Susan Beth Pfeffer Poem Analysis

Born in Senegal around 1753, Phillis Wheatley became an important American poetic figure. At the age of 8, she was kidnapped and brought to Boston on a slave ship and upon her arrival to Boston, she was quickly sold to John Wheatley (Bio). Under her new family, Phillis adopted the master’s last name, taken under the wife’s wing, and showed her deep intelligence. Even though suffering from poor health, Phillis’s intelligence did not go unnoticed; she received lessons in theology, English, Latin and Greek. Being a slave did not stop Phillis from learning and experiencing her life, she participated in the master’s family events and eventually became a family member. The irony in this situation is

Susan Beth Pfeffer decided that she wanted to be a writer when her father dedicated the law book he was writing to his daughter. Right then and there she wrote her first little story about the love between a pair of scissors and an Oreo cookie. Her childhood experiences form the basis of her writing, seeing that she grew up in the suburbs in New York. This explains why most of her books focus on young people growing up in the suburbs. Pfeffer went on to New York University. After getting her degree in radio, television, and motion pictures she started a writing course and her first novel Just Morgan was published. Throughout her life she has published more than 75 books and some of them include: A Year without Michael, Devils Den, Life as We Knew it and Family of Strangers. The themes of her books usually include emotional problems, divorce, historical fiction, and people having fantasies of modeling/acting. Her science fiction stories contain apocalyptic futuristic events like her novel Life as We Knew it.

After watching Jane’s interview I was ecstatic with my choice. She was born in New York City in 1939. Both of Jane’s parents were well-established writers, so it was only natural for her to follow in their footsteps. Jane has always enjoyed writing; she can still remember and site

Phillis Wheatley, one of America’s best writers and contributors to American literature, helped enrich our knowledge about her life through the use of imagery in her poems. Wheatley wrote many poems throughout her life. Her poems include, “On Being Brought From Africa to America”, ”To The Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth”, “ The Thoughts of the Works of Providence”, and many more.

Laurie Halse Anderson is from a white background and was born in Potsdam, New York, United states on October 23, 1961 (Biography Laurie Halse Anderson 1). Her family growing up was apart of why she is an author today because her dad was always telling her stories about the war, and her second grade teacher showed her how fun writing could be during a haiku lesson which really impacted her life and it was when she knew she wanted to be an author, she said that when she was little she found a typewriter and write stories for a newspaper column that she made up (Biography Laurie Halse Anderson 1). Laurie had gotten married to her first husband Gregory H. Anderson in 1983 and they had two children together, but then got a divorce in 2002 and

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco, California on December 14th 1916. From an early age she was at odds with her parents expectations. Within these expectations her mother had an obsession with appearance that put her further away from her. Jackson began writing in 1930 as a teenager and grew up in a suburban atmosphere; this later became the subject of her first novel “The Road through the Wall” in 1948. From California she moved cross country to Rochester, New York in 1934. Her university education began at the University of Rochester in 1936 but withdrew that same year. Jackson reentered the following year, 1937, to Syracuse University. This is where her writing blossomed. As an undergraduate her story “Janice” was published in the Syracuse University magazine in 1938 and the following year won second prize in a poetry contest. Jackson began a literary journey, Spectre, with Stanley Edgar Hyman and was in a romantic relationship with him as well. In 1940, the same year she graduated, with a dual major in English and speech, she married Stanley Hyman.

Margaret Peterson Haddix was born on April 9, 1964. She started growing up at a farm near Washington Court House, Ohio, also the same place she was born. Her father was a farmer and her mother was a nurse. Her siblings were bookworms and even herself. They just loved reading.Even her parents would tell them to put the book down for a little bit and look outside the window and see the world. As a kid, her dream career was to be a author. While she was growing up in her early years, she was soaking up lots of details to write about. In high school, she played the flute and piccolo in the marching band and symphonic band, sang in the school choir, worked on a newspaper for her school, ran track one year, competed on a school quick-recall team,

Phillis Wheatley was the first African American to publish a book; one that would bring her national and international fame. Known for both her youthful intellect and the ability to versify popular people and topics of the day, Wheatley gained the adoration of many. One such fan was none other than General George Washington, who praised her poetical talent after Wheatley personally sent him a heroic couplet entitled “To His Excellency General Washington”. The poem is unique because of the way Wheatley expressed her personal opinion of the Revolutionary effort. They way Wheatley portrays America, George Washington, and the Revolutionary army shows that she believes the War of Independence is a glorious, justified, and divinely ordained task.

