"Sonny's Blues" -- James Baldwin

In the introduction of this story, another author compares a moment in his life with Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" story. The narrator of the story uses vivid imagery when describing the "ice" he feels flowing through his veins after learning his brother Sonny had been arrested in a raid for using heroin. He teaches algebra to children at a school in Harlem, and comments how Sonny had always been a good boy compared to most boys who grow up in Harlem. Later on there are comments about Sonny's relationship with his father. He says "he was the apple of his father's eye," and because of this he was always fearful for him, which led to them fighting all the time. This goes to show how sometimes when parents are too protective of their children that the children can become very confrontational and argumentative. When Sonny begins practicing the piano at Isabel's, the author describes this relationship in a very unique way; first Isabel enjoys and admires Sonny's perseverance and practice of the piano. But then she begins to describe it as "not living with a person, but rather living with sound." They describe him as if he is god, coming in and out of their house as he pleases, not being rude, but just as if it is his own place.

"Birches" -- Robert Frost

This poem starts off with the narrator commenting about birch trees that have grown bent out of shape, rather than straight up like most trees. He then discusses in great detail the difference in the way the trees become bent due to ice build up compared to how they look when they were used to swing on. 

"Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen."

I found this section of the poem to be very visual and gives me a clear image of what the trees look like after a heavy snow and ice storm. The narrator then goes on to reminisce about when he was younger and the poem seems to go into a stage of contrasting the realism of life that comes with age and the imagination of youth. He describes in detail the act of swinging on the birches, indicating the he himself likely swung on birches as a child. He also seems to want to go back to his childhood days and relive his youth.

Vocabulary:

A. bracken (line 14) -- noun

1.

a large fern or brake, esp. Pteridium aquilinum.

2.

a cluster or thicket of such ferns; an area overgrown with ferns and 

shrubs.

Letter of Introduction -- First Post

So today is my first time using a blog and I am beginning by writing my first assignment. In high school, I had a fairly general education; this included specific classes in British Literature, as well as American Literature. I also had four years of French, in which I did read a couple of French poems and short stories. I am a senior in college now, and I have not had an actual English class since my freshman year, so most of my reading has been limited to text books for class and labs.

In high school, both my British and American Literature teachers were amazing. Probably my favorite part of British Literature was reading, writing, and studying about Shakespeare. I know that a lot of students are not big fans of Shakespeare, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading his plays, and still like learning about him. In my AP English class, my favorite experience was a poetry project that I did with one of my classmates. We did our project on Edwin Arlington Robinson; in our project, we were required to do a detailed history of the poet, as well as select three poems and do an analysis of them. I did the analysis for the poems, during which I wrote about one of my favorite poems, "The Flying Dutchman." We then had to lead a class period discussing our poet and the poems with our classmates. This was my English teachers final year, and in all the years she had been doing the poetry project, my classmate and I were the only group to ever receive a perfect score for our presentation and our analysis.

I have never written a blog or anything online before, but I see this as a way to describe things as I see them. I feel that what I am writing is real, rather than a way to express myself in a different way. I am really looking forward to being able to keep up with this blog and use it to further understand the literature we will study this semester.