Poetry

In my AP English class we have just started our unit on poetry and we have been assigned to read a few selected poems and answer some questions on them. The questions are just things that are suppose to spark what the true meaning of the poem is and also to help us better understand the poem. Usually I am not one to say that I am poetry fan but there have been a few poems that I have liked.
The first poem that I liked was called The Whipping by Robert Hayden, I like this one because of the way that it is told. At first you think that it will be just from one perspective but once you read it you find that it is actually from three different perspectives. One is from the person who is seeing the boy being whipped, another is from the old woman's perspective and the final one is from the boy. It being told this way is more interesting because you get to feel the emotions behind each person.
The next poem that I liked was called Mirror by Sylvia Plath, I like this one also because of the way that it was told and the meaning that is in the poem. It talks about how we see ourselves but from the perspective of the mirror as well as our own. It talks about how we see ourselves when we like how we look and how we dislike ourselves when we feel that we look bad. I thought that this was interesting because in the poem it says that "I am not cruel, only truthful--" and I thought that was clever because its true. It's true because a mirror shows us what we see and people say that seeing is believing which in its own way makes it the truth. Another thing that I liked about this poem was that the mirror had characteristics of a person which made it seem that much more honest.
I really enjoyed these poems and a few more and I am happy that my class is getting me to broaden my views own literature.