Listening to poetry

Introduction

Poetry has been in existence for many centuries and it is believed that poems were first written and sang by Greeks. These Greeks mostly wrote love poems. The art of poetry then spread to Europe to countries like England and Britain. The impact of listening to poems and singing them is not difference and discernible. This paper looks into the differences that exist between hearing and reading or seeing it on a sheet or screen.

Listening to Poetry

Poems are sung before the audience and it depends which audience these poems are directed to. Some poems sound beautiful when they are just read. History has it that many poems are sung compared to a small number that are read. Nevertheless the reading of a poem may also be beautiful depending who is singing it. This is the point when communication techniques come in. communication is complete when there is a sender and a receiver. However, there is a medium of communication. All these objects of sender, receiver and the medium make the art of reading a poem to be preferred by some audience to singing or listening. Some people admire poems that are read aloud and a mixture of communication styles. The tone of the voice and body language like gestures and grimaces all make the poems sound good. Moreover poems are used to tell a story, narrate various events and even express feelings. This is the reason why we have love poems, war poems, poems depicting heroes and many other types of poems.

In the case of the poem “London” when read, has a different impact and even the meaning changes like when reading  aloud like when it was read by Jon. There were features that enticed me as the audience while keenly listening which forced me to repeatedly listen to him again and again. When reading on the sheet of paper or the computer screen, it makes a big difference. It makes it obvious that poetry differs in visual from prose. The tone of the voice and the gestures means that poetry is more by how it is communicated to the audience no matter what audience that what message it communicates and this is why there is sensitivity on how the poem is communicated and not what is communicated. There are many things that a poem relies on so that it is call a poem or it qualifies to be a poem. It mostly relies on sound and then the figurative language which the poem “London” has. Many of this requirements that  a poem needs in order to be called a poem scares people that poetry is difficult and for those who juggle with these elements or aspects of sound, sight and body language like gestures enjoy poetry and they are most successful poets. Songs are written in form of poems and this is why many musicians are successful when they intermittently use all these aspects of poetry.

In the poem “London”, the way Jon many aspects like repetition, and rhyme are clearly had than when read on a sheet of paper or on the screen on the computer. The reading of this poem aloud makes words of the same meaning sound differently as by the tone of the voice that is some phrases read aloud and some of the going almost silent by speaking in a very low tone. Koch in his print out The Language of Poetry notes that, “in ordinary language the sound of a word is useful almost exclusively in order to identify it and to distinguish it from other words. In poetry, its importance is much greater. Poets think of how they want something to sound as much as they think of what they want to say and it is in fact impossible to distinguish one from the other…44”. Therefore, in the poem “London” while Jon reads the alliteration i.e. this repetition of initial sound and rhyme, the repetition of the final sounds are clearly heard that when reading silently. The low tone sounds calls on the attention of the audience to see the impact and the atmosphere created by fear during the war. In this poem an example rhyme is “every man; every ban” that is the sound of the last two letters of each word –an. Repetition is also clearly heard from the reading aloud by Jon and the listening becomes enjoyable, for instance, the word “every” is repeated to emphasize the points or the message in this poem.

Rhyme and meter in the poem as it is read by Jon Stallworthy are distinctively clear and they sound a different meaning that is with emphasis than when read on the screens and even by I read it loudly. This means with all aspects used but with different readers or narrators reading makes a great difference. The tone of the voice as it dwindles low and glows high makes this poem sweet and the audience encouraged to request several repeats. These qualities affect a person’s understanding. Body language is also part of this poem because as the reader gestures like rising the head high makes some listeners that is the audience follow the movements but because this one is audio it sounds sweet to the hears. Other important aspects like commas, dashes periods as punctuations makes this poem lore organized and more audible than reading continuously.

Gender and Politics (part 1)

On Gender Issues and Differences

Gender differences have long been the issue of different debates within social concerns in the human population. Philosophers believe that the separation of men from women actually shapes the healthy diversity that exists within the human activities. To sociologists, this particular factor in the society is the primary reason why there is color in life. However, how do the differences between men and women actually shape the personal or individual perception of each person within the society? How do these differences actually affect the ways by which people tend to think of themselves in connection with the other’s perceptions of who they are? Are there any particular elements that affect the personal growth of a person that is most likely dependent on the gender that he or she is supposed to live with? These particular questions shall be examined and discussed within the paragraphs that follow.

