To choose a WW Fenn piece, I went back to Poem Miner to remind myself of which ones I really liked. One that really stood out to me was Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen, because of the style that it was written in. The poem was extremely visual and I loved it. My concern was, so would everyone else. I thought this style might be in some of the author’s other poems.

After reading a few pieces, I chose Apologia Pro Poemate Meo. I looked up the translation from Latin and found it means “in defense of my poems.” This poem has the same feel and tone that I loved so much in Dulce et Decorum Est. It’s not just the feel that entices me, but also the way that it reads. When I first read this poem it felt like a cool drink of water on a July afternoon. In other words, it flows as I think a poem should.

About the Author

Wilfred Owen
1893 – 1918

According to The Poetry Foundation, Wilfred Owen wrote “some of the best British poetry on World War I.” And for good reason – he was a soldier in the war, and died in service. As a result, most of his work was published after his death.

Mr. Owen grew up in England. The family moved several times, and he graduated from Shrewsbury Technical School in 1911. He applied to the University of London but could not qualify for a scholarship. After living in France for several years, he returned to England in 1915, when his country was already at war with Germany. He enlisted and joined a special forces regiment, the Artists’ Rifles.  After over three years of extremely hard service, and several hospital stays because of head traumas, he was killed in action in France in 1918.

Source: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/wilfred-owen  

I, too, saw God through mud— 
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. 
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, 
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child. 

Merry it was to laugh there— 
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder. 
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare 
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder. 

I, too, have dropped off fear— 
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, 
And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear, 
Past the entanglement where hopes lie strewn; 

And witnessed exhultation— 
Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, 
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation, 
Seraphic for an hour, though they were foul. 

I have made fellowships— 
Untold of happy lovers in old song. 
For love is not the binding of fair lips 
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long. 

By joy, whose ribbon slips,— 
But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; 
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; 
Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong. 

I have perceived much beauty 
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; 
Heard music in the silentness of duty; 
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate. 

Nevertheless, except you share 
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, 
Whose world is but a trembling of a flare 
And heaven but a highway for a shell, 

You shall not hear their mirth: 
You shall not come to think them well content 
By any jest of mine. These men are worth 
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment. 

Reading the writing pieces on Poem Minor was a very enjoyable experience for me. I do like poetry over other forms of literature, and enjoy not only reading them but writing them as well. Poems to me are a form of expression that I can relate to – isn't it better to say a lot in just a few words than to say a little using a lot of words? Even The Odyssey, as much as I enjoyed it, was slow moving in some of the books. These poems, which did vary in length, gave us a little bit of everything, from the horrors of war to the peace of nature. The poems inspired me to want to recite them in public, such as in the WW Fenn public speaking contest.

Billy Van Walsum
8th Grade Fitz English
Odyssey Reflective Paragraph
1/12/14

Challenge

 “Oh I knew it!”
Broadsea broke in, mocking him to his face. 
“I never took you for someone skilled in games,
the kind that real men play throughout the world.
Not a chance. You’re some skipper of profiteers,
roving the high seas in his scudding craft,
reckoning up his freight with a keen eye out
for home-cargo, grabbing the gold he can!
You’re no athlete. I see that."

[The Odyssey, Book VIII Lines 183-189]

We all face challenges in our everyday lives. It’s how we respond that defines us. Odysseus’s journey is a series of challenges that he must face and conquer. What makes The Odyssey memorable is when he faces these challenges, he is not always a heroic or stone-hearted figure. These challenges take many forms; some threatening his life, some preventing him from reaching his native Ithaca at last, and some to maintain his pride and ego. In Book VIII, Odysseus comes across the challenge of arrogance and boast, when the young princes of Phaeacia challenge Odysseus to sporting events in such a reckless way that Odysseus must accept their challenge to keep his pride. This part of the epic connects to my life, in a way. A boy in my Max Hockey Skills group on Sundays is continuously challenging me with aggressive acts, taunting me, calling me obscene names, putting my gear in the trash. Classic bullying stuff. He has even had the nerve to try some of the same behaviors with my dad, both when I am there and when I’m not. Clearly, he is not in his right mind. Telling him to stop is like Telemachus telling the suitors to leave Odysseus’s castle and not eat his livestock. Even though he is smaller and younger, and I know he is not worth my time and attention, a part of me feels that I must confront his challenges or I will have to continue to endure his verbal abuse. The coaches tell me they know what is happening, that this boy behaves this way all the time. But trying to taunt my dad is crossing the line even farther. I have made my feelings known to this person, but he has not changed his behavior or actions. He is acting like the princes, pushing Odysseus closer and closer to the edge of his patience, until they provoke a response. In fact, I will be seeing this antagonist this afternoon. As I write this reflection I have realized I have to rise to the challenge and take the necessary steps to bring this to a non-violent or non-physical end. How I choose to meet the challenge will define me, in a way.