“One Writer’s Beginnings” From Belle in Beauty and the Beast to Matilda, bookworms come in many ages and eras. No matter what struggles bookworms face, these people share a common passionate love for reading much like author Eudora Welty did in her childhood. In an excerpt from her autobiography, Welty describes her childhood experiences at home and at a library that later impacted her as an author. To convey the value and intensity of her experiences with literature, Welty uses imagery, diction, and an anecdote. Welty uses imagery to describe the Jackson library and the librarian Mrs Calloway.

At twelve years old her family finally settled in Nashville after moving around a bit (An Video Interview with Patricia and Fredrick McKissack). Writing can be influenced in several ways. McKissack was influenced to write by one little question. One day Fredrick asked Patricia, “If you could do anything you want to do in this whole wide world for the rest of your life, what would you do?” Patricia responded, “Write books” (Meet the Authors).

n the introduction of the poem the writer mentions that the poem is meant to relate to the speakers experience with encountering nature. With much thought into this idea, could you not say that you could relate this poem to the experience of the way society is changing today. In our lives we get use to certain people that we could never "unnoticed" them, but there are a couple of others that we may not even bother with or notice they are there. In the first stanza they question the appearance of the fellow and in reality that may be them questioning the appearance of some people in their lives.

With an imagination as big as the sky, anything is possible. Sue Monk Kidd ,born on August 12,1948, knew that she was born to be a writer. Growing close to her father who wrote and as he shared his stories, Kidd became instantly encouraged and started leaning towards a life in literature. As a teen living in the south, Kidd became influenced by, Henry David Thoreau's work and this only strengthened her love for literature. When Kidd turned thirty years of age she finally found her confidence in writing. Coming in strong with nonfiction literature and writing multiple books Kidd found that she was not challenging herself by only writing nonfiction, so Kidd decided to endeavor writing fiction stories. Given the courage to write fiction Kidd

she was six. Just Morgan was Susan’s first book to get published. She wrote Just Morgan during her last semester at NYU. When her first book got published Susan became a full time writer. She has written over 60 books for kids and adults. Susan Beth Pfeffer and her 2 cats now lives in Middletown, New York.

Have you ever felt as an outsider? Are you scared to voice your opinion? Those are two questions that many Americans including poet Kay Ryan can say yes to. Kay Ryan is often referred to as a poetry “outsider” and underdog. She resists writing in the first person, preferring to write personal poems “in such a way that nobody has to know it.” In narrative and biography forms, she uses irony and humor to unravel the idiosyncrasies of language and the haplessness of human existence. She is fond of malapropisms and clichés, two linguistic devices that many poets consider taboo. She employs what she calls “recombinant rhyme”—hidden rhymes that appear in the middle, rather than at the end of her short lines. Her penchant for brevity has garnered her a reputation as a poet of “compression,” but Ryan disagrees. Although she says she likes to “squeeze things until they explode,” she insists “there’s a sense of air and ease in even the smallest of my poems.” The seven volume publisher and sixteenth United States Poet

Phillis Wheatley is a Gambian born African American poet. She was bought off of the slave trade by the Wheatley family from Boston. Her love of writing was influenced by the reassurance of the Wheatley family who taught her how to read and write. The family encouraged her poetry and helped develop her literature skills. Phillis is known for becoming the first published African American poet. Many see her as the first writer to develop a genre of African American literature. Through an analysis of Wheatley’s work we can see how her influential work tends to carry themes from the point of view of American colonists. Her work also contains a general critique of slavery and descriptions of her attitudes towards the circumstances forced upon the enslaved.