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More handpicked essays just for you.
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I am 13.
It’s that age when,
I’m growing up,
having to make my own decisions,
I have more responsibility
but also more stress.
I am 13.
I’m trying to fit in
but also be myself.
Everyone tries to act cool
but I feel like a fool.
Even though I feel like I’m hiding behind a mask,
I still don’t think I belong.
I am 13.
There’s so much I need to do
but so little that I want to do.
Everyone has such high expectations for me
but I just want to be myself.
I feel as if I can’t make mistakes
and that I have to be perfect.
I am 13 .
It’s not easy being 13,
14 probably won’t be any easier.
Maybe one day when I’m 30,
I’ll miss being 13.
Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You” portrays a speaker who contemplates the state of their romantic relationship though reflections of their partner’s tattoos. Addressing their partner, the speaker ambivalence towards the merits of the relationship, the speaker unhappily remains with their partner. Through the usage of contrasting visual and kinesthetic imagery, the speaker revels the reasons of their inability to embrace the relationship and showcases the extent of their paralysis. Exploring this theme, the poem discusses how inner conflicts can be powerful paralyzers.
In “Useless Boys” the writer, Barry Dempster, creates a strong feeling of disappointment and shame in himself and society as he looks back on his youth to when him and a friend made a promise to each other to “not be like their fathers”. Dempster expresses a sort of disgust for the capitalist society his world seems to be built around, a life where even if you’re doing something you initially enjoyed you end up feeling trapped in it. The poem is a reflective piece, where he thinks back on how he truly believed he would end up happy if he chose a different path than that of his parents. The author uses simple diction and syntax, but it’s evident that each idea has a much deeper meaning, which assisted in setting a reflective/introspective mood.
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
Patricia Young’s poem Boys is a representation of implied heteronormacy in society. Young uses tropes and schemes such as allusion, metaphors and irony to convey the ways in which heterosexuality is pushed onto children from a young age. Poetry such as Boys is a common and effective medium to draw attention to the way society produces heteronormativity through gendered discourses that are typically used to understand sex. Boys does an excellent job at drawing its readers to the conclusion that it is an ironic poem trying to emphasize the over-excessive ways in which we express heterosexuality in daily life.
The poem On Girls Lending Pens that is written by Taylor Mali tells that a boy forgets to bring his pen for class, so he has to borrow one from a girl beside him. However, he does not expect that girl has too many pens to pick from. It seems that the girl cares too much about her stuff and makes the simplest thing more difficult to deal with. At the end, the boy decides that he would rather come unprepared than borrow a pen from the girl. It is a very humorous and rhymed poem. Through different poetic devices, it shows the theme of being prepared.
Adolescence is the stage in life when you are no longer a child, but not yet an adult. There are many things that still need to be explored, learned and conquered. In the film Thirteen, the main character, Tracy Freeland, is just entering adolescence. While trying to conquer Erikson’s theory of Identity vs. Role confusion, Tracy is affected by many influences, including family and friends that hinder her development. Many concepts from what we have learned in class can be applied to this character from identity development, to depression, to adolescent sexuality and more. In this film Tracy is a prime example of an adolescent and much of what I have learned this year can be applied to her character.
In the essay I hope to explain why I picked each poem and to suggest
Paint Me Like I Am is a poetry book that contained works of disadvantaged adolescents from urban communities. They speak out their voices in poetry expressing the raw reality of their lives. The poems are emotional, throughfully, mysterious, and serious. This poems gives the reader a look inside of what many teenagers have to deal everyday. There are many touching poems that reveled issues of drugs, self-image, and abuse. In the "Friendship" section, I find a poem that satisfies each characteristic to meet teens' demands. The poem "Friendship" talks about a contemporary topic, has a sarcastic tone, a narrative structure, and free verse. The poem's authors are many adolescents form Bronx, New York. Some of the language
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
Have you ever felt left out? Have you ever wished you seemed cooler or you were as cool as “those
Who I think I am? I’m not exactly sure who I think I am or how to describe who I think I am. I tend to act differently around certain people. Constantly changing to try to seek approval. Constantly in fear of accidentally doing something wrong; that I might say something wrong and all my friends will abandon me or leave me for someone better. I think this fear came from when my best friend was taken from me. I had known her since preschool, but she had met another girl and she stopped talking to me completely. I’m in constant fear that this will happen to me again, so I struggle to be accepted. I don’t want to be forgotten again.
To begin with responsibility one of the many things that are part of coming of age. Responsibility can stand for different things for example, to be able to act independently and make decisions without authorization. The older you get the more your parents will trust you to stay safe if you go out by yourself. Another part of responsibility especially if you have younger siblings is that you are now the permanent baby sitter for your family. In spite of having “freedom” you are stuck at home while your parents and your friends are out having fun. The older you get the more work you have to do in school and at home. This
In one journal entry I wrote, I brought to light that the popular group is something that every one of us, for some reason feels as though we need to be a part of. This is from my own experience and things I have observed throughout my four-year career in high school. I think it was perhaps worse in junior high, however. When you are in seventh and eighth grade you are not sure of who you are and are desperately searching around for something to belong to, to be a part of. Why is this, why are we a society that are most often drawn to the most popular, "cool" and "beautiful" that high school has to offer? Why is acceptance the most important thing to us, is belonging really as important as losing your own sense of self? Who you hang out with, who your closest friends are as an adolescent without a doubt help to shape who you are. And it's funny that you seem to end up being friends with the ones who are the same type of people as you. Same fashion sense, taste in music or cars and movies. When searching for an identity in high school, it is hard not to just attempt to pick up the one that seems the most socially acceptable. I know that my personal experiences include these conforming characteristics. Still as a freshman in college I am constantly looking at the fashion of my peers, wondering to myself "do they think I fit in"? This was especially true the first few weeks of college when I wasn't sure who my good friends were going to be; I made sure that I dressed as well as I could everyday, in all the new clothes I had bought specifically for college.
I’m pretty sure that everyone can agree on this, especially if you’ve been through it before. I’m not talking to the adults of course because I know your lives are difficult and what not, but I’m mostly talking to the teens who are currently going through the same stage of life that I’m in right now. Now I’m not saying my life is difficult by any means because I know that I am actually very lucky, but I’m just talking about the things that I carry. I mean the pressure kicks in as soon as you reach the age of 13. You're trying to get into that big fancy private school with a castle as the cafeteria.
My parents always tell me how proud they are of me and all i’ve accomplished in my life at such a young age. I’ve always been known as the “responsible one”, or the “smart one” out of all my friends. I’ve always been the one to remind my friends about tests or reports that are due, and they always ask what they would do without me.