least favorite and favorite seasons

Walking outside on a summer's day

Makes it very easy to lose your way.

The flowers and trees can be beauty

And the scent in the air is usually fruity.

As for me, I prefer fall

The colorful leaves are worth it all.

The smell in the air is full of sun,

It really is the best in the long run.

Many poets seem to enjoy writing about art that they have seen. Just recently, we have read "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn." This, I can completely understand. Art should make you have some sort of reaction, be it good or bad. When it doesn't, there is a sense of emptiness and disappointment. As an art lover and an art therapy major, I have spent a lot of time in museums and galleries and other art-admiring places. I can share with the poets the feeling of wonder they get when looking at art. Creating art is both completely similar and completely different from writing poetry. Both artists and poets are pouring their skills and emotions into something with the hope of instilling a reaction in people. Both are taking a risk, so I think there's a kind of mutual respect that occurs between a poet and an artist. They recognize the talent that goes into creating these works of art and literature, and respect that. That is probably why we see so many English majors go on to be art directors in film, or pursue different creative outlets than writing. They're all connected, and they are all beautiful in their own way.

Death of a Salesman

When I first read Death of a Salesman, I really did not like it. We read it along with a lot of very similar stories, about people being dissatisfied with their lives that were perfectly fine, and making way too big a deal about things that don't actually matter. While it is nice to believe that you were meant for something more, at the same time, I believe you just have to suck it up and deal with what life has given you for the time being. In order to make it, you should do what you can, and work on bettering yourself in your free time. You shouldn't throw a tantrum and tear down everyone around you. That is kind of what Willy did. He didn't realize what he thought was his full potential in life, so he took it out on his family, causing them stress and basically ruining one of his son's life. Because Willy had built him up for so long, Biff always felt like he was meant for something more, and was dissatisfied with every office job he tried out. Instead of realizing his dream to become a football player, he became forever a farmhand. Even though it was what he wanted to do, Will shamed his son about it constantly. Willy also hurt his wife. He had an affair and bought this woman stockings, when his own wife had to darn hers. Who knows how much money he spent keeping his affair alive when he should have been spending it on keeping his family intact. All in all, Willy was terribly selfish and pushed his own values on his family so much that he ended up tearing them apart.

I've never understood why people like sonnets. Okay, well, I do. It's a traditional, structured form of poetry. It can be hard to learn and even harder to master, especially with that whole iambic pentameter business. I can't really get into all of the structure, whether it's the Italian or English sonnets. Whether it is 4-4-4-2 or 8-6, it doesn't really matter.To me, sonnets just seem very archaic. I've never been a huge fan of poetry to begin with (though I've grown to respect it, so I'm not entirely invested in the boring, old, dead white guys writing with impeccable rhyme and rhythm. I do, however, enjoy it when sonnets bend the rules. Sonnets also tend to have a very similar subject. In my experience, they tend to be slightly too wordy and about love, or the loss of love, or just complaining about something in general. I much prefer less structured, more modern poetry. Sonnets also remind me a lot of Shakespeare, and I'm not a huge Shakespeare fan either. So basically I'm just a whiny college student that finds older literature generally boring. I fully admit that.

On Emily

I suppose I can understand why a lot of people don't like Emily Dickinson. Admittedly, she's pretty darn odd. Whenever I think of her, I picture her as this tiny woman sitting up in her attic, furiously scribbling away in those leather-bound books of hers, pausing only to draw the long dashes that baffle and irritate so many critics. When I picture her, I can imagine her need to write, and how her only real friends are her pen and paper. I see the stacks of boxes overflowing with her books, some still being filled, some wrapped up tightly so that no one will ever read them.

If I were Emily and I could somehow see that someone had published all of my most personal thoughts, I would probably be pretty mad. It's like publishing someone's diary, it's an invasion of privacy and probably an embarrassment. From the way that her poems were written and organized, she never thought anyone would read them. They were for herself and only herself. At the same time, I really enjoy reading them. Dickinson possesses a very raw way with words, and that's probably because she never thought anyone would read anything. That's exactly why I think it's ridiculous for people to criticize her with the reason that her poetry doesn't make sense. I know when I write in my diary, or just little things on my computer, I don't expect anyone to read them, so I don't really worry about what they look like. Most of my notes make sense to me, so they don't need to make sense to other people. Even though she has her critics, people obviously love her poetry. People feel a connection to her through her poetry, which is funny, because she didn't really make connections with people when she was alive and actually writing. It's yet another instance of a writer becoming more popular and respected after their death.

A&P

I really enjoyed the story that was A&P. To me, it seemed extremely realistic. We have the boy working a mundane job, thinking that he's better than everyone. We have the trio of girls, with one the leader, who are making a statement whether they mean to or not. I really enjoyed Sammy as a character. Yes, he was objectifying the girls, but I don't feel like that completely discredited his character. He attempted to impress the girls by quitting his job after his manager humiliated them, but they had already left and therefor did not see what he did for them. When reading the story, I was expecting them to see and thank him for what they did. That did not happen, and I feel like it made the story a lot more relatable.

We've all done things to try and impress someone, be it a potential beau, a teacher, or a boss, and more often than not, it falls flat. We lose that oftentimes in stories, because the writers want everything to be tied up with a bow. The readers want that too. The slight sense of dissatisfaction with the ending is what sets A&P apart from many other stories involving teenagers. Sammy doesn't get his heroic ending and the appreciation of three pretty girls. We don't get to see Sammy's parents and their reaction to him quitting his job. We don't get to see how the girls react to the situation after leaving the store. Because it is a short story, we only get the little slice of life. While it leaves questions unanswered, it also works well when you consider the subject. Teenagers are pretty much always trying new things and experimenting with their behavior. They never know how it's going to work, and now neither do we, the readers. A&P captured that unsure, testing feeling that we experience as adolescents. For some, they may have forgotten what it's like to be a teenager and unsure of pretty much your every move. For others, it's not so far away, and we can envision our friends or even ourselves in this position.

I Wandered Lonely (Not Really) At Raquette Lake

When rereading Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," I was suddenly reminded of my time at Raquette Lake, New York. In February of my senior year of high school, my Ecology class took a trip to Raquette Lake up north. I was a little nervous, because I'm not really one for nature. Also, none of my close friends were going on that trip, they had all gone in the fall instead. I was with people I kind of knew, but not really, and had never spent time with outside of class. But I ended up becoming extremely close with the ten other girls on the trip, and to this day we still chat about our time on the trip, and wish we could go back. It was also the middle of winter, and we were expected to trot around the woods, cross-country ski across the frozen lake, and learn survival skills. I had no previous experience in any of these fields. But the part that reminded me in particular of Wordsworth's poem was when my teacher told us to bundle up, and took us all out into the woods in the middle of the night. It was a partly cloudy night, and because there were almost no lights around this lake, we could see the stars. I'd never seen so many stars in my life. My teacher told us to find our own little spot in this huge field and just lay down. I didn't expect what I experienced. Everyone was silent. We just looked up at the sky, listened to the wind, and got lost in our own thoughts. I had never felt so peaceful and tranquil in my entire life. I had time to reflect and appreciate the world around me, without any distractions. The way the moon and stars were framed by the clouds reminds me of exactly what Wordsworth experienced with the flowers. When I close my eyes at night, I can still picture the way the sky looked that night. I really want the chance to do it again if I can, and experience the bond I made both with nature and the people on the trip.