In Grace Poured Out, author Valerie M. Herndon gives an honest, emotional, and redemptive account of very personal grief and a trial of faith. Herndon can scarcely imagine what’s ahead when she finds out her youngest child, fourteen-year-old Katie, is sick. However, it eventually comes to light that this isn’t only a matter of passing sickness but of life and death. Herndon then has to face what it means to trust and have faith in God when her prayers may not lead to the outcome she’s hoped they would.…
Believing in one’s self is common, and it thrives throughout the novel, Freak the Mighty, by Rodman Philbrick, and the poem, “Ability,” by Selina E. Matis. There are several lines in the poem, “Ability,” that relate to the novel, Freak the Mighty.…
‘The Waking’ is a contemporary jazz piece written by American vocalist, Kurt Elling, and features Theodore Roethke’s 1954 poem of the same title. Released in 2007 on the album Nightmoves, Elling uses musical techniques to enhance the message of Roethke’s poem. However, in order to understand the reasoning behind the devices Elling has used, the meaning of Roethke’s poem must first be discussed.…
The wounded heart now enormous tune of sorrow, Skunk breath a force to linger tomorrow. Saint unreal a body-less per poster, Bound by force that will never divide as greater. Benevolent a flaunt of no remorse, Unmistakable tone unruly of course. Patch up the hole in your britches; water new soil, Be thankful thieves ravishes in turmoil.…
Harry Thurston’s “Miracle” is a simple and sweet poem, which displays the usage of an extended metaphor. As the speaker is in the process of explaining to his daughter as to why she should not pick the blossom and allow it to grow, he soon regrets telling her to stop. If Thurston meant to metaphorically convey this poem as the growth of his daughter, we can safely assume that the blossom mentioned in the second line of the poem that will “turn into a strawberry” (4), represents his daughter as a toddler who will soon grow up into a beautiful young lady. From “no sooner are the words out than I regret forestalling her pleasure” (7-8), we can also assume that he regretted holding her back from her own curiosities and discoveries, his fatherly instincts to nurture and care for his daughter while she is still young could be the cause of this; it would have been his way of protecting her. It also suggests that he came to the realization that he needed to allow her to experience everything on her own and let her grow. “For what is one blossom less, and weeks to a child too long to wait” (9-10), suggests that there would have been no harm done if she were to pick a single blossom but her childhood would have been in a way harmed from not being able to satisfy her curiosity and learning from her own experiences. He realizes that as a parent, he doesn’t need to protect or teach her everything because she will eventually learn on her own. I feel as if this poem is a reminder to us that life is in a sense a “miracle” (15). It is hard to believe that something so small such as a blossom can grow into something so different such as a sweet strawberry or a toddler growing up into something new such as an adult until we see it…
A miracle is often defined as an extraordinary event which cannot be explained either by natural or scientific laws. However, this definition of miracles often varies person to person. R.H. Holland defines miracles as a “remarkable and beneficial coincidence that is interpreted in a religious fashion,” whereas David Hume, writing during the Enlightenment period as an empiricist claimed that miracles are both improbable and irrational. In his book, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume defined miracles as a violation of the laws of nature. Although Hume may say that miracles are the least likely of events, that does not lead on to say that they do not occur at all; it is possible to say that they do occur but it is not very likely. Also, it is difficult to explain these extraordinary events, and so a miracle is a good way of explaining these things. This essay will discuss Hume’s claim, and will come to the conclusion that miracles are not the least likely of events.…
The history I deduced from this painting makes me believe that people should continue hoping that a good thing will soon happen. Each detail added to Free Will and Miracle gives it a particular sense. Bartlett’s painting inspires in me a couple who had to sleep under a bridge for some reasons, hoping someone would rescue them. This couple believes in a miracle and is persuaded they will find a way to get out of this situation, even though they feel sometimes sad. Free Will and Miracle makes me smile when I see this couple go on believing in a miracle after spending a night in the cold. It makes me realize that the proverb ‘’Nothing is ever lost in advance’’ is full of meaning as there is always a hope that things will get better. Free Will and Miracle is an artwork that really succeeds and I believe it might have renewed hope in many people’s lives because of the emotion given…
What Saves Us and The Way of Tet by Bruce Weigl are two poems that find the small pockets of beauty in war amidst all of its’ ugliness and elaborates on that beauty with Weigl’s powerful and eye opening writing techniques. Weigl writes with painstaking care and every syllable, adjective, and break is surgically placed here and there to evoke specific emotions from the reader. Bruce Weigl approach to writing is captivating and pure.…
Definitions of miracles are often very broad and leave them particularly wide to interpretation. We may say that it is a miracle that someone has recovered from a cold, but that is only the believer’s interpretation and cannot be verified as miraculous. It simply reflects the way that the believer looks at the world, and that he or she sees a religious significance in the event even if another may see it as a co-incidence. For example – 6-year-old Teesside girl fell 150ft off of the edge of a cliff in North Yorkshire and only received minor injuries, was this a miracle?…
Free Verse – Free verse is a poem that is written without any type of rhyme in it and “A Noiseless Patient Spider” is a perfect example. It doesn’t rhyme, but to make the poem make sense he uses repetition, metaphor, alliteration and personification.…
The reality of the mouse, Lennie, and George, thought they could live are virtually indistinguishable. The poem, To a Mouse by Robert Burns, in which the mouse thought she was prepared, but in reality her home is destroyed, is where the two pieces are found similar. "Thou saw the fields laid bare an' west, An'weary winter comin fast, An' cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! The cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell" (Burns 5). To represent the relationship between Of Mice of Men by John Steinbeck and the poem the first piece of evidence used is, "They all sat still. All bemused by the beauty of the thing, each mind was popped into the future when this lovely thing should come about" (Steinbeck 60). George has hope in seeing a future where they live their dream eventually if they kept working hard with Candy's help.…
The works we studied within Creative Writing were all helpful in creating my own works to submit to the class. Throughout all of the reading, many of the works inspired me in different ways, whether it was short story plot ideas or word usage in the poems. While crafting my work for the final portfolio, I reviewed many of the poems from our poetry packet in an effort to find inspiration and to create new interesting images. I took the most inspiration for my formal poem, which I found most difficult to write. One of the poems that was most useful to me was Jilly Dybka’s “Memphis, 1976.” Dybka’s poem follows the sestina form; I also wrote my last poem in this form, so it helped to follow the form by looking at her poem as an example. Dybka’s…
The text that I will be analyzing is a poem by Lorna Crozier called The Child Who Walks Backwards. Throughout my analysis I will look into parental abuse, underlying meanings in the lines in the poetry, as well as connections I can make personally to the book. I think it is also important that I bring forth essential messages in the words and statements of the poem. The main theme I will choose to focus on is that abuse does not only happen at school or back alleys, but that it happens in homes as well.…
The Carousel music serves as a symbol of untouchable childhood memories that will never change even when you grow up. When Holden and Phoebe get closer to the Central Park Carrousel, Holden hears the Carrousel music; “It played that same song about fifty years ago when I was a little kid” (Salinger 231). The hyperbole of “fifty years” represents Holden's love of childhood which for him seems so long ago. Holden misses his childhood and all that comes with it. Holden is saying that his childhood was “fifty years ago” because now he has to be an adult and take on responsibility. The repetition of playing the same song reflects the carrousel going around and around, which illustrates Holden staying in one place with his life. This depicts that…
In the poem “An Echo Sonnet”, author Robert Pack writes of a conversation between a person’s voice and its echo. With the use of numerous literary techniques, Pack is able to enhance the meaning of the poem: that we must depend on ourselves for answers because other opinions are just echoes of our own ideas.…