A Look at Gender Inequality Issues

Most of the time, debates occur because of the fact that there are instances when the recognition of each gender’s special traits as a person is disregarded by the society during certain circumstances. This is primarily because of the fact that men and women are viewed differently by the human society. By the different legends, the accounts of creation, the different mythological stories, the shaping of the characteristics of both men and women becomes more vivid, thus making it possible for a person to receive a certain “mark” in their forehead as they grow up basing from their gender, even before they could even make a name for themselves.

What are these marking differences all about? Men are primarily noted as the “strong” sector of the human society. They are viewed to be the primary ones to receive authority and thus imply power upon all others. Through the myths and legends [as mentioned earlier]; men were perceived to have a greater command over things compared to that of the women’s capability of exercising authority over all. On the other hand, women were viewed as the weaker sector of humanity (Jervis, 2001, 17). They are referred to as the complimentary partner of men who are intended to give assistance to the men when they are to carry out their responsibilities over humankind. Because of the social philosophy based on the theory of essentialism, this traditional recognition of the role of men and women in the society became much easier to accept for so many years. (Jervis, 2001, 18)

However, during the 1800’s, the birth of liberalization gave way to the feminist movement of the female sector of the population. Things have really changed and the supposed unwavering capability of men to rule over others began to shiver because of primarily being disturbed by the different stresses that the said gender actually had to deal with in life. After all, men were faced with the many responsibilities that they have to complete for their families, their wives, their fellow citizens and their nation. Attending to these responsibilities mainly made some of the men’s capability to handle multi-numbered responsibilities began to whither. Hence, the women, being known as the complimentary gender to that of the men, began to long for a more important role in the society as progressive individuals of the human civilization. The women then began to create movements that would actually carry their “banners of pride” towards recognition form the entire human society. The liberty from simply being a wife, being a mother or being a child has been achieved during the 1990’s when women were allowed to run for positions for government administrative offices; when they were given the chance to take over high positions on business corporations; when they were allowed to consider becoming members of the military force; and when they were accepted as a major role-player in the humanity’s leap towards a progressive future in terms of science and technology.

Part 2

Part 3

American or World Crisis (part 2)

The socialist press naturally reported national and international events, but its moral emphasis was on the eclipse of the republic and the promise of socialism. An awakened citizenry had to educate itself to the history and destiny of civilization. Perhaps the emergence of an indigenous women’s Socialist sector best expressed this fundamental aspect of Debsian socialism. (Quint 1994) Women’s socialism first blossomed where nineteenth century reform traditions had remained strong, in the small towns of the Midwest and West. Tinged by spiritualism and its offspring, it resumed the Protestant mission for a purified world with woman’s moral influence assured. For a time, in spite of a determined resistance by male Socialists, their movement flourished; their own press, with a circulation of 10,000, conveyed a unique socialist message through the schoolteachers, ministers’ wives and aging gender agitators. (Quint 1994)

Marxism abstractly, and the socialist party concretely, had made possible the preparatory training women needed in order to take hold of their own collective destiny. Alliance with the working classes would bring reconciliation between the sentimental values of the past and a Bellamyesque future. (Bell 1972) Socialist women had the right and the duty to demand their own share of the work and the glory, their own definitions of Socialism. In truth, the contemporary European avant-garde with its appeal to individual woman’s emancipation did not aspire nearly so far or so radically as these stiff-backed, semi-rural women. (Bell 1972)

The Socialist educational program, most popular in the Midwest and Plains states among native-born men and women in early middle age, demanded new kinds of books and new ways to read them. One may judge the movement’s intellectual character by the most important educational text supplied to English language socialists, The Struggle for Existence (1904) by former Populist educator Walter Thomas Mills. (Quint 1994) Interpreting the history of the universe in one grand sweep, this widely circulated work simplified religion, culture, Spencer, Darwin and a little Marx into a graspable whole. Study questions following each chapter allowed little circles of disciples, meeting in public schools, union halls and taverns, to rehearse their own understandings and to raise their collective self-confidence. The local Socialist newspapers provided Marxism its first extensive popularization (or vulgarization), the most sweeping ever conducted in the English language, and pressed readers to go on to the books themselves.

