YingyingNg

1.  Selected poem: The Corn Grows Up

 The House Settles

 The house settles.  The dark of the door hinges creak, creak.  The thunder quiets.  The dark from crooked stairs creak, creak.  The thunder quiets.  The dark of the lonely floorboards creak, creak.  The house settles.  The dark of the desolate homes creak, creak. //- from an easily spooked house dweller //

2. The Song of the Sky Loom & I Have Killed a Deer Compare and Contrast  The similarities between the Song of the Sky Loom and I Have Killed a Deer are quite hard to find, mostly because of the different structure of both these poems. But both of these poems talk of nature and animals, for example in The Song of the Sky Loom, "That we may walk where the birds sing, That we may walk fittingly where the grass is green" and in I Have Killed a Deer, "Comes the deer to my singing, through the pollen, flower pollen." both these quotes talk of birds, grass, deer, and flowers. Another similarity between the two poems is the way they both repeat the first sentence of the poem. In the Song of the Sky Loom, "O our Mother the Earth, O our Father the Sky" is repeated in the very beginning and is also the last line. In I Have Killed a Deer, the line "Comes the deer to my singing" repeats constantly throughout the poem, and in the very beginning and very end as well.  The difference between the two poems can be seen through the entire structure of the poems. While the Song of the Sky Loom is not separated, I Have Killed a Deer is sorted out in stanzas. I Have Killed a Deer is more of a free-verse poem, when the Song of the Sky Loom is neatly organized in the number of repeating lines.

3. a) I like how the story is told in third person, and describes how the Native Americans' beliefs depend so much on their gods. For example, when the gods entered, and laid the buckskin on the ground, it was the beginning of the creation of a man and woman. The story uses a creative way of describing how the people live and think, showing their culture through these actions. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> b) I didn't really dislike any part of the story. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> c) "The white ear of corn had been changed into a man, the yellow ear into a woman. It was the wind that gave them life. It is the wind that comes out of our mouths now that gives us life. When this ceases to blow we die. In the skin at the tips of our fingers we see the trail of the wind; it shows us where the wind blew when our ancestors were created." This part of the story creates such a dream-like atmosphere, where I can tell what kind of people wrote this story/lived in the story. The sense of calm is revealed through the descriptions of wind on their fingertips and the peoples' faith in their ancestors. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> d) In the beginning, it is said that the men and women wash themselves, and then dry off with cornmeal. This shows a unique custom that the Native Americans have in their way of using food/crops in their lifestyle. When the gods put the corn and buckskins on the ground, chanting around it, this shows the way they act religiously and shows what they think of spirits or what they believe. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> e) I can see how white and yellow are supposed to represent men and women, as they bathe in different colored cornmeal (white and yellow) and later the people use white and yellow ears of corn to create the man and woman.

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">4. The man who wrote the poem describes hunting from a very optimistic jolly perspective. Instead of setting a dark and having remorse sound throughout the poem, the words are patterned as if he were singing a song about hunting. The unique way the words are phrased and patterned form some sort of a rhythm that mirrors the sound of footsteps. So as the poem comes to an end, with every repeating verse, the hunter is stepping closer and closer to the deer. I don't think this man is sorry about killing the deer, as he is slowly luring the deer inside his mind with his song. In a sentence I would say that the man reminds me of a pied piper, luring the deer towards him with his rhythmic poem in mind.