As a student of this course I find it a blessing and very grateful that I have a chance in taking this course. I believe that not only learning about poets, or what I call "the people's politicians" (along with comedians ;-), but studying the message and emotions behind what they stood for is just as important. Most english classes do not go into other efforts or topics such as music, politics, other artists, or feelings that very much intersect with the reasonings of poets. You cannot read a poem by a poet such as Langston Hughes and not understand the timeframe or generation he came from. You have to read and be knowledgeable of what was going on in the world when he wrote the poem to get a gist of why the words of poem were constructed as so. In class as we listened to The Weary Blues I started to feel comforted in the essence of his voice. It is almost as if someone is taking what you feel or a version of your feelings and interpreting them as their own to tell a story. It is also very helpful to understand what is being said when you are in a room half full of poets and writers who are able to translate what is being said. Lol. Though as a person who is not a poet, I still was able to feel and comprehend what Langston Hughes was saying and apply it to my own experiences.

As we started to read poems in class I started to become more embedded in readings. It is something about poetry that just grasp you and demands your attention. Whether if the poem makes sense or you totally get it, it stills calls for you to attempt to understand and try to use what you read as an experience learned. The words "human, blood, and river" stuck to me like glue. I interpreted the description as man-made (and woman-made) rivers from human blood. Not only were the rivers natural, but human-made from the hard work and pain that drowned deep within the river's depth. When colonization started in the many areas of the world, it not only brought "civilization" but much pain and appropriation to many tribe's original culture and practices. Europeans and Spaniards thought their way of living was the only right way and degraded anything else that was bewildering or strange according to their standards. This history of struggle, conquer, pain, happiness and much more is the motivation for a poet's work. As a reader sometimes it serves as a breath of fresh air for someone to not care about political association or religious standing and be able to speak in what they truly believe in.

I anticipate this class to teach me a lot and be another step stool in making me a well-rounded person. I want to know a little about everything and I think that starts with understanding first how to interpret words in meaning and also understanding how that meaning makes you feel personally. We learned in my pscyhology and language course that words aren't very significant at all. They are just symbols for emotions, at times more than one, that are only used to communicate emotions amongst each other. Just think if we were able to read minds or feel each other's emotions we wouldn't need words, right? English 152 seems great and I cannot wait to filled with ALL of what is coming. I am a blank slate overload me!

-Dorothy