Musicians: Modern Day Poets

Someone in my poetry class the other day brought up the question, "Who are the famous poets of our day?" Our class came up with a couple but what really hit me, was my teachers answer. She said that the poets of our day are mostly singers and rappers. I think that this is the coolest thing. Poetry has really evolved with our society. If you think about it, poetry started off as something that poeple would read aloud in small groups as a form of entertainment. Then poetry started to become a way of expressing yourself and your emotions. Now, during the electronics era, poetry has turned into song.

I truely think that Eminem is one of the best poets of all time.

"But you promised her next time you'll should restraint

You don’t get another chance
Life is no nintendo game, but you lied again,
Now you get to watch her leave out the window
Guess that’s why they call it window pain."

 ~Love The Way You Lie by Rihanna ft. Eminem

I just think these lyrics are so clever. The double entendre (yes, I'm getting fancy) in the window pane/pain part. I also like the way he references Nintendo games. This reminds me and I'm pretty sure, everyone else, of their childhood. It's something that a lot of people can relate to. His lyrics pack a punch. On the surface, his songs are just good rap songs, but take one look at the lyrics and you start to see that the words he chooses aren't just good rhymes.

Taylor Swift is another modern day artist who has a way with words. Her lyrics are more of a dramatic narrative style of poetry. Her songs tell a story.

"I am not the kind of girl
Who should be rudely barging in
On a white veil occasion
But you are not the kind of boy
Who should be marrying the wrong girl

I sneak in and see your friends
And her snotty little family
All dressed in pastel
And she is yelling at a bridesmaid
Somewhere back inside a room
Wearing a gown shaped like a pastry

This is
Surely not what you thought it would be
I lose myself in a daydream
Where I stand and say

Don't say yes, run away now
I'll meet you when you're out
Of the church at the back door

Don't wait or say a single vow
You need to hear me out
And they said "speak now"

Fond gestures are exchanged
And the organ starts to play
A song that sounds like a deathmarch

And I am hiding in the curtains
It seems that I was uninvited
By your lovely bride-to-be

She floats down the aisle
Like a pageant queen.
But I know you wish it was me
You wish it was me (Don't cha?)

Don't say yes, run away now
I'll meet you when you're out
Of the church at the back door

Don't wait or say a single vow
You need to hear me out
And they said "speak now"

Don't say yes, run away now
I'll meet you when you're out
Of the church at the back door

Don't wait or say a single vow
Your time is running out
And they said, "speak now"

Oh Oh Oh! ( said speak now.... )

I hear the preacher say
"Speak now or forever hold your peace"
There's the silence, there's my last chance
I stand up with shaking hands
All eyes on me

Horrified looks from
Everyone in the room
But I'm only looking at you.

I am not the kind of girl
Who should be rudely barging in
On a white veil occasion
But you are not the kind of boy
Who should be marrying the wrong girl!

( Ha! )

So don't say yes, run away now
I'll meet you when you're out
Of the church at the back door

Don't wait or say a single vow
You need to hear me out
And they said, "speak now!"

And you say
Let's run away now
I'll meet you when I'm out
Of my tux at the back door

Baby, I didn't say my vows
So glad you were around when they said
Speak Now"

~Speak Now by Taylor Swift

Though Taylor's style of writing is much different than Eminem's, her lyrics are equally as good. They tell the story of a girl who was in love with a guy was was about to get married. The girl would never have had the guts to stand up at his wedding but her love for him helped her do the unthinkable. I really can connect to Taylor's fairytale. Everyone wants and deserves a happy ending. Taylor writes stories that every girl wants to happen to them. She has such a way with words and I really respect her accomplishments.

Are you truly American?

Well, here is a perfect, pure American: Jazz. Here in the post, I will tell you how jazz, the first truly American music genre, emerged in the 1920s. Play the video right below before start reading!



Jazz came into the spotlight in the roaring twenties, when America experienced peak period of music, dance, and revolutionary fashions. Jazz was a way of dancing and a type of music, both stemming from African American traditions in the South.

Former form of jazz can be traced back to 1700s, the times when African American people were still slaves. Living in harsh conditions, slaves created their own type of music; while working, a leader of a crew called out a line, and the rest of the crew responded to the call. These slave work songs based on "call and response" became the very basic foundation of jazz.

During 1800s, the large influx of immigrants from Europe added variety to this foundation. European immigrants painted their style on the sketch of African American rhythmic music to create "ragtime" music; Scott Joplin was one of the composer who put all these various elements into ragtime music.



