagu was one of the most generous characters in the novel.

When he first met Hari, he offered the hungry boy a plate of food without a word, and tossed him another chappati when he saw him wiping up his plate with bits of bread. A kind-hearted man, Jagu allowed Hari to stay at his restaurant and work for his meals, together with two other boys whose parents were killed in a railway accident.

During the monsoon, Hari fell very ill and Jagu invited him to his house to stay. Even though Jagu was the owner of an eating house on a busy street and had plenty of customers, his house was in a slum. When Jagu’s wife saw Hari, she screamed “Hardly enough for us and you bring one more to be fed!” leaving Hari wondering why Jagu had brought him to this wretched home to add to his family’s misery.

Even though most of the characters in the novel were poverty-stricken and lived in adverse conditions, we could still see the compassion and kind-heartedness in Jagu’s actions. Without Jagu’s help, Hari’s fate in Bombay would not have changed for the better. Hence my favourite character is Jagu, for his generosity and selflessness.

Blog prompt: Is progress necessarily beneficial for society?

Whether progress is beneficial for a society is often debated. We often discuss “progress” in terms of medical, technological and economic advancement. Undoubtedly such advancements have obvious benefits for society. Medical, technological and economic progress can help raise the standard of living of people in a country. With better access to medical science, the life expectancy of people will increase. Technological advancement improves the daily lives of people (e.g. transportation infrastructure, electricity, etc.) and exposes them to a wider range of information and knowledge, thus expanding their understanding of the world around them. Economic progress raises the standard of living and quality of life.

However, progress is not necessarily beneficial for society. It also comes with its disadvantages. This can be seen in Anita Desai’s “The Village by the Sea.” In the novel, development plans were made to build a city of factories, shopping centres and railway stations in the village of Thul. Mainly a fishing village, Thul’s inhabitants relied on the sea for livelihood and the development of Thul will rob them of the natural land and their only means to survive. According to Sayyid Ali, the “city man”, this will force villagers into Bombay, increasing the unemployment rate and adding to the pollution in the city.

We can also see such concerns in Singapore today. For the sake of a sound transport infrastructure, many old buildings, historical sites and natural environments have been replaced by expressways, MRT stations and tracks.

For example, the Bidadari Cemetery near my primary school was demolished to build a new town. One of the oldest burial grounds in Singapore, the Bidadari Cemetery was the burial site of English sailor Augustine Podmore Williams, whose life the writer Joseph Conrad based his novel “Lord Jim” on, and Lim Boon Keng, the social reformist, among other notable people. I feel that we should conserve this site as it is part of Singapore’s heritage. Much of Singapore’s history and past lay beneath the soil of the Bidadari Cemetery, now exhumed for development. It is a great pity!



Therefore, while I agree that progress can improve our lifestyles, it is not totally a gain because we may lose our heritage in the process.

Blog prompt: Which part of village by the sea do you like best?

To me, the best part of Anita Desai’s “The Village by the Sea” was when Lila’s father finally turned over a new leaf upon the hospitalisation of his wife. I found this the most touching part of the novel.

Prior to Lila’s mother’s hospitalisation, Lila’s father was an extremely irresponsible man – he was in debt because of his alcohol addiction, permanently drunk and he never worked nor cared for the family. He would sleep all day, ignoring his sick wife and leaving his children to fend for themselves, and wake up only at night to go to the toddy shop for his daily dose of alcohol.

However, the turning point occurred when the de Silvas brought Lila’s mother to the hospital in Alibagh without Lila’s father’s knowledge. Lila’s mother had been long suffering from anaemia and mild tuberculosis and was “so frail one hardly liked to touch her.” When Lila’s father realised that his wife was no longer in the house, he roared in anger at Lila, questioning why his wife had been sent away without his permission and insisting that she could not be left alone. In his explosive wrath I felt his underlying concern and love for his wife. His string of angry questions at Lila, “How could you leave her alone? What if she needs something? What if she asks for me? Did you think of that?” showed his anxiety and concern for his wife, which we previously never witnessed. This change was indeed the most touching scene in the book.

After ordering Lila to cook some food for his wife, he set off for Alibagh. At this moment, Lila did not have faith that her father was going to repent – she expected that he would “go straight on to the toddy shop for his customary drink.” Contrary to her expectations however, her father was sitting on the veranda outside her mother’s ward when Lila went to the hospital at Alibagh. When she walked past him, she noticed that for the first time he was without his usual stench of fermented toddy. He remained by Lila’s mother’s side until she was discharged from hospital.

I found that the ending to the novel was a bittersweet one. I was happy that Lila’s mother recovered and her father repented for his past mistakes.

Blog prompt: I rather be the city rat than the country rat.

Country rat or city rat – which would I rather be? This question is a difficult one to answer, but ultimately I believe I would prefer being a country rat to a city rat.

There are many advantages of being a country rat. A country rat lives in a serene environment and can live without the worries of a fast-paced, stressful life. The air in the country is fresher than the polluted air of the city because there are more trees in the country. Closer to nature, the country rat can enjoy the greenery around him.

At the same time the disadvantages of being a city rat are plenty. The city rat must always keep a look-out because the family cat may eat him. Neither will he be able to have a relaxed life because of the stress of fast-paced city life. He will become economically driven, always striving for more wealth and possession but unable to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Due to the nature of city life, the city rat will not be able to feel compassion for others.


Of course there are also benefits of being a city rat. As a city rat, one can access the latest technology. In other words, the city rat can watch television, play computer games, or hang out with friends at the cinema. To beat the heat of summer, the city rat can turn on his air conditioner. He also can use a washing machine to wash his clothes for him. In other words, the city rat leads a convenient and efficient lifestyle.

Nevertheless, I still think that a country rat is better off, because he does not grow reliant on technology. He leads a simple but meaningful life and he does not destroy the environment with his way of life. It is good to be closer to nature because one will have a better temper and can learn to be more understanding and compassionate as compared to the city rat.

Of course, if I had to choose I would not want to be a rat at all!