Poetry...

America by Allen Ginsberg
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can't stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don't feel good don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. America when will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes? When will you look at yourself through the grave? When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites? America why are your libraries full of tears? America when will you send your eggs to India? I'm sick of your insane demands. When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world. Your machinery is too much for me. You made me want to be a saint. There must be some other way to settle this argument. Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister. Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke? I'm trying to come to the point. I refuse to give up my obsession. America stop pushing I know what I'm doing. America the plum blossoms are falling. I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder. America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies. America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet. When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. You should have seen me reading Marx. My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. I won't say the Lord's Prayer. I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.I'm addressing you. Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-men are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again. Asia is rising against me. I haven't got a chinaman's chance. I'd better consider my national resources. My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions. I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns. I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go. My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic. America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they're all different sexes. America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe America free Tom Mooney America save the Spanish Loyalists America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die America I am the Scottsboro boys. America when I was seven momma took me to Com-munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-cere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy. America you don't really want to go to war. America it's them bad Russians. Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians. The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages. Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers' Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-tions. That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help. America this is quite serious. America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set. America is this correct? I'd better get right down to the job. It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway. America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/allen_ginsberg/poems/8318

I picked this poem because I think the tone and voice of Allen Ginsberg are clearly heard and the subject of the poem interests me. I love seeing different perspectives of peoples opinions and experiences with our country. The title of the poem is pretty straightforeward. The poem is about the problems with America. Allen Ginsberg uses personification of America to make it seem like a person. He does this throughout the whole poem, and it gives the poem more depth and understanding of where he is coming from. The tone and voice in the poem is what really catches my attention. Ginsberg's voice is heard cleary heard all through the poem. The tone is bitter, opinionated, even angry. Its also shows some hope for our country, and maybe tries to inspire others to care about what is going on in the world, and not see things the way the news tells us to.

"Tis but a mere cathole."

So my possible titles for my personal narrative consist of:

• Back To Pine Tree Shores Once More
• Half Moon and Homaji Shores
• Stay Low to the Ground
• Rock Me Mama
• But if I wern't a counselor.....

Flannel Blog.

so on friday i cheered at this armstrong game and we won. for the first three quarters it was really not fun at all and it was super embarassing. Then the fourth quarter like everyone from our school left and so we started having fun. We got really into everything and we just didn't really care what people thought anymore. Then after the game, my friends picked my up from valley view and brought my a cookie dough blizzard!! It was delish. We went back to Steph's house and hung out there for a little while. Then I went home and went to bed. Saturday I had practice from 8-12. Death. Yeah. So we practiced from 8-10:45 and then we had tryouts for people on the mat for competitions. I'm the alternate which sucks becasue if I hadn't hurt my writst at practice this summer, I would have had a spot while making the routine, and I would have a spot now. It's ok though. I'm not really worried about it. After I got home from practice I went to the zoo with my friends Elsa and Sam. Sam's dad pretty much donated the zoo, and its really crazy. There is a room in the zoo dedicated to his family. We bugged him about it for a while. It got pretty obnoxious. Aside from that, the zoo was really fun. My favorite part was seeing the MEERCATS!! The praire dogs, otters, and leopards were really cool to see too. After the zoo we went back to hang out at Sams house and a bunch of other people from camp came over that I haven't seen in a while. Jon Mitchell. That was fun. Sunday I hung out with Elsa for a little while. We got KFC. Delish. OH one thing that was on my mind today was that a bunch of girls in our grade were running for homecoming court. That REALLY annoyed me. If girls have to ask for people's votes then they shouldn't be on court anyway. That's maybe the most annoyed I've been at anything in a while. I really could rant about how pathetic it is that people campaign for court, but I won't. I have practice Monday through Saturday for the next two weeks so its going to be really great. I gave up on my homecoming dress I was making. Im wearing this sweet scarf-y dress I got at Paragis next to the chocolate moose in Ely. It's purple. Word.

Lemons.

So this week has been pretty rough. My cheer team is pretty much falling apart and it is really stressful and annoying. Everyday this week, someone has gotten hurt and can't practive. Two of our flyers are hurt, one of them broke her ankle and the other is out for 6 months because of knee problems. Right now we keep having to change peoples spots to fill in holes where injured people left. I'm not sure if I'm going to be in the routine or not. As of now I am not in the routine but I am going to the docors today to get a note to get back in. There are a lot of fliers and and a lot of backs needed, so maybe I'll learn to back stuff. We did get our music though and it's really sweet. And the cheer too, well the words to it. HOxxRNxxExTxS. Let's see on a brighter note, IM GOING TO THE ZOO ON SATURDAY and I am really excited. I am cheering at the Armstrong away game on friday. Not so fun. But whatever hopefully not too many people from Edina will come to embarrass myself in front of. The end. jon mitchell.

Personal Narrative

Alrighty so I am writing about my experiences at camp and how they make me diverse. I'm not quite done with my rough draft but here is a part that I would like to change and improve.

"From going to camp all these years as a camper, I have learned many things that apply to small communities. As a camper at Warren, we learn the four core values of the YMCA, respect, honesty, caring, and responsibility. Making long lasting friendships is also something we learned. As a counselor, leadership and responsibility are the two main things I improved on."

In that paragraph, I don't have much voice and it seems pretty cookie cutter and lame. I like the points I make but it just sounds like a research paper. It's lame.

Discover

Okay so this is my first blog. I can't really think of what to write about every week, so I think I'm just going to write about what I want, when I want. Yeah. I guess I'll talk about my life a little and things I like, things I don't. Food, music, animals, you will hear about camp a lot because Camp Warren is my one true love. So this week has been pretty intense. Monday was just another school day, not that great. I had practice after school. I sat out because of my writst. Our routine is looking pretty darn sweet. I'm really proud of everyone on our team. We have come so far in the last week. What else happened? Oh yeah I got asked to homecoming by my friend from camp... yeah. Tomorrow I'm missing disecting fish in comparative anatomy. I'm going to a funeral. So it's really sad in two ways. Ummm what else to talk about.... This weekend I'm hanging out with camp friends as usual, maybe going dress shopping. So this has been my first blog, really lame but alright.
peace? No that sounds cliche. I'll just end abruptly.