Poets - Billy Collins continued

Fishing on the Susquehanna in July

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna 

or on any river for that matter 

to be perfectly honest.  

Not in July or any month 

have I had the pleasure--if it is a pleasure-- 

of fishing on the Susquehanna.  

I am more likely to be found

in a quiet room like this one-- 

a painting of a woman on the wall,  

a bowl of tangerines on the table-- 

trying to manufacture the sensation 

of fishing on the Susquehanna.  

There is little doubt

 that others have been fishing

 on the Susquehanna,  

rowing upstream in a wooden boat, 

sliding the oars under the water 

then raising them to drip in the light.  

But the nearest I have ever come to 

fishing on the Susquehanna

was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia  

when I balanced a little egg of time in front time

in front of a painting

in which that river curled around a bend  

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky, 

dense trees along the banks,

 and a fellow with a red bandanna  

sitting in a small, green 

flat-bottom boat 

holding the thin whip of a pole.  

That is something I am unlikely

ever to do, I remember 

saying to myself and the person next to me.  

Then I blinked and moved on 

to other American scenes 

of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,  

even one of a brown hare 

who seemed so wired with alertness 

I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

Poets - Billy Collins continued

Some Days
by Billy Collins
Some days I put the people in their places at the table, bend their legs at the knees, if they come with that feature, and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs. All afternoon they face one another, the man in the brown suit, the woman in the blue dress, perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved. But other days, I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs, then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse to sit with the others at the long table. Very funny, but how would you like it if you never knew from one day to the next if you were going to spend it striding around like a vivid god, your shoulders in the clouds, or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper, staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

Poets - Billy Collins continued

The Golden Years

All I do these drawn-out days

 is sit in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge

 where there are no pheasants to be seen

 and last time I looked, no ridge.

  I could drive over to Quail Falls

 and spend the day there playing bridge,

 but the lack of a falls and the absence of quail

 would only remind me of Pheasant Ridge. 

 I know a widow at Fox Run

 and another with a condo at Smokey Ledge.

 One of them smokes, and neither can run,

 so I’ll stick to the pledge I made to Midge.

 Who frightened the fox and bulldozed the ledge?

 I ask in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge.

Poets - Billy Collins

Why do I like choose this poet? Well I found his name in the Most Popular Contemporary Poets column rank first! It immediately came to my mind," This must be a extremely good poet." I clicked on his name, and saw what he has written so far. 11 books and 33 poems! I started reading on one of his poems, fishing on the Susquehanna in July. It was a stunning piece of poetry. I can picture vividly what he is trying to convey to me in my mind. I can picture how the Susquehanna looked like. I can picture how he feels while fishing on the Susquehanna. This piece of work is amazing. Because of this work, i knew that this is not his best poem and hence i went to google to search on him in order to know more about this fantastic poet. Born in 22ND March, 1941, in the capital of the United States. His parents are William and Katherine Collins. Collins notable book was The Apple that Astonished Paris. I then continued to search on more of his poems. One of them was - Some Days. I could not really understand what he was trying to say, but his style of writing is almost the same as Fishing on the Susquehanna in July. he likes to describe the person or place very vividly that you can picture what it looks like in your mind. He does not really use very flamboyant words or phrases, but after you read his poem, you would be scratching your head, trying to understand what he is trying to say. At the end, he does not really conclude everything, he keeps a little bit of information to himself, making you think after reading his poem. I then read another of his poems, The Golden Years. In this poem, he is talking about a phesant bridge. He describes what he can do and see there at the Phesant bridge. Again, he describes what he can see vividly. This may not be a very long poem, but it is fantastic.

Billy Collins' work is fantastic, but most of the time, i cannot really understand what he is trying to say. But after reading a few times i finally got what he was trying to convey to me.

My three favourite poems written by him are, Fishing on Susquahanna in July, Some Days and the Golden Years.

Online lessons- poems - Fast rode the knight by Stephen Crane

Fast rode the knight by Stephen Crane

Fast rode the knight
With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an eager sword,
"To save my lady!"
Fast rode the knIght,
And leaped from saddle to war.
Men of steel flickered and gleamed
Like riot of silver lights,
And the gold of the knight's good banner
Still waved on a castle wall.
. . . . .
A horse,
Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,
Forgotten at foot of castle wall.
A horse
Dead at foot of castle wall.

The fugarative language use in this poem are:

Hyperbole:"To save my lady!" And leaped from saddle to war.

Personification:Fast rode the knight

With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an eager sword

Metaphor: Men of steel flickered and gleamed Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,

Simile: Like riot of silver lights,

Sybolism: The horse and knight uses symbolism.

