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If I am going, to be honest, this class wasn't something that I was excited to take, I remember just wanting to avoid nonfiction reading as much as possible and this was a way to do that. But I also remember that drive to see what I was capable of, to see how I could destroy the path that had been laid before me, how I could disrupt the system that came along with being a trilogy at a private school in Cheshire Connecticut. I gave up everything to come here, and most days it felt worthless, it felt like I was losing everything all my friends all the activities that I had enjoyed and it felt like I was continuing the loop of my family. I remember coign into this class and all of us sitting in a circle, we talked about where we were in our comfort levels. I thought that I would never be able to do anything crazy in this class, that there wasn't going to be a moment in which I would be able to shine. Then I did my fences monologue. I hadn't practiced it to the level of my performance and I never really do that with my acting, I practice quietly and small until I get onto the stage, I think that’s the part of me that is afraid, that still is afraid. That part of me that feels the judgment and fear, the one that cries before nearly every performance. I still am that person. But it doesn't matter because in this class I learned a lot about theater and arts, I learned what I loved about it and what I hated. I learned that theater isn't something that I would be able to do in life. Through this class I learned a lot about being a role model and when to grit my teeth. I have learned to be a better viewer and learned techniques that I see on stage to make me a better actor. I have improved my memorization skills by needing to learn lines. I’ve learned how to analyze theatrical performances and the importance of all roles in pieces as well. Honestly, I grew to live to perform even though it is something that I am very self-conscious about, and I don't think that ill ever changes for me. I’ve learned about the difficulties fo theater and the frustrations that come along with the inequality and harshness of the subject. I don’t think that I will do much theater in college and none outside of college, as much as I enjoy being onstage and performance solo, and its something that I want to continue to do, I feel as though it just isn't for me. Looking back I have the same fears and a few more now. I believe that theater has helped and hurt me in my experience with it but I am grateful for all the experiences that I have had so that I know what I will do later on in life. Overall, this class has taught me a lot about the theater industry and what it takes to be an actor as well as an audience member, and a technician behind the scenes. I have learned a lot about the arts as well and learned about my own limits within the arts and what I will do for the rest of my life when looking at the arts and theater. Undoubtedly I have gained lost of great memories, and life lessons through our class and am learning glad that I took Literature and Performance over any other class. Even though theater hasn’t worked out for me and I still have the same fears I think that I know how to manage them even though they are still there.

Nye Questions

Hope and/or pessimism are sometimes reflected in poetry. In the work of at least two poets

you have studied, examine either or both of these attitudes and the way in which the poets have

chosen to convey them.



In Nye’s Poems, she stresses a lot on elements of service and making the world a better place. Nye stresses these ideas with lines like “We’re not going to be able to live in this world if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing with one another.” This shows that Nye is trying to unite people and I think this sends a message of hope and teching to younger generations. The another line that Nye says is in Two Countries “Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.” and “it remembers being alone and thanks to something larger that there are travelers, that people go places larger than themselves.” Both of these lines are very useful in showing Nye’s life and her beliefs in terms of healing and having hope for the future. I find that Nye focuses on hope and healing feelings that are rather optimistic even though she mentions some real-life tragic moments.

Nye also keeps her feelings of hope by demonstrating connections between family members to make sure that people who may take things like that for granted see some of the important elements of life and love. I think that Nye focuses so much on relationships because of the stress that her family put on them, this can be seen in the entire poem “Shoulders” is about a father caring for a son, this connection is often portrayed in literature as an extremely close bond or one that is completely destroyed. I think that Nye also takes great care in making sure that in her poes there is a strong bond between them to show hope and love and some level of a “model family”

Shoulders
Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.
We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

 The road will only be wide.

 The rain will never stop falling. 

I think that this piece talks a lot about what we do for the one we love and the lengths that we go to for them to be safe and happy. In this poem, the main character is the man who is carrying his son in the rain. Another thing is that I think is important to draw on is the line "Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE" I think that it is important to pay attention to how the author writes these lines and talks about how much this man cares for his son, the internal structure and priority for his son to stay dry and asleep. I think that it is something people even today use as a way to measure parents love but talking about how he doesn't have anything that recognizes him is also something that is very relevant with volunteering and working today. I think that the ending of this poem is also really important because of the idea of not just doing kind actions to your family or people that you love but to involve everybody and to care for everything themselves. The idea of living in harmony with other people is something that has become very mainstream and earning ways to coexist with different people is something that the author feels very passionate about. Another thing that I find really interesting about this poem is that element of "the rain will never stop falling" this can relate to her struggles as coming from the middle east in her heritage and dealing being an interracial child. I think that part of what Naomi was showing is the struggle that she may have gone through in relation to her race. The way that modern society views people from the Middle East is difficult because of prejudice and the hate that many people have created for people, This line is very deep and rooted in something that Naomi may have felt.


poem ties into her roots
Talks about a struggle that parents try to shield their children from
Connections between people and their relationships together
PRotecting those you love
NAture being symbolism for other hardships in life (prejudices, conflicts, etc.)
No rhyme scheme
Showing what an ideal world may look like - caring for each other


This poem has 1 stanza with 16 lines and 6 sentences.

Two Countries

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a 
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

This poem has 2 stanzas aswell

A reptition in the word Skin 

21 lines

This poem talks about the way that skin has a conetion with people and telling your story. This poem also draws on the idea of traveling and finding mening in life and beinga  part of somethign outside of your own small bubble.

Blog Post - Answer a question from blog

Blog post due: Choose any question (from samples posted on the blog) that you have not yet worked on yet and write an answer to it based on only Emily Dickinson's poems. Due by class time!!
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While some poems focus exclusively on a personal or private experience, others reflect on
the place of the individual in the larger human community. In the work of at least two poets,
explore the ways in which poems have conveyed the poet’s sense of the world beyond the private
sphere.
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Dickinson talks a lot about her hopes and dreams, but because of her fears she is confined to her room and the only way that Dickinson is able to reach the public and try and leave her desired impact is through her writing and her poetry. In one of Dickinson's' poems, she writes "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain" Dickinson wants to leave an impact on not only the people that were close to her, imaginably only some of her family, but the whole world. She goes on to write "to cool one pain, to help one fainting robin, into his nest again" Here Dickinson is making a connection that I feel many would dismiss from her. Because of Dickinson and her lifestyle, I felt that she might have been seen as cold or lacking in a maternal nature because of the female pressures of the time, all of her expectations were changed and adding this careful line that speaks to a more feminine dainty element. I thought that this was a line where Dickinson also wanted to relate to her audience in a way she might not have before. IN another one of her poems Dickinson also talks about "Water is taught by thirst" and later goes onto saying "Peace, by battles told" Dickinson wasn't someone who would have been given a large education, much less one that would have had high levels of human interaction. By talking about "peace" and "Battles" it talks a lot about Dickinsons having to teach herself in a lot of ways when living alone and without the help of anybody else. I also think that it is Dickinson talking a good portion about having to learn to live with her fear and her loneliness and how that affects her life and her happiness.  Because of Dickinsons fears and her own sustainable lifestyle that worked for her she had to make sacrifices and often times she had to either get rid of dreams or find ways around them. Because of this Dickinson used her outlet to reach out and give inspiration to the public and find a way to accomplish her dreams, overall I think Dickinson let a lot of insight into her life through her poems and that it tells a story of a girl who is alone but desperately trying to leave a wide impact on the world.