Reflection

This class is extremely different than any other class I have ever taken. I was terrible at English all throughout high school and I viewed writing and reading as torture. professor changed my perspective on English and her attitude kept the class interesting and enjoyable. Compared to all my previous English classes the works of literature we read were actually entertaining and the assigned work started to feel less like assignments and more like me exploring different perspectives that caused me to become more opened minded. The class atmosphere that professor created allowed for this class to become a pleasure to attend and the fishbowls helped me speak in this class because I want afraid of people judging me. As the semester progressed his class started to feel less like a class and more like one big productive party and because of it I made friends that I'm going to continue to talk to and hang with after school ends.  

pub#5 the pain of abandonment

The most desired and powerful human emotion is love. This emotion has caused war, death, and destruction but it’s also responsible for peace, understanding and compassion. Many poems like “Alzheimer’s” by Kelly Cherry and “Favorite color” by Jay Davis exemplify how a lack of this emotion expressed towards an individual can be detrimental and in some cases unbearable. Poetry isn’t the device that expresses the power this emotion. Music similar to poetry is an outlet for this emotion; so much so that there is a genre of music dedicated to love and lost love. 

The tone in “Favorite Color” by Jay Davis is one that expresses sadness and pain. Jay is crying along with a demonstration of negative emotions while presenting her poem and focuses on the things her mom does that cause her pain. The major theme in this poem is abandonment or lack/loss of love. This is evident when Jay says “I would drown myself in the Pacific Ocean for you to kiss my corpse cheek because I often forget you have lips" because she is willing to do anything to gain her mother’s love or even the satisfaction of some attention. This expresses how essential and important love is to a person because without it people become broken and lost. 

There are many songs about lost love and abandonment that can connect with “Favorite Color” by Jay Davis but the one that comes first to my mind is stay by Rihanna. This song demonstrates how a lack of love and this feeling of loneliness and abandonment are crippling. The verse “funny you’re the broken one but I’m the only one who needed saving” from stay is one that closely relates to Jays poem. They both express how this lack of expression of feelings and love can be crippling and it causes the individual who is experiencing this lack of love to think that something wrong with them. 

  “Alzheimer’s” by Kelly Cherry has a mixture of tones that ends with a sad and upsetting one. The tone that is used when describing the man is one that is sad but the one that describes his memories are positive.  The author uses the beauty of nature and the man’s memory’s to intensify the severity of the situation and the struggle in his life. The theme isn’t fully noticeable until the end of the poem when the author says “The first thing he must do, now that he is home, is decide who this woman is, this old, white-haired woman standing here in the doorway, welcoming him in”(Cherry 494).  This quote exemplifies the theme of abandonment and lost love because the old man doesn’t know whom his wife is anymore and in a sense he left her.  

Kelly Cherry’s poem “Alzheimer’s” connects with Rihanna’s song stay for many similar reasons that Jays poem does through the same theme of abandonment. “Not really sure how to feel about it, Something in the way you move, Makes me feel like I can't live without you, It takes me all the way, I want you to stay” this verse represents how powerful the feeling of abandonment is and is represented in Cherry’s poem when the man’s wife is waiting for him but he doesn’t recognize her. This particular instance of abandonment is different than the ones expressed in “favorite Color”, because he has abandoned his wife mentally and involuntarily because of his disease, unlike Jays mother who abandoned her and her siblings voluntarily because of her lack of interest. 

Love is a powerful emotion that comes in many different forms but causes people to do absurd things to feel loved. Love is one of those types of emotions that’s almost unexplainable and its feeling or lack thereof has inspired many pieces of literature, such as “Favorite Color” by Jay Davis and “Alzheimer’s” by Kelly Cherry. Both of these poems main themes express the pain abandonment from a loved one and the effects on the individual. This theme of expression of love isn’t only limited to literature, it’s seen everywhere in this new modern age and is the most prevalent in music. The song stay by Rihanna is one of these countless songs about the lack of love and how unbearable and painful it is to live when you love someone but they don’t reciprocate the feelings. Love is confusing, complex, and hard to obtain, but this is what makes it the most desired human emotion. Without it, life would lose one of its most enjoyable perks and purposes.