Langston Hughes Video!!

Wow. I do not know much about Langston Hughes, other than that he is a writer. This video was actually extremely soothing! When the piano played in the background, I actually found myself swaying along with the video.  "...and put my troubles on the shelf..." is my favorite line from this video.  The tone of the speaker's voice while the music played in the background was very monotone. There were only a few times that he actually changed his octave.  Hearing the piano play like that reminds me of when I was a little girl at my Grandparents house. My Grandpa was big into blues and jazz!  He loved Louie Armstrong and would play it all the time throughout the house!  I liked how the video was all black and white, since the date was in the early 1920's, it made sense to keep it that way!  "I got the Weary Blues!!"  When people back then said they had the blues, was it just to fulfill that kind of music? Or were people really blue, so to speak?  I enjoyed it though :) Very creative and very full of life for Blues!!

Whitman---Song of Myself (Americanized)

So Whitman to me is a little all about himself sometimes in his writing.  I enjoyed Song of Myself, but not as much as his other poems. "O Captain, My Captain" was definitely one of my favorites!! In my Modern American Literature class, we read alot of Whitman and compared him to Emerson.  I really didn't like Whitman as much as Emerson.  The video was sort of a comparison to the poem.  I felt like I was right there in the video with the man they followed, but I just wasn't impressed with this poem. I am still getting used to this blogging thing so I hope it works out!!!

The Raven by Christopher Walken!!!

This was a GREAT Simpsons episode!!! HAHA I used to watch them all the time as a kid!!! Christopher Walken's version was definitely more creepy and morbid feeling than James Earl Jones' version but both equally helped me understand the poem.  When i first read this poem, I didn't really understand the meaning of the raven and his "nevermore".  It got repetitive after awhile and I was kind of bored. When I actually HEARD it being read by Walken, I was thinking, this is pretty cool!! The pauses and the dashes almost reminded me of Emily Dickinson's poetry, how Walken would pause and you would read on, thinking that he would start again, but his pauses were longer than anticipated. I listened to the video and followed along with the poem, checking out who paused more, who emphasized more, and it was excellent!!!!

Emily Dickinson Freaky Video!!!

Ok, I definitely thought that video was creepy! haha It's like something that my friends and would do back in high school, but not with a picture of Emily Dickinson. Maybe a rocker from way back when, and have a pretty funny accent like the girls did with Emily. Kind of like some monster was going to jump out from behind the picture with a gruesome face and scare me!!! I did find it interesting to know that her mother was sick for a long time and that during 1951-1954 she had over 30 PEOPLE; close friends and relatives all pass away!! That can definitely be terms for her morbid writing!!!!  It also may be a factor as to why she was such an anti-social woman for a large part of her life.