Creative nonfiction

Mammalian by Nedra Rogers is the creative nonfiction story that spoke to me. When I was reading this I rememberd feeling the same way, confused and lost when the teacher was talking about animalia/mammalia and asking the class what a mammal was. It was a hard concept for me to grasp when I was in elementary school and being told that humans were classified with animals. It is an eye opening thing to be told when you are younger because it gets your mind to wander to places that it never knew.

Raymond Carver- Short Story

Raymond Carver
A Small Good Thing

I decided to read A Small Good Thing by Raymond Carver because the title caught my attention. I really did enjoy the story because it kept me interested and I wanted to keep reading to find out how it would end. I kept waiting throughout the story for Scotty (the little boy) to wake up and I also kept waiting for the parents to find out who hit their son with a car. It was tragic how Scotty got hit by a car and was hospitalized on his birthday. I felt even worse for the parents because there was nothing that they could do besides wait and pray. I thought everything was going to be okay when Scotty opened up his eyes but then Carver chose to have Scotty die in the story. I felt bad for the parents because no parent should ever see their child die especially as young as Scotty was. The thing I didn't like was how creepy and weird the baker was. I don't get why he didn't just act normal and tell them he was calling from the bakery and curious as to why they didn't pick up the cake. Instead, the baker doesn't make sense when he calls and then just hangs up. I noticed in Carver's story he used the literary device of imagery a lot. He used visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory. I think using all of those drew me into the story a lot more.

Rhinoceros

The time I was a rhinoceros was when I was in 8th grade. All of my friends were trying out for cheerleading and I didn't want to. But then that's all that they would talk about and I felt left out so I went ahead and tried out also. I made the squad and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

The time I have been a Berenger was in high school when some of my friends wanted to go out of town and party without telling their parents. I knew it was wrong and that my parents would kill me if they found out that I went out of town without their permission. I'm glad I didn't go because my friends ended up getting caught drinking underage and were in so much trouble.

Song

Sleepyhead by Passion Pit is poetry. The song contains several literary devices which are simile, metaphor, ambiguity, hyperbole and imagery (visual and olfactory). A line in the song that I liked is an example of a hyperbole and it says "my beard grew down to the floor and out through the doors."

~Sleepyhead by Passion Pit~

And everything is going to the beat
And everything is going to the beat
And everything is going

And you said, it was like fire around the brim
Burning solid, burning thin the burning rim
Like stars burning holes right through the dark
Flicking fire like saltwater into my eyes
You were one inch from the edge of this bed
I dragged you back a sleepyhead, sleepyhead

They couldn't think of something to say the day you burst
With all their lions, with all their might and all their thirst
They crowd your bedroom like some thoughts wearing thin
Against the walls, against your rules, against your skin
My beard grew down to the floor and out through the doors
Of your eyes, begonia skies like a sleepyhead, sleepyhead

Spring Poem

Spring in New Hampshire
by Claude McKay
Too green the springing April grass, Too blue the silver-speckled sky, For me to linger here, alas, While happy winds go laughing by, Wasting the golden hours indoors, Washing windows and scrubbing floors. Too wonderful the April night, Too faintly sweet the first May flowers, The stars too gloriously bright, For me to spend the evening hours, When fields are fresh and streams are leaping, Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.

Pablo Neruda- Ode to the Present

This present moment, smooth as a wooden slab, this immaculate hour, this day pure as a new cup from the past-- no spider web exists-- with our fingers, we caress the present; we cut it according to our magnitude; we guide the unfolding of its blossoms. It is living, alive-- it contains nothing from the unrepairable past, from the lost past, it is our infant, growing at this very moment, adorned with sand, eating from our hands. Grab it. Don't let it slip away. Don't lose it in dreams or words. Clutch it. Tie it, and order it to obey you. Make it a road, a bell, a machine, a kiss, a book, a caress. Take a saw to its delicious wooden perfume. And make a chair; braid its back; test it. Or then, build a staircase! Yes, a staircase. Climb into the present, step by step, press your feet onto the resinous wood of this moment, going up, going up, not very high, just so you repair the leaky roof. Don't go all the way to heaven. Reach for apples, not the clouds. Let them fluff through the sky, skimming passage, into the past. You are your present, your own apple. Pick it from your tree. Raise it in your hand. It's gleaming, rich with stars. Claim it. Take a luxurious bite out of the present, and whistle along the road of your destiny.

Favorite Robert Frost Poem

Stars

    HOW countlessly they congregate
    O'er our tumultuous snow,
    Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
    When wintry winds do blow!—
    As if with keenness for our fate,
    Our faltering few steps on
    To white rest, and a place of rest
    Invisible at dawn,—
    And yet with neither love nor hate,
    Those stars like some snow-white
    Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
    Without the gift of sight.

This poem was one of my favorites because I often find myself looking up at the sky and just getting lost in the stars. A few of the literary devices in this poem that I noticed were Imagery (visual, auditory, tactile), Symbol, Simile, Personification and Defamiliarization.