Flowers are flowers.

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

the “evil” within

In Natalie Diaz’s poem ‘My Brother at 3 AM’, Diaz describes her brother seeing himself as a devil and being horrified of himself. She displays the intense fear in him of this “hellish” version of himself. Diaz discusses in her interview that she always wants her poems to return to the body and in this poem, by having the twist in the end of the fact that the devil her brother fears, be himself, it symbolizes an evil within one’s self or somethings that is a part of a person that is viewed as evil by society and the world we have grew up in. Diaz states she wants to “return back to the body because as an indigenous person, as a Latina, as a queer woman, I haven’t been given the permission or the space, to be fully in my body.” Her poem enforces this idea by having the devil be a separate entity from the ‘brother’, but also the same person, or a part of himself. I feel that this poem especially can connect with the fact that she is a queer woman, because in society for the longest time being queer was seen as almost evil by society, especially by people who were very religious. I feel that the devil is a symbol for the part of either the brother or the author herself, that she felt she had to hide from society because she was led to believe it was evil and horrific. Also I feel that the fact that the brother constantly states “ He wants to kill me, Mom.“, could represent the fact that many people were killed for claiming having a different sexuality than society deemed acceptable or the fact that it this brother felt it could in a way ruin his life. I feel this devil seems to act as a symbol to display the part of us that we may be afraid to show because society has taught us that it is wrong, when in the big picture it is a part of us and nothing we should be ashamed of. I feel that is what Diaz means when she says that she hasn’t been given “permission or the space, to be fully in my body”, the “devil” within her is not acceptable by the standards society has put on us and how they feel things should be so she hides it and only displays it in her poetry. Many others feel this way and she beautifully explains how it feels to have to keep a part of who you are hidden out of the fear of the consequences that may come when it is out in the open.

Emily Mayo

La Vie N’est Pas Rose

In both the poems assigned today, Sea Rose by H. D. and The Rose & The Poppy by Adrianna Puente, the traditional image/ideas of the rose are completely torn apart and questioned. Th tradition images of a rose include romanticism, lust, passion, love, beauty, desire, atraction; the rose is associated with so many positives by society that many people don’t see the negative stigma that can also be imposed by roses, these two poets describe and show just that, the fact that roses have been made up by society to represent all these good thing, but ae all those representation accurate and do they hold true? The poems Sea Rose and The Rose & The Poppy share similar ideas about the rose and in their own way tear the traditional meaning apart.

In the poem Sea Rose by H. D. we don’t sea any specific rhyming scheme being used and we can clarify this poem as free verse. However we can see that the tenor in this poem is the sea rose and the vehicle is I, as in the person in the poem, metaphors, enjambment, and imagery in order to help get the meaning across of the poet that the wilted, sea affected rose, is just as beautiful and interesting, if not more interesting, than the standard rose. Throughout the poem, such as in the first stanza we can see enjambment as there is no specific set up for the lines, the lines don’t stop in a specific place e instead they are doing their own thing only spectated by the commas but we never get to see a full sentence or the capitalization of a word as we move to next line in a stanza. The whole poem can be characterized by a metaphor as it compares the sea rose to a person, setting apart its imperfection such as “harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf” then it goes on to say “Stunted, with small leaf, you are flung on the sand.” The poem uses this allude and compare the sea rose to a person who has flaws and isn’t necessarily up to the standards of society. The imagery in the poem also helps emphasize the message then poet, with the first stanza describing the sea rose as “Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf” and the last stanza questioning if the spice rose(the tradition ‘beautiful’ rose) “Can the spice-rose drip such acrid fragrance hardened in a leaf?” This imagery of the two roses helps us better understand teh difference between the two roses.

