The Little Black Boy
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martes, 30 de junio de 2009
viernes, 26 de junio de 2009
Poems
By the Babe Unborn
If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,
If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.
In dark I lie; dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.
Let storm clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.
I think that if they gave me leave
Within the world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.
They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.
If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,
If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.
In dark I lie; dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.
Let storm clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.
I think that if they gave me leave
Within the world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.
They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.
GK Chesterton
Quotations
by G.K. Chesterton:
The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.
Interestig, don´t you think?
The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.
Interestig, don´t you think?
From my Luis Miguel pin to my grandmother
It was a rounded piece of metal, small and colourful. Only a name and a face, a treasured accesory fo my clothes and a treasured object to me, tough a funny thing to the rest of the people. For them, it was an object which use was simply to make fun of me every time they could. Except for school and birthdays parties, I wore it constantly. It had a very sharp end and I had bleeding fingers every time I put it on my T-shirt but I could not see well under my chin. As the pin brought a safety pin beneath it I knew I would never lose it and that it would be fastened to me for ever. Every time I had to fasten something, I used my Luis Miguel pin. Just as my grandma fixed everything with a safety pin. She was a tailor, and still is in her mind. Her fingers gently touched us when she was trying out clothes on us, and every outfit was finished when she put the safety pin on. It was her seal, her personal mark. She loved making clothes for us, she would tell us we were her models to dress and we let her dream, of course we did! We played with her needles and pins, but not with the safety pins. Those were hers and hers only to play, dream and love. Now, my grandma has Alzheimer desease and lives in a home, and her bones are growing smaller and twisted. She does not see her grand-daughter in me, but if I show her a safety pin, she wants to put it on me and pretend that she is a tailor dressing a model.
lunes, 15 de junio de 2009
XV & XVIII Century poems
EL GALÁN Y LA DAMA
Cierto galán a quien París aclama,
petimetre del gusto más extraño,
que cuarenta vestidos muda al año
y el oro y plata sin temor derrama,
celebrando los días de su dama,
unas hebillas estrenó de estaño,
sólo para probar con este engaño
lo seguro que estaba de su fama.
«¡Bella plata! ¡Qué brillo tan hermoso!»,
dijo la dama, «¡viva el gusto y numen
del petimetre en todo primoroso!»
Y ahora digo yo: «Llene un volumen
de disparates un autor famoso,
y si no le alabaren, que me emplumen».
Cuando un autor ha llegado a ser famoso, todo se le aplaude.
Tomas de Iriarte
This is a very different poem from all those ones about romance that we usually find. And that is why I like it. The theme of the poem is a universal truth, many times neglected, many times rejected. It is an endless truth, and it is applicable in our daily life. I hope it leaves a spark in you, so that our eyes are open to people like these, and we are not fooled by them.
ROMANCE
Yo me estava reposando, durmiendo como solía. Recordé, triste, llorando con gran pena que sentía. Levantéme muy sin tiento de la cama en que dormía, cercado de pensamiento, que valer no me podía. Mi passión era tan fuerte que de mí yo no sabía. Conmigo estava la Muerte por tenerme compañía. Lo que más me fatigava no era porque muría, mas era porque dexava de servir a quien servía. Servía yo una señora que más que a mí la quería, y ella fue la causadora de mi mal sin mejoría. La media noche passada, ya que era cerca el día, salíme de mi posada por ver si descansaría. Fui para donde morava aquella que más quería, por quien yo triste penava, mas ella no parecía. Andando todo turbado con las ansias que tenía, vi venir a mi Cuidado dando bozes, y dezía: «Si dormís, linda señora, recordad por cortesía, pues que fuestes causadora de la desventura mía. Remediad mi gran tristura, satisfazed mi porfía, porque si falta ventura del todo me perdería.» Y con mis ojos llorosos, un triste llanto hazía con sospiros congoxosos, y nadie lo parecía. En estas cuitas estando, como vi que esclarecía, a mi casa sospirando me bolví sin alegría.
Juan del Encina
Now, as regards this poem, I couldn´t help it. It is the ballad of the love that is not love, that forbidden love that we never have, tough we always hope for.
Cierto galán a quien París aclama,
petimetre del gusto más extraño,
que cuarenta vestidos muda al año
y el oro y plata sin temor derrama,
celebrando los días de su dama,
unas hebillas estrenó de estaño,
sólo para probar con este engaño
lo seguro que estaba de su fama.
