The Boys Next Door

The Boys Next Door is about four intellectually disabled men who live together in an apartment and Jack is their caring social worker who is on the verge of a career burn-out. This play describes scenes to illustrate the daily lives of Jack and his four mentally challenged housemates. Sometimes the characters speak directly to the audience but most of the time the scenes are presented in ordinary dialogue.

As I was reading I couldn’t help but laugh at certain parts. Some of the personalities/ characters have funny moments. For example pg. 8-9 when Arnold goes off about Lucien having a bunny and they just keep going back and forth getting nowhere with the topic. And then they want to hide the groceries from Jack in the tub…lol… And the same when they are at the dance and Arnold is going around telling everybody his made up story (pg. 30)… It also has scenes to portray how society takes advantage of the intellectual disable as well. Like when Arnold went to the store and ended up buying seventeen boxes of Wheeties because the store clerk told him to. This is very sad but not far from reality. You would hope that everyone would find kindness in their heart and want to help others that need it, but unfortunately this is not true. It is sad to think that people actually take advantage of others but it happens daily…

Also as I am reading I have a vivid picture of what the characters would look like and their mannerisms. This may only be because I have seen the movie before and I can vaguely remember it… Although I think by having some sort of the memory of the movie it helps me understand the play write a little more. So as I read I picture/imagine what is happening. 

Nature Poem

Beauty in A Cloudy day

The sky was white and grey

as the clouds hid the sun from a sunny day.

Drops fell from the trees,

remnants of rainfall is left behind,

It seemed the sun wasn’t going to show its face all day.

Could beauty still be found on such a gloomy rainy day?

Then a Bright Orange colored butterfly fly’s across my path.

My eyes follow it to its destination.

Beauty it beholds. Landing on a blooming white flower.

His journey then begins again,

Making his way past trees full of color.

Landing on more remarkable flowers.

Bringing my eyes to the attention,

of natures beauty to be found.

Natures beauty on this cloudy day.

Beauty I thought would have to found another day.

Even when I think natures beauty is hidden by rain and clouds.

It is revealed.

Across my path He comes again,

Bright orange colored with a black trim

I then begin to hear the song the birds are singing.

Beauty in Nature It seems He is revealing

Beauty has been found on a cloudy, rainy day

By: Erica Welch

Lake Bonny Park Field Trip

I went to Lake Bonny Park for this field trip, and I stayed there for at least 45 minutes.

I didn’t realize there was a park so close to out school. I have never been to Lake Bonny park before this field trip. I personally love being outdoors. I much rather be out side or sit out side and do my homework or read than do it inside somewhere. Natures  has never seized to put me in awe. I am always amazed by the little things. Like I love sunsets and think they are beautiful. So when I see a pretty one I try and take a picture ( although the picture does not capture the full true beauty of it) and then send it to friends that may or may not appreciate it J.

While sitting outside I also took the opportunity to go ahead and read the poems by Mary Oliver. I liked the last two poems a lot, Praying and The Uses of Sorrow. The poem Praying expressed how praying to God does not have to be this elaborate fancy worded thing. It can be simple and sincere. It isn’t about who can have the best prayer. “this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks…” and then is says “and a silence in which another voice may speak.” This is talking about then just listening to God…

The poem The Uses of Sorrow was not one we were required to read and discuss. But it was really short so I decided to read it and I actually really liked what it had to say. It is only four lines long.

 “someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

That this, too, was a gift.”

I think just these four lines say so much. When I read it I thought of the book A Grief Observed that we read previously in class. Of how C.S. Lewis had someone he loved passed away he then had darkness in his life but after time he then realized that the darkness he went through turned out to be a “gift”, it helped him understand his faith and understand what it was to grieve for someone. I think about how everyone has to go through some kind of darkness to then appreciate/understand the light. But it could take someone years to truly understand this. 

State of The Planet By Robert Hass...

The first time I read this poem I did not understand it very well at all. This poem is a great of example of why it is important to reread some things and also look up things that may not be understood. I used the links that Professor Corrigan gave us, to look up what some of the things meant. These were very helpful. But even after rereading it, reading it slowly through, and reading about some of the terms I was not familiar with I still did not understand the whole poem. And even though this poem may be complicated for some reason I still seem to like it. I definitely liked reading it while I was outside. I much rather sit outside and read something then sit indoors.

In the poem State of the Planet Hass starts out his poem with what is at hand… “Rain lashing the windshield” and a schoolgirl who “Negotiates a crosswalk in the wind, her hair flying.” Then from that image he pans out; “One of the six billion of her hungry and curious kind. Inside the backpack, dog-eared, full of illustrations, A book with a title like Getting to Know Your Planet.” Hass has masterfully set the scene for a discussion of the Earth; which he then continues with in the rest of the poem…

I also did a little bit of research and read

to learn more about Robert Hass.

