From what I understand of Tom Wayman’s poem, “The Poet,” the narrator is someone conveying negative thoughts about a person or a poet. The narrator of the poem is projecting the poet’s depressing state of mind or condition. The poet lacks a lot of the qualities that a normal person has; he has trouble doing arithmetic, reading, hearing, and remembering simple things, like what he ate for breakfast.
Some negative connotations that were repeated several times are “Has Difficulty,” “Cannot,” and “Does not understand.” One example of this is the line where the narrator states that he, “Cannot understand yes-no questions.” This is a type of question most people can answer without a second thought. The poet, on the other hand, is most likely lost in deep thought or is just plain absent-minded. Another example is, “Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.” Ordinary people usually remember such mundane things.
I think the author chose to cultivate this mood because he wanted to show the thinking and characteristics of a poet. They are good at literature, but may not accustom to ordinary functions of daily life.
Both poems express ideas of storytelling. Both poems have a component of storytelling in them. The stories she hears and reads are a part of her. In “hair night,” she says “As my sister reads, the pictures begin forming.” The stories her sister is reading to her makes her picture the setting the stories describe. In “believing,” she is telling the stories, making them up. “Jack and Jill went up a hill, my uncle sings. / I went up a hill yesterday … ” When her uncle sings the nursery rhyme, and says she has been to a new place. These places she went to in her imagination are stories she is telling about herself and what she did. Both poems talk about memory. Both poems are just made of what she and other people remember about what happened. She remembers when she or another talks about a story. In “hair night,” she says “Grainy black-and-white photos come slowly at me / Deep. Infinite. Remembered.” By this, she means that the stories her sister reads to her are remembered because she really enjoyed the way her sister read to her. In “believing,” she tells us that this story we’re reading consists of her relatives’ memory as well as her own. “Maybe the truth is somewhere in between / all that I’m told / and memory.” She doesn’t fully remember the event, so she is also relying on other that might remember the past better. Both poems express feelings of identity. Both poems say that the imaginary places she goes are places she really went to. The places in the stories she hears and reads are a part of her. In “hair night,” she says ” … I have never seen the ocean / but this, too, I can imagine—blue water pouring / over red dirt.” By this she means that the stories her sister is reading to her makes her imagine a new place. In “believing,” she herself is telling the stories, making them up on the fly. After her uncle reads a nursery rhyme, she chimes in saying, “I went up a hill yesterday … ” She hears her uncle start the nursery rhyme, and says she has been to a new place. These places she went to in her imagination are part of her identity, because she becomes a storyteller (author) with her uncle’s encouragement and the ability to come up with stories on the fly.
I wonder what’s coming, what the future brings, so for a brighter future, my heart sings. Is that a hope, a truth, or a dream? It all starts with a good education, it seems.
As a child, school equaled joy. Thrilled by new opportunities, new friends, new toys. Complemented with astronomy and museum trips and science and games. Play, play, play, study – repeated, quite the same.
As I enter middle school, I think to myself I have to think that school is still fun. I have to make sure that my concepts will be worked on, even one-on-one. I have to be able to engage with my teachers and get work done. For these reasons, BASIS Independent Fremont is the one.
Now, it’s not the play-time I rate, but the subject fundamentals just have to be great.
I learn important things from my teachers – the math, the sciences, the languages it’s fun, but some suffering. I like school when it’s fun, the learning and how-to’s, the experience of rushed studying.
So much to master, so much to learn. Acing the concepts is what I yearn. We all understand – Success is not given, but earned. I hope I achieve success because I learn.
Each trail we walk in Florida is accompanied by a little girl with a smiley face who finds happiness in everything about nature from the tall, tall trees to the small, small bees. Yelling This is a Juniper! This is a manatee!
She enjoys the many chills from the blasts of wind, whistling through the sawgrass, the feel of being in nature – overwhelming in a good way.
This little girl particularly enjoys this trail in Everglades National Park very much. Happily singing Bazinga! Bazinga! I’m on the Anhinga! On this trail, she can name all the animals: birds, turtles, crocs and the plants: Yuccas and Junipers galore which she sees, observes, quite like a hawk.
She says One day, far from now, I will travel to all the parks in the world, for it is only then I will grow.
I ran on the pathway to the Visitor Center on the mainland to get the map of Channel Islands National Park. While my parents were planning the itinerary for the trip, I was exploring the Visitor Center and looking at an interesting exhibit of marine aquatic life which had various live animals. One of the rangers there explained me about a salinity measuring device and results for the aquarium.
Then, we were waiting at the dock of Ventura. We were about to board the boat Island Packers to go to Santa Cruz Island, the biggest of the five islands. It’s almost three times the size of Manhattan! The other four islands are:
Santa Barbara Island, which is only about one square mile, making it the smallest of the Channel Islands.
Anacapa Island is made up of three islets (West Anacapa, Middle Anacapa, and East Anacapa) that altogether are five miles long.
Santa Rosa Island is fifteen miles long and ten miles wide. It hosts one of the rarest pine trees in the world, the Torrey pine.
San Miguel Island has one of the most precious and diverse nesting habitats.
The crew gave us a warm welcome, and I ran up the double-decker boat’s stairs to see if I could still get a front view. I could! So I stood there impatiently waiting for the boat to leave the dock and head straight a way to Santa Cruz Island.
The boat bounced and rolled, we had a few gray whale sightings, and I had lots of fun.
As I ascended the ladder to set foot on the island, I heard a ranger speaking about a trail that he was guiding. It seemed interesting! When it came time, my parents and I listened and followed the ranger along the trail up the hill. The group stopped to see an island fox, a descendant of the mainland grey fox. The island fox is about the size of a house cat and weighs about 4 pounds, and is the only carnivore unique to California. We also stopped to see diatomaceous earth, proving that Santa Cruz island was once under water. Diatomaceous earth is in products including toothpaste, mechanical insecticide, cat litter, and a thermal insulator. As we approached Cavern Point at the top of the hill, it looked like a utopia with clear, blue ocean and a nice breeze to cool us of all the huffing and puffing from climbing up the hill.
I am a collector of NPS Junior Ranger Badges as I have been to many other national parks. I completed the activities with help from the visitor center displays and information.
It was time to head back and catch our return boat, but there was absolutely no ranger in sight. I was getting worried and thought that I might not ever get Channel Islands National Park’s badge. As I was boarding, I saw a ranger far away, but I could make out that she was moving towards the Island Packers boat. Phew! I could now board with relief… I quickly introduced myself to ranger Paula Power and she reviewed my completed booklet. Special thanks to ranger Paula to even after her hard days work with the volunteers to restore the island’s native plants, she found a Channel Island National Park badge and swore me in. Woohoo! Looking at the sunset over Channel Island was gorgeous. Land ahoy! In a flash, we were back.
