Imitation #1960's: John Lennon,Give Peace a Chance

"Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters,
Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

(Let me tell you now)
Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation,"

This song from the 1960's was very influential and popular because it was promoting the peace in an Anti-Vietnam War Movement. Its easy to understand his point because he uses repetition of his main point which you can see in lines 4 and 5. Also he uses a lot of in line rhymes that are seen throughout the whole song. These lyrics are a form of critique because in a way he is critiquing the state of war and instability in the surroundings. I feel as he is speaking to everyone to try and get everyone to promote peace as he is promoting it. Also I feel as if he is trying to start a movement with everyone to try and make a better place for everyone and try and stop the violence. What I like about this song is that it is very straight forward and easy to understand and I like that he is promoting peace and its in a way encouraging. Overall I enjoy the simplicity in this song and also the good message it was sending to people during war times.

Imitation #pre 1960's: Lawrence Ferlinghetti,Number 20

"The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
fell in love
with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
the licorice sticks"

This poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti describes the first time he fell in love. Ferlinghetti is very descriptive in the sense that he goes into detail not necessarily about the girl he fell in love with but about his surrounding at the time he first felt love. This poem is a confessional because he speaks of his personal experience with love at a young age. In the poem the rhyme scheme is scattered because there are some end rhymes but they don't follow any specific pattern. I also believe that his audience for this poem is just any reader who can relate to falling in love. In this poem you can also find imagery when he describes the candy store.and In my opinion it really helps you connect to what the poet is talking about because you get a mental picture of what the poet is describing and you get a better understanding of the poets experience. One another thing that this poem has is that its very relatable because most people have gone through the experience of having their first love so many of the readers can really enjoy this poem and relate to it. I also believe that Lawrence Ferlinghetti uses specific descriptions of the place where he first fell in love to show around what age this happened without necessarily having to say it therefore the reader can make their own implications. I was able to imply that when Ferlinghetti experienced his first love he was a young boy because he talks about walking to the candy store and he notices all the things a young boy would look at,such as the jelly beans,a cat and licorice sticks. I really enjoyed this poem because it talked about love in a young and innocent way.

A Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

     In the article "A Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" written by Langston Hughes,Hughes explains his thoughts on a very promising quote that was said to him by a young negro poet. The quote "I want to be a poet--not a negro poet" was interpreted by Hughes as a form of disappointment to the negro culture because the young poet did not want to embrace his culture. I do no agree with Langston Hughes interpretation of the quote because i don't feel as if the young poet was ashamed of his culture. My interpretation was that he wanted to simply be remembered as a good poet without having to be put into a racial category. To me saying that someone is a negro poet rather than simply stating that someone is a poet means that that person is only compared and put into a group with other negro poets rather being compared and being put in the group of all poets regardless of race. In this time period I can also understand why the young poet would want to be mentioned as simply a poet because this was a time period where whites were seen as being better and were held to higher standards than those standards the blacks were held to. In a way i feel that Hughes interpretation was ignorant in the sense that he seems to believe that for the young poet to truly embrace and love his culture he had to be just like other negro artists and only talk about their culture and their way of lives rather than being able to expand and pass the racial.