My Mistress’ beauty is nothing like her recent IG post

1. My Mistress’ beauty is nothing like her recent IG post
2. Filter is far more smooth than her skin’s texture
3. If angles on instagram make her beauty engrossed
4. Why does the reality of her body lose its structure 
5. Through a screen her posts upholds a perfect disguise 
6. In a pixelated world her gleaming eyes are the prize
7. No airbrush editing can improvise 
8. The authenticity where her candid self hides
9. She sees my love in the number of her likes
10. But her laughter is where I find happiness behold
11. When her legitimate smile strikes
12. It’s worth more than a social media facade can uphold 
13. Beyond the social screen her true beauty lies within
14. Her genuine splendor makes my heart spin 

For my piece, “My mistress’ beauty is nothing like her recent IG post,” I was inspired to imitate Shakespeare’s sonnet, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” So, when thinking of how to make Shakespeare’s sonnet fit our modern age, I immediately thought of social media and different ways to integrate the topic into a sonnet form.  The speaker in Shakespeare’s piece compares his mistress to different world beauties, like the sun. However, the speaker also compares different body parts of his mistress, like her hair and lips. The speaker’s comparison made me think of how frequently people are critical of how they present themselves on social media and even go as far as to compare themselves to different people on multiple platforms. 

So, for my piece, I wanted to have the same aspects of the speaker in Shakespeare’s sonnet, where he compares his lover to different things. Still, for my piece, I wanted my speaker to compare their lover to their Instagram posts and how the speaker doesn’t believe his lover looks like that in person. So I began with a similar opening to Shakespeare, saying, “My Mistress’s beauty is nothing like her recent IG post.”  Yet, I had to keep in mind that the rhyming scheme is every other line, so finding words that rhyme but also flow was a little tricky. I included different aspects people think of when they think of social media. For instance, I continued by saying, “Filter is far smoother than her skin’s texture; if angles on Instagram make her beauty engrossed, Why does the reality of her body lose its structure.” In this, I’m comparing the lover’s skin to the filter she uses, which blurs out her textured skin. People can use angles to get a desired look, but the speaker realizes that their lover’s body does not look like that in real life. 

I tried to include the lover’s body because the Shakespearean sonnet is a lot about physical love, a somewhat sensual love. There is also a slant rhyme within lines two and four. My volta appears in line nine, where the speaker shifts from talking about the facade their lover keeps up on social screens to how the speaker finds happiness with his lover in simple moments, like where the lover portrays pure happiness. My couplet, “Beyond the social screen her true beauty lies within; Her genuine splendor makes my heart spin,” is meant to answer why the speaker’s lover’s beauty on Instagram doesn’t grasp their attention. The answer is that the lover does not present their genuine self on social media, and the speaker is in love with their lover’s genuine self rather than a facade they hold on social media.

Janayah Applon

Don’t give up

I believe that through seeing Julia Alvarez’s drafts of “Sometimes the Words Are So Close,” the meaning of her poem is enhanced. Alvarez begins the poem by saying, “Sometimes the words are so close I am who I am when I’m down on paper than anywhere else” (Lines 1-3). I interpreted this line as a way for Alvarez to illustrate her love for writing and her infatuation for words, where she is able to express herself through her poems, which is a liberating feeling. I connected Alvarez’s first line about her love for words to her interview, which is a few pages ahead of her poem, where she discusses the significance of words within her life. In the interview, Alvarez says, “I was wondering why is that word and not the other? Which any writer has to do with their language”. Now, I say that Alvarez’s drafts of this poem enhance the meaning of her poem, which essentially talks about the process of crafting creative pieces, like poetry, and the time it may take to be satisfied with your work because she highlights the importance of drafts. In one of her poem’s first drafts, she emphasizes, “I was once was in as many drafts as you,” and in the draft, the first “was” is crossed out and not included in the final draft of the poem. The final draft of the poem continues on, saying, “Why do I get confused living it through? Those of you lost and yearning to be free, who hear these words, take heart from me. I was once in as many drafts as you” (Lines 9-12). This line stood out to me because Alvarez is addressing her readers by using words like “you,” which helps readers relate to her message. Her message is essentially comforting them through their writing process and says that drafts are a great start. I feel as though the multiple pictures and typed-out examples of Alvarez’s process of creating “Sometimes the Words Are So Close” make her message even more relatable. In her drafts, we see that she crosses out multiple lines; she writes above those crossed-out lines, correcting them. Or, she writes on the sidelines of the poem, adding or taking off words. Seeing her process of eliminating or adding illustrates her experience with creating a craft like poetry and how it may be time-consuming to be satisfied with your work, but sticking to it will always pay off in the end. There are writers who have a hard time feeling satisfied with their writing and being able to finish their drafts without critiquing their work too harshly, which makes them discard their work. I think Alvarez does a good job of pushing writers to do as many drafts as they can until they feel connected to their writing.