 Metacognition:

I feel angry writing this. I don’t understand why anybody would want to enrage or bully, and it happens often enough that it deserves the attention it gets. Doing things in good fun is one thing, but too many people don’t realize when they’ve crossed the line. 

After reading Book VIII of The Odyssey, we were assigned to write a Literary Analysis on Book IX. I wasn’t worried, until I heard that it was going to be a collaborative writing piece. I was a little less confident, but still kept my head high.

The class was split into four groups of 4. My group was all guys that I get along with. I felt confident that we could get this done in no time; we started to work together, and wrote until the end of class.

The next day during lunch, one of my friends from my group said Mr. Fitz had deleted the paper by accident. Since I was outside, I screamed in mock rage. But my friend told me he had said he “might have deleted it, but wasn’t sure.” I saw a little light at the end of the tunnel and kept my cool.

At a study hall, I looked on “Quip,” and the Literary Analysis was still there. I was ecstatic. I started to write the part that I was assigned to write, the Head and Heart. I put my head and heart on the paper and didn’t look at it for the rest of the day. I went to English the next day, looked at the Literary Analysis, and the Get On or Get Out didn’t seem to fit. I talked to my friend that had written it; he said he had spent 45 minutes on the Analysis. I look back and found at least some of that time had been spent on edits to the completed sections! 

I suppose this is the learning from this particular assignment. No two people write the same, so trying to collaborate on one analysis in a way that still makes sense takes a lot of work! I think the final product will still be pretty darn good, but I’ll have to wait until the Get In and Get Out has been rewritten.

A huge part of Unit One, and much of the year so far, was The Odyssey. Having started the book over the summer I had a huge head start for the year. Once we reached Book VIII in class I was on Book XXIII, plus I had been reading the Cliff Notes to further understand the context of the epic.

Along with the reading, we discussed in class the personalities of the main characters. My favorite part was trying to figure out the exact personality of Odysseus. He is usually a strong, ethical character (well, except for when he was cheating on Penelope, which seems to have been acceptable in those times), but in Book VIII he taunts the giant Cyclops Polyphemus, after releasing his master plan to save the rest of his crew, and almost gets captured once more. This scene of Odysseus taunting Polyphemus seemed out of place and not of Odysseus’s overall character. But, it was interesting to think about what was driving him to act that way, and to think about times when maybe I act out of character, too.

               To put our knowledge of Book VIII to the test our teacher had us write a Thematic Literary Analysis Paragraph. Luckily we have done these types of assignments before, so I was used to using the rubric. What a Thematic Literary Analysis Paragraph is a paragraph that is comprised of eight sections of the paragraph, the One Word Theme, Guiding Quote, Broad Theme, Narrow Theme, One/Two Punch, Smoking Gun, Head and Heart, and Get On or Get Out. Once you fill out the rubric you put all of the categories together and it creates a neat paragraph.

               Another part of Unit One was continuing to use Weebly, a site that helps you to create a web page in a small period of time. We expanded on the digital portfolio we’d started as our mid-term exam, and put all of our creative writing, poetry, and other miscellaneous writing pieces such as the Thematic Literary Analysis Paragraph. I struggled with it at first, because of the new technology, but I can honestly say that the results are pretty impressive, especially given how easy it is to use.

               We also worked on our grammar skills, such as Comma Rules, and our vocabulary and word roots. So far, we’ve learned Comma Rules 1-5. The Comma Rules have had a huge effect on my writing and sentence structure, and I know that will help me when I’m applying out to other schools next year. The vocab work hopefully will help on my SSATs, which I’m definitely dreading. I don’t like standardized tests. They hurt my brain. Literally.

The word root work was interesting. Several of the first ten are based on Latin, and now I can see how studying Latin will help me. It’s great when a plan comes together.

The only sticky point for me in Unit One has been the collaborative writing on Book IX. We just can’t seem to get it done. Similar to the social networking, it’s also hard to understand how other boys feel about my writing. I know that’s an important part of the learning, but it isn’t always easy. 

All in all, Unit One has been a good start to the second half of the year. It’s still hard sometimes to keep up with the work, but the results are pretty pleasing, and I do get the basic flow.

  

A poem about winter, in the spirit of the snow day leading to the four day expansion of our winter vacation.
This poem to me, tells of a winter landscape and how it is so much different that the climate of summer.
My favorite element of the poem is that it describes everything in such detail; if you were to listen to someone read the poem, you would be able to perfectly imagine what Thoreau saw when he wrote this masterpiece.

P.S. I might do a podcast of this poem in the future. Winter Memories

Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring stew them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievences.
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On the every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of winter past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnwort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial, - purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God's cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter's task again.

~Henry David Thoreau