Aidan+Rios+;)



Yusef Komunyakaa


 * Believing In Iron**

The hills my brothers & I created Never balanced, & it took years To discover how the world worked. We could look at a tree of blackbirds & tell you how many were there, But with the scrap dealer Our math was always off. Weeks of lifting & grunting Never added up to much, But we couldn't stop Believing in iron. Abandoned trucks & cars Were held to the ground By thick, nostalgic fingers of vines Strong as a dozen sharecroppers. We'd return with our wheelbarrow Groaning under a new load, Yet tiger lilies lived better In their languid, August domain. Among paper & Coke bottles Foundry smoke erased sunsets, & we couldn't believe iron Left men bent so close to the earth As if the ore under their breath Weighed down the gray sky. Sometimes I dreamt how our hills Washed into a sea of metal, How it all became an anchor For a warship or bomber Out over trees with blooms Too red to look at.


 * -Yusef Komunyakaa**


 * analysis**

So my poem that i pick talks about how men are the strongest in the world and talks about all of the muscle and power men use in everyday life and for years, decades, centuries that men never have the easy life like women we are the ones that every one counts on we are the ones that are used when needed a dirty job to be taken care of. The title of the poem is called believing in iron witch i think means believing in men because we are like iron.

1) The poem targets everyone because it explains the importance of men and of how everything that men do for the world the amount of power and will that is put out and that everything that sounds like tuff and strong comes back to men such as abandoned rusty shell trucks, iron, hills, sea of metal.

2) The structure of the poem doesn't have any rhyme more like a bunch of metaphors and "likes" and "just" so this poem isn't following the rhyme tradition more like comparing men to solid objects.

3) I don't think that there are repetitions because you don't see the same word over and over again unlike most poems.

4) each line has no more than 8 words and the poet keeps it like that throughout the whole entire poem. And each line as the same though always comparing men to solid objects and always bringing back the though never forgetting bout it.

5) The form of the poem and how it is writing is normal its using standard english and no slang but also no advance words or grammar and that made it easy for me to understand and read and it sound like he is just giving a lecture.

6) the tone for this poem is just that he is trying to make a point and make the reader understand and he is niter happy nor upset just calm and is passionate about what he is writing about as if it as meaning.

7) The imagery that comes to my head when I'm reading this poem is like greek times how men were picked for war and fought with brutality and how they were ruthless also war and the soldiers the die for us and boxing how two men beat each other with blood flying every where and fights in streets.


 * Facing It.**

hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh. My clouded reflection eyes me like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn this way--the stone lets me go. I turn that way--I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair. ||
 * My black face fades,
 * Analysis for facing it**

1) The subject was remembering the war of vietnam and the speaker is a war veteran.

2) The structure of the poem and the form is just a poem that is talking about what happen and how he feels about it now that he looks back at it. IT has no rhymes or any repetition just facts after another

3) There are images that go there my hand when he says that his friend missing a arm and the booby traps that surroed him and the women that used them in order to trap them and kill them. He got detailed by telling the reader what she had on and the environment.

4) theres no more then 6 or 5 words in each line of the poem. He keeps it like that through out the whole entire poem that changing the style of it from beginning to end.

5) The language that the writing is using like he was having a normal conversation with a regular person walking down the street. No fancy words, no advance vocabulary just a normal conversation.

6) It just makes the poem very sorrowful because the death of his friends and soldiers that lose their life trying to fight for the people of the united states but also you lose people who are close to you.

7) When he mentions there was this beautiful young girl in a light blue dress with white dots and she was suduting them but once she earned their trust she used them and tried to kill them and i could see that in my head and how everyone would have reacted.

8) Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer because you never know when they will try to take what you love the most. -Yusef Komunyakaa


 * Blue Dementia**

In the days when a man would hold a swarm of words inside his belly, nestled against his spleen, singing.

In the days of night riders when life tongued a reed till blues & sorrow song called out of the deep night: Another man done gone. Another man done gone.