Given the rise of the United States to economic and military world dominance – capped by the collapse of communism – we should hardly be surprised to see the Left and its intellectual efforts repeatedly marginalized over the late twentieth centuries. The very process of marginalization has often hidden the tracks of Left influence, by making state sanctioned reform seem the inevitable outcome of conflict. As radicals helped launch the Republican Party and later forced laborist planks upon the local Democratic Party urban machines, socialists acted decisively within the early AFL and Communists in the CIO and in the pre-formative civil rights movement. (Quint 1994) The conservative and bureaucratic element always won out in the end, scuttling the radical class, race and gender programs; burying memories and discrediting uncompromised survivors. The enlarged share of the pie, inevitably if not entirely, went to elites cashing in on the victory. But the Left had pointed down another road, the famous ‘Lost Highway’ of American dreams. (Starobin 1992)

Very often along the way, the unique contribution of American radicals to Marxist thought was misplaced. The millenarianism of the indigenous radical forces and the cultural alienation of the immigrants, which together set the subjective tone for us Marxism’s early evolution, did not fit easily into European expectations. The subsequent eclipse of small property democracy and the rise of heroic industrialization prompted a decisive but historically limited phase of hegemonic ‘proletarian’ politics on the Left, if not in America at large. (Bell 1972) The centrality of America’s economic world empire and the consolidation of a consumer society eventually returned the class question to its broader domestic context. Theorists had to catch up with what their distant ancestors had already suspected: American socialism had to be a leap of creative faith, or it would be an empty incantation.

Part 1

Confederate States of America

Introduction

Everywhere it was slavery, slaves and their masters, the civil war, the revolution and the union states and or the confederate. The confederate states of America were also known as the confederacy and these were the southern states which had seceded from the United States. The slavery history is part and parcel of the American history. Slaves worked for their masters and they were great contributors to the American economic prosperity during those times that is before the civil war slaves and they were working in cotton, sugar and tobacco plantations. To a greater extend slavery contributed to the civil and the formation of the confederacy. Morgan (2005) Says “Opposing slavery and its victims came to be a very common form of abolitionism” They provided cheap labor under grueling conditions. And after the Revolution and the Civil war many freed slaves were Americanized. This research paper analyzes how the confederate states were formed and the role they played in the history of the United States America.

Research questions

Which are these confederate states? How did they come up or the cause of the confederacy? What role did the confederate states play during the civil war in the United States?

Confederate States of America

The confederate states were seven in number which had declared independence from the United States and they never wanted to be part of the northern states. The seven states were Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida which seceded before President Abraham Lincoln took office in 1861. The tug of war between the northern states and the southern ended up in an armed conflict which was the civil war that broke out in April 1861 because the northern states were not happy with what was going on in the southern states or the confederacy and they prepared their troops to fight for the rights of black slaves and the black people or the slaves worked hand in hand with the union or northern states’ troops. The Civil war ended after the troops of the southern states or the confederacy were subdued by the northern or federal troops. All states, that is, the northern states and the southern states once again were united to make the United States of America.

The Civil war erupted because of the institution of slavery that was not ending in the south. The northern states had already abandoned the institution of slavery and for them it was easy because of their economical activities which were based on industries while in the south they solely depended on farming and they had vast plantations of cotton and tobacco. This nature of farming forced them to retain slaves so that they worked for them in form of cheap labor as Hortons (2004) observe that “American slavery was concentrated mostly in South although it existed in all American colonies and as time passed, relationships between slaves and masters changed as second generation slaves lost much of their African culture and become Americanized” and as (Foner 2004) notes that. “They were mainly used to serve in the economic southern states because their cost was less than the indentured servants”. The southern states or the confederate states claimed that the federal north or the northern states were fighting the south because of their commercial and political freedom and the abolition of slavery. Before the civil war many slaves both men and women were voiceless, they only worked for many hours under humiliating conditions and without wages. Kohn (207) “African American slaves enjoyed a rare distinction in the long and blood history of human slavery” This trend continued for many decades and a few of then wanted their voices to be heard. Because of the suffering and the exploitative state that they were undergoing, they decided to resist. The resistance was one of the causes of the civil war. Many of the slaves started disobeying and revolting against their masters because they had been humiliated enough as Stampp (1990) writes that, “there were rife proslavery and antislavery forces in the south and they clashed frequently and fatally and during the presidential election of 1856 it turned ugly when southern states threatened secession if a candidate from the antislavery Republican Party won”.. Every slave men and women were convicted to gang up and support each other to end slavery.

Conclusion

All men were created equal to enjoy liberty, life and happiness. This was the message that had the radicalism for change. The main cause of the formation of the confederate states or the confederacy was slavery and which ended up in a civil war. There were other secondary causes of the secession like the party politics whereby the southerners were not happy with the Republican Party’s win in the north. However, the civil war marked the end of the confederate and the federal states and the United States of America had one government to date.

Commercial media analysis

Introduction

Advertisement of products through media is constantly used by marketing as a way by which they are able to educate the public regarding the features of their products which are provided for heir consumers. Among the favorite topics of advertising today is regarding the products that feature anti-aging chemicals helping the old-aged people look young and cover their age years through the use of beauty products.

