Poetry

It’s Thursday morning, August 29, 2013 and I along with my classmates am sitting in first period AP Literature. I start to daze off as Mr. Burge answers questions about our semester blog assignment. All of a sudden, he instructs us to open our literature books to the poetry section and he reads aloud The Eagle by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He then questions the class about the meaning of the poem and how the eagle is portrayed. I look around the classroom and notice that no one other than the three usual participants has their hand raised. Mr. Burge seems to acknowledge this too fore he states that he is going to randomly call on people. My stomach drops and I avert my eyes looking at anything but him so I don’t get called on. I re-read the poem trying to figure out how to answer his questions, but my low comprehension level prevents me from doing so. I feel at ease and let out a sigh of relief when he picks on a student behind me to give an answer.

Now it’s Saturday and I open up my literature book to complete the poetry assignment. I begin to read each poem and my blood begins to boil in frustration. How am I supposed to know what the poem gains by the author’s shift in writing or why the author chose to write in a form that recalls for ballad tradition or what Terence believes are the three aids for worthwhile living? I ask my best friend and parents for assistance to see if they can help me comprehend what the poems are stating or what their meanings may be, but even with their explanations I gain nothing. Finally, I lose all my confidence and I start to lose faith in myself. My mind is telling me that I’m not smart enough to be in an AP English class and that I will end up failing the class altogether. It gets harder to concentrate on the poems and I decide I need a break. Once I calmed down, I decided to try again and carefully read each poem one by one. I find myself slowly beginning to decipher each line and I get excited and I answer all the questions for each poem. Closing in at the sixth hour of doing the poetry assignment, I finish and feel that I have achieved an obstacle.

As Vince Lombardi once said, “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” Though poetry is difficult for me to comprehend and it can take hours for me to finally reach an understanding of what is being said or what the meaning is, I am determined to increase my comprehension level so that I can be one of the students who raise their hand in class to answer the poetry questions.