Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Poetry in Motion



I was talking to a friend that lives outside of Seattle, and she mentioned that they publish poetry on their buses.  I did a search online and found an article about this year's launch party.  It also includes a link to  the chosen poems.  I couldn't resist the title of the one above. Looks like it's a fun and easy way to earn $125. 

Choose several to read and post your comments about the quality of these short poems. You might even mention the literary and poetic elements used by the poets.

22 comments:

craftdhenry3 said...

i read MIDNIGHT LOVE, WHY DREAMS ARE LIKE BABIES, and MAINTAIN INNOCENCE.

i noticed that in ML, the poet connected an abstract idea with a physical idea. i don't know what it's called though. it was a good out-of-the-ordinary poem.

the second poem made a good connection with strong points. it was also a pretty good poem.

i didn't understand MI at all. i tried and tried, but i couldn't extract an under-the-surface meaning. it sounds like one of those poems where the poet writes some meaningless bullshit and you force us to try to make sense of it. sometimes i don't think the poem had significant meaning to the poet.

Anonymous said...

I read many of these interesting poems, but the ones I really liked were Butterfly Dreams, Trees, and Night Love. Butterfly Dreams was a great poem with many alliterations. I enjoy tounge twisters used in short poems because it makes a poem unique from others. Trees was another good poem. Having these such stanza breaks made me realize that I should read it in a different way than i read other ones. It also had ryhmes to the poem at the end. Night Love was my favorite because it really explained how a night can bring lovers together to embrace eachother. It also had great rhymes to it.

Anonymous said...

i read the american dream, trees, and some small city dreams. the first one i enjoyed the most because the boy is trying to achieve what is best for his family. he wants his life to be what everyone expects america to be with the white fence. but he his helping his mom with her education.
trees was diffucult because i think that the writer is saying about how people can be fake and it destroys people around them.
some small city dreams made me puzzled. i think the writer was saying that we all should be loved. of all, the writers use many symbols in their poems to show the significance of what the poem really means.

ChingBHenry3 said...

I read Burial Ground, Galloway, and Night Love.
Burial ground reminded me of the my grandmother who passed way several years ago. but the spacing that she writes it in is thought arousing.
Galloway reminded me of my childhood because i used to catch frogs in my yard and little crabs on the beach put them in bottles and keep them as pets. This poet is very straightforward and just tells you exactlly what he did.
Night Love reminded me firsr of Romeo and Juliet with the "thinking we hold our lover."and to me it is a romantic poem that's got a steadt rythm.

Anonymous said...

I read Old Bones, Burial Ground, and I Wish.

in Old Bones, when i read it, it brought up a picture in my head, a picture of an old man in his 90s, laying on the bed with his cane next to him, drifting into a long endless sleep, and in his sleep, he feels free, like a young child running and is late for school. i think that the last line gave a clue that he's dying.

When i read Burial Ground, i couldn't understand its message that well even when i read it over and over again. I think it is about how the granddaughter learn about her heritage after her grandmother's death.

When i read I Wish, i feel like im watching a bored guy, looking up in the sky, wishing that he could do all those things. It also reminds me of myself, i always zone out and wish that i could be anything and anywhere in the world, realizing how little i am.

Anonymous said...

i read: Dream, Night Love, and Butterfly Dreams. Night Love has a steady rythm, and I think it is about holding your loved one. Butteryfly Dreams it has a bunch of tongue twisters which I think is cool. Dream is about waking up alone, and so she is sad.

Anonymous said...

The couple of poems i read were, I Wish, Why Babies are Like Dreams, Butterfly Dreams and Rosa Parks Dream. The reason i chose to read these four peoms were because the titles caught my interest. All of them were short enough for people on a bus to read and try to understand or explicate them on their ride. Two of the poems had to do with identity and includes alot of personification. Why Babies are like dreams seems to me that the author is saying he in his dreams is unprepared like a baby is and how they dont speak words yet.But my favorite one that is on the bus is " Rosa Parks Dream." I thought this was a perfect peom to be placed on any bus considering the fact of Rosa Parks famous establishment of sitting in the front of the bus as am African American when it wasnt allowed.I think its great to put a peace of history to remind everyone what courage people build in order to do such thing that they think are right, on a bus. Poetry on a bus should start taking place in the a Bay Area.

Anonymous said...

I read "A dream that really really happened", "Butterfly dreams", and "Trees". I also read some others but they were so confusing that I didn't bother re-read them. I think the majority of the poems were really wierd and confusing. But there were some that used some basic literary terms. "A dream that really really happened" uses a lot of repetition of words. Each line starts off with the same letter or word. "Butterfly Dreams" uses some good alitteration with a hard "T" sound. I thought that "Trees" was pretty good because I got the deeper message right after I first read.

Anonymous said...

The poems i read were we are the bobble heads, and night life. I did not really understand these poems at all. I had to read over them at least three times to actually understand them. In we are the bobble heads it kind of sounds like an ordinary boring day on the bus, in the morning or right after work because they sound tired. It also says they wish they sat next to a friend so they can lean on them and sleep. There isn't really any rhyming in it either. In night life it sounds like a man hopping on the bus at night time and is tired, or it's raining because he said the windows are waxy and there are glareing numbers. He also calls the bus a frog. How it just hops down the road. The writer feels sick of the everyday boring routine he does of taking the bus.

