What a Week

Unfortunately, I could not make it to Mrs. Clinch’s wonderfully amazing AP Literature & Composition class, for I had the stomach flu. However, I was able to continue reading the last 20 pages of Invisible Man, and I enjoyed it. Invisible man was an extremely long read, but getting to the end allowed me to finally understand the values of reading such a large book. Hopefully, in the book test that I failed to take today, I will be able to do decent enough to maintain my grade.
In the recent poems readings we have been doing, I believe that this has helped me tremendously in gaining an edge on analyzing poetry. I finally understand at least half of what the poet is trying to say through the intricate weaving of words, phrases, and structure. Some poems are so difficult that I want to give up, but analyzing the poems in group helped me in understand how to approach these poems. I think that the tip that helped the most to understand the poet’s feelings and views are the multiple definitions of the words that he uses. Many times a poet will use one word and mean over 7 different things, which allows the reader to interpret what the poet is trying to get across. As a result, I am able to see the poem from multiple angles. It could include anger, depressions, caprisun (haha), and even drama. Anything would work within a poem, but we just need to search for it. Poetry is analyzed based on the ways that we feel. If we feel similar to how the poet felt when he wrote the poem, the more likely that we are going to analyze the poem correctly. Although it seems a little strange, reaching our deeper emotions may actually help with these poems. Hopefully, we will get an easy enough poetry on the AP exam so we do not need to reach too far.
I also need to purchase the book Fight Club soon because I think the seminars are going to occur sooner that I expect. Neil Sethi has already read the entire novel in a day, so I believe that I have hope. If someone can read an AP Lit book in a day, it cannot be that boring. Most likely, it will be interesting enough for me to read within a week or two. I would hate to read another book that I despise, but hopefully, the novel has enough action and drama to keep me on my feet. Furthermore, Fight Club is a very ironic book. We are taking a seminar on Fight Club, but in the book, the first rule about fight club is to never talk about fight club. Doesn’t that mean we are breaking the rules? I guess the risk does not affect Mrs. Clinch. (I’m just joking, but it is still somewhat ironic).