Week 4: Poem Response

Josh Tate
ENG 102
Cline
2/13/11
Poem Response
The two poems that created an emotional reaction in me were “Photograph from September 11th” by Wislawa Szymborska and “Immigrants in Our Own Land” by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Szymborska’s poem created a strong saddened memory of September. It made me think of all the people that lost their lives that tragic day. It let me put myself in the situation of the unlucky people who were forced to either jump or face a fiery death. I put myself in their shoes and thought of how hard it must have been jumping from the upper stories of the World Trade Center’s. I thought of what would be going through my head on that long drop to my death. It brought a very sad and almost disturbing memory and picture to my head. This poem was very moving and Szymborska did a very good job of portraying these unlucky few who were forced to jump to their deaths.
The second poem that moved me was Baca’s poem about immigration and what immigrants have to go through. Baca does a very good job at describing the thoughts that go through immigrants heads about what they expect of the “new world”, and how very often these expectations are far from fulfilled. I felt very bad for the people immigrating to a “new world” to have a chance at a better life, but end up working for next to no money and not improving their life at all. I put myself in the immigrants’ shoes who had been there for a long period of time, watching the new immigrants come in with the gleam in their eyes thinking they are about to change their lives for the better. It would make me very sad knowing that in just a short time these new immigrants will come to the realization that their lives will not change for the better but if anything they will only get worse. I found it very disturbing that this is generally the average immigrants story.

Wislawa Szymborska

http://www.kannibaal.nl/helden/index.html

Here is a link to some of Szymborska's other works and bio. 

Jimmy Santiago Baca

http://www.flsrc.org/2010cnf/2010cf.html

Here is a link to some of Baca's other works. 

Response to Sam Hamill's Essay

Josh Tate
Cline
ENG 102
2/4/11
Sam Hamill’s “The Necessity to Speak” is a very strongly opinionated essay. He consistently refers back to violence and battering and things of that sort to relate and get his points across. Hamill starts off his essay by talking about people in prison and how society doesn’t want to see and know the reality in this world. He then talks about writing and how it is used as a form of communication throughout the orison systems today. He talks about how the writer is the one responsible for all the emotions that any reader might feel throughout the process of reading their work. I agree with Hamill’s ideas that people who are raised in abusive homes often end up becoming abusive adults and that unless people speak up and take responsibility for their actions this will continue to be the case.
Hamill goes through the idea that people tend to turn their back to the ugly and violent side of this world and that unless there is a change this will continue to be the case, and that can not happen. When victims of domestic violence and rape cry out desperately for help we tend to turn our backs of freeze up and do not know what to do. Hamill repeatedly uses the term that “we can’t bear very much reality” and I completely one hundred percent agree with him. Our society has become one that only goes after pleasure and the first sign of something bad or inhumane we turn our backs.
 Hamill talks about how he believes poetry is not about emotion. I disagree with this I think one of the things that makes a great poet great is his ability to openly communicate emotion through their work. He believes that the true poet gives up the “I” factor and I agree and disagree with this. Some poets are good at giving up the “I” from their poetry and it is still great, but others include their own feelings, attitudes and emotions and that’s what makes “them” great. I think Hamill has good ideas and is a very interesting writer.

http://www.washingtonpoets.org/lifetime_award.php

Sam Hamill

Here is a link that gives more information about Sam Hamill and his work as a writer/poet.