Anonymous said...

the peams i read were, Rosa Parks Dream, trees, and, if i were a school bus. my favorite poem was rosa parks dream. i enjoyed that poem because it kind of got to me better then the other two. it tells u how it doesnt matter who you are, were all the same. the man shows that by giving the lady the seat.

Anonymous said...

In Your Eyes are Closed but Your Aren't Dreaming, the poet is telling us the we want to dream but at times it is hard to do that.It's an extraordinary poem that tells us about dreams.

In The American Dream the poet is trying to say that the American Dream is to help others in need of help. Great topic for a poem.

In I Wish, the poet says that everyone wishes for something and it's possible to recieve that wish.

In Bringing to Life, the poet say's with imagination, anything of any kind can come to life. Magnificant topic for a poem.

Finally in Trees, the poet is telling us that were destroying the environment by producing goods out of the trees. This poem shows that we should consider the enironment and spare it for it's aspects of life.

Anonymous said...

I read a few of the poems like
If i were a bus, Burial Ground, and night life. The one that I saw a deeper meaning to right away was Old Bones. I belive this poem is about an old man who is sore and tired from being up all day and he gets to rest when he goes to bed, but this also brings him back to the best days of his life when he was younger and although he is ninety he still feels young.

Anonymous said...

I read almost all the poems but two of the poems i really liked were Dream and Bringing to life. i loved the poem Dream because to me the poem is showing how the girl is maby depressed and sad because she lost her lover, someone she really cares about. Its showing this by saying "saddest lump of shadow staring back from the wall". Its comparing her shadow with her feelings. Bringing to life remminded me of my cousin who has down syndrome and she doesn't laugh or learn as fast as the other kids. she can't speak. she can't do much as the other kids. when she gets older she'll see the other kids that are normal, "longing to live" like them. The drawing to me symbolizes her way of showing how much she wants to be "normal".

Anonymous said...

i read AMERICAN DREAM, the poet use imagery to let us know what his dream is, like, when he described the house and his life.

i also read I WISH, in this one the poet use capitol letters at the begining of the sentences because he is connecting his whishes on the poem and how he expect his whishes will react.

fosterbhenry3 said...

After reading many of these poems I realized how they all were related to something else, and the words meant alot more that was written. These peoms were really intersecting. The one I like the most was Night Fall because it was explaing really how romantic it is to kiss when the moon is setting. I'm sure that these peoms that are placed on the bus are really inspiring to others. It's helping someone out and getting bad for it, and that just can't get any better. Those poems are making a difference

Anonymous said...

i read many of the poems but my favorite was "Dreaming of Home" I like how it showed that the narrator was reminissing of all the good memories and the symbols that remind him of how suimple and comfortbale home life was.

i also read the poem "1:175,711,536" i liked this one as well. It seems to me that it mans like anybody can change their life for the better. Nothing is permanent if you dont want it to be. Im not sure if thats what it ment though.

Half of these poems make no sense, but they're still good.

Anonymous said...

I READ FINALLY, A DREAM THAT REALLY REALLY HAPPEN, AND SHARP.

-I enjoyed "Finally" because it talks about how the narrator's parents is finally settling down and they probably found each other since a long time and that was probably her dream [for them o find each other]
-I also really enjoyed "A dream that really really happened" the most because there can be more than one theory on what really happened. I believe that the little girls probably died, and it was probably the parent's dream to see them again, but they didnt see them because the kids is death had already happened.
-Lastly, i read and enjoyed "Sharp"
because it shows imagery. I easily understand what it was saying and i also easily pictured what was going on.

Anonymous said...

I read midnight love, why dreams are like babies, and maintain innocence. The poet physical ideas with abstract ideas also it was a reallllly weird poem like i didnt under stand it that well.
I really didnt find a poem that connected with this one cause i really didnt understand the last one so i couldnt mind a connection.
These didnt connect also cause there was like no under the serface meening.

Anonymous said...

I read night love, I wish, and emerging. There is no connection between the, that I could see. I don't know, I’m not good at poetry so I cant really say.

Anonymous said...

Out of the several poems I read I would have to say my favorite one was First Grade Friends. I connected how the boy's name was "Rusty" and how he had a carrot-top head and freckles. Thats almost the exact image I get when I think of a kid with that name. As far as Bharati, right off the bat I knew she was foreign and not from America. I think this poem is cute because it shows how two worlds can collide at such a young age and such an average place. This is reminds me of the other poem:Rosa Parks Dream because of how two races cross each other and the way they react towards each other. Both poems portray different races in beautiful ways.

CapEnglish3-4 said...

this blog post is now closed for credit.

Anonymous said...

I read the poem of "I wish"
I think this poem is about the author wants to become a person that knows how to understand the animal and become part of the nature. When i first read the poem, I don't know what is the poem about and i have a hard time to understand it, but then i reread it again and use the methods that Ms.Henry had teach us.