Imitation #2

The War Drags On by Mick Softley

It is about the Vietnam War, specifically a soldier whose story is being told in the poem. The context of the poem is primarily the situation on how now matter what happened, the war dragged on causing new problems. I would have to say this song is a critique because it focuses on all the problems and in itself discuses all of the bad aspects of the vietnam war, and the unnecessary actions that were taken during the time. The song itself classifies as a narrative poetry, because it is telling the story of a soldier named Dan, but it also does it in a way that describes the war itself and all the horror that was caused. We also see some end rhyming, especially with some of the stanzas where every other sentence ends in the same word, so it would go "bones" as the end, then "house", then "bones, then "house" as the ends of each of the sentences, which really stress the meaning of the words and place an emphasis on their meaning. The tone of the poem is also very sorrowful and it's full of deep, rich language which add to the grief and pain that the Vietnam War brought.

Imitation #1 and Critique #1

CRITIQUE
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain discuses various important features on how race influences the artists, which all in all reflects how the presentation is delivered and viewed by the audience. Normally we look at race as how other races view each other, and not so much the dynamic in how each view themselves. While the article cleverly dissects how at first an innocent sentence such as “I want to be a poet—not a Negro poet” actually conveys a deeper meaning of “I would like to be white”, it is these thoughts that provoke racism within each other, and not solely on how others races perceive one another. Because of this the artists sends a message which they are in fact trying to perceive their work in a different light, one where they feel that they have to separate themselves from their work and create something which needs to be accepted by their audience. So in essence it makes the artists create something, which pleases a certain audience. Hughes points out that race is brought into this because black people feel the need to act white and highlight and praise all these accomplishments that white people accomplish, however, ignore that black people accomplish the same things. Race sways meaning and expression of work and turns it into acceptance and image, making peoples expressions and opinions hide beneath a blanket of guilt, hatred, and embarrassment of ones own culture.

My family is from Hungary, and if that isn’t bad enough, they are Gypsy. While I did not grow up in the culture my mother grew up in, full of discrimination against gypsies and their culture, it saddens me to see my mother’s embarrassment of gypsies, and worst of all, what she has to say about them. While I cannot deny that there have been incidents where I first hand would witness gypsies acting in the stereotypical ways that people label them as, their stereotypes drown out all the beautiful things that shine in the culture. No movies or images express the beauty of what they have to offer, only the harsh realities, besides one documentary which documented gypsies in different parts of the world, expressing their music, clothing, family values, beautiful, singing voices, and many other fascinating traits. It was that movie that put gypsies in a beautiful light, and not one of hatred and embarrassment. In the The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, artists and people of different races need to embrace the good for other to see the true values, and while other races do contribute to ones own self hatred, it is also their own opinion for their race which contributes to how everyone views them, which is what I really saw this article expressing.

IMITATION 

 A prayer  by Claude McKay. It is a poem about someone who is viewing their life and is looking back on their past actions. The context is that the narrator has a lot to think about, all these variables in the way which are making it hard to let go of something that has happened. It is a confessional. The author uses an end rhyme pattern. The author uses a lot of figurative language, such as “mine eyes are open but they cannot see for the gloom of the night”. The tone of the entire poem is very sorrowful, and very sad and dark, constantly talking about falling.