Phenomenal Woman

Many girl suffer with body image. They are put down and put themselves down because of their body size. It doesn't matter what's on the outside, it's what is on the inside that counts. African-American poet Maya Angelou oftens uplifts women through her words. She wrote a poem titled, "Phenomenal Woman," to celebrate woman.

“Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.”

Maya Angelou is a wonderful woman. Everything she says is to improve life around her. The emotion used behind this peom is to show women she neither is the skin model type, but she still is that "phenomenal woman." Her image is what made her the person she is; so if she can live with it, than any other woman can because they all are beautiful!

Sources: GoodReads. Maya Angelou Quotes. Web. 24 May 2012. <http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3503.Maya_Angelou>.

Y.O.L.O

Life is way too short to not live it. There are people in the world who wait to the end of thier lives and realize they have a list of goals they have never experienced or achieved. Today people use a short quick saying to break a goal hold tide.

You Only Live Once

This sayig has been giving life and most of the time used out of context. You can be in a random place, like the train station, and oone person can yell, "Y.O.L.O!" and you get the sense of freedom and inspiration. A simple four letter word holds so much positive emotion.

New Beginnings

A zion is a pure, holy place to bring peace in one's life. Singer Lauryn Hill named her first born child Zion and wrote a song dedicated to him:

To Zion

Unsure of what the balance held
I touched my belly overwhelmed
By what I had been chosen to perform
But then an angel came one day
Told me to kneel down and pray
For unto me a man child would be born
Woe this crazy circumstance
I knew his life deserved a chance
But everybody told me to be smart
Look at your career they said,
"Lauryn, baby use your head"
But instead I chose to use my heart

Now the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion

How beautiful if nothing more
Than to wait at Zion's door
I've never been in love like this before
Now let me pray to keep you from
The perils that will surely come
See life for you my prince has just begun
And I thank you for choosing me
To come through unto life to be
A beautiful reflection of his grace
For I know that a gift so great
Is only one God could create
And I'm reminded every time I see your face

That the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion

Marching, marching, marching to Zion
Marching, marching
Marching, marching, marching to Zion
Beautiful, beautiful Zion

Lauryn Hill's son has brought happiness and joy to her life. The name she gave her child is very appropriate as to how she felt. Lauryn Hill is giving her son and she couldn't feel any better, "naw the joy of my world is in Zion."

Resources: "Lauryn Hill Lyrics "To Zion'." AZLyrics.com. Web. 24 May 2012.

Chocolates?

Life is very mysterious, as we all know. We never know exactly how everything will playout. My favorite quote that has struck with me since I was younger was stated in the all time favorite movie, "Forrest Gump."

"My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Forrest Gump's mother's simile, couldn't more correct. In life you can never tell what happens next and the best way to compare life is with a box of chocolates. Yum!

Resources: Zemeckis, Robert. "Forrest Gump." Movie. 24 May 2012.

Living the Hard Knock!

"Annie" is a classic movie everyone knows and loves. Jay Z is a well-known rap artist and loves to splurge his creativity through his music. Jay Z uses the chorus "it's the hard knock life" from the movie "Annie" as the chorus of his popular rap song, "Hard Knock Life":

"It's the hard knock life for us

It's the hard knock life, for us!!

Steada treated, we get tricked

Steada kisses, we get kicked

It's the hard knock life!!" 

Many people who struggle daily know their lives to be "hard knock," and Jay Z's song reflects the "hard knock" of his hometown. The pathos used within the yrics allows Jay Z's audience to connect to the lyrics. The more they connect, the more albums sold!

Resources: "Jay -Z Hard Knock Life Lyrics." Lyrics Mode. Web. 24 May 2012.

Listen!

Beyonce is constantly writing songs that relate to life scenarios or the its she has acted in. Her single, "Listen," is both a life scenario and related to the movie "Dream Girls" which she played a main role in. Women are most likely shadowed by others, but it's time for them to shine.

"I don't know where I belong
But I'll be moving on
If you don't, if you won't

Listen to the song here in my heart
A melody I start but I will complete

Oh, now I'm done believing you
You don't know what I'm feeling
I'm more than what you made of me
I followed the voice you think you gave to me
But now I've gotta find my own, my own"

The role Beyonce played in the movue was a famous singer, "Dream Girl," over shadowed by her husband/ manager. This song is sung as if she was the character telling her husband to listen to her wanting to follow her heart or as in the lyrics, "the song here in my heart."

Resources: "Listen Lyrics." elyrics. net. Web. 24 May 2012.

Independence!

In 1814 the famous Francis Scott Key wrote a forever lasting patriotic tune. At every sports game and graduation, in the USA, people rise to their feet in respect for those people who gave their lives to save our country. It is un-American to not know "The Star Spangled Banner."

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Key uses a lot of description in this sony. He describes the war and the soldiers looking over the "ramparts." The "rocket's red glare" and "bomb bursting" are fireworks, celebrating our American victory for independence. God Bless America!