In the days when one could lose oneself all up inside love that way, & then moan on the bone till the gods cried out in someone's sleep.

Today, already I've seen three dark-skinned men discussing the weather with demons & angels, gazing up at the clouds & squinting down into iron grates along the fast streets of luminous encounters.

I double-check my reflection in plate glass & wonder, Am I passing another Lucky Thompson or Marion Brown cornered by a blue dementia, another dark-skinned man who woke up dreaming one morning & then walked out of himself dreaming? Did this one dare to step on a crack in the sidewalk, to turn a midnight corner & never come back whole, or did he try to stare down a look that shoved a blade into his heart? I mean, I also know something about night riders & catgut. Yeah, honey, I know something about talking with ghosts.


 * analysis**

I think that the speaker is speaking about "dark skinned men" and the life in a prison.

There really isn't no rhyme schemes or patterns he just keeps coming back to the subject of crime with new facts each stanza.

"The iron bars" gave me a good mental image and the feeling of being in a cell got me thinking. He uses normal capitalization and punctuation.

Each line length as around six or seven words and he keeps it like that trough out the whole poem.

The language of the poem is standard english no slang or advance vocabulary. Good enough to make the reader understand.

I can tell the poem is wishful and somewhat sorrowful because he wishes nobody has to feel the emptiness and the sorrow of being locked in a cell.

The image that he gave us was really direct he just mention the iron bars and the cold cell witch was enough to make me image how it looks like.

If you do a crime, you just better be ready to be doing time.


 * Introductory quote**

"I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch."

-Billie Collons

"I was raised by"

Growing up in a two bedroom house with 5 people. Mother, Father, Brother, Uncle and myself. Always being yelled at in spanish over the stupidest things. Being hit by a sandel and a cable. Being attacked in the shower while your naked. Yes, this is how it is in a puerto rican house and neigborhood. Walking down the street knowing everyone and speaking only spanish and being raised by a puerto rican woman who mains language is spanish and a little english. Eatting at home all the time and sometimes ordering from outside. Not likely other races cook every single day. Learning bout cars at only 7, learning how to fight at 9 or 10 and learning how to clean the house and take care of ma self at a young age while parents out working trying to make some money for the house. The smell of Arroz con habichula fills the house in the afternoon. Mother being pround to be Rican talks loud and spanish in stores and when someone looks at her wrong or talks to her in a negative way she drops the goya red beans can and gets ready to fight, rolling up the windows and opening the door and pulling the seat up from the two door mazda to get the rest of the family out at best buy. Being a group of lound ricans at wal mart or target and being embrassed when your in the line of toys r us and your moms screams at you in spanish to but it back because its useless and she doesnt have enough. Hearing salsa playing and reggaeton and the sound of the pressure pot and hearing the "dont touch the pot!!!!!" 50 million times.. I was raised by a Puerto Rican Family

Poem of my choice


 * Title unknowed**

"I heard once that they would rather hear about memories than enemies Rather hear what was or what will be than what is Rather hear how you got it over how much it costs you Rather hear about finding yourself and How you lost you Rather you make this an open letter about family and struggle and it taking forever About hearts that you’ve broken and ties that you’ve severed No doubt in my mind that will make them feel better"

- Drake

Sonnet Poem

So tell me how one day i was walking down an ail at awl mart. There was this bright green liming looking car standing in front of me i kept looking at it and was amazed by the color of it I then walked over to it and picked it up It fell down and made a loud atomic sound that made every one stop and turn to look at me and i was so ashamed I felt like i was in a boiling pot and i looked back to the car and walked away hoping no body was still looking at me i walked out of the store and then i began to laugh and smile at the whole thing.


 * - Aidan Rios**


 * Statement on poetry**

I think that using the skill "sonnet" is a very helpful technique and can make anything into a shake sphere poem if you follow the rules of it. For an example the sonnet that i created above was created with the use of the sonnet poem skill and if you were to place it on a paper you would see how different it is set up form other poems.