My poem analysis

As soon as I looked deeper into the meaning of the poem “Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind” by William Shakespeare, I connected to it in a new way through my life experiences. William is comparing the ingratitude of mankind to the winter wind and cold snow, and how ingratitude and lost friendships hurt more than the sting of the cold.

 The key part that really spoke to me was when he writes, “Thy sting is not so sharp as friend remembered not… most friendship is feigning.” In this line, William is writing of the pain of ungrateful friends, fake friendships, and lost friends. I have experienced part of what William is describing in those lines.  When I was in elementary school, I was friends with a kid who lived down the street from me. Not having much homework then, we spent much of our time during the week with each other, practically inseparable. Then, around the end of fifth grade and the start of middle school, we started to split up, mainly because he was influenced by another one of his friends, who never liked me and would be rude and obnoxious. By the end of middle school, we barely talked to each other. The pain I felt then was worse than the cold, just how William describes it.

I’m not sure how I am going to incorporate the meaning into my recitation. I guess I’m mostly going to show the meaning when I recite my poem through voice and articulation. It will be somewhat hard because while the meaning has a somber tone, half the poem is a sad song that, for some reason, says life is jolly. This line is an oxymoron, only making it harder to show the meaning through recitation but I think that I can get past that bump easily if I speak in the right tone. A change in my speaking volume along with tone will also help add to the mood of my performance and the theme of the poem. Along with tone and volume, timing is a very important part of voice and articulation. I will tell the poem at more than one pace, speeding up and slowing down when needed. Through my tone of voice, volume, and the correct timing, I will have (at least, I think that I will have) a great performance.

My only fear is that I’ll get nervous and lock up. I am preparing myself the best I can so that if I start to get nervous, I won’t start stuttering or forgetting lines. I am definitely looking forward to the competition.

Poetry out loud

Part one:

1. Zoom
2. Blow, blow, thou winter wind
3. Eating poetry
    Full moon
4. After working sixty hours and for what
5. Alone


Part two:

I enjoyed reading all of the poems listed above but found “Eating poetry”, “Blow, blow, thou winter wind”, and “After working sixty hours again for what reason” to be my favorites. They were written to entertain, and had light and joyful tones, which I enjoy reading more than poetry about how everything is terrible and going wrong. That doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t like poetry with a serious theme, it is more of what the theme is about. I am not sure what poem I absolutely want to do yet but it will most likely be either “Blow, blow, thou winter wind” or “Eating poetry”. “Blow, blow, thou winter wind” stood out to me because William Shakespeare managed to put so much into what seems like a short poem. I really connected with that poem because with the way it was written it seemed almost like a song and I enjoy singing, and sang in the school choir in elementary and middle school. “Eating poetry” was very comedic, and makes me think of my friends and I, who always have something that happened to us during the day to think about later and laugh at. If those are both taken, I would choose any of the remaining three and if those poems are taken, then I will write a poem about how I am sad because I couldn’t get any of my first choice poems and read that to the class instead.

Part three:

The easiest of the criteria, for me, would be Voice and Articulation and Poem Difficulty. Even if I get nervous, I can easily carry my voice over a classroom without yelling. Assuming I choose “blow, blow, thou winter wind”, I should not have any problem with Poem Difficulty because this poem may be short but has powerful diction but if that poem is taken, then I may have some difficulty with that criteria. The two criteria I will have the most difficulty with, though, are Physical Presence and Evidence of Understanding. My two first choice poems are somewhat difficult to understand, and I would have to study them a bit to understand the meaning. Standing up in front of the class can be nerve-racking for me, and if I am nervous, you would definitely see it in my posture and physical appearance.

Part four:

The two performances I watched were by Jackson Hille and Stanley Andrew Jackson. Stanley’s performance was of the poem “Writ on the Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem”, a 39 line poem, and a bit complicated to remember. This is very impressive on his part and definitely the leading factor to his success. Not only did he manage to memorize this poem, but he really stepped into the character of the poem, and, though he may have very well crossed the line between narrator and actor a few times, it didn’t really matter because his performance was excellent, and his motions really helped tell the poem’s story. Jackson recited the poem “Forgetfulness”, a poem I enjoyed listening to because, as I said, I like satirical and humorous poems the most. You could tell that he understood the meaning of the poem well (not that this one that is hard to understand) through his tone and how he was definitely trying to entertain the audience. This poem is on the longer side, with 24 lines, and though as simplistic as the poem may seem, it is still quite some work to remember a poem that long. These are definitely good performances that make the poems much more interesting when being heard rather than read.

Summary:

I am now really looking forward to the poetry out loud contest, after all the time spent on the website. At first I wasn’t too fond of the idea of having a contest where you read another person’s poems but looking at what the contest actually is like has changed my mind. Although I would still very much enjoy reading poems that I wrote myself, this will be enjoyable also. Hopefully I will do fine, I don't think I should have to worry about my performance, as long as I have my poem memorized. I am looking forward to the contest and hearing the poems that people chose.