Poetry in Motion

The first video called “To This Day” was just a masterpiece of art, music and emotion. From the start of the video all the way to the end, every bit of animation flowed and connected with each other. A character falls off an edge and becomes a raindrop. That raindrop becomes a part of the drops raining down on the character. The rain and the character, in his sadness, opens up and shows his heart, in which it breaks and is rained on.  Everything was set in a reaction, like pushing a domino and watching all the others fall. This way on animating portrays one of the themes that the speaker is trying to convey- that a single event can cause a massive chain-reaction that goes beyond imagination. The kids that bullied the boy and his friend in the third grade probably didn’t see past their teasing, and despite their ignorance, their teasings had a terrible impact on the lives of the bullied.

The Simpsons performing “The Raven” written by Edgar Allen Poe is an excellent example of the way rhythm plays a great role in poetry. Reading “The Raven” by itself can be somewhat difficult with the difference in language from 1945 to 2018. I consider myself a musician and would hope that I have rhythm and despite all this, it’s hard for me to find it when I read that poem. The Simpsons were able to show a flawless reading of it and how the stressed syllables found in every line of the poem has an impact on the sentence and gives greater meaning to the word or words it’s stressing. One of the final lines is the man, driven mad by the bird, saying that the raven, “still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door.” The Simpsons help show the rhythm in which that sentence was meant to be read.

I especially loved the singing of “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” by the lead singer from Pink Floyd. I think the idea of taking poetry and setting your own music to it is awesome. It can give a new perspective of how the poem can affect someone. Two people can receive the same poem differently, despite what the author wanted to say through it. Will one person write a minor and eerie melody, or a major and joyful chorus?

I think I’m going to try and do this now.

The Poetry of Life

I have always been incredibly moved by the combination of poetry and music. This mostly takes in a song written by various artists- The Beatles, Eagles, Weezer, and many more. Sometimes it is the combining a poem with music in the background, which is often done in film. Music is powerful on its own, and the combining of lyric or poetry to a song makes something that can at times leave me speechless.

The Lighthouse Tale

The first song I remember moving me deeply was a song written by a little folk group called Nickel Creek. My brother had shown me their song as he was interested in learning the mandolin, one of the main instruments in their songs. The song is called, “The Lighthouse Tale.”

I am a lighthouse, worn by the weather and the waves.
I keep my lamp lit, to warn the sailors on their way.
I'll tell a story, paint you a picture from my past.
I was so happy, but joy in this life seldom lasts.

I had a keeper, he helped me warn the ships at sea.
We had grown closer, 'till his joy meant everything to me.
And he was to marry, a girl who shone with beauty and light.
And they loved each other, and with me watched the sunsets into night.

I think this was the first time I fell in love with a story the moment I heard it. I thought it was so interesting that a lighthouse could exist, and alongside that existence, it had feelings, emotions, things that brought it joy and things that made it optimistic. I remember feeling happy at the beginning, yet concerned when the lighthouse warned that “joy in this life seldom lasts.”  

She'd had to leave us, my keeper he prayed for a safe return.
But when the night came, the weather to a raging storm had turned.
He watched her ship fight, but in vain against the wild and terrible wave.
In me so helpless, as dashed against the rock she met her end. 

I remember this line breaking my ten-year-old heart. I was so confused and sad. Why did she have to leave? What was it that caused her to leave her fiancée, and why did the timing have to be so disastrous? Could she not have waited another day at the sight of the coming storm, or was something so urgent that required her attention that she had to hope the storm wouldn’t affect her?

Then on the next day, my keeper found her washed up on the shore.
He kissed her cold face, that they'd be together soon he'd swore.
I saw him crying, watched as he buried her in the sand.
And then he climbed my tower, and off of the edge of me he ran. 

This also brought my little mind into a lot of confusion. I didn’t understand why the keeper had to commit suicide. I understood that he loved her, and that her loss was a lot for him to take him, but did he not have any other things in his life to fight for? His faith, or his family, or the lighthouse itself? Was the lighthouse’s love returned to him through the keeper, or did the keeper only care for the girl? I felt that it was foolish for me to judge the keeper. I didn’t know what he had in his life. I have never myself, then or now, experienced anything close to the heartbreak that revolves around death, and especially the death of a spouse (or future spouse). To this day I try to keep that mindset of not judging others, especially when it comes to things I haven’t been close to experiencing.

I am a lighthouse, worn by the weather and the waves.
And though I am empty, I still warn the sailors on their way.

I was happy with the way it ended. Although the lighthouse had little to hold on to in life, it stayed true to its promise of watching over the sea. I was hopeful in thinking that the lighthouse would learn to love again, as another keeper would most likely find their way to the lighthouse. I hoped that the lighthouse would be okay with the new story and experiences that another keeper would bring.

Good Timber

Poetry set to music is amazing. Sometimes, however, a poem can have just as much power when it is read by a single speaker, with nothing but silence filling the gaps of his reading. I felt this power when I heard a poem read by President Thomas S. Monson, prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was speaking about not giving up, and despite the inevitable trials that will come in life, we can become something greater when we take everything in stride. He related this topic to the poem “Good Timer” written by Douglas Malloch.

