Patricia+Parker

Poetry helps speak with words when a artisit cant paint a picture. Its the powerful lyrics to a song when the beat is bland. - //patricia parker// When I wrote these poems it was to express things I don't usually touch bases on. For instance an //Ode to words// was to show how powerful words are good or bad. //Belittle me minor// was to show who was really better, and who knew more in small dialect, //Her Petals hide above the clouds// was a poem about a girl portrayed as a flower who struggled but through a hard life she survived and succeeded; she grew from nothing. //My Praise poem// was about my friend Robbert Tokar and how we met. The challenge for me was not using the familiar adjectives and verbs and playing with the format for each one. Although, we should be done editing our poems I think I have a lot more editing and work to do. This Benchmark was creative, fun, and challenging. "Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe." - Adrienne Rich

**ODE: To Words**
This is for making my life better and then after making it worse This is for healing me and then assisting me in my hurt This is for helping me to be private, but the other languages are hard to understand This is for hiding when I needed you, this is for coming out cause you can This is for being my weapon and this is for stabbing the wrong people This is for helping the human’s give me rights but rules that are unequal This is for the compliments you make; however the tease is worst This is for making the world a competition but deciding the last and first This for constructive criticism but not creating a disgusting curse This is for helping make my name, but tagging my people at birth This is a thanks for exposing the naked me and sometimes being my cloth This is for helping me explain something, although the audience still looks lost This is for making acceptance letters, and surprising rejection calls This is for helping build strong towers and tear down the eardrums walls This is for completing the puzzle but not letting me prove why 1 and 1 equals 2 This is for breaking something in pieces but somehow to pulling me through The title said this is ode to words it is a lie and cannot be true; this should be an ode to letters for they help create you.


 * Praise Poem**

we stare blankly in these heated school chairs, lingering smells of coral colored lip balm, on the lips of a peculiar Russian boy, alot of assumptions, plenty of judgements, there is black and white, there are people there are no words
 * the meeting**

we smile in these warm school chairs, smells of us baking on our homework my answers in the hands of a familiar classmate little assumptions, little judgements, there is gray there, is male and female there is a paragraph or two
 * the finding**

we laugh in these cool school chairs teasing smells of my stolen french fry is in the mouth of my comforting associate, no assumptions, no judgements, there is no color, there are two friends this is their story
 * the friendship**

//Belittle me Minor By: Patricia Parker
 * SONNET

1.excuse me miss are you talking to me? [a] 2.young man do you see, a difference? [b] 3.isnt she me, and we are he? [a] 4.is it the tag that creates the inference? [b] 5.cotton red shirt with a little button [c] 6.excuse me miss are we not the same? [d] 7.different color it turns into nothing [c]// 8. perceived as cheap by the brand and name [d] 9. young man what makes you better than he? [e] 10. the total cost or every dime in between?[e] 12. if i am correct these items are alike[f] 11. is this a fact or just what is seems? [e] 13. miss and young man you have proven me right [f] 14. look past the clothes were all the same despite [f]**

ANALYZATIONS
 * Mother to Son By: Langston Hughes

 Main Idea: to show her son how life can be rough but he has to do it; by showing him examples Key Notes: Dialect Shows where the mother might come from, uneducated hints stanza 1-[Problem] ** Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. [Life has been hard ] - metaphor comparing life to stairs It's had tacks in it, [things to watch out] - starts to describe the hard life And splinters, [ things to avoid] And boards torn up, [things have been messed up- showing wealth status/is poor] And places with no carpet on the floor -- [ hurting in the process] Bare. -- bland statement //**stanza 2-[Solution] **// [lines 1-6 show hows she has been getting by, and moving on] But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, [ coming up to where she can rest] And turnin' corners, [ turning and getting off her right path] And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. **stanza 3-[Direction]** So boy, don't you turn back. [ compassionate; understanding tone] Don't you set down on the steps[ telling him she understands and cares] 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now --[warning] <span style="color: rgb(210, 0, 255);">**stanza 4-[Encouragement]** For I'se still goin', honey, <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 181);">[ she is doing it, so can he] I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Madam and Her Madam By: Langston Hughes

I worked for a woman, She wasn't mean-- But she had a twelve-room House to clean.

Had to get breakfast, Dinner, and supper, too-- Then take care of her children When I got through.

Wash, iron, and scrub, Walk the dog around-- It was too much, Nearly broke me down.

I said, Madam, Can it be You trying to make a Pack-horse out of me?

She opened her mouth. She cried, Oh, no! You know, Alberta, I love you so!

I said, Madam, That may be true-- But I'll be dogged If I love you! = =

As I grew older By: Langston Hughes It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun-- My dream. And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose until it touched the sky-- The wall. Shadow. I am black. I lie down in the shadow. No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me. Only the thick wall. Only the shadow. My hands! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams

Of sun!

Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He was the first black writer who made a good living out of writing in America. He was also homosexual which was hidden in his daily life and in parts of his poetry. Most of his poems were about racism things he experienced personally. I believe his way of writing always show roots of what he is talking about. I enjoy his poetry because I can always relate to it, and understand. The poems I selected were about the life he lived and what he was told.


 * RIFF**

Riffed The Rose that Grew from Concrete by: Tupac Shakur

Her petals hide above the clouds: By Patricia Parker

Show her dark Show her wrong the thorns grow, Let her dry Let her rot sharp edges crumple , See her bend See her break embedded in dirt, //Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?//