Reading Response

            I found the poem Terrorist very interesting. It caught my eye because first of all the title. It reminded me of war. As a future marine I thought it would be interesting. As I read the poem, I wasn't disappointed. The poem was everything I was hoping it would be. It had great structure and I just enjoyed reading it.

           As I read the poem, I noticed the wording in it. The wording surprised me because I wasn't expecting it to be as detailed as it was. That made it really stand out. I was enjoying all the details as I was reading on. Also the detail in the poem made it easier to understand it and imagine it. I could picture everything that was in the poem. 

            Out of all the poems in the book Tocqueville, Terrorist was definitely my favorite. It had had more detail than any other poem, I think, and it was so imaginary and I could picture everything. I don't normally read poems and I don't really like poetry, but this poem is a great one. If I had to recommend a poem to anyone, this would be the one. It grabs the reader's attention and it drags you in. It makes you feel like you're part of what's happening.  

We Are Not The Poem

          In this short story, I read a quote that meant something to me. It said "At any point, we can step out of our frozen selves and our ideas and begin fresh. That is how writing is. Instead of freezing us, it frees us." I found that interesting because I don't normally like to write just to write. I'll write if it's for homework or work. I just don't see myself writing for a hobby. I'm not very creative with words.

          I also found this inspiring. It was inspiring to me, because like I said before I'm not a writer. But this quote inspired something in me to just write. It made me want to sit down and start writing whatever came to mind. It was also inspiring because, it says it frees us, and to me that means that when you write, you can write about whatever you want to write about. 

            I found this whole story inspiring. The author gave good advice. She also gave words of wisdom and gave each reader a reason to start writing. I know after I read it, I just wanted to start writing.  

Reading Response

    I found the poem "The Scent of Verbena" interesting. It caught my eye because of the structure of the poem. I don't think I have ever seen a poem that was structured like this one. I always thought poems were short and straight to the point. I thought it was interesting because it's triangles put together. As I read through the poem I understood why it's structured like that. Some of the lines and words have a meaning to the shape or the point of the poem that they're in. At one point though, it got confusing to read it like it is.
     "The scent of Verbena" I thought was an attention getting poem. Of course it caught my attention with the structure of it all. If you read the first couple of lines in it though, it is really detailed. At first I thought it was way too long for a poem, because I always thought that poems were short and got straight to the point, but this poem is like a short story. I don't usually like poems, but this was definitely one of my favorites to read. The style of the words and the detail in the poem was interesting. One of the lines in the poem is "and his back lost the sunlight like a retreating boat growing cold and dark at the summit the sky was gray and cloudy as lead the clusters of Verbena." That really got my attention because, for me, I can picture that, and I don't like reading things if I can't picture them.
      This poem was one of my favorites out of all of them so far. Like I said, it had great detail in the wording and I could understand all of it. Of course, the the structure was what got me to even look at it at first. This poem over all was great. I loved the fact that it was like a short story and not like any regular poem. It should be recognized by everyone and read by everyone. It really makes you appreciate poetry if you don't already appreciate it.