Amy Poehler Yes Please

“Long Beautiful Hair,” wrote by Ann Hood, is a piece most would assume just to be a narrative of how the author goes through different hair phases in her lifetime. However, that is only the superficial meaning; Hood’s piece is metaphorically set up for a greater purpose. If analyzed correctly, her piece is a complex explanation of a life lesson that people often struggle with: figuring out who they are created to be. In order for her to convey the message fully to the audience, she tells her story in a time progressing sequence while also using rhetorical strategies such as pathos and a metaphor.

Amy Cahil: Amy is strong on the inside, but she is scared to confront other people because she is afraid they will make fun of her. She struggles with this problem throughout the book, as Riordan states on page 15, “I wish I could just curl up into a ball and leave this conversation.” Even though she is shy, she makes up for it with an enormous IQ, as Riordan states on page 42, “‘Amy you’re supposed to be the genius, not me.’” Then Amy says, “‘ Shut up Dan I’m thinking.’”

He says “the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little

In her essay Men Explain Things to Me Rebecca Solnit tells of her experience of being disparaged by men. She tells us the story of a man explaining her own book to her, and of all the other times her books were wrongly ridiculed by men. She shows how these seemingly small occurrences are bigger issues when looked at in the context of societies by using pathos and logos through the essay. Rebecca Solnit successfully uses a personal narrative strengthen by the use of factual evidence to reflect these societal problems.

Ella Nance Mr. Reno English Composition II 29 February 2024 The Hierarchy of Needs in Octavia E. Butler’s “Speech Sounds” “Speech Sounds” by Octavia Butler dives into the psychological connection between humanity’s fundamental needs, the importance of social connection, and purpose beyond just survival. Butler’s short story progresses through several tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, via Rye’s journey from shelter, to solitude and emptiness, to security, and then to love and belonging. It ends with the notion that Rye has regained a purpose in life and a glimmer of hope that self-esteem and self-actualization may be attainable. Rye has her fundamental needs of food, shelter, and safety met at home, but she does not have love or belonging since she is in isolation as a result of the plague.

Sabrina Benaim’s spoken word piece “Explaining My Depression to My Mother” is emotionally overwhelming. Crammed with many impactful metaphors, the poem captures feelings of darkness and loneliness that accompany mental illness. Her hysterical tone barely allows time for breath, stressing to the audience the panic that comes with being trapped inside your own mind. The piece is performed in front of a live audience in Oakland (CA), as part of the 2014 National Poetry Slam semi-finals. The purpose of this essay is to justify why and how the piece “Explaining My Depression to My Mother” is both creative and communication. It shall also address the various strengths and weaknesses the spoken word piece has.

Amy Poehler has many memorable roles, from being a recurring member on Saturday Night Live, to her award-nominated portrayal of Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation. Poehler is an American-comedian classic. When she was chosen as the 2011 Harvard Class Day Commencement Speaker, she took on a serious and honorable role. Poehler gave the graduating class of 2011, a hilarious, engaging, and inspirational speech. Poehler was chosen to give a speech that was out of her ordinary comfort zone, to inspire a hardworking class of graduates as they headed off into the working world. Her speech is an excellent example of effective rhetoric through its use of artistic proofs, humor, and establishing common ground. Through the content of Poehler’s speech, her detailed care to the rhetorical situation, and her impressive use of rhetoric, Poehler gave one of the most memorable and moving commencement addresses in Harvard’s history.

