Marilyn Chin’s Turtle Soup – questions in Portable Legacies

Explorations of the Text

1. Notice the author’s choice of the word “cauldron” in line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chosen “cauldron” rather than “pot”?

When talking about cauldron, the images that first come to mind will be witches. Usually the word “witches” are associated to the word “cauldron”.  In the line 4 “(who knows what else is in that cauldron)” shows how the speaker being sarcastic. The author uses the word “cauldron” since she wanted to relay how the speaker didn’t like what the mother does.

2. Chin refers to “the Wei”, “the Yellow” and “the Yangtze”. Why does she reference these rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?

Chin used the rivers in China since she wanted to show the relation of the speaker and the mother’s argument about maintaining their identity and culture as Chinese people. If other river were use as reference, the message will not be able to be relay to the readers about the argument.

3. What is the tone of this poem?

The tones of this poem are sarcasm and mocking. And from the way the poem starts, it was like storytelling, of how the author tried to voice out the poem’s feeling by casually telling the reader about what happened in the poem. In second stanza line 10, we can see how the author being sarcastic about the mother’s action. Turtle is the symbol of ancient wisdom and it was mentioned in the poem that the turtle four thousand years and the mother’s action of boiling the turtle was ridiculous.

Ideas for Writing

1. “‘Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice.’” Write about this quote within the context of an immigrant family. What might a family gain or lose by moving to a new land?

                 Usually when a family moves to a new land, they were always said the moves were in order to be able to gain riches. People usually wouldn't think so much about what they will lose when they move to a new land. However, they will lose something in order to gain something. Thus the phrase “Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice” really matches with the situation with immigrant.

                 When an immigrant family moves to a new land, they will gain and lose something. Usually they will be able to gain a comfortable life where they did not have to suffer in order to live. However, it has been mentioned that when you gain something, you will lose something too. Usually the immigrant family will have to drop the practice of their culture and sometimes identity. The older generation may be able to still practice and retain their culture; however the younger generation is easily influenced with the new place’s culture which maybe didn't have a complicated culture like the ones that they have will neglect practicing their own culture.

                   When they started to neglect practicing their own culture, they will slowly drifted apart from it and it will come the point where they will even lost their identities. Physically they will still look like the people in their homeland, however, there will be nothing same between them and people from their homeland since they didn't practice the same culture. Not only culture and identity, they also might not be able to speak their mother tongue or not able to read their mother tongue’s language.

                    The younger might be able to learn a little bit about their culture if their parents still remind them. Although they will not be too familiar with it, but the constant reminder by their parents will be able to make them remember a bit. However, the problem comes with the parents who even forgot and abandon their own culture in order to fit in with the new society.

                     For the parents who abandon their own culture, this will affect their children. Their children will lose their identity and there will be nothing left but the shell. They also will become the third culture people. These children will have a hard time to fit in with people who came from their homeland since the way they act will be different. They will also become the talk of other people when they came back to their homeland for a visit.

Leader: Annur Azze Ezzati

Amiri Baraka's 'Preface to a Twenty Volume Sucide' - explorations of text

1. What is the mood of the speaker in the opening lines? What images suggest his feeling?
Depression. the speaker doesn't feel anything towards the thing that happens in his life. In line 2 'The grounds opens up and envelops me', it gives the image where his surrounding is being blinded and he may felt suffocated with surrounding which doesn't have lights.

2. What is the significance of the daughter's gesture of peeking into "her own clasped hands"?
The daughter's gesture may suggest that she was praying to god. It may shows that the daughter still believes in god and have hope in god while the speaker who had lost hope and forgotten about god.

3. What does the title mean? How does it explain the closing line?
The title may suggest that the speaker had the intention of ending his own life. Since the title is only a preface, the closing line may suggest that the act of his daughter changed his intention. the act of his daughter may had made him realize that there is still god.

4. Why does Baraka have 3 short lines, separated as stanzas? How do they convey the message of the poem?
The first 2 short lines may suggest how the speaker felt about losing hope. The speaker felt that he had came to a dead end where there is nothing and there is no hope. however the last line shows how hopes have come back through the prays to god.

5. Why does Baraka begin stanzas with "Lately", "And now" and "And then"? What do these transition words accomplish?
The first 2 words shows how the speaker felt recently and what he does in the period of time where he had lost hope. the last word shows shows a different feeling where the speaker just did something which eventually changed his feeling of losing hope to having hope again.

6. How does the speaker feel about his daughter? What does she represents to him?
The speaker might love his daughter so much where the action of him going to his daughter's room maybe because he wanted to check his daughter well being. his daughter may represent of new hope that comes to life.

is this the life they always wanted - poem in respond to 'All Things Not Considered' by Naomi Shihab Nye

peace is lost,
smells of death is everywhere,
bodies lie everywhere,
is this the life they always wanted.

kids crying for help,
parents sheltering their kids,
people running in the midst of chaos,
is this the life they always wanted.

smoke, explosion, shooting is everywhere,
people - lose one's love
people - lose one's self
is this the life they always wanted.

death roams everywhere,
blood is shed everywhere,
hands are being sullied,
is this the life they always wanted.

a poem with real events,
anger, pain were felt.

a poem which was inspired by real events, the feeling were conveyed naturally. images of the events came vividly in minds when reading the poem.

Incident by Countee Cullen

Poem

Once riding in old Baltimore,
        Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
        Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
        And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
       His tongue and called me, "Nigger".

