How Does the Title Relate to the Poem, and How Does it Create Meaning?

In the poem, " This is Just to Say," the title of the poem affects how you interpret the poem quite a bit. The speaker of the poem is saying they had eaten someone's plums and they were sorry. However, you get the impression they aren't really sorry because the poem title is, "This is Just to Say." To me, that doesn't seem like the speaker is truly sorry and seems a lot like the speaker just feels they need to say something about eating the person's plums. Now, if the name of the poem was something more along the lines of, "I Truly am Sorry," I might have been able to imagine the speaker was actually sorry. This is also a poem where over analyzing it is really not needed. Some poems don't have some deeper meaning you need to look for. This poem is just stating what happened.

How Does Enjambment Change a Poem?

"We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks.
This poem is about someone who is too cool for school and does crazy things after leaving before they die. There is enjambment used consistently through the entire poem. The enjambment doesn't only make the poem look appealing because it is so different, it also changes the speed you read the poem. When I read the poem the pace I was reading slowly sped up. For me, the enjambment changed the meaning of the poem because I was reading it as after you leave school to begin your life things speed up really quickly and then you die at the end of it all. I think the author of this poem used enjambment for two reasons. Number 1 being it makes the poem really stand out because it is not very common to see enjambment used as much as she did. Number 2 it makes you think harder about the poem. Since the poem is very short it could be easy to just read and forget about it, but because there was so much enjambment you start thinking why would she do that.

Into the Amazon: Life on the River

For class on Monday morning we went to the HMNS to see the, "Into the Amazon: Life on the River," exhibit. I really didn't know what to expect because I didn't previously know anything about the amazon or the tribes that live in it. After the tour I was super impressed by everything I had seen and really want to learn more. I thought it was super cool that we weren't looking at ancient history, we were learning about stuff that has happened in the past 100 years.
The shrunken heads that we saw in pictures and in the case are what stood out the most to me in the exhibit. The Shuar tribe is the group of people who shrunk the heads of their enemies or invaders. The Shuar tribe is a feared tribe because they are very hostile. The heads that were shrunken were almost always men because men are the one who went hunting and would protect the tribe. The women would stay home to gather food, keep the fire going, and watch the children. The shrunken heads are made of the head of their enemy or an animal, such as a monkey, if the enemy's head was not obtained. The animal heads were used to teach children the process of shrinking a head, and to show tourist. The tribes would show the tourist monkey heads and tell them it was a human head.

How:

• Decapitate the human or animal.
• Take out skull and brain.
• Threw the brain and skull into the river as an offering to the anaconda.
• Sew close the mouth and eyes to keep away the vengeful spirit.
• Fill with large rocks to keep its shape.
• Soak in hot water. When the head is smaller than the rocks replace them with sand.

The men will then keep the head with them after shrinking it for good luck in battle. Having a shrunken head is also a sign of power. Even though having a shrunken head is impressive to have each person h=can only have two.

After our tour I asked our docent how they actually got a hold of these heads. She said that there is a man named Adam Mekler. Adam Mekler stumbled into a large quantity of artifacts from the Amazonian rainforest and people around the world began to know him as, "The Amazon Guy." He was approached by many people to give him things that they had got during travels and eventually his collection got really big. He then went to the museum and told them all about what he had and the museum decided to make an exhibit. His supply is where a majority of the artifacts in the displays came from. He has also written a book about the things he has collected.

These are a couple photos I took at the exhibit.

The Difference Between the Speaker and the Poet

What is the difference between the speaker of the poem and the poet, and why is it important to understand this distinction?

When a poet it writing a poem they are not necessarily writing from their point of view. The speaker of the poem is the person or thing in the poem speaking about their life while trying to get a message across. The poet is the one creating the character in the poem. It is possible for the poet to be writing about themselves, and that is the first thing our minds go to when reading poetry. Oh, this person wrote it, it must be about them. However, if you are able to distinguish between the two then you are able to understand the poem in a more creative way instead of thinking of it so literally. Being able to distinguish the person or thing being described in the poem can help you understand it better.