Good timber does not grow with ease,

The stronger wind, the stronger trees.

The further sky, the greater length.

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow

This poem has meant a lot to me as I’ve grown over the years. I have had to learn a lot of lessons in life the hard way. I have made mistakes that put me in situations I would rather not be in. I feel like life has two ways of putting you in storms; either life throws a storm at you, out of nowhere, and there was nothing you could have done to avoid it, or there are storms that you put yourself in because of negligence. I cannot speak too much about the former. I have been lucky in my life when it comes to random storms. While I do believe that people can overcome any trial that life throws at them (the untimely death of a family member, being fired, becoming sick), I simply cannot speak about those kind of storms through experience. However, I can very much relate to the latter.

I have heard through the Bible, Book of Mormon, and leaders of the church, that you cannot sin intentionally and say that you will repent later. For a long time, I didn’t understand that. I could think of numerous people and stories where they intentionally did something wrong due to their want or greed or lust. Later they sincerely repent and life goes on. I have been that person, many times… and I am lucky. I have seen others who do sin and find themselves on a very slippery slope. They put themselves in a storm, and sometimes, that storm is simply too strong that it does not reinforce the bark or strengthen the roots, but it destroys the tree.

When you put yourself in these kind of storms, you face a different kind of storm. Can you be strong enough to fight it? Or will the storm take you?

This poem has helped me to understand that, in the first kind of storm, I can face it and I will come out on the other side. My friends will be there. My family will be there. God will be there. With the other kind of storms, I don’t have as strong of a promise. So I want to live my life so that I will not find myself in the second kind of storms- and when the first kind of storms come, I will be ready, and good, stronger tress will grow.

That has made all the difference (draft)

Sitting in English class in middle school, looking over this poem, it’s always intrigued me.  Something about it always made me want to read it over and over again.  At first glance, there’s the obvious forest imagery, that always reminds me of my times camping, my time in boy scouts, and the friends I’ve made there, or of the times I went hiking, and times I came across my own two paths in the wood.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

               

Thinking about this poem, one of the major things it’s talking about, is it’s a huge metaphor about the choices we make.  There are many times where we have to make a choice, but either choice is just as appealing.  When we have those moments, we sit there and just look at both paths, and can’t decide, thinking we’ll regret it that we won’t be able to see the other path that we could have taken.  We sit there, trying to decide how we can decide which one is the best, and so we sit there thinking, and doing nothing.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

As life continues on, we have to make choices, and we cannot go back to these moments in time, and take another decision.  We’ve only got this one chance to make a decision, which can be hard, since we can only see so far, and our sight is really limited.  We can’t see around the bend, or through the trees themselves, we can’t see what’s lurking in the path.  But, we can move based on what we can see, and sometimes, we just need to pick a path, and move on, since either path might be just as good as the other.  There’s not always a good or a bad path. 

               

                                                And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more and more about this poem.  For one thing, we all have so many choices that we have to make, some of them are less traveled, and some are so traveled, there’s hardly any undergrowth that can be seen, but as this poem states, it’s not always the most traveled of paths that make it appealing.  Sometimes, we need to discover, to have our own adventures, it’s not about conforming to others, but becoming your own person, and perhaps that’s why it’s made all the difference.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The poem seems really simple, yet it holds many ideas behind it.  Just like how nature seems simple, and is beautiful in its simplicity, yet in that simplicity, there is much thought, and there is usually much more going on than what can be seen.  Since, behind the two paths, there were many who were at the same crossroads, and both had been taken, which means that there are many stories that crossed at this same point, and came to different conclusions based on their experiences.  Although, in this case we can’t ask others for advice since we’re alone, but when we have our own choices, we can ask those who have followed one path or another, and we can find out which path seems to be the better one based on the experiences of others.

Growing up, going through school, I’ve come across many pieces of literature, many different poems, yet this one has always stuck with me.  It’s one that I think about from time to time, and sometimes I wonder why it has struck with me so.  On the one hand, it seems simple, and like it follows many standard things that make up a poem, for example rhyming, and the format it’s written in.  But then, I realized that the rhyming pattern is a little bit different than most, since it goes ABAAB, instead of ABAB, or ABBA, and has 5 lines, instead of the usual 4. They’re slight changes to the norm, but I think that made it all the more compelling to me, it seemed like any other poem, but then it made slight changes to make it something different.

This poem is a classic, and shows that something seemingly so simple, can be a masterpiece, and that poetry can draw in people from all walks of life.  It has a power that can relate to many different people, and mean a lot of different things.  It helps us to realize things about ourselves, and about life, and it really has made all the difference, at least for me.

My Gratitude for Religion, and My Introduction to Poetry

While I must admit that poetry has not always played a large role in inspiring or motivating things in my life, there are some notable exceptions. When I first began to be interested in poetry, I was introduced by it mainly through religious sources, like hymns, scriptures, and occasionally general conference talks. The most notable, or the one that had the greatest impact on me, was quoted at the end of a talk by Boyd K. Packer in October, 2009.

