Blog 4: Reflection

Well for the past two weeks in eng 102, I basically learned how to enjoy my free writing even more. Mostly in all my other english classes they would give me some lame story that didn't spark my interest at all and have me write some long drawn out paper about it. But in this class total freedom sort of and we get to do it on blogs. Never did blogs before but they are actually kind of fun interactive web pages my classmates can communicate on giving each other tips. I hope I can have more classes that deal with computer technology in english class like this.

Blog 3: Tone and Symbolism

Alan Seeger was an american poet born on June 22, 1888 and died July 4, 1916. During his life he wrote poems but none of his work got the recognition like his "Rendezvous with Death" poem. He had also served in the French Foreign Legion in WW1 but was gunned down at the Battle of Somme. The reason I chose Alan Seeger poem is that death is an inevitable thing you can't stop and as much as we watch Final Destination movies trying to out smart him aka death, we all are screwed.

Tone is a very strong thing in all types of literature and it helps set the mood for the reader to understand how to feel what he or she is reading. Like if the writer wants you to feel the creepiness by a supernatural presence watching over you in Robert Warren's short story "Original Sin". The tone in Seeger's poem "I Have a Rendezvous with Death" is some what weird when he is talking about death but he then makes it sound beautiful with apple blossoms. He switches up his tone from dark sounding of death and war to fresh flowers in the field for peace. Seeger's meaning of the tone is to embrace death in a prepared way even if everything around you is so horrifyingly destroyed.

Symbolism is when a writer uses a word or a group of words to describe a meaning for a bigger picture. In Seeger's poem their is a lot of symbolism in it like the word spring being used each time something bad is taking place. For example "I Have a Rendezvous with Death at some disputed barricade when spring comes back with rustling shade and apple blossoms fill the air, I have a rendezvous with death when spring brings back blue days and fair". This section of the poems meaning is that death will show up during spring in a war zone when the air is calm. How he uses something so welcomed in are lives and transforms it into a creepy portal for death to come through.

In conclusion this poem talks about how to accept our faith with death and to not be scared of him. As much as he is described to us in pictures and in stories, he is our guide to the afterlife. He supposedly helps bring us to a much better place to live where there is no more war, death and sorrow as the bible explains. But to find out what's on the other side, all we have to do is wait for that dark tall figure.

http://www.answers.com/topic/seeger-alan

http://www.life123.com/parenting/education/children-reading/what-is-symbolism-in-literature.shtml

http://102supernatural.blogspot.com/2010/02/original-sin-short-story-by-robert-penn.html

Blog 2: Rendezvous with Death

Well after ten minutes of thinking for a poem of creepy aspects. I had to go with one of my favorite poems by Alan Seeger "I Have a Rendezvous with Death". I like this poem because we will all meet that dark robed skeletor figure with a scythe sooner or later if we like it or not. So I went to http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/i_have_a_rendez-vous_with_death.html and found about hundred more poets on all sorts of areas from love to the horrors of war. The website doesn't have any fancy templates but it gets to point of finding that right poem.

"I Have a Rendezvous with Death"
by Alan Seeger

I Have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple blossoms fill the air
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand,
And lead me into his dark land,
And close my eyes and quench my breath
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear.
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year;
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

What I believe the poem is about is a soldier that is killed in a war during the spring and death comes to take him away. While death is taking him he seems scared but prepared for the outcome to happen. Death then shows the man the battlefield from a semi destroyed hill top and points out that their is no more love because spring has arrived. Another reference to spring causing death to come is the flaming town. The importance of the word spring in the poem is that mostly soldiers fight when it isn't cold but a nice clear day so death comes around to scoop them up for their inevitable faith.

My First Blog About Me

Well my name is Bryan and your not going to know my last name. If you just read the semi first sentence / intro then you should come to that conclusion I hate my last name. I'm black, puerto rican and cuban with many small races in the mix to show how big of a mut I am. I go to Laguardia Community College and im majoring in writing to become an author and so far it going well. Im an open minded person to try anything at least once so you can say I have a 100 things to do before i die list like in that corny mtv show. So ya that's it for now but more will come so later.