Lost Brother

This poem was hard for me to grasp what the author was trying to get across. I think the author jumped around to much on the topic of his poem. The only thing he did well on was keeping the idea of nature alive and going. I thought the "tree" was going to be a metaphor for something with a little more meaning. The one thing I do really like about the poem though is how he used such amazing literature words to describe all of the different parts relating to the tree.

My Fear

"...He keeps track. Each day his lists are longer. Here, death, and here, something like it." (first stanza) This poem grabbed my attention because of all the fears life can give. Life can create scary images that keep us from going on with our daily routines. Recently i've become consumed with death and it seems life no longer exist in the outside world. Lawrence Raab's poem to me was more the nightmares that we can also become consumed with. The nightly fears of anything at all. Maybe not every night but only when we are next on "his" list. "Mr. Fear" can create stress amongst us and like said in the poem, we can only pray the fear is something small enough to forget and shrug away. Larger fears are harder to let fall. Maybe the way Lawrence is describing the nightmares in his poem are really relating to death. A common fear as death can build a lot of tension and have us wondering when our time is to go. We are also more likely to believe in something when it is we who want to live, but not in fear. If we feel at risk, we appreciate the smaller things later on such as a crickets churp. We take sleep for granted, and when sleep goes wrong, it too can become a fear.

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby was a great story written about the newly rich living in one of the most socialized eras. The 1920's are remembered for the woman becoming more lively and the old rich differing from the new. Nick a single man living in New York realizes his neighbor, jay Gatsby has a mysterious was of living. Jay is a part of the new rich and throws huge parties every Saturday night. Some of the people who come to his parties don't even know him. The more you read through the book, you learn that the parties have more of a story. The neighborhood was full of reasons. Jay fell in love with a young girl, Daisy, several years before he gained his fortune. Daisy lived with her own new family in a house close by Jay. Jay planned the parties every Saturday night in hope that Daisy would one day appear at one and realize how rich he has become. At the time when they were deeply in love, Jay did not have enough money for Daisy to wait on. Throughout the story you follow Nick try to understand more about his hopeless romantic neighbor. Jay and Daisy soon start hanging out again and become a little sinful. Once they all go "to town", Jay lets Daisy drive back and it resulted in a young womans death. But behind Daisy's perfect family, you also learn that her husband has many encounters with other woman. The young womans husband, George, is determined that Gatsby is the one who ran her over. In result, George shoots Gatsby. The story is overall an amazing tell of an hopeless "American Dream". Nick tried to follow through with all of the drama but it was all happening so quick, and too soon they all lost control in the story.

The Heart Of Darkness

Reading the Heart Of Darkness was very difficult for me at first. After annotating by studying the authors way of writing, it made the reading a lot simpler. The author's sentences were a paragraph long sometimes and had so many details. After awhile, the sentences became fasinating to me because this is the first novella that i've read that i can actually visuallize everything. The imagery words are so extreme that you can almost imagine yourself being at the same place that Marlow, the story teller, was talking about. The author also used the "N" word that really put it in perspective that it was written long in the past. Along with being written so long ago, Joseph Conrad talked about slavery and ill workers. I think the way Joseph wrote was very interesting, it encourages me to make my stories pull in more listeners! Marlow, the story teller, reminded me of my grandpa, the way the other crew members could sit and listen to his stories for hours at a time. Marlow's journey was full of adventure and it took many risks. Traveling around the country to meet a man you've never met before and trusting him to be able to help you. I thought it was very weird that after Marlow heard that Kurtz was viewed as a "God" that he still took everything as seriously, even though everyone else around him was ill or suffering. That was just very ironic for me that the world can work like that still today. At the end when Marlow lied about what Kurtz last words were really surprised me because throughout the story Marlow looked up to seeing Kurtz so I figured he wouldnt had lied, even for his mistress.