1. Today's devotional covers the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. In this story we learn of the first murder recorded in Biblical History. Cain's sacrifice was not pleasing to God, opposing to Abel. Therefore, jealousy struck in the eyes of Cain and he killed his brother Abel. God asks Cain what has happened to his brother and after all is said and done, Cain is cursed and banished from the land. The Bible teaches us that we should be slow to anger.
2.

3. Christian Arabs?

4."  Imagine our Opportunity" -David Platt

5. Columbus, Ohio

Sylvia Plath

One of Sylvia Path's poems that stuck out to me, "The Tulips", proved to be quite the read. Like the last poet discussed, Elizabeth Bishop, Path shows a more free verse feel in her writing with more modern tones.

The overall feel of this poem seems to be rather peaceful. The lady in this recovery room or bed seems to be content and at peace with everything. She really just wants to lay there and accept where she is in that point in life. The nurses would come in and out of the room to care for her and the feelings of her became more and more grateful.
Then she goes on to talk about the contentment of herself even more by telling the reader she has no interest in the tulips at all. They remind her too much of the pain of the outside world. She then says she feels that the tulips are taking up oxygen out of the room and disturbing her isolation of peacefulness. So she outs them in captivity.
The tulips in the poem remind the lady of the terrible past in a time where she wants to find rest. She wants to take advantage of this time in this hospital like room and treasure the moment. She finds herself to treasure the "snow" like walls and the careful treatment of her wound. The tulips, in her mind, impose on her "at ease" thoughts and bring up the pain of the wound and the outside world.

A poem that stood out to me this week was a poem written by Sarah Lang called "For Tamara". Like "The tulips" the use of first person is also used in this poem. Both poems are about a different situation being analyzed by two different women. This poem by Lang is similar in the context of person but the way "For Tamera" is written, has a little bit more of better thought flow to it. The structure sets up the writer to answer her own questions opposed to Plath's just one person story telling narration.

http://lemonhound.com/2014/04/26/sarah-lang-from-for-tamara/

The fish and the hawthorn

Wow...talk about tragic past for this woman. If this kind of stuff happened to any of my parents, I think I would become a poet to. I can only imagine, this lady simply had a lot to write about. Strangely, she didn't write about her personal anguish all that much. She chose to write more in selective styles that weren't exactly in the style of mourning.

The contents of her poem contain deeper meanings to the subjects she wrote. For example, her poem "The Fish" has a ridiculous amount of figurative language in it. Lines such as "He was speckled with barnacles, fine rossettes of lime, and infested with tiny-white sea lice" and "I thought of the course white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails" give the reader a deeper look into the life of the fish of how worn out the fish really was when he was caught. "He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung at a grunting weight" shows that the fish was completely through with his life. He had given up. The overall tone for the fisherman was sympathy. The fisherman somehow felt the pain for this fish and by the end of the poem, he lets the fish go on his merry way. I guess you could say the undertone of this poem could be a person that is completely worn out by the life. They have gone through it all. They have completely given up and then another trial comes and they just don't fight at all. They simply just let it go. Finally, life throws them a bone, so to speak and lets them go.

George Stanley wrote a poem on Lemonhound that caught my eye because it had similar structure to Bishop's poem "The Fish". The whole poem has a deeper meaning within it. The actual poem "The White Hawthorn" speaks of a flower and the attractions around it but has a deeper meaning of the life presented around it as it ages.
http://lemonhound.com/2014/04/21/george-stanley-two-poems/

William Carlos Williams

 Have you ever decided to sit down and watch a movie with a friend or family member and you get about 3/4 of the way through, only to find out something came up and the movie cannot be finished? Say this movie was a total cliffhanger and not seeing the end of the film would drive you crazy until the next time you decided to sit down and view it again. For most people this would be total travesty.
Ok, let's take it one step further. have you ever been so caught up in a movie or piece of literature that had the makings of a great ending but instead the piece just ends? It leaves the reader with so many questions and they are left in total confusion.

For some of the poems written by William Carlos Williams, they tend to give off this exact feeling for the reader. "The Red Wheelbarrow", for example, is a very short promising statement or poem. "So much depends upon the red wheelbarrow, glazed with rain beside the white chickens." Sure, this is a complete thought, but what is he writing about? What is he trying to do with just this one statement? What happens to the red wheelbarrow? Some people would go insane over lines like these because the poem doesn't give off any more information than it needs to. William's takes a step out from norm when he writes little statements like these and turns people's heads in the process.

