From The Beginning: Meaning Of Life

Have you ever felt like you were born to do something? Since I was born I felt like I was born to play baseball, but after that I would love to be a broadcaster. That is why I have chosen to analyze “The Broadcaster’s Poem” by Alden Nowlan. Analyzing a poem is not an easy thing to accomplish for me. As I very rarely analyze anything I read, but you should try everything once.

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

The relationship between father and son changes over time, and molds along with the people in encapsulates. As in real life, the father and son who inhabit Li-Young Lee’s poem “A Story” experience sudden changes within their relationship as the time passes on. The son’s cries for a story that slowly change into adult conversations throughout the poem indicate that with maturity and age comes both understanding and hostility.

The Poem “Introduction to Poetry” is by Billy Collins, an English poet, and it is about how teachers often force students to over-analyze poetry and to try decipher every possible meaning portrayed throughout the poem rather than allowing the students to form their own interpretation of the poem based on their own experiences.

“Once upon a time there was a wife and mother one too many times” (Godwin 39). This short story begins with the famous opening, once upon a time, which foreshadows that the story line will be similar to a fairy tale. It raises expectations for the story that all will be magical and end happily. A typical modern-day fairy tale is that of a distressed character who overcomes an obstacle, falls in love with prince charming, and they ride off into the sunset; living happily ever after never to be heard from again. Godwin however, puts an unexpected twist on “A Sorrowful Woman”. This short story is a tale about what can happen when everyday roles take over our identity. Ultimately, this short story challenges societal expectations of marriage

In “Conte” by Marilyn Hacker, Cinderella shows the reader a glimpse of her life after the childhood tale ends, a less happier ending than the original story implies. She feels trapped in a constant state of misery and boredom in the royal palace. Without life experience guiding her, Cinderella is in a dilemma caused by her ignorance of the potential consequences of her actions. With the use of irony, structure, and diction, “Conte” shows how innocence and naïveté result in regrettable mistakes that create life experience.

In the Poem “A Story”, the poet Li-Young Lee conveys the convoluted and complex relationship of a father and son with techniques such as point of view and carefully used diction. Throughout the poem, a simple scene is depicted; story time between father and son. The child is satisfied and mesmerized by his “baba” while his father fears his own failure and the eventual adulthood of his son.

It doesn't seem like it sometimes. It seems like there is no possible way anything can get better, but if you focus on the minute, and make it to the next, you moved forward. You pushed back your insecurities and you told your Blurryface "no". We've made it this far, we can go a little while longer. One thing, is that I am in the process of building a support system of people who love me and care about me.

In the poem based on a true story, “To This Day”, by Shane Koyczan a young boy is constantly being knocked down by bullies throughout the school day. The bullying is slowly breaking him down to the point where he can’t take it anymore. The boys’ “broken heart strings bled the blues” because of the continuous bullying. The broken heart is made out of crumbled paper to symbolize how delicate his heart is. The piece of paper breaking from the heart is symbolizing that his heart is shattering into multiple pieces. The meaning of this image is to show that the bullying is becoming too much to handle and he is at his breaking point.

Hey, stop staring at my boobs…. Yeah, I have boobs so what? Like two hands, two legs, two ears. I have two boobs? Boobs are just a part of our body. When my eyes speak, you eye at my boobs. Are you biologically programmed to stare at boobs. Nature has given nipples to man and woman. You could take your shirt off and walk down on a road, post selfies on Instagram no one cares but if I do, it would be the greatest crime of the century and a lewd exposure of my body done with the intent to arouse the sexual desire of other person. Just because it’s hidden, and yours does not bloat like ours? Just because our boobs have sizes? And so male nipple never been as socially sexualized as female nipples.

Beautiful. That is how I would describe her. Rayah Lou’ren Gibson was the absolute light of my life. She was born on Thursday, August 14th, 2008. She was not my biological daughter, but she was and always will be my baby girl—my little princess. I often called her my angel. She loved dancing and singing, she loved the movie Frozen, the song, “Do You Want To Build A Snowman?”, and her favorite color was purple. She loved her friends, especially Alina.

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” declared by an influential leader Martin Luther King Jr. As a soldier againsts unfairness, King strongly states that people should fight for freedom. Driven by human nature, humans are always chasing freedom. In “A Century Later,” the Pakistan-born British poet Imtiaz Dharker uses the poetic devices of symbolism, diction, and allusion to explore how perseverance drives freedom.

What is the true meaning of your existence in life? What’s the purpose of having life? I researched many peoples view on life and many of them said life was a beautiful thing, and they’re very happy to live their life. Some said they really don’t know why their living or what they are living for. Some didn’t even care at all because they knew they would eventually meet death soon or later, kind of similar to the character named Meursault in the book “The Stranger” by Albert Camus. When Meursault’s mother passed away he felt apathetic towards her passing. He viewed himself as an outsider to the rest of the world. Meursault argues that the only certain thing in life is the belief of death, and, because all humans will eventually meet death, all lives are all the same and meaningless.

Fairy tales are full of tropes and stereotypes that exist from story to story, one of the main ones being the “happily ever after” ending. Most fairy tales, especially the traditional Perrault or Grimm versions, fall prey to this trope where the main goal is for the princess to find her prince, get married, and live happily ever after. Many critics, particularly feminist critics, find this trope to be problematic because of the extreme emphasis placed on marriage as women’s main, if not only, objective in life. Karen Rowe, for example, states in her essay “Feminism and Fairy Tales”, that “fairy tales perpetuate the patriarchal status quo by making female subordination seem a romantically desirable, indeed an inescapable fate” (342). In other words, Rowe relates the “romanticizations of marriage” portrayed in fairy tales with promotions of “passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice” expected of women in their everyday lives (342). However, it can be dangerous to assume that every fairy tale conforms to the singular promotion of marriage as women’s only option. While early fairy tales such as “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty” tend to glorify the romantic ideal of marriage, and in turn female subordination, contemporary tales and adaptations such as Brave and Frozen, are working to give women a more powerful position.