Yesterday, was part 3 of the poem recitations. The first person to go up was Brendon and I learned the significance of pronouncing words properly because “used to” and “i’d used to” are two separate things, which was a mistake he made in his first poem “Checkmate”.In his poem, there was a lot of alliteration and imagery. The chess game was symbolic because the rooks could have been seen as being the twin towers. Once again, the way the poems are read makes all the difference. The second poem “Birthplace” had to be read with a little bit more rhythm and when it was, I clearly saw all the alliteration in it. The second one was much more energized and I had a better understanding of the words when the poem was read with rhythm.

Rob’s poem was interesting and once again this poem had to be read with rhythm because it was written about the blues in that manner. After Professor Kahan played the piano in the background, Rob got a better feel of the poem and I was able to understand the poem better. The most memorable poem for me was Penina’s because of the meaning of the poem. We can all relate to the fact that New York is the city that never sleeps and Penina read in an aggressive manner and showed that the narrator was clearly tired of the artificiality of New York. I suppose I could relate more to this poem than any other because I have also wondered about how life would be different if I lived in a place where the surroundings were predominantly natural. I also found it fascinating that while the narrator and I had the same outlook, we look at it in different ways; she feels aggressive over it which I just feel curious.

I noticed that while reading the poems, the students had to take a lot of criticism from Professor Kahan and then properly translate it when having to re-read the poems. If I fail to properly deliver the poem this Monday, I hope I can also properly consider her criticism and enhance the meaning of the poem. This is significant since the other students don’t have the poem in front of them.