A Question

“A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.”
- Robert Frost (A Question)

The poem “A Question” by Robert Frost follows a theme common in many of his poems: the simple pleasures and meaning of life.  In it, a voice addresses mankind and asks about life and suffering.  Robert Frost is a famous writer, possibly the greatest American poet of all time.  His style was and is marked by an incredibly mastery of realism and description of rural life.  Unlike some artistic geniuses such as Van Gogh, Frost was greatly appreciated and revered during his time.  And, unlike many artists today, Frost held his more ardent fans in contempt because he felt he should be respected for his work, not worshiped   The purpose of “A Question” was to raise the point whether or not life is worth the suffering we endure.  It was written in 1942, two years after his son Carol Frost committed suicide.  This was most likely a time when Frost underwent a lot of suffering and questioned why bad things like that happened to good people.  The intended audiences were people who question whether or not life is worth it (like Carol Frost) or has any meaning and the people who regularly followed Frost and awaited his new works.  One rhetorical device used by Frost in this poem was punctuation or, more specifically, the lack of it.  Though the simple verse is clearly a question, there is no question mark at the end.  The effect I received from this choice of non-punctuation was that question was rhetorical.  The asker already knew his answer: no “all the soul-and-body scars were not too much to pay for birth.”  I felt this helped him achieve his purpose because, since the idea was to find out whether life was worthwhile, he found and gave an answer.  Another device Frost utilized was ethos via implied metaphor.  He wrote “A voice said, Look me in the stars.”  The implied metaphor here was that the stars were the eyes of this being.  This aided Frost’s purpose because the look me in the stars line coupled with the phrase “And tell me truly, men of earth” made it clear that whoever or whatever was speaking was greater than man, greater than earth, and was capable of deciding objectively that all the suffering mankind dealt with every day was worth it.

I will Fight you for the Library

Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qXgPfMGG8E

The poem “I will Fight you for the Library” by Taylor Mali is a series of four letters one of his former teachers sent when his library time was taken by the dean of instruction, Professor Blackstone, for a meeting on appropriate use of school facilities.  The four letters Mali read as part of this slam poem were the responses to letters sent by the administration in answer to the first message.  Mali is known for his style and flair in slam poetry, a text most often used in competition known as poetry slams.  It expresses a person’s story and/or struggles, usually in an intensely emotional style.  The poem was written for (and technically by) his fifth and sixth grade English teacher, Dr. Joseph D’Angelo.  The purpose of Mali’s poem was to stress that nothing and no one comes before the student, even the teachers and especially the administration.    Mali often varied his tone by raising his volume on phrases like “That Dr. Blackstone, the dean of instruction, would even consider cancelling one class’s library period in order to hold a meeting called facilities utilization IS SO OBTUSE I AM INCAPABLE OF APPRECIATING THE IRONY IN IT.”  It is in this example and others like it that Mali takes full advantage of reading this poem aloud.  While writing to an authority figure a person does not typically use capslock or make any alterations to the text that would imply disrespect.  However, out loud, he could and did show all the emotions felt by the teacher in the poem.  Another rhetorical device Mali utilized was slang.  In his second letter he addressed it “Dear Dick.”  The excuse of course would be that Dick is a nickname for Richard.  However, in reality Mali was using a slang word for jerk which is dick.  This was effective because it showed that Mali was willing to put his job on the line for his students because their education was more important than his job.  This was shown again through the use of the words “If any one of my classes are denied use of the library next week then please alert Dr. Joyce Santiago, the district superintendent, to be ready to accept my resignation.”  In this letter the teacher used logos because he knew that something his superiors could understand--since the importance of research time was apparently beyond their comprehension--was the trouble of hiring a new teacher.  He appealed to their logic and pathos (e.g fear) via an ultimatum to get what he wanted, which was library time when his students needed it.

I Hate e-readers

Link:  http://thecompleteworksofwilliamshakespeare.wordpress.com/tag/i-hate-e-readers/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog

The blog post “I Hate e-readers” is a satirical comparison of e-readers to “real” books. The piece uses heavy sarcasm, profanity, and some other offensive language.  The author does not include their name in their “About” but I will refer to him from this point on as Will because of the name of his blog (The Completely Works of William Shakespeare).  He appears to be very cynical and, based on the other posts he’s made, is not shy about approaching controversial topics such as terrorism in the Middle East and racist jokes.  I assume he is male because of the comment he has posted at the top of the post (I won’t repeat it).  I consider him qualified to write on this topic because it is merely about personal preference and you would be hard-pressed to find someone not qualified to have an opinion. The purpose is to discuss why the e-reader—specifically the Kindle—is inferior to the written word.  Will wrote this piece in the context of a society being revolutionized by e-readers.  As people continue to buy newer and newer Kindles and Nooks he feels that is important to remind people that books are infinitely superior.  His intended audience was people who both like and hate the e-readers.  I think it appealed more to those who don’t like the e-reader because it denounces them.  It could also, however, be interpreted as a text meant for people who do like the e-reader in an attempt to sway them towards having a new opinion.  The two tools used the most in this text are humor and ethos.  As a sub-category, diction helps to establish humor and pathos (this case he appealed to humor).  Several times throughout this post he utilizes humor with language like “the day my world shatters because I can’t consult my National Geographic Illustrated Atlas Of Space on the cross-town bus, I’ve officially got bigger problems” and “The Kindle boasts a screen that ‘reads like real paper without glare, even in bright sunlight’. Y’know what else reads like real paper? Paper.”   Humor did help him achieve his purpose because it takes the edge off of what sometimes errs to very aggressive language.  An example of where he used ethos was by listing the value of books and the Kindle and defending both sides.  This aided Will because, instead of making up petty reasons for while the Kindle is bad, he effectively took the arguments the opposing side would have and refuted them.  Another example of ethos is the title of his blog “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.”  Unless Will was being pretentious, this establishes him as someone who not only likes to read but someone who reads text of considerable value.