Right before 1920s, New Orleans produced a profusion of jazz artists like Joe 'King' Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and The New Orleans Rhythm Kings. In the 1920s, as people moved from New Orleans to northerns cities where there were lots of new opportunities, jazz started to shine in these cities like New York and Chicago (Yes, that's the city that Carl Sandburg adored). These cities were the places where jazz, though pretty different from the modern, improvisational jazz, started to be defined as an informal, strongly rhythmic music. Among the people who had moved to the northern cities to seek working opportunities, young generations started to enjoy jazz. Public's accessibility to records and radios made jazz even more widely available and popular. Jazz was almost exclusively the genre for young generations, such as flappers who danced their nights away with jazz music.

As I mentioned, Chicago was the garden for flowering jazz music. Though still a segregated city during daytime, Chicago transformed into a heaven of night clubs, pool halls, tattoo parlors, and vaudeville houses where the border between the black and the white smudged out in the night.

Great Depression: What exactly happened to America after the stock market crash after 1929

From. New York City, 11789

Great Depression all started few years after the World War I and the "good and prosperity"lives of Roaring Twenties, when people could afford goods, such as automobiles, refridgeators, and radios, and make money, such as in stock market, due to the economic boom that took place. However, things started to change when economic started to decline and stock market crashed.

After collapse of stock-market crash on the New York Stock exchange in October 1929, people were continuously losing jobs, houses, and money, affecting not only the United States of America but also all other nations in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Conditions were terrible. People did not have a place to stay, a money to buy food, nor a job thatt would support their families. The difference between wealth and poor became farther apart as more middle-class lost their jobs and were thrown off in the streets. Men and fathers are not only ones to labor and to bring the money for the family: women, youth, and even children under age had to work for their households so that they could earn money to buy a loaf of bread to eat for that day. Government, in some places, offered free soup and bread, but supplies were not enough for all people, and people had to wait in long line to recieve food.

Companies, because everyone was looking for a job, could hire workers in very cheap price and also could easily replace them too. Protections for workers became lower as people desperately looked for the jobs. Though people died and were seriously injured, people were not properly insured or cared for since factories and companies could easily find the workemen to replace their places.
President Hoover, an well known economist before he became the president, strongly believed self- regulating government was the right answer for the economy to recover. But his principles did not please the people and the public. People wanted full government interaction in economy and hoped for the government to regulate the companies as well. When Hoover realized people wanted direct involvence, he started to create laws and acts, but he was too late creating laws that would please the people. Hoover, because his loose interaction within economic during the Great Depression, made him unpopular among people, making the re-election in 1932.

People in 1929 started to lose faith within the years because economic was not getting better. Also they could not see the real invoveness of the government. Though people believed that the Great Depression would be similar to other economic panics that America went through, people did not realize that the Depression, the longest recorded depression in American history, that they were going through would last until World War II.

Kingston, PA 18704

expression

reflection

London, England W8 4PX

Extreme, fanatical, excessive, OHMYGOD - these are the words I would use to describe Victorian treatment of death. British people during Victorian Age were literally obsessed with deaths. The way they treated deaths was so peculiar and excessive that it was often called a "cult of death". The extent of the Victorians' rituals for the dead ones is far beyond our imagination.

Queen Victoria herself had an awful obsession with death. The chance is the death of her husband Prince Albert traumatized Queen Victoria; she mourned her husband's death for 40 years, dressing in black every day and preserving their home as the way it was the day he died. During the 40 years, Victoria never wanted to move the glass that Albert used for the last time in his life. All servants set everything in the house the exact same way they did before Albert's death. They prepared his clothes and a cup of water every morning. People were not exceptions. Victorians wore regulated mourning dresses and held extravagant funeral and burial arrangements for prescript period of time whenever their loving ones died. They took postmortem pictures, not only to remember the dead ones but also to remind the living ones of mortality.

The death rate during the period explains this eerie obsession. In early 19th century, the average life span ranged from 22 to 44, depending on the class of the person. 57 percent of children of working class families died even before they got to the age of five. Death was around everywhere; it was more like part of everyone's life.

Tennyson, a poet who actually lived in London during Victorian Age, could have been influenced by this common attitude towards death. After going through the death of his own father and his best friend, Tennyson probably had strong sentiments toward death. Whether good or bad, the sentiment surely is parts of Tennyson's poems, such as The Bugle Song.