Resources: Key, Francis Scott. "The Star Spangled Banner." Usa- Flag Site. Web. 24 May 2012.

The Change of America

Mrs. Phillis Wheatley is the first published African-American poet, as well as the first women to help create the African-American literature. Mrs. Wheatley had came a long way. From slavery to freedom she wrote life changing poetry. Phillis Wheatley put her journey into a short poem titled, "On Being Brought from Africa to America":

"Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Savior too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eyes,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train."

The words Phillis Wheatley used are aged formal English. She uses words like "colour" and "refin'd" give away these clues. The message being said towards the end of this poem refers to white Christians, or those with the "diabolic" skin, and African-Americans "black as Cain," will one day all join together as one.

Resources: Wheatley, Phillis. "On Being Brought from Africa to America." Poetry Foundation. Web. 24 May 2012.

Ring Around the Rosie

Growing up, hand games had always kept me occupied. It wasn't until my third year of high school that I understood the meaning of them all. The jingle "Ring Around the Rosie" was a popular game that ever child played and continues today. The story behind the song is something I will always remember whenever I hear these words:

Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies.
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down!

The actual story behind this song is a disease called the Black Plague, which occurred in England during the late 1340's. Each line of the song holds its own meaning. "Ring around the rosie," refers to a symptom of the disease, looking like a red circular rash. People, then, believed that a flower could protect them from the plague, "A pocket full of posies." "Ashes! Ashes!" is an imitation of sneezing; and lastly, "we all fall down," is the country's loss and down fall after the Black Plague.

Resources: Mikkelson, Barbara and David. "Ring Around the Rosie." Snopes.com. Urban Legends Reference Pages. Web. 24 May 2012.

Where I'm From

It was my second year of middle school, when my English teacher Mrs. Jackson introduced the poem "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon to me. After reading this poem, our class assignment was to create my own. Every since then this peom has helped me realize where I'm from and how my circumstances made me who I am.

Where I'm From

"I am from clothespins,

from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.

I am from the dirt under the back porch.

(Black, glistening,

it tasted like beets.)

I am from the forsythia bush

the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
I'm from fudge and eyeglasses,
          from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls
          and the pass-it-ons,
from Perk up! and Pipe down!
I'm from He restoreth my soul
          with a cottonball lamb
          and ten verses I can say myself.
I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
          to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces

to drift beneath my dreams.

I am from those moments--

snapped before I budded --
leaf-fall from the family tree."

Lyon's uses an informal and relax level of formality. When Lyon lists where he is from, "Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride," his gives a comfort feel to his words. Lyon repeats the phrases "I'm from..." and " I am from..." to continue the importance of the point he was trying to get across.

Resources: We Love Children's Books. George Ella Lyon. Where I'm From. Web. 24 May 2012.

Diary of a Black Girl

The rap artist Wale is one of my favorite rappers. Rap, as we all know, is poetry but the way Wale spits his lyrics gives a perfect poetic ryhm. That is the main reason why Wale is one of my favorites, beside the meaningful messages behind each song he creates. One of my all time favorites by him is his song titled, "Diary."

"See all I wanna do is be relevant,
Just tell me that I ever meant anything more,
That you could ever see me and you in another light,
But its like the dark women indoors in the darkest nights by the wrong man,
see all of them have made you incapable of a first impression,
what it do is I channel my aggression with no cable or antenna,
Just intentions to impress you if capable,
Hoping that the material possessions can materialize to a better you,

Cars, nothing I drive can drive you out of this frame of mind,
For such an ugly picture and,
Money, nothing I buy can buy more time for your ears to tell your heart to listen to it,
Diamonds, a girl's best friend is what they say but believe me with the right allegiance shorty you gonna shine anyways,
and everyday that goes by is a couple more lines in her diary,
the day before is better than the present,
so anyone presented in her presence endures these life sentences,
there's no key for release,
no reason to be around,
her minds in the clouds,
she writes it all down,
in her diary."

The story behind the song is a guy trying to get the attention of a female, but she completely ignores him. He tells the "diary of a black girl" by pointing out all the events that has happened in her past causing her to put up a wall towards any guy approaching her in the future. Wale uses denotation when he list the material things in a woman's life such as "cars" and "diamonds."

Misunderstood

MARILYN MONROE! An American beauty... almost every girl's inspiration. She stood for a real woman's flaws and beauty. In her time she was in every headline, given an unwanted image. Marilyn Monroe was often misunderstood.

“I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.”

-- Marilyn Monroe

When you bite your tongue, people take it into their hands to create you as they want to proceed you. This is somewhat what happened to Mrs. Monroe. Her choosing the word "fooled" stood out to me; mostly because many people like to believe Mrs. Monroe acted around the clock, but according to this quote, she was just being herself. She allowed her audience to manipulate themselves and create her star braking image. 

Resources:

GoodReads. Marilyn Monroe Quotes. Web. 21 May. 2012. <http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/82952.Marilyn_Monroe>.