«¡Bella plata! ¡Qué brillo tan hermoso!»,
dijo la dama, «¡viva el gusto y numen
del petimetre en todo primoroso!»
Y ahora digo yo: «Llene un volumen
de disparates un autor famoso,
y si no le alabaren, que me emplumen».
Cuando un autor ha llegado a ser famoso, todo se le aplaude.
Tomas de Iriarte
This is a very different poem from all those ones about romance that we usually find. And that is why I like it. The theme of the poem is a universal truth, many times neglected, many times rejected. It is an endless truth, and it is applicable in our daily life. I hope it leaves a spark in you, so that our eyes are open to people like these, and we are not fooled by them.
ROMANCE
Yo me estava reposando, durmiendo como solía. Recordé, triste, llorando con gran pena que sentía. Levantéme muy sin tiento de la cama en que dormía, cercado de pensamiento, que valer no me podía. Mi passión era tan fuerte que de mí yo no sabía. Conmigo estava la Muerte por tenerme compañía. Lo que más me fatigava no era porque muría, mas era porque dexava de servir a quien servía. Servía yo una señora que más que a mí la quería, y ella fue la causadora de mi mal sin mejoría. La media noche passada, ya que era cerca el día, salíme de mi posada por ver si descansaría. Fui para donde morava aquella que más quería, por quien yo triste penava, mas ella no parecía. Andando todo turbado con las ansias que tenía, vi venir a mi Cuidado dando bozes, y dezía: «Si dormís, linda señora, recordad por cortesía, pues que fuestes causadora de la desventura mía. Remediad mi gran tristura, satisfazed mi porfía, porque si falta ventura del todo me perdería.» Y con mis ojos llorosos, un triste llanto hazía con sospiros congoxosos, y nadie lo parecía. En estas cuitas estando, como vi que esclarecía, a mi casa sospirando me bolví sin alegría.
Juan del Encina
Now, as regards this poem, I couldn´t help it. It is the ballad of the love that is not love, that forbidden love that we never have, tough we always hope for.
domingo, 14 de junio de 2009
Paper My sister´s keeper - Expanded version
My sister´s keeper
Worldwide, crime rates are increasing drastically. Statistics from all over the world show that in the last few years, neither the security forces nor the judicial systems have been able to put this sin to an end. Prevention programs have been launched worldwide in order to combat and, ultimately, bring the statistics to smaller numbers. Unfortunately, the pace of the offences, felonies, murders, etc. is too fast and seems to be unstoppable. Furthermore, with criminal rates getting higher and higher, new and more controversial kinds of crime arise.
Normally, the victim of a crime is not the one to be blamed for the crime he is already the victim of. However, in the case of Davida, the main character in “My sister´s keeper”, her choices lead her to death due to two main reasons: her sexuality and her political ambitions.
Being a lesbian may be a challenge, but for some it may also be a burden. As a child, Davida loses her sister to a muscle tumour and her mother puts on her every expectation a mother has: she wants Davida to become somebody’s wife, a housewife, somebody’s mother, she wants grandchildren to take care of and she makes it clear all the time, putting an enormous pressure on Davida. On growing up, Davida sets her mind completely opposed to her mother demands: she is rebellious, a prominent politician and a lesbian. Therefore, Davida lets her mother down by choosing a sexual orientation that will never provide a marriage, a family or grandchildren. Furthermore, her mother is part of an elite social class that upholds traditional values. The most important one is heterosexual orientation to provide procreation, with the objective of keeping the family name as part of that elite. Due to this, her mother is disappointed at Davida, as the family will not remain belonging; and she is also ashamed in front of her friends, who she considers the hardest judges of moral values. Working as a representative, her sexuality becomes a weak point for the opposing political party to attack her. In addition, every bill she wants to pass involves female researchers, bringing along suspicion about the researchers´ objectivity regarding the investigations. Furthermore, she falls in love with Minette, who is an alcoholic. As Davida keeps male acquaintances from old times and keeps male friends for her days at school and college, Minette develops a disturbing jealousy which, together with her alcohol addiction, becomes a constant and threatening annoyance in Davida´s life. Not only does Minette drive her crazy with her phone calls at any time during the whole day and with a terrible high frequency, but also she becomes an unbalanced, unstable person showing up in Davida´s office at any time, careless of possible meetings or conferences, causing scandals in front of every one there and threatening Davida´s life: if she didn’t stop working so much, death would come for one of them.