Yes, as clearly seen, immortality is among the most wanted features of the public from products. Ironically, this could never be possible and could never be provided by any product. However, staying young basing from the looks of a person is at least a relief from all the doubtful feelings brought about by the fact of aging. Hence, to be able to cater to this social demand, clinical scientists and chemical engineers try to formulate ways by which they could address to he said need of humanity.

How does advertising cater to this social want? Moreover, how much does advertising affect the human reaction towards aging and its reality? These questions shall be addressed in the paragraphs that follow as the advertising systems of Olay products against aging shall be observed by the author of this paper.

OLAY Company and Their Products

One of the leading companies that cater to the need of people to feel young and beautiful amidst their age is Olay Company. It produces numerous products that help the lessening of the effects of aging on human skin. Mostly, their products try to alleviate the lines in the skin, especially on the face of people that are usually obvious as the person gains age. This is the reason why on most advertisements of the company, especially concerning televised marketing, it could be noticed that the focus of the artists are on the way their skin feels and looks like.

It is simply like erasing the lines of age from the face and feeling young again. Of course, this could not be considered as a way by which people gain immortality. However, the fact that the ‘feel-good’ feature of the products usually give the notion of becoming renewed and rejuvenated in many ways just because of thinking that they grew younger once more.

The vitality that the products provide makes the consumers feel refreshed, Hence, the more they are able to live life to its fullest. Furthermore, most of the television commercials of the said products claim that beauty becomes radiant if the person that ‘wears it’ feels good from within. For this reason, the trust that the consumers have on the products of the company, which are mostly based from their ability to persuade through their advertisements, makes the consumers more radiantly reflecting the beauty they feel from within.

One of their advertisements through the Internet posted the following claims:

“Any moisturiser – regardless of price – can claim to smooth wrinkles because it will temporarily plump the skin. “Using any moisturising product will help reduce fine lines and wrinkles by between 12 and 15 per cent,” says Dr John Sullivan, acting head of dermatology at Liverpool Hospital. “A more expensive moisturiser might smell better and feel nicer on your skin. But it’s not actually anti-ageing; it’s just a temporary effect while you’re using the product.”

Obviously, the advertisement cited above encourages the consumers to purchase the product that they advertise through stating that the product ensures the user of a wrinkle-free skin. Hence, beauty is rather portrayed in terms of having a flawless skin and un-aged physical features. Everything is obviously based upon the physical attributes of a person.

Social Effects of the Advertisements

Where did all this wanting to stay young and remain ‘immortal’ in a sense came from? Mostly, as Susan Mc Carthy mentioned in her article entitled “On Immortality”, the source of this social wanting of being young at all times possible is based upon the fact that the system of the human body is obviously able to support its own self towards immortality. This study has been proved through the continuous research of scientists with regards the amazing structure of the human body and the wondrous make up of the human cells as well as their ability to reproduce on themselves.

Hence, knowing this, many people, especially the experts, claim that immortality is indeed possible. The certainties though of producing human genome projects that would rather cater to this human demand for longer life are not as strong as it may seem. As a result, the human society at present is trying to make itself feel at ease through the beauty products produced through cosmetics companies.

However, instead of feeling more at ease, there are numerous people who feel more obliged and frustrated with regards to being ‘beautiful and young’. Those who are especially unable to purchase beauty products feel the doubts of being totally beautiful or socially accepted in terms of their physical appearance. Most often, they end up wanting more than what they could actually have.

The feature of advertisements towards anti-aging has led the society in viewing life as a mere epitome of the need of being beautiful. The constant posts of the said television or even the printed ads have created a notion on people’s minds regarding the need of a person to stay beautiful and young amidst their age gains.

Conclusion

Aging is not bad. As a fact, aging is a sign of experience and wisdom. During the earlier times, it could not be denied that the aging features of the physical attributes of a person set him in a higher level of integrity compared to others in the society. However, with the development of technology and further enhancement of marketing strategies in media, old age has been viewed by the modern society as an unwanted truth in human life. Hence, the production of products that would help alleviate the doubts brought about by aging symptoms which becomes obvious on the physical features of a person have been boosted and still continuously developed. True, the want of being young at all times and the notion of incurring immortality would continuously interest people. Perhaps, the creator pf mankind has undoubtedly implanted this though upon the human mind because of the fact that HE himself plans something better for humans in the future. For who else is better to provide the needs of the creations than the creator himself?

