THE QUESTION MARK BY GEVORG EMIN
Poor thing. Poor crippled measure
Of punctuation.
Who would know,
Who could imagine
You used to be an exclamation point?
What force bent you over?
Age, time and the vices
Of the century?
Did you not once evoke,
Ball out and stress?
But you got weary of it all,
Got wise, and turned like this.
This poem I thought was appealing because, it was like someone was interviewing a question mark. It was like they had a lot of questions and ideas about how the question mark had come to be. This poem had no rhyme to it but I still enjoyed it because of the way it was written. Like I said, it was like a question and answer with a question mark. I thought that this author wrote this because he was puzzled by how a question mark came to be. I think at the end the author put, "got wise, and turned like this," because to be wise you have to ask questions and when you ask a question there is always a question mark at the end of the sentence.
ITS HARD TO BE AN ELEPHANT BY JACK PRELUTSKY
It's hard to be an elephant
Enormous broad and tall
I can't attend the cinema
The seats are all too small.
It's practically impossible
For me to board a bus,
The tires often flatten,
And the driver makes a fuss.
I'm ushered out of luncheonettes,
The waitresses are rude.
They fume, "we cannot feed you,
For you'll finish all our food."
I'm drawn to the piano,
But I'm daunted when I play,
I tend to be ungainly,
And my ears get in the way.
My trunk is far too powerful,
No sooner do I sneeze than windows crack
And shutter from the impact of the breeze.
I'm plagued by a particular,
Purely pachydermal plight-
I find no socks and underwear
That fit precisely right.
This was one of the poems that we read as a class that I enjoyed. I liked it because, it sounded like it was written from the point of view of an elephant, and we don't get too many poems like that. Also, I liked this poem because of the problems the elephant has to go through. For example, the elephant can't ride the bus because he/she flattens the tires, or that he/she can't find any socks or underwear that fit. What kind of elephant wears socks or underwear? Anyways, I thought that this was a poem that was to show people what kinds of problems that elephants would have to go through if they were to live as humans. I very much enjoyed this poem.
COWS BY JAMES PORTNER
Cows are neat,
Cows are cool,
Cows are meat,
Cows aren't tools.
Cows make steak,
Cows make beef,
Cows are great,
Cows have teeth.
Cows are morons,
Cows are stupid,
and that's it.
I find this poem about cows very appealing. I find it appealing because it has rhyme in it, and most of my favorite poems have a rhyme scheme. Also, I liked this poem, because it was quick and to the point. Most poems you read are somewhat long or a medium size, but this is a very unique poem, it was short but got to the point. I also liked this poem because of the picture it put in my head. While reading this poem, I pictured a cow standing in a field, mooing every couple of seconds and I found this to be funny. I think that this poet was trying to get his feelings about cows across to us in a very short poem. Almost like he would have said this while going from floor to floor in an elevator (because it is short, almost like a shortened elevator pitch about his feelings about cows).
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
I liked this poem for a couple of different reasons. Firstly, I just liked the poem in general. It hooked me in and I instantly liked it. The second reason is, because of the (I guess you could say) moral of the story. The moral being, that you don't always have to go the same way as others, sometimes going a different way than others is a good thing. The last reason I liked this poem was because of the image I get in my head while reading this poem. I can picture two roads that split into different ways in the middle of the woods, and the grass wanting wear on one of the roads. I was really able to picture what the two roads would have looked like, and that made me really like this poem. When reading this poem I thought that the author was retelling his adventure. It was like he was talking to you and telling you about what happened.
