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Saturday 15 September 2012

I hate poetry.

"Did the poet use red to symbolise blood? Anger? Lust? Or is the wheelbarrow simply red because red sounded better than black?" - Hannah Baker, 13 Reasons Why.


Take English literature for A level, they said. It's all books, no poetry, they said. They lied. I was like "yay, books! Let's do this". I'm the biggest bookworm ever so I was pretty excited. But no, we have to analyse poetry too. Not even like a little bit. A lot-a bit. I hate poetry. I think it's pretentious shit. I was set a 1000 word essay yesterday afternoon to hand in for Monday morning. I have a busy weekend including volunteering at Brownies, doing charity work, football training and then a football team photo shoot. Our whole class is busy, either working to get money for uni, or doing community-based projects. When the hell are we supposed to squeeze in this essay?! And I wouldn't even mind too much if it was half-way decent piece of poetry. It's not.


I Am He

Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling;
Sky nor earth nor metals am I.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
No birth, no death, no caste have I;
Father, mother, have I none.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I,
Permeating the limbs of all life;
Bondage I do not fear; I am free, ever free.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!


This is shit. No offence to Adi Shankaracharya who wrote it in the 8th century BC, but really, it's not very good. Poetry is never any good. Actually, it's alright until you start putting implied meanings in there. Then I can't deal. What's the point of burying meanings away? Apparently, according to my dad, what is being described in this shit poem is a force of some kind, "creating life and being created by life". Thanks daddy, I'll be using that in my essay!


This brings me back to the quotation at the top of the blog; one of my all time favourite quotes. It  just describes my attitude towards poetry perfectly. So, in answer to the question in the quote: "yes, yes it's just because red sounds better - please do not read any more into it". Sorted.


There's this lovely guy at my school but he pisses me off no end in English lit. There's this poem with a door, and he's like "maybe she closed the door to symbolise the apartheid and how the races were segrated?" No, you poo, she just closed the door because she went inside and the poem ended.


dkghafjkgh. Rant over!


Song of the day:

Sunday Morning - Maroon 5


I miss this Maroon 5. Their older stuff, like this, is so amazing. Enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. Hahaha! We had to analyse this poem on "The Angel In The House" about like Victorian housewives and even our teacher was like "Yeah it's pretty much the worst poem ever" I mean this poet MAKES UP FLIPPIN WORDS BECAUSE HE CAN'T RYHME IT! ;)
    Kimmy x
    Ps. I'm having so much fun stalking through all your blog posts- sorry if it's a bit freaky!

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    Replies
    1. Ahhh, I've just looked that up, it looks horrible! Oh no don't worry about that, I think I've done the same to you ;)

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