In my English class, we just finished reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. To wrap up the book, we had a final project. For my project, I wrote two poems using ballad meter (there are 14 syllables per line; 7 syllables were stressed and 7 were unstressed). They were written from the perspective of Huck and Jim and revolved around the plot of the novel. Here are the poems I ended up writing (the first is from Huck's perspective and the other is from Jim's): The Adventures of a Child with No HomeHeaded out alone onto the open Mississippi Leaving behind a tortured man with a bottle in hand Floating along the winding river into the unknown Days and nights go by when I recognize a face from home Together we drift as we get further from our troubles A runaway slave and a child with no home slowly sail Creating and meeting new personas as we travel The Grangerfords, Shepherdsons, then a duke and a dauphin A farm and some futile attempts at freedom for a friend A bullet in bone and back to the beginning we go Adventure gone wrong turned into liberation prolonged Father’s deceased and I proceed out West where I am free For the Sake of Family and FreedomEscaping for the sake of my family and freedom Running away from the cruelty that has been planned for me I am intercepted by the ghost of a boy I knew Traveling along together we drift farther downstream On our own little raft the two of us soon were at ease Slowly he became the son and friend I truly did need Long nights of quiet laughter and looking at starry skies Telling all sorts of tall tales and teaming up with two thieves Then I’m captured and all glimpses of freedom are fleeting While two young boys plan my escape, I ponder my own fate Will I be freed so I can return to my family ? Or will I be sold to those who could care less about me? At last I am relieved from the thoughts that had worried me Fate was in my favor and the chains on me were undone In the end as I recall the memories of what happened, I’ll always remember the boy who saw the best in me Reflection When we first were introduced to the final project for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I thought I would pick one of the essay topics and write about one of them. This was because I didn’t like any of the ideas for the projects. I didn’t feel passionate about any of them so I figured I would take the easy way out and just write an essay as usual. I realized I wasn’t really thrilled with the topics of the essays either. That’s when I was told I could come up with my own project idea if I wasn’t pleased with what I had been presented. This lead to the creation of my project. What I had decided to do was write two poems about the story. One would be told through Huck’s perspective while the other would be told through Jim’s perspective. I was then instructed to make it a bit more difficult by writing it using a technique known as ballad meter. This set a limit of fourteen syllables to each line with seven stressed syllables and seven unstressed syllables. This added another layer to my project and challenged me even more. The reason I chose this project specifically was that I don’t attempt poetry often. I have never seen myself as an extremely creative person so poetry has always been a challenge for me. I always figured that I would only write a poem when it was assigned to me. When I was presented the chance to create my own project, I decided to give poetry a shot. Going into it, I knew it would be difficult, but I wanted to push myself to see if I could create a poem I was proud of. As for the process of writing these poems, it was definitely an uphill battle. The limitation on the number of syllables was major cause of frustration for me. There would be times where I had a line that I really liked but it had either too many syllables or not enough. When this happened I had to either add to a line or take words away and I would end up with something that I didn’t like. Also, I don’t think I actually have seven stressed syllables and seven unstressed syllables in all of my lines. That was something I didn’t really focus on as I was more focused on the syllable count. This likely means I didn’t follow the ballad meter rules completely, but I did the best that I could. Writing Huck’s poem was a breeze for me. Since I already knew how he felt about certain situations, it was much easier for me to write. It was when I got to Jim’s poem that I had difficulty. There were times I had to try and create what I thought would be his internal monologue. I had to use what I knew about his character to try and come up with something. I feel like if Twain had given more insight to Jim’s thoughts, this would have been much easier. Looking back at the work I have done, I have mixed feelings about the end result. I feel proud of myself for trying to push myself and going outside of my comfort zone. However, I am not completely happy with how Jim’s poem came out. I feel like it was a bit bland at times and is nowhere near as good as my poem from Huck’s perspective. I feel like it just doesn’t do the character and novel justice. If I could go back in time and I did not have the limits of ballad meter, I feel like I could have improved that poem.
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