“With thoughtless and impatient hands,

We tangle up the plans the Lord has wrought,

And when we cry in pain He saith,

‘Be quiet, Man, while I untie the knot.’”

-Author Unkown

This poem, assumed to have been written by an LDS author, is written in a way that struck my heart at a crossroads type of moment in my own life. It talks about following God’s plan, and how often we unknowingly fight against it, trying to follow more selfish ambitions or trying to be more like those around us to fit in. The imagery of our life as a kind of painful knot, that the Lord slowly tries to untie by trying to guide us down the right path is extremely powerful, and the iambic pattern and rhyme scheme make the sounds in this poem flow in an unusually smooth way. You could interpret the last line as a type of rebuke from the Lord, when he tells the man to be quiet, but in my own opinion, by asking us to be silent, what is actually meant is to stop struggling, and to let ourselves be humble enough to be guided by his hand, because that is the only way that we can truly begin to untangle our lives when we make incorrect decisions or don’t do what we know is right.

Another piece of literature that I must mention comes from the hymnbook, more specifically hymn number 97, Lead Kindly Light. I first began to appreciate this hymn while I was on my mission, where it was called “Leid Vriendlijk Licht.” The message it has is one that resonated a lot with me when I first took the time to let the lyrics sink in, my favorite verse is the first, where it says,

“Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom;

Lead thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home;

Lead thou me on!

Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene—one step enough for me.”

This verse talks about having enough faith to keep going, even when all you can see is just one more step in front of you. I think that this message is applicable in so many ways, and is a powerful verse that speaks to the heart. There are elements of a couple poetic devices, like touches of end rhyme and alliteration, that help the song to flow and sound more poetic. The light is meant to be a symbol for Christ, or the Holy Ghost, that lead us through our lives and help us to determine what choices we should make. The darkness can be seen as life’s uncertainties, and the challenges and struggles that people go through. In the song it says, “I do not ask to see… one step enough for me.” I think those words are so significant, because the author is implying that they are putting their trust entirely in the Lord, and are willing to follow him no matter what. It is an impressive sign of faith that I think can serve as a good example of how we should try to live our lives.

The reason that both of these pieces have religious themes is because religion and church are what really got me interested in lyrics and poetry, and I’m not sure I would have nearly enough appreciation for them if I wasn’t introduced to them through the church, scriptures, and hymns.

One of my favorite scriptures that I believe has poetic elements is 2 Ne 4:28:30 where it says,

“Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.

Do not anger again because of mine enemies. Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions.

Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation.”

Here Nephi laments his state of being, and wishes to transcend the natural man in order to live a more righteous life. In this lamentation, there is almost a psalm or song like quality to his words. There is some repetition employed as he attempts to arouse his soul to live the laws of the gospel and grow closer to God. I see these verses as very motivational and inspirational, and I can relate to the position Nephi was in as he tried to improve and make himself better. He recognized his weaknesses in these verses, but despite them still wants to rise above and improve.

Pause and Pay Attention

"The Silent Child" is a short film that focuses on the lack of priority put into helping deaf children in school. In the film, Libby, a young deaf girl, is stuck in a family who does not know how to communicate with her. It isn't until Joann, the tutor, comes into Libby's life, that she begins to know the wonders of communication. As the film progresses, the audience is led to believe that the mother looks at Libby's deaf condition as an inconvenience that should be remedied to fit her, the mother's, way of life. Joanne disagrees and seeks to help Libby learn sign language along with lip reading, instead of trying to cut corners and shove lip reading down Libby's throat. This eventually gets Joanne fired, leaving Libby to be sent off to school where she is unprepared for for the success that she could have if her parents and the school were sensitive to the communication barrier.

One of the things I noticed immediately was how the camera was used to change focus. Joanne had just come for the first time and was taken to the room where Libby was watching TV. The mother explained a little bit about the struggles she was having with Libby and hurried off. Once the mother leaves, we get a shot of Joanne in the background looking at Libby. The shot drastically changes focus from Joanne, the tutor here to make a difference, to sad lonely Libby, who just wants to be able to communicate with people and be understood. I feel like the change in focus was effective to show the two sides of the equation that would later come together to create success. The thing was that it could not happen while Libby's mother (the symbol of society's lack of concern for or real care of those who are deaf) was in the room. Once the mother left, Libby and Joanne were able to come together and find joy in learning and growing as they began to communicate better with each other.

We are shown that a willingness to help along with a concerted effort will show improvement, but when society looks inward to the self instead of outward to others, decisions are made that only multiply the problem. Joanne is shown speaking with Libby via ASL throughout the film. These parts are silent, focusing on the fact that Joanne is putting forth the effort to help Libby learn. The parts of the film when we hear talking, usually involves a lot of negativity toward Libby and a lack of desire for the mother to take part in anything that would interrupt her way of life, even if it would help her communication with Libby. At the end, when Libby is sent to school, we see her as someone who is lost. Someone who has been failed by her family and the ignorant society in which she lives.