I rarely read the assigned readings in English 1A and expected to do the same for 1B’s course. However, when I received the daily checks back and got zero after zero I realized I had my work cut out for me. This class challenged me, for the first in my English studies I had to work hard to earn an acceptable grade. Our first essay however, I was not too thrilled to have to write about Michelle Boisseau’s “Self-Pity's Closet”. I felt that her work was already self explanatory; the title said everything about the poem that needed to be said. The beginning of Boisseau's poem starts off with a slur of emotional turmoil, “depression, loneliness, anger, shame, envy” (Boisseau l1).I did not like the writing style because it bluntly listed how the character felt at the time. I wanted to investigate the core of why she felt a certain way but instead I was handed her emotions. I felt the urge to expose the character as an over emotional train wreck who feed off of empathy. At one point in my analysis I wrote “The speaker's life is consumed by fear of what others may think of her. She constantly is searching for the answer which would lead to acceptance not only from others, but also within her own self”. I had not gained any sympathy for the character. I felt that if she wanted to gain acceptance from others she would first has to accept her own flaws and not sulk in misery. The purpose of the assignment was to create a response. However, I found myself analyzing Boisseau’s

Giving an Account of Oneself, a compelling piece written by Judith Butler, digs deep into what it means to give an

My sense of self and my understanding of the power of voice constantly shift as I continue to educate myself and learn more about the world and the many cultures that exist within it. Even before I entered the Honors College, I put effort into defining my sense of self differently as my comprehension of the world expanded. When I was young, I defined my sense of self as a member of my family. As I continued to grow, I began to recognize my voice as a member of a larger community. However, Culture & Expression creates a focused, intentional setting in which analyzation and adaptation of self and voice is encouraged. Because of our reading of Antigone, The Symposium, and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, I persisted in deepening and, at some points, changing my understanding of self and voice.

“As long as I can remember I have cared about the timbre, the phrasing of a poetic line. Ever since Snapshots, I’ve worked close to the pull and release of voices… The voices may be individual, but they’re searching for a shared moral reality.” This

The poem Suicide Note, written by Janice Mirikitani (1987), talks about a young lady, who has studied in an Asian-American female college. The lady, unfortunately, committed suicide by jumping through her dormitory’s window. She left behind a note, citing reasons that led to her actions. After a critical analysis of the note, her parents were held responsible for her actions; they were pressurizing her to perform better in her exams. The poem, thus, describes the real feelings and the emotions of this young lady, who believes that committing suicide is the only option left to please her parents and to escape the enormous pressure placed on her. The persona uses voice in the poem to bring our attention to the sufferings she was going through, and that led to the devastating event. Voice in poetry is the strong words of a line, stanza or a page that creates a relationship between the audience and the persona. Voice can, therefore, be categorized as imagery, patterns of sounds created, rhythm, tone, and diction (Gahern 166). The following is a description of how the voice in Mirikitani’s suicide note helps the reader understand the persona’s reasoning.

Brosh’s first post on depression, “Adventures in Depression”, describes the grueling progression into apathy she experienced. She makes reference to the obscurity in cause of her depression by saying “Some people have a legitimate reason to feel depressed, but not me. I just woke up one day feeling sad and helpless for absolutely no reason.” Brosh goes on to counteract this, stating “It’s disappointing to feel sad for no reason. Sadness can be almost pleasantly indulgent when you have a way to justify it – you can listen to sad music and imagine yourself as the protagonist in a dramatic movie.” The oscillation Brosh presents by sharing her nonsensical depression and contrasting it with more typical sadness demonstrates how grave her situation is while presenting the audience with a humorous observation to laugh at. Brosh has no source to try and end the depression she is feeling, since there is no particularly valid reason she began to feel it. This predicament leaves Brosh rather powerless, causing her struggle to be arduous and long. She describes her attempts to snap herself out of depression by being self-deprecating, a process that backfires. Brosh claims “The self-loathing and shame had ceased to be even slightly productive, but it was too late to go back at that point, so I just kept going. I followed myself around like a bully, narrating my thoughts and actions with a constant stream of abuse.” Despite the harshness of this behavior, Brosh creates humor in the way

Throughout the essay the writer employs a variety of pronouns in a genuine attempt to persuade the audience and draw them in. As an example, he successfully includes

Is this the narrator's attempt to understand the self or soul? To regain an essence of power and understanding of who she is becoming or has become? Is there a larger question here which the reader, through the narrator, must ask? Does not the narrator's disintegration or depression become but a symbol of her search for self? There is a belief, one I personally share, that depression is part of the soul's cycles--a place or time where opposing forces struggle with reason.