Answering Rosy's Question

A Field Guide to Getting Lost- Abandon

2. Marine said she was going to change her way of living (stop using drugs/drinking alcohol because she found love, but she died. Why is this ironic?

When Marine was using drugs she was still in the stage where she was discovering herself. As she got older she changed and eventually stopped doing drugs. Marine died at a party because of a drug overdose which is ironic because she had stopped doing drugs. The night Marine died she had taken heroin and knocked out an because her "companions" we're afraid of legal consequences they gave get a shot of speed which caused her to die because the two drugs combined were deadly.

10 Questions

A Field Guide to Getting Lost: Abandon

1. How was Marine's death ironic?

2. What is the symbolism behind the violet shirt and sweater she left in the car.

3. What is the significance of Marine's dream on page 95.

4. Explain the significance of the following passage, "The young live absolutely in the present, but a present of drama and recklessness, of acting on urges and running with the pack." (108)

5. Explain the importance of the following simile, "she had fingers like birthday candles."

6. Compare and contrast The Clash lyrics, "A nuclear error but I have no fear cause London is drowning and and I—I live by the river." with the phrase by Nuclear Freeze activist, "The living will envy the dead." How are they symbolic to Marine's death?

7.Explain how the author combines imagery and grotesque in the following passage, "She had fingers like birthday candles, and she was proud of their calluses and of playing until they bled." (95)

8. Analyze the relationship between the older musician and Marine.

9. Explain the symbolism behind the characteristics the older musician uses to describe Marine on page 98.

10. Explain how synecdoche  plays a role in the following passage, "Then I thought of Marine's death as the end of my youth because it signaled the end of my connection that underworld, but it might instead have been cause death became real," (106-107)

 

Example of Creative/Literary Nonfiction

The Creative/ Literary Nonfiction story which was meaningful to me was Dr.Blue by Anne Panning. I don't spend a lot of time with my family all together and this story reminded me of the last time I got to see my Grandpa before he left to Mexico and passed away there due to cancer. One of the lines that stood out to me were “Don’t give up. God is good” because now my grandmother is fighting cancer and she's always in and out of the hospital, but my mother always repeats those words to me as we wait for my grandmother to return home. I felt like I could relate to the family in the waiting room who just kept hoping for good news.

Full Moon

A cold dark night filled with twinkling lights and behind the trees is the bright round full moon. The cool breeze eases me as I start to forget every little problem and situation in my head. There is no sound tonight it's a silent night and as I stare at the moon I begin to lose myself in its face. I begin to dream about the future and where I'll be years from now. Sometimes I begin to wonder where so much beauty came from. The right shade of blue, all the stars in the right spot winking at me every few seconds, and of course the moon easing the tension. Sometimes I feel like giving up and then I come out and see how the moon and stars light up this dark sky, how we're never entirely alone and there will always be a light, even at the darkest and coldest moments.

A Winter Walk

Walking through the woods the snow began to cover every inch of land leaving a white blanket on the surface, soon the fog crept up behind the middle aged man as he stood still and listened to the trees whisper to one another, he then glanced at the river which was frozen in time. He took one step forward and noticed the ghosts mimicking his every move like ducklings mimicking their mother. The snow began to cover every inch of land leaving a white blanket on the surface. The middle aged man found the woods to be his escape and his best kept secret, the ghosts and trees were his friends, for he knew they were the lost souls of those he loved and lost. The woods were the only place where he felt loved and happy, so it pained him as his walk came to an end.

My Song

On The Radio
by Regina Spektor

This is how it works
It feels a little worse
Than when we drove our hearse
Right through that screaming crowd
While laughing up a storm
Until we were just bone
Until it got so warm
That none of us could sleep
And all the styrofoam
Began to melt away
We tried to find some worms
To aid in the decay
But none of them were home
Inside their catacomb
A million ancient bees
Began to sting our knees
While we were on our knees
Praying that disease
Would leave the ones we love
And never come again

On the radio
We heard November Rain
That solo's really long
But it's a pretty song
We listened to it twice
'Cause the DJ was asleep

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

And on the radio
You hear November Rain
That solo's awful long
But it's a good refrain
You listen to it twice
'Cause the DJ is asleep
On the radio
(oh oh oh)
On the radio
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio - uh oh
On the radio

This song by Regina Spektor could be considered a poem because it uses rhyme throughout the song. She uses Antithesis in the following lines because she says one thing and then the opposite of what she;s saying.

"This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath"

In the following lines I believe she's using implied metaphors.

"And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood"

The poem I picked

"What Do Women Want?" by Kim Addonizio

This poem really stood out to me and was the only poem that I enjoyed reading over and over again. I felt that in a few stanzas I could relate to how the author felt, which is why I enjoyed it so much.

Metaphor and when I've been a rhinoceros

Losing Emmanuel is like losing the stars in the night sky.

I acted like a rhinoceros when I found out that someone had stolen my Facebook picture and made a fake account pretending to be me.

Six Word Memoir

Mothers dreams, Fathers eyes, My determination.

Transformations Question

31. Which poems begin with a question? How do these questions contribute to the themes of the poems?

There are three poems that begin with a question; "The Wonderful Musician", "The Maiden Without Hands", and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses". In the Wonderful Musician I believe the beginning shows the excitement of life and the unknown. The line "like a fish on the hook dancing the death dance" shows that because it's not known whether the fish is going to be caught and killed or if it will escape. In the poem "The Maiden Without Hands" the question asked was "Is it possible he marries a cripple out of admiration? A desire to own the maiming" I believe it was shown that it's possible to love and care for someone who is different from us, The king may have been fascinated by her not having hands but he went looking for her and his son in the woods. When the king saw his wife's hands grew back his love didn't change and they remarried again. In the poem "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" the following question was asked, "If you danced from midnight to six A.M. who would understand?" In a way we all want to be able to have someone we don't know relate to us so we don't feel so we don't feel so alone, which is why I believe the oldest princess was ignoring her youngest sister when she believed they were being followed. I believe the oldest sister secretly wanted to be caught and wanted someone to understand why they danced.

Rapunzel

"There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was dreaded by all the world. One day the woman was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, she quite pined away, and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and asked: 'What ails you, dear wife?' 'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall die.' The man, who loved her, thought: 'Sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.' At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so good to her—so very good, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him. 'How can you dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!' 'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.' Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him: 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.' The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her.
Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried:

 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.

After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried:

 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress climbed up to her. 'If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune,' said he, and the next day when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried:

 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up.

At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king's son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does'; and she said yes, and laid her hand in his. She said: 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.' They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her: 'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's son—he is with me in a moment.' 'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!' In her anger she clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.

On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when the king's son came and cried:

 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
  Let down your hair to me.'

she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. 'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.' The king's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented."

I believe Anne Sexton chose Rupunzel for her book Transformations because this story is about how Mother Gothel's selfishness grows through out the story and because it allowed Anne Sexton to add her own grotesque twist to the story.

William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"

"Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight."

1. The first two lines of this stanza means that everyday children are born into this world. Some are born into a difficult life which could be from being born into an abusive family or being born into a low income family where it makes it difficult to be provided shelter, clothes, and food. Other children could be born with health issues which they will have to live with for the rest of their lives, and some children could be born with a life-threatening health issue. The last two lines of this stanza mean that everyday some children are born into loving families, they are given affection, provided shelter, food, and clothes.  These children also go on to have a good life compared to the children who are born into a difficult life.

2. This stanza contains the antithesis literary device, in the first to lines Blake states that every night and day some are born into misery, but in the last two lines he states that every morning and night some are born into a "sweet delight."