Be careful what you wish for, preys a popular saying. Nothing could be further from the truth to Davida´s faith. As she leaves college, she finds her true vocation in the political arena. Working first as an assistant to the mayor; then, as an assistant to a member of the state assembly, it gives Davida the chance to trigger her political career and she proposes herself to be a representative of her constituency. She wins the elections and, due to this, she faces the responsibility to fulfil her voters´ needs and to see her political campaign promises accomplished. Her stem-cell bill is her most appreciated project, an asset to her political career. At the moment of her sister´s death, the only possible cure for the tumour is a donation of blood to use the stem cells and heal the sick cells. But the scientific community is not interested at that time and has no fundings to do research in the matter. When Davida wins her chair at the assembly of her state, she decides to propose a bill for stem cell research with federal fundings. Previously, everything that the government has done has been to create an institute, give it the name of State Stem Cell Institute, create the Board of Directors and issue a mission statement. Now, Davida wants them to take action, to put everything they have to work and she invests all her time and effort in seeing her dream come true: help people dying from muscle cancer using stem cells to recover and strengthen their own cells and fight the sick ones. But this is also, her sentence. Because of this, she receives anonymous letters threatening her, very much like the ones seen on movies: with letters cut out from papers and blood-wanting messages. She is egged outside a courthouse after defending her bill project with all her heart. She is the victim of aggressions led by pro-God’s work activists, who want to see her bill vetoed. Also, her sexuality interferes with her political ambitions, as neither the Congress nor the White House will ever accept a lesbian among their congressmen.
It is often said that people can not always get what they want. That has certainly been the case of Davida. In her search for happiness by fulfilling her ambitions, she finds struggle, confrontation and conflict. In her closest companions in life and in people she has not even met, there is resistance, there is oppression. In her search to redeem herself for the loss of her sister and the disappointment of her mother, there is disillusion, regret, sorrow. Her love for another woman is a constant struggle, has it has been said before. Her will to persevere in her political career turns her work into an endless war. In conclusion, everything she wants leads her to destruction, and in the end, to her own death.
Laguía, Ma. Eugenia
Bibliography
Kellerman, J & F, “Capital Crimes”, Ballantine Books.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2003 Edition.
Worldwide, crime rates are increasing drastically. Statistics from all over the world show that in the last few years, neither the security forces nor the judicial systems have been able to put this sin to an end. Prevention programs have been launched worldwide in order to combat and, ultimately, bring the statistics to smaller numbers. Unfortunately, the pace of the offences, felonies, murders, etc. is too fast and seems to be unstoppable. Furthermore, with criminal rates getting higher and higher, new and more controversial kinds of crime arise.
Normally, the victim of a crime is not the one to be blamed for the crime he is already the victim of. However, in the case of Davida, the main character in “My sister´s keeper”, her choices lead her to death due to two main reasons: her sexuality and her political ambitions.
Being a lesbian may be a challenge, but for some it may also be a burden. As a child, Davida loses her sister to a muscle tumour and her mother puts on her every expectation a mother has: she wants Davida to become somebody’s wife, a housewife, somebody’s mother, she wants grandchildren to take care of and she makes it clear all the time, putting an enormous pressure on Davida. On growing up, Davida sets her mind completely opposed to her mother demands: she is rebellious, a prominent politician and a lesbian. Therefore, Davida lets her mother down by choosing a sexual orientation that will never provide a marriage, a family or grandchildren. Furthermore, her mother is part of an elite social class that upholds traditional values. The most important one is heterosexual orientation to provide procreation, with the objective of keeping the family name as part of that elite. Due to this, her mother is disappointed at Davida, as the family will not remain belonging; and she is also ashamed in front of her friends, who she considers the hardest judges of moral values. Working as a representative, her sexuality becomes a weak point for the opposing political party to attack her. In addition, every bill she wants to pass involves female researchers, bringing along suspicion about the researchers´ objectivity regarding the investigations. Furthermore, she falls in love with Minette, who is an alcoholic. As Davida keeps male acquaintances from old times and keeps male friends for her days at school and college, Minette develops a disturbing jealousy which, together with her alcohol addiction, becomes a constant and threatening annoyance in Davida´s life. Not only does Minette drive her crazy with her phone calls at any time during the whole day and with a terrible high frequency, but also she becomes an unbalanced, unstable person showing up in Davida´s office at any time, careless of possible meetings or conferences, causing scandals in front of every one there and threatening Davida´s life: if she didn’t stop working so much, death would come for one of them.