This style of poetry is really popular in today's culture. In my opinion, poetry in this style urge a person to think rather than everything set out before them. Don't get me wrong, most poetry of any style gets me thinking in any which way. But I guess the fact that most of the thinking relies on the abrupt ending leaves me to question more about the purpose rather than what the figurative language expressed in other works. Jennica Harper writes a poem by the name of "Every Good Boy" that has a very modern tone to its alliteration. She expresses the subject of the title and then leaves the reader with an ending that leaves the reader wanting more. The poem is really a bunch of generalized statements but its the way the author ends the poem that wants the reader wanting more.
http://lemonhound.com/2014/04/23/jennica-harper-three-poems/

Muriel Rukeyser has been an interesting writer to read in the last week. First off, "The Book of the Dead" proved to be as intense as the hype I read behind it. It was extremely fascinating the way the story was set up within the poem. Starting with the first section of the road when it reads "Past your tall central city's influence, outside it's body: traffic, penumbral crowds, are centered removed and strong" and "These roads will take you into your own country. Select the mountains and follow rivers back, travel the passes." All though there is one of the shorter parts of the overall poem, it does a great job at setting up the background of everything. It's a very random way to start out a poem because it feels like a story within a story. Then finally it reaches the point where it reaches the actual story. So this intro of the direction of how to get to this so called town really hooks the reader into the story of what happened in this town in West Virginia. It then breaks down into a dialogue between reporter and locals. It gives a report of the accident that happens within the town. This strategy of the section "Statement: Philippa Allen" gives a closer look to the poem and gives the reader a realistic look of the events. The testimonies throughout show the raw emotion of these workers and what they went through.
It was super hard trying to find a poet that can be compared to this style, especially modern day. This poem is written in a very unique way and not many people have tried to imitate it to its point. I guess one of the connecting points would be the testimonies of the workers written throughout. One poem that caught my eye that was written very recently is by Karen Connelly and is called "The Children. It's basically written as a testimony of the unborn lives that scream out for life and how special life really is. I would say this is almost considered a testimony of her opinion. In comparison, both of these tell a story within a story. One may go a lot more in depth, but Connelly's work does portray a certain outcry that had similar use within Rukeyser's work.
http://lemonhound.com/2014/04/17/karen-connelly-the-children/

Studying these African American poets in class has definitely been interesting. In these few short weeks, I've learned how these poets used their opinion to control their writings. By this, you can feel almost feel the personal anguish and sorrow some of the poets had felt during this time period. Poetry simply does that to people. It's a scapegoat to putting all your deepest thoughts and feelings. I guess you could say that about blogging in todays generation even though some of it might not be as personal.
Langston Hughes was definitely an outspoken poet about what he believed. The themes he used within his poetry mirrored the direct emotions of the world he grew up in. The use of culture around this time period when he wrote his poetry or shortly there after was prevalent throughout his writings and he sent a huge message to his readers by doing so. He was so outspoken in his writing that people would maybe turn or shake their heads at it today.
A lot of the poems that were written showed not only the tragedy of the time period but also the personal heartache he had from society. But another thing I found very interesting was the depth of historical background that was written in his poetry. His poem "Negro" showed just that. Lines such as "Caesar told me to keep his door steps clean. I brushed the boots of Washington." and "All the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime" showed how the times were changing for this group of people. It not only showed background but the intensive roots of where they came from.
I guess you could compare this kind of passion to Gertrude Stein's as she promoted feminism within her writings. This subject too was not easily the most accepted thing and the world and may have appeared controversial at times. You could almost take any modern era writer and see that they have some kind of passion that they feel needs to be expressed. Whether the reader agrees with it or not is not really their problem. If it causes some form of controversy then their works will be shown through publicity no matter what.

Mckay's tropical topical poetry

Claude Mckay. Wow...could this guy be any more topical? This guy seriously reminds me of the indie and hardcore artists that come out with one word song titles for their entire album. Relatively, this is exactly what Mckay has done. He picks a topic and rolls with it. He chooses to discuss, describe and expose the subject of choice in a way that captures the attention of his audience. I easily find his poetry a lot easier to read than say Eliot's. He gets right to the point of what he is trying to get across. As such in his poem "The Tropics in New York", he uses descriptive views of the surroundings to illuminate the bigger picture. For example, the lines "Set in the window, bringing memories of fruit trees laden by low singing rills" and "Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root" further emphasize the tropics of New York. But then he goes into a much deeper tone that focuses on the emotion of the moment.
I would say that the poetry Mckay writes has a more modern feel to it even though his works were written in the early part of the 1900's.
http://lemonhound.com/2014/02/28/george-murray-three-poems/
George Murray writes a few poems here and there for lemonhound.  I chose to pick out his poem "Indicator Click" because of his use of topical poetry. For instance, this poem is situational in it's use of topic and takes a look in depth to the specific subject as well as possibly a deeper meaning. This poem, of course, is about the little things that happen here and there while driving down the road. It spurs the emotion to think about the smaller things that happen in everyday life that way may not even notice because we are simply too busy. It kind of does reflect the other poem a bit with the use of this tactic of the simple things of everyday life that we may or may not notice.