Janayah Applon

America’s damage

From Claude McKay’s Harlem Shadows, I chose both of his Shakespearean sonnets, “Enslaved” and “America.” I chose “America” because I noticed the juxtaposition within the sonnet during our class lecture. For instance, one part says, “Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life” (lines 1-3). When reading these lines, I got imagery of a speaker being harmed by a “she.” There is brutal violence that is illustrated with words like “bitterness” and phrases like “stealing my breath alive.” One would assume that the speaker is in pain and hates the “she” that the speaker is talking about. However, there is a shift in line eight, where the volta appears. In line eight, the speaker says, “Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer” (lines 8-10). When reading lines 1-3, we understand that the “she,” being America, is bad; it causes harm to the speaker. However, as the speaker progresses, they admit their love for America despite the damage it does to them. Now, “Enslaved” intrigued me because I understood “America” as Mckay explaining his love/hate relationship with America, so I wanted to know what his tone would be in “Enslaved.” In “Enslaved,” his tone seems to hold resentment. For instance, the opening lines say, “Oh when I think of my long-suffering race, For weary centuries despised, oppressed, Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place” (lines 1-3). The speaker is adding themselves into their work by including “I,” so while understanding “America” and beginning to read “Enslaved,” I viewed Mckay as the speaker. The speaker is addressing slavery and the various violence enacted on black people, like lynching and being treated as subhuman. The last line reads, “To liberate my people from its yoke!” (line 14). I believe the volta, unlike in “America,” begins at line 10, where the speaker turns their resentment into a hope that their people get justice. The main points I’ve noticed about “enslaved” and “America” is that their voltas come up at different lines, but they both connect sonnets to the injustice of black people and the inevitable justice that they may face.

Janayah Applon

Mockery within the sonnet

In the video with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, I interpreted the video’s objective to dismiss Shakespeare’s sonnet, “My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun,” and dismiss Shakespeare himself as a writer. At the beginning of the video, while Tennant and Tate are quarreling, Tennant says, “You’re repetitious and extremely dull,”” to which Tate bites back by saying, “A bit like Shakespeare.”” So before Tate even began reciting the sonnet, I knew that the sonnet would be recited in a different way than I had interpreted the poem to be read. When Tate recites the poem, I feel as though there is anger, a mockery, to prove a point that it doesn’t take a genius to recite a sonnet, trying to debunk Tennant’s idea that Shakespeare is a genius, unlike Tate. It was as if Tate recited the poem with one breath; she did not stop to take any breaks to take a breath, which I thought was different from Shakespeare’s sonnet. In Shakespeare’s sonnet, I took his punctuation marks as a sign to stop; for example, one line says, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;” (lines 1-2). So, when reading his sonnet, I pause after “sun” and “read,” which Tate does not acknowledge when she recites the sonnet. There is a lack of passion when Tate recites her version of the sonnet, and the recitation of the sonnet makes the original meaning lose its romantic aspect. I say this because I interpreted Shakespeare’s poem to say that his mistress’s eyes don’t resemble the sun, and she has all of these flaws, but he still sees the beauty within her; for instance, one line writes, “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare” (line 13).  I also noted the gender dynamic between Shakespeare and Tate, which may have influenced how Tate recites the poem. Maybe Tate recites the poem in a way that mocks Shakespeare because of how his sonnet describes his mistress, saying she does not amount to things like the sun or smell good, but he still loves her, which can be viewed as backward.

Janayah Applon

Disappearance

When looking through Javier Zamora’s poems, the poem that stuck out to me is “Disappeared.” Before reading the poem, the title grabbed my attention because the word “disappeared” has an eerie feeling. It immediately made me question who/what disappeared. The poem begins with “Hold these names responsible:” and calls out prominent names of political leaders and institutions. The names that I recognized from Zamora’s list were former presidents like Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bush Sr. From reading Zamora’s biography and reading his work during class, it seems as though Zamora centers his poetry around his experiences with being undocumented. So, I began to ponder if the names and institutions listed had something to do with negatively impacting undocumented people. Still, I wanted to connect the title “Disappearance” and the list of names together. So, I looked up Ronald Reagan (because he is one of the many names listed) and what he did during his time as president regarding how he may have helped or put down undocumented people. That is when I discovered the “Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986”. The immigration reform and Control Act made it a crime for employers to hire undocumented people, but those who entered before 1982 could get naturalization. So, Reagan created a barrier that ultimately dehumanized undocumented people. Because of that act Reagan signed, undocumented people had to find under-the-table jobs that exploited them. The exploitation of undocumented people is ongoing, there are families who have to provide for their family while working grueling hours. Jimmy Carter did something similar during his presidency, where he wanted to ensure it was illegal for undocumented people to be hired. Connecting this information back to the title, these institutions and people that Zamora is naming contributed to the barriers that undocumented people have to face. But again, it made me question what/who disappeared. It made me think of how many people have disappeared when trying to cross the border and how politicians and corporations don’t see undocumented people as humans, so they don’t express concerns for the lives lost.