I saw the whole of Baltimore
       From May until December:
Of all the things that happened there
       That's all that I remember

Exploration of the text:

1) What is the nature of the interaction between the two boys?
    - Prejudice and stereotyping because of the difference between skin colour in America which are between the white and black people of America.

2) Why does the speaker remember nothing more than the incident, even though he stayed in Baltimore from "May until December"?
    - Racism cam cause pain and hurt in people's heart. Especially for a little child who have been insulted in his face about his skin colour, nothing can make him remember more than the insult that he received.

The reading/writing connection:

1) In a paragraph, compare your experience of prejudice with the persona in the poem.
    - This incident happened when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My family and I went to my father's cousin's house to deliver something to them. When we were eating, another cousin of my father also came to that house. The owner of the house invited the guests and said something like "Come inside. There's only Amin the butcher with his family". We felt insulted since they look down on my father because of his job.

Ideas for writing:

1) What do its form and rhyme add to this poem?
    - This poem is a 3 stanzas poem with each stanzas have 4 lines. The rhyme is abcb.

2) What is the power of language? What are the effects of the use of the term 'nigger'?
    - The power of language is how we used our language. The tone that we used at certain times will determine the power of the words. The tone that we used will make the listener understand in what way we want to relay a message. The usage of nigger gave so much effect as the Baltimorean poked out his tongue before saying the term nigger which made the poet understand that he was insulting the poet at that time.

All Things Not Considered by Naomi Shihab Nye (thesis and mini outline)

This poem was based on real life situation which happened in Palestine in 2000. War and conflict that causes people to suffer and death among their family members which some of them were young children.

This poem mention about :
- sadness
- death
- war
- different kinds of life led by people who lived in different kinds of places
- people use religion as a reason to start war
- suffering of victims who lost their family member
- hoping for a new religion that will not cause them any suffering anymore
- people struggling to live
- people fighting back to get their peacefulness
- hope for peace to come

All Things Not Considered by Naomi Shihab Nye (first exploratory drafts and note)

This poem is based on true incident which happens in year 2000 in Palestine. It can be seen from the name that is written in this poem, Asel Asleh and Mohammed al-Durra. The first couplet says how a dead body cannot be revive back to life. The next couplet mentions how a pair of siblings were happily playing when the bombing and attack on their land happened. Next is 'In what language is this holy?' is maybe a question why people didn't understand the meaning of holy. Holy should be something that is pure.

From line 7 to 13, the poet tried to argue how the difference between death that happened to Jewish boys and Asel Asleh, a Palestinian boy. The Jewish boys died when they were having adventure while skipping school. This can show that the Jewish boys maybe died in an accident while having fun. Meanwhile, Asel Asleh died when he tried to help someone before he was shot. There's a big diffrence between their deaths. The Jewish boys died in an accident maybe, but Asel Asleh died in a war. In the line 'If this is holy, could we have some new religions please?', the poet tried to say how they wanted a new religion that doesn't cause them suffer from the war that has been going on for a long time.

From line 16 to 20, we can see that Mohammed al-Durra name is mention in here. He was only 12 years old at that time. He and his father tried to escape from chaotic incident when he finally was shot and died at his father's leg. The incident was filmed on the spot and it was shown to the whole world. Next is about a 4 months old girl died and how her father curse the world for making them suffers from losing their family members. These show that war killing will not spare anyone. Even kids becomes the victim of war.

Line 21 until 27, the poet tried to say how people can say anything about the war without caring the feeling of the person who experienced it. People who only watching from the sidelines cannot understand the pain of the person who experienced it.

In line 28 to 45, the poet mentioned how it will be advantageous for the people who narrates the war to happen if the people agree that everything is not right. Throughout the times, they had to suffer from war because of mistakes that they made. People had to use all means of things to fight in order save themselves. Children and adults just pick everything that can be use as weapon such as guns and stones. While this people are suffering and cannot learn at school, others can live in peace and continue their learning education.

In line 46 until 54, the people are hoping for peace. They hope that they can live in peace together not caring if its Palestine or Jewish. They have seen and experience the dark times so they were hoping for peace to come. 'Are people the only holy land?' may indicate that people are the ones who thinks that that they are right and these kinds of suffering happens because of people itself.

woman in poetry

 Elizabeth Barret Browning was a poet during Victorian era. Her very first poem was written when she was 6 or 8 years old. She later wrote 'The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point' and 'A Curse for a Nation' to expressed her feelings of opposition towards slavery. She described the cruelty of the slavers in the poems. These poems were said to be the cause that led the rift between her and her father. In 1842, she wrote 'The Cry of the Children' to condemn about child labour. She also raised support for Lord Shaftesbury's Then Hours Bill to help bring about the child labour reforms.

In 1845, she started courtship with Robert Browning, a poet, who later married her. The courtship between these two poets gave great influence to them. Both of them greatly influenced each other in their works. She wrote 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' after she met Browning. in this poem, she used rhyme schemes that is usually used in Portuguese sonnets. A verse novel entitled 'Aurora Leigh' was also produced after she met Browning which tells story about a female writer who tries to balance her work and love life. The writings of this novel was based on her personal experience.

There are many of her works that carries a religious theme. In her poem, she explored about the religious aspects. Thus, in her poem, she used religious imagery and allusion to apocalypse.