In the poem The Rose & The Poppy by Adrianna similarly explaimns the rose in comparison to the person. She starts the poem by saying ” I am not a ravishing ruby red, or a semblance of purity white” in this case is is stating that she is not a rose but instead she uses a poppy to compare to the rose and explain that in society the poppy and the rose do not have the sam implications, yet in reality they are both flowers and teh only true difference is the meaning that they have been given by society. She states “Not the flower you give to a lover, or a token of comfort you give to a friend in the hospital. Nor am I a symbol of romance” the traditional symbols and imagery that are given to a rose are not given to a poppy. She later in the poem goes on to reflect on teh fact that although she is not a rose she is unique and special, “Most times I am forgotten.Rarely chosen foreager hands on Valentine’s day-but I am my own.” She ends the poem by remind the reader “we each wilt-between dried petals-scenting rooms with our fragrance. Rotting into umber.” This parrelles people, although someone might not fit the standards athat are deemed as desirable in a society they are still a person unique and wonderful, with qualities that make them special, just like the poppy is in compassion to the rose. Both of these poem compass the idea that society ideals and standards do not define a thing, the thing defines itself.

Guadalupe Lemus

“Our modern society is engages in polishing and decorating the cage in which a man is kept imprisoned” -nirmalananda

Upon reading Diaz’s interview, I felt as if she thinks society is stuck in a phase where individuals lack expression. When someone expresses themselves they usually do it in the same way as the next person, she mentions that it has a lot to do with us being stuck with social media most of the time. She also mentions that she isn’t able to express herself because it was often viewed as wrong. In the poem “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation”, I feel as if Diaz did a magnificent way in showing how hard it is for one to actually take back control of their own body.

Certain people in todays society have set standards for many to follow and if you don’t fit into those specific standards then you’re simply left out or counted as less than those that do. In lines 17-19 Diaz mentions the characteristics of the angel and she’s basically saying that Indians can’t be angels because all angels are white. I think this like goes beyond just in the poem the “angels or white people” represent society and the Indians represent people of color overall. Society doesn’t allow poc to step outside the box and become who they are because it’s just not normal. It has conformed into one and anyone that doesn’t do the same as everyone else is frowned upon or judged.

In lines 29-30 Diaz says that even though angels exist one might want to stay clear of them because they do more wrong for poc than good. I think in a way this is poc taking control of their body/ becoming who they please and she’s basically saying that they shouldn’t let anyone else in society tear them down in any way.

Dissidium

Head (Sketch) by Gerhard Richter

by Andrew Perez

Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick both agree that perfection in art doesn’t necessarily equate to beauty or the sublime, but is found in the imperfections in both the work and the artist. They both use the image of a woman onto which Herrick and Jonson project their views on poetry and art. The approach that these two poets take to illustrate their points is the separating feature.

Herrick, in “Delight in Disorder”, writes about a more chaotic description of his subject’s beauty. The woman is disheveled in appearance, having an “erring lace” and “ribbons…flow[ing] confusedly”, but still retains her “wild civility”. The poet’s intent seems to emphasize the raw energy over “precise” beauty seen in contemporary art and beyond. Because Herrick describes himself as a “crimson stomacher”, this poem may describe the aftermath of a violent and passionate encounter that is sexual in nature. Despite this poem’s messy subject matter, it still maintains order and rigidity in its use of dactylic tetrameter and couplet rhymes.

Jonson captures his interpretation of beauty before his subject readies herself for public entrance in “Still to Be Neat”. Though this poem finds its subject in the same bare state as Herrick’s, there appears to be a larger contextual argument from the mention of a “feast”. Jonson appears to argue that the harsh, contemporary standards for dress and behavior can restrain wilder and unrefined beauties. Jonson identifies the woman as a “Lady, to be presumed” despite her “Robes loosely flowing, hair as free”, which nobody besides Jonson can see in this condition. This suppression of intimacy and perceived indecency outside of domestic spaces is what Jonson argues most fervently against. His use of anapestic tetrameter reflects forces the reader to rush towards the last word, almost as if rising to the pedestal Jonson’s elevates this kind of beauty to.