One thing I noticed is Zamora’s work is that he includes a mixture of English and Spanish. My question is, how does the mixture of spanish and english contribute to the significance of his poem?

Janayah Applon

The Devil is One’s self

In Sampsonia Way’s interview with Natalie Diaz, Diaz mentions how returning to the body is a crucial element she likes to embed in her poetry. Diaz continues by saying that returning to the body is a high priority to her because of the limitations placed on her due to her intersectionality. During Diaz’s interview, she mentions how returning to the body can be uncomfortable. I believe the raw and uncomfortableness of returning to one’s body is presented in Diaz’s poem “My Brother at 3 A.M”. In Diaz’s poem, the speaker opens up the scene by giving imagery of their brother, who is in distress. The line says, “He sat cross-legged, weeping on the steps when Mom unlocked and opened the front door. O God, he said. O God. He wants to kill me, Mom.” (Line 1-4). Through the speaker’s diction, like the usage of “weeping” and “O God,” I was under the impression that the brother was hysterical beyond comfort. That diction led me to believe that the brother was hiding from someone he may have had an altercation with. However, as the poem progresses, it is clear that no one is there to harm the brother; instead, the brother is hallucinating. That key detail reveals that the brother is dealing with addiction, which is a social identity. When Diaz brings up the concept that specific social identities are silenced, I think of the speaker’s brother. In the last line, it says, “O God, see the tail, he said. Look at the goddamned tail. He sat cross-legged, weeping on the front steps. Mom finally saw it, a hellish vision, my brother. O God, O God, she said.” (Line 24-28). In this section, I interpreted this as the mother seeing that her son is the devil that he is hiding from, so because of his addiction, he is fighting himself. That is his struggle; at the beginning of the poem, he is weeping, trying to get away from the “devil,” which is himself. It makes me believe that the brother wants to return to the body he had before addiction, but he is dealing with the uncomfortableness that Diaz mentions in her interview. This poem illustrates that there are other social identities, like the speaker’s brother, who deals with addiction, and how they also want to return to their body.

Janayah Applon

The power of withering weeds

“Feeling of oppression

Withering weeds 

Are dense”

I read this haiku several times, and each time I read it, my mind presented one image, and this image became more vivid and concrete through each reading. The image I envision when reading this poem is an isolated dystopian place where the speaker is trapped. The speaker is trapped because of the withering weeds; even though the weeds are dying, so many weeds are wrapped around this person, which limits their ability to roam freely, essentially losing agency of themselves. Now, I also began thinking of how this haiku is essential evidence of the maltreatment Japanese Americans experienced when being forced into internment camps. That is because haikus were some of the limited ways Japanese Americans could speak out against their everyday mistreatment. When incorporating the history of the internment camps Japanese Americans endured, the image I see is similar but now includes the isolation they must have experienced. 

The new image I envision now is Japanese Americans who are in internment camps, and the internment camp is the oppression that the speaker is illustrating. But there is also an image of weeds that are withering. When I think of withering weeds, I imagine a plant with dried weeds dying, but I also envision that the flowers within the plant cannot grow because of the abundance of weeds. So, with that inference, the image of Japanese Americans being flowers that want to bloom (have agency of themselves) but cannot because of the withering weeds (interment camps they were forced into). And even though these weeds are supposed to be dead, there are so many that I interpreted it would be hard to eliminate. Essentially, I get the image of Japanese Americans who are living in a real-life dystopia, isolated, and the weeds (the reinforcement of internment camps) are too strong, which leaves them powerless.

Janayah Applon

Flowers and Individuality

When examining both H.D.’s “Sea Rose” and Adrianna Puente’s “The Rose and The Poppy,” I believe H.D.’s poem is more effective in challenging the traditional symbol of the rose. What I enjoy about both poems is that, from the opening lines, they immediately draw back from the traditional symbol of the rose. The speaker in “Sea Rose” begins the poem by saying, “rose, harsh rose, marred and with a stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of the leaf” (Lines 1-4). Within these lines is an intense imagery of a rose, but not the healthy, vibrant roses that we imagine one would give to someone they love. This is a disfigured rose that doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing. It’s thin and barely has leaves, which gives the idea that the rose could be dying. However, the speaker does not diminish the disfigured flower but goes on to uplift the rose when the speaker writes, “more precious than a wet rose single on a stem-” (lines 5-7). This challenges the traditional symbol of the rose because the speaker praises the imperfections of the rose and considers it to be more beautiful than a regular healthy red rose often associated with beauty and love. What adds to the disfigured rose’s value is that despite facing adversity from its own environment, being in a place that is “flinging” and “lifting” it, the rose still survives. So, this rose symbolizes triumph instead of being a symbol of love and passion. 

