To whom this may concern,
For this creative poetry project, I decided to mimic/recreate the poem “The Rose and The Poppy” by Adrianna Puente but made it a little more modern to today’s society. In my poem, I went along and focused on the speaker in the poem stating that they are a poppy and not a rose. In Adrianna Puente’s poem the speaker talks about the characteristics of a rose including its colors and societal meanings. For example,”I am/ not a ravishing ruby red,/ or a semblance of purity white”(lines 1-3). In my poem, I wanted to be more literal and direct. In my poem it says “I am/ Not a red rose/ Or white rose”(lines 1-3). I thought that being direct would be amusing because poems are usually meant to be indirect and to allow the reader to figure it out. I felt like being more direct made the poem powerful which is similar to Puente’s poem because the tone is powerful as well. In my poem I talked about things that related more to younger generations. For example, “I am beautiful but/ Not enough to be posted on your instagram story.”(lines 15 & 16). I decided to include this line in my poem because the younger generations tend to post things like flowers on social media posts and their instagram or snapchat stories to represent that they are in a relationship. In line 6, it says “Nor am I the symbol of love and the bare minimum-“. Social media has brought more awareness that people should not overly praise things like giving out flowers because it is a part of the bare minimum a lover can do. Puente’s poem is in the free verse form. I decided to stick with the same form because it allowed more freedom of writing. Puente’s poem is about the speaker claiming that she is a poppy and not a rose. I decided to stick with the same idea because I felt like I could connect it to what may seem amusing to the youth audience. I also stuck to the same idea that roses and poppies are still flowers in the end. In the last 4 lines I state how all flowers become dead eventually. It doesn’t matter if the speaker is a rose or poppy, because they have the same fate once they are picked.
Sincerely,
Katherine Deras
Introduction to Poetry 