Tomorrow for my World Classics class, we have to bring in a poem of our choice and read it out loud to the class. I have two poems prepared for tomorrow but I cannot chose which one to pick. I really like both of them and their overall themes of o the piece of literature.
One of my choices is a poem by Robert Frost. I read some of his works in grade school and I really like his style of writing.
The poem is called "The Road Not Yet Taken".
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I think this poem is describing that you should not regret anything in life, and the choices and decisions you make now will effect where you end up in the future! My favorite lines are the last two ones because I like how Frost says that you don't have to do what everyone else does, you are the only one leading your life.
The other poem I like is "If You Forget Me" by Pablo Neruda. I was introduced to Neruda in this class that I am writing these blogs for and ever since then I really like his poems and his use of nature in each line.
"If You Forget Me"By Pablo Neruda
In English:
(En Inglés)
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists:
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loveing me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
I especially like Neruda's imagery and his metaphors of nature and beauty. He is thinking that everything reminds him of his lost love and that if she should stop loving him, he would do the same, but if she suddenly fell in love with him, he would do the same as well. It seems love is kind of like a childish game to him in this poem.
hhhhmmm so which one do I choose?!?!?!?!?!?!
On Friday night I saw the history lecture on War and Memory in the Mary De'Angelo Performing Arts Center. This was an extra credit assignment for my history class. My teacher was hosting the history convention so he wanted as many people as he could get to come to the lecture. The lecturer was mostly talking about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but this reminded me of the poem "To Roosevelt" by Ruben Dario because it is the only poem we read that mostly relates to history. Even though the speaker did not pertain his lecture to just the United States, but to everyone involved in war period so there is some relation to the poem with his speech topic.
