Monday, February 15, 2010

Journal 5A
Robert Overholt



Any poetry written by William Carlos Williams is okay by me.


Normally, I am not a fan of poetry. I think it is overdramatic, oversymbolic logodaedaly. However, William Carlos Williams' work seems to be the exact opposite. He writes about simple, light topics and gets right to the point. His most famous poem is about a red wheelbarrow. How cool is that?


In class this week we had to write several poetry pieces. Poetry is not my niche at all. One of my poems that was intended to be in the style of William Carlos Williams reads as follows:



Good One


This turkey sandwich is no good


I asked for peanut butter


and banana


thanks, mom for trying



When I wrote it I thought to myself, what? The poem makes no sense and is entirely random. Yet, when you dig deeper you find the true brilliance of the poem. As William Carlos Williams' poem was shaped as a wheel barrow, my poem is shaped as a sandwich. BOOM!


In reality my poem is no masterpiece. Yet, it does mimic the structure and content of a WCW poem. Williams tended to write about simple topics that ordinary American families could relate to. I tried to write in a similar style and keep the mood light and dryly humorous.



The piece by E.E. Cummings titled Feelings Are First was incredibly sappy. The message was inspiring and the format was interesting. The syntax was creative and the diction was clever. I guess I did like the poem. I think I just hated the discussion afterwards. All of the girls were moaning their signature melodramatic "awwwwww" and the boys all shared a look of, "you have got to be kidding me."



Peter Singer is delusional, wannabe Oprah who claims that the world is being killed because we Americans enjoy driving sexy cars. In his essay, The Singer Solution to World Poverty, Singer asserts that Americans kill children by failing to donate $200 to charity. He then takes a sharp turn even further left (if possible) when he states that we only really need a couple thousand dollars a year to survive, and so we should donate the rest to impoverished countries. This guy has some nerve. Yes we need to give to charity. Yes we need to stop spending so much money on luxury items. Yes there are people in this country that care more about their cars then starving children. I agree with Singer's statements that Americans need to give more. I have a problem with him condescendingly telling me to stop reading the essay to call a charity and donate my$200. Who do you think you are Peter Singer? People read this essay and think to themselves, "just because you are being a jerk about it Peter Singer, I am going to purposely spend this extra money I won in Vegas on golf clubs. How do you like that,Peter Singer?" I completely agree with the fact that people need to donate more money to worthy charities. I disagree with the fact that I should give away all savings to developing nations.

The Singer solution to world poverty-- make everyone poor so we don't notice anymore.

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