Poetry
Christensen Chapter #5

I love poetry, actually lately my life has been revolving around poetry. The Christensen chapter is about poetry, my classes in my internship are learning about poetry, and also my group teach lesson is on poetry. I have to admit, I wasn't a big fan of poetry when I was younger, possibly not until college. I think the lvoe for poetry hit me when i was reading a bunch of little sonnets by William Shakespear. I remember exactly where I was and who I was with when I read this one sonnet and I was just in shock, because finally there was a poem that held my interest and I understood it.
I was in my 6th grade advanced english classroom today actually and the students were suppose to bring in any poem that they really enjoyed. My mentor teacher's focus for the lesson is to have every student find a style of poetry that they like or appreciate. It was amazing to see what these students came up with. There is this one boy who chose a poem that was called "My First Love." He immediatly got red in the face when the teacher grabbed his favorite poem and read it aloud to the class. It seemed like a very erotic poem, talking about the circular motion of his fingertips upon the outline of the naked body, stuff. Well, immediatly the kid was embarrassed, but as i listened and as the rest of the class burst into giggles and laughs, the meaning of the poem was revealed. It wasn't an erotic poem at all, it was a poem about basketball. It was truly amazing to find out that this one student had chosen the peom and had seen it as more than just the words on the page, but looked for the deeper meaning within the words. What a great experience!
In this chapter the one poem that stuck out to me was margo Gay's poem about the Vietnam veteran. The vietnam War was the main reason I chose history as my major in school. The interpretation of the war itself made me fall in love with history and politics. It also helped because my father is a Vietnam veteran as well. reading her poem related to my feelings about my father. I am scared to find out what he had to do and I have grown acustom to his silence. He is a great man and I couldn't ask for a better father and best friend, but he doesn't say much, and I know because he is damaged in a way because of the war... and that could be part of that exterior that Margo speaks about. I loved this poem, but I didn't like the end when she said she couldn't let a murderer slide. That line angered to an extent I want to tear the page out. Many men were drafted because they didn't have the money to go to school, and these men were forced into the military at the same time they were forced to leave the states and go to a jungle and kill men and women before they kill you. How could you ever judge someone for trying to stay alive, and how the hell can you call them a murderer. That is almost the most insulting thing a person could ever say to a veteran of a war.