I have made a lot of progress on my poem for my portfolio. I think its just about done but you could let me know what you think i should add or take out.
So you say cant win just because of our past
But I say your wrong
We've been on the grind since dawn
We are CHAMPIONS
You say we cant compete
And all we do is get beat
But I say we are hungry for this ring
And its time for us Lions to EAT!!!!!!!
We are CHAMPIONS
They say it cant be done
But to me we've already won
We've got others scared
By how much we've prepared
EAT LIONS, EAT!!!!
We are CHAMPIONS
You may call us lucky
For what we will achieve
...........
and this is were i got stuck.
For the short story i have narrowed it down to two events that have stuck out to me. One was a game were we lost on account of the referees. The other is when we lost to team that clearly wasn't as good as us. These events stuck out because they both effected me in different ways.
Tre'
ReplyDeleteYou need to look closely at punctuation that's missing - unless you plan to be more like e.e. cummings than we talked about and play with punctuation, you're missing some key ingredients in contracted words. (Look at: cant, your, its)
I like how you borrowed many of the structures from Maya Angelou - I see her rhymed endings, the startling, and repeated last line with CHAMPIONS, and a strong tone. We talked about how the voice of the poem seemed to come from a strong black woman, and you have made it clear that this poem comes from a passionate ball player.
A few questions to help you get 'unstuck'
- What is the title of your poem? (I see a recurring thematic idea of being underestimated and rising above ...)
- Might you want to use 'allusion,' a fancy word for quoting others in your poem, and borrow from Maya Angelou even further to make your end stronger? (Remember that the end of 'Still I Rise' moves away from the pattern she starts)
- Are you interested in using strong metaphors or similes, like Maya Angelou did?
- Last, check out your progression - the first stanza has 4 lines, the second has 5, the third has 6 ... is this important? Could this be used to build on your idea? Or might you cut your readers' expectations short with a short stanza?
I look forward to seeing your short story move forward as well.
Cheers
Ms. Rae
Hello Tre,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ms. Rae that there's a strong sense of cohesion in this poem; it's a really great rally piece that I could imagine being chanted to get pumped for a game. That being said: every chant needs a name, or a title. And very chant needs that kick-in-the-rear last stanza where the goal is shouted, where the best advice is given, where the moral to the story is.
You've got these strong reoccurring lines of 'We are Champions' and 'Eat Lions'. I can sense a rhythm to the progression, definitely pay that up because the flow is so inspiring. Perhaps you can think about Ms. Rae's comment about dealing with stanza length, or keep the stanzas all the same length to really play up the rhythm. Maybe keep the 'We are champions' standard at the end of each stanza but build up with variations of the repeated 'lions eat'.
The best way to think about this is to decide what the rhythm of the chant is-- pound out the beats if you have to-- and then the rest of the poem will fall into place!