I believe Puente’s poem “The Rose and The Poppy” also strays away from the traditional symbol of the rose. The speaker does the opposite of H.D.; instead of describing a non-traditional rose, the speaker replaces the idea of the rose with a poppy. The speaker also uses figurative language to solidify the idea that poppies are just as important as roses. One line says, “Electric orange like tangerines in an orchard of trees” (Lines 13-14). This line emphasizes the speaker’s main idea of embracing individuality by being a poppy instead of a traditional rose. However, I liked H.D.’s method a tad more because I liked the imagery of a disfigured rose that faces adversity and perseveres despite it and that’s what makes it better than a normal rose.

Janayah Applon

Whitman and Ambroggio’s Celebration Of Life

Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” utilizes the rhythmic enumeration to emphasize the beauty of every human body by continually using commas as punctuations rather than periods. Throughout the poem, Whitman lists categories of the human body, for example, “Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused” (Whitman, 266). In this quote, there are multiple commas where he talks about body parts and how body parts operate, like the bending of the legs. Whitman is expressing his love for the simple actions of humans and how we move our day to day. 

In Ambroggio’s poem, “Song of/to/My/Your/Self,” Ambroggio also utilizes Whitman’s technique of adding commas as punctuation as the rhythm enumeration. The comma adds to the fact that the rhythm is not supposed to stop, which is intentional. With a period, that means it’s the end of the sentence, while the comma is meant to keep his appreciation for life going. While Whitman expresses the love for every human, Ambroggio takes that approach by listing different countries, which expands from just body parts to actually giving representation to actual places where these people reside. For instance, one section says, “This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba, free dancer of merengues, from Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean, from El Salvador and Nicaragua” (Ambroggio, 2016). Ambroggio highlights not only the people there but also the items in their daily lives, and he later goes on to list grapes and flutes when he is praising these places. This poem draws off Whitman’s celebration of others but also ends the poem by praising himself. Overall, Ambroggio does an excellent job of taking inspiration from Whitman’s poem and spinning it into his own lists of the things humans do and what surrounds humans. Both poems sit back and take their time appreciating common human qualities many don’t think about as often.

Janayah Applon

Herrick and Jonson’s Admiration of Beauty

Both Herrick and Jonson utilize their poetry to illustrate what they believe makes a woman beautiful in society, and even though their pieces were published 39 years apart, they concur that a natural woman exudes beauty over any other woman. In class, we discussed that Iambic is the most common rhythm in poetry, and it is because seeing the easy pattern of what poets want emphasized helps assist in interpreting what they wanted readers to get out of reading their pieces. For instance, in Herrick’s poem “Delight in Disorder,” he uses Iambic tetrameter to emphasize the beauty he sees within women who are scrutinized within society because they are not perfect. In line one, Herrick writes, “a SWEET disORder IN the DRESS.” Reading the emphasis on sweetness and dress while recognizing the slight focus on disorder helped me understand that one may consider the woman’s dress as untidy; Herrick eyes it and admires the untidiness of the woman. While talking about Herrick’s prosody is important, it is also essential to highlight points where he switches the rhythm. In line two, Herrick transitions from Iambic to Trochee. Herrick’s switch-up within rhythm is critical because when listening to rhythm, we are conditioned that rhythm that only stays at one steady pace is the perfect type to consume. Herrick trashes that idea, just like he trashes the idea that only “tidy” women are beautiful.

Instead of switching up the rhythm line by line, Jonson switches up the rhythm as “Still to be Neat” continues. I wasn’t sure if I was scanning correctly, but I started with a trochaic rhythm, and as the poem continued on the last few lines with “me” or “free” or “heart,” I then began to transition into an Iambic rhythm because I believed that those words should be emphasized to convey the poet’s message. While in the trochaic rhythm, Jonson believes that women who wear makeup or a lot of perfume are not his type. Meanwhile, in the Iambic rhythm he praises women who present themselves as simple and wear their hair freely within the Iambic rhythm.

While I enjoyed both poems, I have to say Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” illustrates the nature of art. I say this because of Herrick’s last two lines, where he writes, “Do more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part.” This quote critiques to perfect art, and the message tells readers to stop trying to aim for perfection because perfection is a constraint. Beautiful things are creative without being bound by the limitation of perfection.

Janayah Applon