Critical

1. In a few paragraphs, analyse the form of Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool." You may wish to answer some or all of the questions posed about the poem on p. 395-396.

" We real cool " by Gwendolyn Brooks is a very interesting poem. At the beginning of the piece it says, " The pool players, Seven at the Golden Shovel ". The seven pool players are described in very short stanzas. Throughout the poem, there are only seven " We's ", which is very unique because there are only seven pool players. Gwendolyn Brooks cuts to the chase, using only two line stanzas and three letter sentences. This contributes to the form and critical meaning of the poem.

2. In a few paragraphs, analyse the relationship of form to content in bp Nichol's "landscape: 1."

Bp Nichol's "landscape: 1", is a description of trees that grew on the horizon. Having said this, the form of the poem is a nine word sentence with no spaces or punctuation. The sentence is placed above a line. The line indicates the horizon and the letters within the sentence indicate the trees. The content within the poem relates to the form of the poem, which is very unique.

3. Please choose a piece of music you enjoy and provide a two or three paragraph analysis of it as a poetic work, paying special attention to form and to poetic language.

A piece of recent music I really enjoy is Some Nights by Fun. This song is about a young man who encounters all of life's obstacles, trying to gain on them. Whether it be from his past love, family or work issues. A special feature of this song is how he incorporates war itself throughout the entire piece, which shows the reader a very vivid relationship between war and his life. This particular piece is one of my favorites for several reasons, one being it can have many meanings by different readers, which makes a fantastic piece of work.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOnekzXs9R4

2. Put your favorite approach into practice, analyzing any poem of your choice from your text.

Referring back to the first question, I chose to put my favorite approach (readers response) into practice on the poem " Where there's a wall " by Joy Kogawa (p.453). Not everyone will interpret this piece, or any piece of writing the same. For instance, the meaning I gather from this poem may not, and mostlikely will not be the same as someone else's. Some readers may believe this poem is superstitious, others may believe no matter what kinds of obstacles life throws at you, there's always a way to overcome them. In other words, no matter what type of literature one reads, there will always be multiple approaches from the readers' point of view.

1. Write a paragraph explaining which of the approaches McMahan mentions is the most appealing to you.

Throughout the Appendix by Mcmahan, he describes several different approaches to literature. By the end, the one that really stood out to me was the readers response paragraph. For myself, and probably not for everyone, I enjoy a piece of literature that is universal. In saying this, one that everyone can relate to or each have a strong opinion towards. Having this aspect in a piece is very appealing.