Analyse a song as poetry

Introduction

Poetry has been in existence for many centuries and it is believed that poems were first written and sang by Greeks. These Greeks mostly wrote love poems. The art of poetry then spread to Europe to countries like England and Britain. The impact of listening to poems and singing them is not difference and clearly discernible. This paper analyzes the fact that songs are simply poems and the paper will also look into a few poetry elements that qualify them to be here. The tone of the voice and body language like gestures and grimaces all make the poems sound good and some have still sung.

A song is Poetry

Poems are sung before the audience and it depends which audience these poems are directed to. Some poems sound beautiful when they are just read. History has it that many poems are sung compared to a small number that are read. Nevertheless the reading of a poem may also be beautiful depending who is singing it. This is the point when communication techniques come in. Songs are written in form of poems and this is why many musicians are successful when they intermittently use all these aspects of poetry. There are other conditions that make a poem sound and or become a song.

This song is all about two lovers who had been very intimate but they are parting ways because they can not put up to each other. This song is simply like a poem for the reason that many poems are sung and therefore a song can be sung like a poem. One element or device of poetry that qualifies this song to be classified as a poem is repetition. So many phrases and words are repeated. In this poem, the husband did not abandon food. The tone of the language is low which evokes mercy to the listener. Gestures which come naturally are the other poetry device or element that is used here. Both gestures and repetition emphasize the message to the listeners and viewers. The most moving sentence is, “something inside had died and I can not hide it and I just can’t fake”. This sentence shows or depicts the seriousness of a broken marriage or relationship.

Conclusion

All poems are beautified by the use of body language when singing it live to the audience and sound when the audience is listening. Voice tone variations are as well very important.

American or World Crisis (part 1)

Within the scope of this research, we will attempt to answer the question of whether socialism will help or hurt America, and what steps can be taken to improve American relations with the world. The migration of socialism from its European homeland to the United States produced, as we have seen, results sometimes exciting but also deeply troubling to the Marxists. To succeed, any revolutionary movement needed to come to grips with the pervasive religious and cultural values, to understand and appreciate as well as to attempt to transform them. Homegrown radicals and class-conscious workers, for all their weaknesses, potentially provided socialism access into the American mainstream. The process of discovery had to be mutual, a complex and protracted probing from both sides. The critical question was, what did each bring to the conversation?

Socialism supplied a definite class view and a strategic instrument, the union, which could serve as means of transition to a new order. Indigenous radicalism stood for the most part outside these traditions. (Perrier 1983) But its disciples held for that very reason a more sophisticated view of the multi-cultural, factory and non-factory, character of the American lower classes, Black and white, male and female. They also had a better subjective sense of the meaning, for Americans, of the old Republic’s decline and debauch at the hands of monopolistic capitalism. At their best they understood the traumatic awakening into history which alone could bring a serious acceptance of Socialist ideas, and the moral or spiritual vacuum which only an expanded faith in democracy could fill. (Perrier 1983)

The pre-industrial religion of a redemptive, benevolent deity watching over the republic fitted the needs of American radicals and reformers well into the late-nineteenth century. More than that, it placed the palpable deterioration of democracy in a great field of hope. America had failed the trust given its founders with the virgin continent. But that trust might yet be redeemed. The blasphemer, agent of Indian genocide, slaver, merchant aristocrat, could not rule on. The shadow of his antithesis, the redeemer-woman, hovered in the background ready to bring salvation to a society that recognized its own heart of darkness and willingly marched toward the light.

No wonder Marxists found themselves strangers in a strange land. The sweeping bourgeois triumph Marx depicted did not, in America, consolidate an ideological victory over the past but rather ensured an endless revenge against the hubris of material progress. (Quint 1994) The Radical Reformation, where so much of the inner life of Protestantism first evolved (and devolved), had held as its foremost goal an escape from the history of kingdoms and slave classes to the pre-Mosaic paradise before the fall. Crankish as this sounds, it combined the abandonment of a defeated armed struggle with the undiminished hope of overcoming mankind’s sorrows. It promised a peaceful path to utopia, an alternative to Calvinism and the logic of the merchant. (Bell 1972)

Unlike Europe with its far more centralized national labor movements, socialism in America had to confront an extraordinary welter of local conditions and exceptionalisms. Despite the popularity of the Appeal to Reason, Wilshire’s Magazine or even the more theoretical International Socialist Review, there was no American equivalent to the authoritative Die Neue Zeit, much less an Iskra to constitute the core of Party activism (Quint 1994). Rather the public space for socialism in America was invigorated by the extraordinary diversity of the local Socialist press, publishing in a score of languages. It was this local alternative press (not so different from that undertaken by the New Left generations later) that attempted to answer Horace Traubel’s question: ‘Who will remind America that she has promised democracy to the head and broken it to the heart?’ (Bell 1972)

Part 2