Be careful what you wish for, preys a popular saying. Nothing could be further from the truth to Davida´s faith. As she leaves college, she finds her true vocation in the political arena. Working first as an assistant to the mayor; then, as an assistant to a member of the state assembly, it gives Davida the chance to trigger her political career and she proposes herself to be a representative of her constituency. She wins the elections and, due to this, she faces the responsibility to fulfil her voters´ needs and to see her political campaign promises accomplished. Her stem-cell bill is her most appreciated project, an asset to her political career. At the moment of her sister´s death, the only possible cure for the tumour is a donation of blood to use the stem cells and heal the sick cells. But the scientific community is not interested at that time and has no fundings to do research in the matter. When Davida wins her chair at the assembly of her state, she decides to propose a bill for stem cell research with federal fundings. Previously, everything that the government has done has been to create an institute, give it the name of State Stem Cell Institute, create the Board of Directors and issue a mission statement. Now, Davida wants them to take action, to put everything they have to work and she invests all her time and effort in seeing her dream come true: help people dying from muscle cancer using stem cells to recover and strengthen their own cells and fight the sick ones. But this is also, her sentence. Because of this, she receives anonymous letters threatening her, very much like the ones seen on movies: with letters cut out from papers and blood-wanting messages. She is egged outside a courthouse after defending her bill project with all her heart. She is the victim of aggressions led by pro-God’s work activists, who want to see her bill vetoed. Also, her sexuality interferes with her political ambitions, as neither the Congress nor the White House will ever accept a lesbian among their congressmen.
It is often said that people can not always get what they want. That has certainly been the case of Davida. In her search for happiness by fulfilling her ambitions, she finds struggle, confrontation and conflict. In her closest companions in life and in people she has not even met, there is resistance, there is oppression. In her search to redeem herself for the loss of her sister and the disappointment of her mother, there is disillusion, regret, sorrow. Her love for another woman is a constant struggle, has it has been said before. Her will to persevere in her political career turns her work into an endless war. In conclusion, everything she wants leads her to destruction, and in the end, to her own death.
Laguía, Ma. Eugenia
Bibliography
Kellerman, J & F, “Capital Crimes”, Ballantine Books.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2003 Edition.
My poems
Multi- Genre Self Portrait Anthology
List poem.
Ten things found in a grandma´s pocket.
- a dirty old hanky
- a rotten cookie
- a sharp pin
- a thousand-time-told bed time story
- a tiny little china toy
- a woollen cardigan
- a long knitting needle
- a hot cocoa
- a powerful hug
- a huge tender kiss.
Image Poem
Invitation
Colours in the ceiling,
Colours on the floor,
Colours dancing
On my open front door.
Red and green balloons,
Blue plates,
White glasses,
Red clown noses,
Bright photo flashes.
Colours in the ceiling,
Bright sparkles on my cake,
Colours everywhere
For my friends to play.
I am from…..
I am from the land of hope.
I am daughter of a treasured dream.
I believe in passion and motivation.
I dream of wishes and willingness.
I am from the land of hopes.
List poem.
Ten things found in a grandma´s pocket.
- a dirty old hanky
- a rotten cookie
- a sharp pin
- a thousand-time-told bed time story
- a tiny little china toy
- a woollen cardigan
- a long knitting needle
- a hot cocoa
- a powerful hug
- a huge tender kiss.
Image Poem
Invitation
Colours in the ceiling,
Colours on the floor,
Colours dancing
On my open front door.
Red and green balloons,
Blue plates,
White glasses,
Red clown noses,
Bright photo flashes.
Colours in the ceiling,
Bright sparkles on my cake,
Colours everywhere
For my friends to play.
I am from…..
I am from the land of hope.
I am daughter of a treasured dream.
I believe in passion and motivation.
I dream of wishes and willingness.
I am from the land of hopes.
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