I like this poem because it shows that the knight went through alot to save his lady, but when he saved her, he forgotten about his horse and it dies at the foot of the castle wall. The author wants to show how eager the knight is eager to save the princess by using hyperbole and personification. He uses metaphors to describe more about the knights and horses. I like this poem because it vividly describes what was the cause of the horse's death.

Is progress beneficial for society?

Is progress beneficial for society, and i have to say yes. Man, always find ways to improve their or our lives through innovative ideas, but why must we stop improving our lives? I feel that is stupid not to progress and live the same way for many generations to come. We should always find ways to progress to improve our lives. If we stop finding ways to improve our lives, we would stop inventing things, we woould stop thinking for new ideas, we would not be innovative anymore.
When we are not innovative, we would lose our dominance on Earth as other animals are getting cleverer each day, and maybe one day, they will be smarter than us. In order to prevent this from happening, we must keep finding ways to improve our lives, to keep thinking of new ideas, and to be the dominant race on planet Earth, this is why i feel that progress is beneficial for the society.

My favourite part in village by the sea

My favourite part in village by the sea is when Hari decides to go to Bombay. I like this part because this is the main turning point in the story. Because he made this decision, he would be able to drag his family out of poverty. In this part of the story, he was in two minds, he did not want to leave his family but he desperately wanted to change the situation his family is in at that time.

The main reason i like this part is because he mustered all his courage and finally came to a decision, which is to travel to Bombay to look for a job. I feel that this part he was able to see what he needed to do to change his family's situation, and of course, he made the right decision as his family was dragged out of poverty and he came back home with some ideas to earn money. He was starting to act and think like a grown man and he matured through the process while he was in Bombay.

These are the reasons this is my favourite part of the story.

Confessions of a Hwa Chong-ian

Hwa Chong a great school, and most of you may wonder what is life like as a Hwa Chong-ian, well life is interesting, very interesting. When i first stepped in Hwa Chong, i was shocked to see how massive the school compound is, it is almost 5 times bigger than my primary school! I am trully anstonished, but i feel extremely lucky to be in this wonderful school.

As you know, Hwa Chong is a chinese school, but not all of us can speak fluent chinese! But i think on of the main reasons we come to Hwa Chong is because we want to improve our chinese, and i am sure when all of us graduate, we will be able to speak fluent chinese.

During lessons, some of us will be listening intently on what the teacher is saying, while a handful of us would be building castles in the air! But when it is recess, most of us would dashed out of the class and into the canteen, while the rest maybe revising their work, talking or playing handphone games!

Life in Hwa Chong is not a boring one, but one that is full of surprises. I am really lucky to be in this wonderful school!

Who is my favourite/least favourite character in Village By The Sea

Well, I would choose writing on what my least favourite character.
My least favourite character in Vilage by the Sea is Hari.
Although Hari is the protagonist in the story, I dislike his attitude towards life as it is very pessimistic. He always thinks that his family will never get out of poverty no matter what he or his family tries. On the other hand, his good friend Ramu is a very optimistic person. Ramu feels that there is always a chance of getting out of poverty. He was very optimistic about getting a job in the factory that was never built. Hari felt that they had no chance in getting a job in the factory as neither of them graduated from college or completed school. He also felt that even if they had the job, they could not operate the machines. But Ramu replied,"We can learn!" I admire Ramu for being optimistic and feel that Hari should learn from him. Although in the end, Hari went over to Bombay and worked there, and when he returned he changed his family's life, I feel that he could get his family out of poverty earlier if he had changed his mindset.

But the good thing about him is that he was able to change his mindset when he came home from Bombay. He came home with ideas like setting up a clock repair shop and a poultry farm.

In all i feel that he was at first, the one who actually made his families problems look worse with his pessimistic mindset, hence he has to fret over his these same problems over and over agian.

I Rather be a city rat than a country rat.

  In my opinion, i rather be a city rat than a country rat because there are more adventures in the city for a rat than in a coumtry. There will be more predators in the city than in the country. For example, in the city the enemy is everywhere- humans. They would always try to kill rats with extremely innovative ways, for example, rat traps, pest control etc. So in the city, I being a rat, would always be on the run from humans. But in the city, the humans would not hate rats as much as in the people in the city, so it would be easier to "stay alive". The food in the city is much more abundant than the country. In the city, the are many rubbish dumps, wich are a source of food. Leftovers of what the humans have eaten, it would be a paradise for rats. Whereas in the country, there are few or no rubbish dumps, hence finding food would be much more difficult. In the city, there are many sewers which would be a hidding place for the rats. So it would be a very interesting live for the rats living there. Hence I rather be a city rat than a country rat.

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