Christine's Arts Blog!

I thought after reading several poems from Yehuda Amichai there was a commonality of loss of innocence in each of this separate poems. What I found most fascinating from last week is that I wrote about Mahmoud Darwish who is a poet who wrote about being Arab in Palestine. Amichai is a writer who writes from the perspective of a Jewish person in Israel. I have always had a deep interest in the Middle East and Jewish cultures. I think is fascinating to see the different poems on different end of the spectrum as far as literary themes. In the poem "Jerusalem" the first stanza contains a narrator who does not produce much hope. "On a roof in the Old City-laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight- the white sheet of a woman who is my enemy"(1-4). These lines show little to no hope for this narrator where you cannot tell if it is a man or a woman. However, the narrator gives such a sense of diminished accomplish. In the middle stanza it shows the narrator reference...

The theme of Watan (homeland) is very much present in Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Identity Card” because of the realism he writes of describing his homeland. Throughout his entire poem he writes about how his homeland which appears to be that of Palestine, furthermore that has been ripped right out from under his native land. In the beginning stanza of the poem, he focuses on making sure the reader understands his nationality fully as they will see him state it in every stanza from start to finish. I thought this was interesting because it shows that he is not ashamed of who he is, or what homeland he comes from. I also think that he states “I am an Arab” because he is attempting to be the voice for those who do not have a voice. There also seems to be an element of humanism that Darwish is attempting to provide to his readers. There are several references to him physically describing himself such as in “put it on record – I am an Arab- colour of hair: jet black-colour of eyes :brow...

In the poem “Walking Around” by Pablo Neruda there appears be several underlying themes of losing and almost near insanity. In the first stanza, Neruda sets up the reader to almost personify with the narrator of the poem, a man who is not lost with nowhere to go. Neruda writes, “it happens that I am tired of being man-It happens that I go into the tailor’s shops and the movies-all shriveled up, impenetrable, like a felt swan navigating on a water of origin and ash”(Neruda 1423). The city emerges in the first stanza as over populated yet homey sort of place. I am not sure as to why I feel that way, I can relate to the man who in the city as I have lived places where everyday seems to go with the next. I think it important to realize that this man comes off as crazy, yet as I read each stanza of the poem I do not see him as crazy. I see him as a man who has had enough of his present place and longs for something more exciting. In the sixth stanza a reader sees an even darker place...

In "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov there is much emphasis on movement and time throughout the story. Chekhov uses time and movement throughout his four comedy act to show the back story. Lyuba Ranyevekaya is the main character who owns the estate where the cherry orchards are located on. She is close to losing her estate, therefore, she must sell her house along with the orchard.  In the first act of the story Lyuba returns home from a trip to a world for which she is not familiar. Everything that was once familiar to her seems mysterious, however, her and her daughters reference the orchard several times throughout the story. I think the orchard is symbolic to a time where the family was once rich, and as time passed they became poor due to mismanagement of money and in essence time. "The Cherry Orchard" is really all the family has and once that is gone, there will be nothing left but time. Lyuba also references over the course of time the mistakes she...

I thought both Jose Marti and Ruden Dario were both excellent Latin poets that appeared to relate many of their works to that of poet Walt Whitman’s works. Firstly, Whitman had many works that could be compared to poems of Marti and Dario as they all contained similar poetics as far as style and technique. However, the most important thing to remember when it comes to these three poets is how they portray life elements in their poems. Whitman has a keen sense of style to write about life from the inside looking out. In his poem, “51” his lines contain that of self-awareness of society. The first lines read, “They past and present wilt- I have filled them, emptied them- and proceed to fill my next fold of the future” (1-2), which is fair to say that life goes on through Whitman’s poems. In Marti’s poem “I am an Honest Man” has similar life elements to that of Whitman’s poems. In the first few lines of his poem Marti writes, “I am an honest man- from where the palm grows- and b...