Robert Hass, an American poet, born in San Francisco in 1941 was well known for his West Coast subject and attitude.  His mother was an alcoholic, which was a major topic in his 1996 collection, Sun Under Wood. It was his older brother who encouraged him to dedicate himself to his writings. He received his MA and Ph.D in English from Stanford University. 

Lectio Divina

I have heard of the lectio divina reading before. But I had only heard of doing it in reference to scripture. So doing this with a piece of literature was a different experience for me. But it does strike me how you can read something one time and read it again and get a new meaning out of the text.

Francis X. McAloon talks about his experience in Reeading for Transformation through the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. He first encountered Gerard Manley Hopkins, a English Jesuit poet, in his English Literature class. In his first encounter with this author he struggled to comprehend Hopkins writings. Francis then encounters the same author later in his life when he is doing his doctoral studies. He then to began practicing Lectio Divina, focusing upon a sonnet or stanza from Hopkins’ corpus.  Francis developed a new appreciation for poetry and his practice of lectio with his poetry. It became a spiritual practice for him.   

I am still sometimes amazed how I can read something one time and then read it again and it mean something completely different or I get a whole new meaning out of it. Like sometimes when I read scripture I may read a verse or passage one time and then read it again later and it have a meaning to me that I didn’t comprehend before.

Although I don’t think I would personally practice lectio divino very often I do think it can be useful to do sometimes. I think it is hard for me to just sit down and read for transformation rather than read just to get the reading done with. I feel that sometimes my life does not allow time to do so. But I am beginning to realize the importance of taking time to read for more than just accomplishing a to do list.

“When a poem touches us deeply, in whatever way and for whatever reason, our existential horizon of understanding expands in some way” (Fracis X. McAloon). 

A "Sonny's Blues" scene

For class on Thursday we were asked to re-read a select scene fro James Baldwin “Sonny’s Blues”. I chose the scene on page 393.

            “...He hopes that there will never come a time when the old folks wont be sitting around the living room, talking about where they’ve come from, and what they’ve seen, and what’s happened to them and their kinfolk.

            But something deep and watchful in the child knows that this is bound to end, is already ending. In a moment someone will get up and turn on the light. Then the old folks will remember the children and they wont talk any more that day. And when light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every time this happens he’s moved just a little closer to that darkness outside. The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. Its what they’ve come from. Its what they endure. The child knows that they won’t talk any more because if he knows too much about what’s happened to them, he’ll know too much too soon, about what’s going to happen to him….”

A child has a sense of innocence to him. They have not yet been exposed to the darkness of the world. But at some point the reality of the world will hit them/ they will experience it. The darkness is unavoidable, each person will uniquely experience/ learn of it at some point at some time in their life.  As each day goes by that child gets older and is closer to enduring what his parents have endured. But you don’t tell a child that he will experience pain and suffering at some point in his life. You don’t tell the child of the darkness that the world is filled with and the evil that people  are capable of.  But Parents try to shield their children from the darkness for as long as possible. Trying not to expose to much too soon about what’s going to happen to him…..

Sonny's Blues

Sonny’s Blues is a story about two brothers. The story is told from the view point of the older brother. Sonny  was seven years younger than his older brother. Their mother dies when Sonny was still in high school. Sonny seemed to have a very free spirit about him. The story starts off by him finding out that his brother has been busted for using heroin. At this time  Sonny and his brother have not talking for quite some time because of past arguments. The story then goes back in time, to him describing/ remembering past conversations/ events with his mother and Sonny.  It then describes when and how Sonny and him began to drift apart. Sonny loved to play the piano. But his brother did not truly think it was a credible way to make a living. Later on when the older brother goes through a tragic time in is life, as he lost his daughter, he decides to write Sonny. He loved his younger brother despite their differences. The story then begins to tell about the reunification of the brothers and how they begin to mend their relationship.

Sonny’s Blues  uses different instances of rhythm. Rhyme is a powerful means of achieving balance , contrast, or echo. Even though Rhymes  can effect the whole work it still  may function in very subtle ways. Different type of rhymes consist of the following: Full, perfect, masculine, feminine, assonance, consonance, slant, off, alliteration, internal, and end rhymes. “Sound and rhythm can have importance even when they have no apparent meaning” (379).

Examples of each are as follows:

Full or perfect rhymes- consists of the similarity of sounds in accented vowels and any consonants that follow-  Date, Fate

Masculine rhyme- the stress is on the final syllable of the words- clown, renown

 Feminine hyme- is one in which the final two syllables rhyme, the first rhyming syllable is stressed, and the final syllable is unstressed -

 Assonance rhyme- consists of a similarity in vowel sounds, but the consonants that follow differ-  diate, lake

 Consonance rhyme- strikes a similarity in the sounds of the final stressed consonant preceding  vowel differs- date, rite

 Slant or off rhymes- words that echo sounds in these ways

Alliteration rhymes- refers to the repetition of intial sounds in words-  date, dud

Internal rhymes- in the middle of a line

end rhymes- in the end of a line