For those who want visual explanation of the Victorian treatment of death, here are some Victorian post-mortem photos. (Personally I wouldn't dare to watch them, I almost peed)

London, England KT3 4ZP

Introduction of Industrial Revolution changed and impacted politically, economically, and socially in not only Great Britain but also other nations in Europe, Asia, and the America. One of the changes that were made was fashion in Victorian Age. Women, who have interest within fashion and new styles, changed throught the years, transforming their styles that would fit their era. Though women changed their clothings simpler but were more formal than clothings that we might wear.


New materials, such as rubber, and new, cheaper dyes were intoduced by chemists to update the style and to make the industrialization of clothes cheaper so that people can afford clothes. Though a lot of people, usually from middle class, chose to buy clothings made from factories, but high class and nobles still wore clothings made with luxurious and fancy materials and by well-known designers.

Within Victorian fashion, style had changed through out the years between 1840s to 1890s.



In 1840s and 1850s, the clothing can be described as a narrow, natural shoulder line, lower waist line, exaggerated puffed sleeves and bell-shaped skirt. Women had to wear corsets and bodice, which were more likely in 1850s.
Though 40s and 50s styles are similar, in 1850, women reduced their petticoasts and expanded their skirts by wearing crinoline.



In 1860, women heavly relied on crinolines and hoops to make their dress extremely full skirted. The skirt became flatter at the front and projected out at the back. Dress started to look different between day and night. Day time dress had wide pagoda sleeve and high neckline; evening dress had short sleeve and low neckline. Women also had accessories, such as short gloves, fingerless lace, and croched mitts, to match their evening dresses that had shorter sleeves than their day dresses. Women had different necklines according to time. At day time, women had to look pure and covered, but at evening, when party or events were held, women showed off to men for competition within marriages.

From 1870s, clothings became simpler and diverse in styles. In the 1870s, uncorseted tea gowns were introduced to be worn informally. Bustles replaced the crinoline to hod the skirts up, which made things easier for the women.

Also in 1880s, more additions were made in their style. During 1880s, women wore matching jackets, skirts without bustles, and top hats with veils for riding; draped ankle-length skirts and boots or gainters for hunting; and long coats, such as dusters, for traveling.

Then in 1890s, women's fashion became less extravagant and decorous. Women did not wear either bustles and crinoline, which made the dress not as tight as before. Though people still wore cosrset, but it baecame longer to give women slight S-curved body silhouette. Women in 1890s also wore trumpet shape skirts that fit closely over the hip with a wasp-asit cut. High necks and puffes sleeves became amongst people. Also in 1980s, sportswear for women was staring to form, such as bicycling dresses, tennis dresses, and swimwears.

Women in Victorian Age moved from owning luxurious, fancy, and extravagant dress to simple, tidy, and comfortable dress so that women can move around freely like men to bike, travel, hike, and to do other activities.

Melbourne, Australia 137678

Much like the Victorian era and their obsession with hair jewelry, a new fad has recently started in Australia: accessories made of teeth. Polly van der Glas's new line of jewelry combines sterling silver, hair AND teeth.

Polly van der Glas says the "human teeth are locally donated and sterilised, and human hair is either locally donated or sourced from India and China. Teeth are particularly difficult to come by, so any donations are gratefully accepted." So in honor of Polly, a poem:

On the off chance you get milk teeth

Four little pearls with pink gums beneath.

Tiny presents before there's hair

But normally, wait for the twenty white squares.

Shiny, straight, crooked with gaps.

Eat lots of sugar? then gold little caps.

Around first grade, they will start to fall out

And in their place, adult teeth will sprout.

The very few will get pretty lucky

Not to stereotype but if you live in Kentucky

And most everyone else will need some aid.

Visit the dentist, don't be afraid.

He will prod and poke and might even pull.

But in the end, you'll be beautiful.

Braces, retainers, last a couple of years

Spaces and stains, it all just disappears.

And then on to old age, the final adventure:

To fuss and struggle and mess with your dentures.

Besides using teeth to chew as most people do,

There are others uses that you never knew.

Combine a molar and a silver ring

Or a canine and a gold coated string,

Jewelry and accessories made of the weirdest objects

Its an industry that I hope no one protects.

If you think you are up for it, try to locate

Ms. Polly van der Glas and graciously donate.

But don't be alarmed or have a great fit

When you walk down the street and see someone wearing it.

More info here.