My Favorite Song

This song is called Beautiful People by Chris Brown and Benny Benassi. Everytime I listen to it the song puts me in a good mood and it is just so relaxing.

English 102 With Professor Brady In Review

                This semester has definitely changed how I write and my perspective on literature. I truly do enjoy writing more than before this class. I used to absolutely dread writing papers. However now I find it much easier and interesting. I have realized that concrete examples such as quotes make writing papers more interesting to both read and write.  Throughout this semester I have definitely found that papers were becoming easier to write.

                English 102 this semester was one of the few classes I really did not mind going to. I enjoyed almost all of our class discussions and I loved how the whole entire class is involved because it makes you stay focused since no one knows when they will randomly be called on to answer the thought provoking questions Professor Brady will ask. I also found out that the classes always went by so fast because I enjoyed everything we talked about since we weren’t just sitting in our desk taking notes the whole time.

                During this semester I have learned that if you’re going to do anything, you might as well give it 110%. I have brought this concept to my life and it has greatly benefited me. I got a promotion at the store I work and all my grades are doing much better. In 5 years I honestly have no idea where my life will be however, I do believe that I may actually pick up a book now and then and read for fun.

The Post Modern World We Live In Today

            We are currently living in the post modernism era. The post modernism era began when authors started talking about things that were real and true. Everything did not have a fairy tale ending and things are left up for interpretation. The behavior of humans was also exploited throughout this era.

            Blood Diamond, which is one of my favorite movies, is an excellent example of post modernism in recent years. This movie is about a family who is separated my rebels in Africa. Many people are killed for no reason which is something that actually goes on today. The film shows human emotion when people are losing loved ones and shows how they react. Blood Diamond also showcases how human will do absolutely anything, even kill, to get what they want.

Here is a trailer of the movie!

Ill Be Missing You- Puff Daddy

This is the music video of the song I used to compare to poems by Sarah Teasdale and W.H Auden in paper #3.

Loosing a Loved One, Paper #3

Chris Brownstone

Professor Brady

English 102

24 April 2011

Loosing a loved one

The poems “I Am Not Yours” by Sara Teasdale “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone” by W.H. Auden and the song “I’ll Be Missing You” by Puff Daddy all have themes and tones that relate to each other. Losing a loved one can be very hard on a person. This a reoccurring theme in all three works. All three works have a similar tone which is sorrow and mourning.

In the poem, “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone” Auden has lost someone who was really close to him. This loss is affecting him really hard because the person he lost was his whole entire life. “My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk my song” (Auden 10-11). The working week is Monday through Saturday and Sunday is known as the day of rest. This quote helps prove that the person who died was in every aspect of his life.  Another example which shows how Auden is having a hard time coping with the loss is “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; for nothing now can ever come to any good”(Auden 15-16). This means that he wants the world to end because without his soul mate, he will never be able to be happy. The title of the poem “Stop all the Clocks, Cut Off the Telephone” also helps to show how Auden is having a hard time coping with the loss because he doesn’t want to talk to anyone on the phone or even know what time it is because none of it matters since he lost the one person he loved the most.

               “I Am Not Yours” is a poem about loosing a person as well. In this poem Teasdale lost the love of her life even though she was never with him. “I am not yours, not lost in you, Not lost, although I long to be”(Teasdale 1-2). This quote means that she is not together with him although she wishes that she could be. She wants to become lost with him just like “Lost as a candle lit at noon, Lost as a snowflake in the sea.”(Teasdale) and spend the rest of their life together. However, she can’t because she is “A taper in a rushing wind”(Teasdale 12). Which is the wick of a candle, and a candle can’t be lit in wind so their flame together will never be able to happen. This is upsetting to her and hard to overcome.

               Sean Combs also known as Puff Daddy has a song called “I’ll be Missing You” which is about him losing his best friend Christopher Wallace who is also known as Biggie Smalls. Throughout the song he talks about how close they were. In these lines “Words can't express what you mean to me, Even though you're gone, We still a team”(Combs 9-11). This quote from the song shows that they were best friends and him being dead isn’t going to change anything. Puff Daddy also explains how hard it is for him to cope with the loss of his friend. “Reminisce sometime, The night they took my friend, Try to black it out but it plays again, When it's real feelings' hard to conceal, Can't imagine all the pain I feel”(Combs 15-19) Puff Daddy explains that when he thinks about the night his friend died, he has a hard time dealing with the emotions that are created. Another thing he says in the song is “Give anything to hear half your breath”(Combs 20) which shows that he misses him so much that he would go to the end of the world and back just to hear him talk one more time. In the song he says how he thinks about him everyday and can’t wait for the day that they meet in heaven which is shown in these lines “Know you're in heaven smilin' down, Watchin' us while we pray for you, Everyday we pray for you, Till the day we meet again” (Combs 33-36). This quote is a perfect example of how much he misses his best friend that that he is always thinking of him.

            All three of these works of literature have similar themes which are love lost, and the lost of a loved one. Both “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone” and “I’ll Be Missing You” actually deal with the death of a loved one and “I Am Not Yours” is about loosing a loved one that you never had. However all three works of art show how hard loosing a loved one can be. They also have a similar tone in all three works as well. In both poems and the song, the tone is very sad. “Silence the pianos with a muffled drum”(Auden) is one way how the tone is set in that because everyone likes music and when it stops, everything becomes quiet, and dull. Puff Daddy creates a sad tone in the first couple lines of his song. “Goes out, to everyone, that has lost someone That they truly loved” (Combs). When the song first starts he says these couple of words which gets the audience to think of the loved ones they lost which puts makes them a little sad. Finally, one of the ways Teasdale sets up tone is with this quote “put out

My senses, leave me deaf and blind” (Teasdale). If she is willing to go deaf and blind puts the reader and a sad mood because they feel bad for her. The overall tone in all of these works is depressing and sad.

               “I Am Not Yours” by Sara Teasdale, “I’ll Be Missing You” by Puff Dadddy’ and “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone” by W.H. Auden all have many similarities.  All three deal with themes that have to deal with losing a loved one and how hard it can be to overcome it. They also have similar tones which are very sad and depressing because they are all dealing with a loss and trying to cope with it.

Anthology Traces Rap's Lyrical Journey response

            One of our homework assignments was to watch a video Professor Brady posted on the class blog. The video is called Anthology Traces Rap's Lyrical Journey, Poetic Roots and is about how rap music is so closely related to poetry. In both, flow is very important and has rhythm and complex rhyme schemes. I never really realized how similar rap lyrics where to poems.

             After watching this video I looked at the lyrics to some of my favorite songs. One which is a song by Lupe Fiasco called The Show Goes On. I read the lyrics like a poem without the music on and it sounded just like a poem. In class Professor Brady read the lyrics to Loose Yourself by Eminem. I realized all the metaphors and literary elements he used in his song and  it sounded like a poet wrote not Eminem who is portrayed as a bad member of society by some people.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/video/247

Lecture Response

                In class we discussed a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” I really enjoyed discussing this quote in class because it is 100% true. Any goals will never be accomplished without hard work. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this and so did many other people throughout history. During the colonial period, the colonist wanted to become free from Great Britain so they demanded it and ended up fighting a war over it.

                This quote reminded me a lot of the movie Gladiator. In the movie Maximus, who is the main character in the movie, is forced to become a Roman Gladiator. The only way he can become a free man is to fight other men until the Emperor pardons him. This movie relates greatly with the quote by Martin Luther King Jr.