"Things Shouldn't Be So Hard" by Kay Ryan

When first listening to this poem I thought about an older woman who had been getting up and doing the same routine for years and years- never doing anything unexpected. I felt as though this woman was trapped in her day-to-day life, but even though she had a routine and she was comfortable in that routine, nothing ever came from it. Nothing was worn or rubbed down or even made to look like she had even lived there.

It seems as though the author is writing it from an autobiographical perspective. Maybe her mother, aunt, grandma, or someone close to her had passed away and when she went to see the house, maybe help clear out furniture, it all looked so un-touched and not bothered with. Nothing in the house even left an imprint to make you believe someone even lived there. It was as if she was erased from the earth before even dying.

This poem also had a great sense of imagery, I could clearly see an old woman going about her daily tasks in an old house with old fixtures and furniture and just walking around with a gloomy face because she just wanted to be recognized and leave in imprint on something. We all want to be remembered, no matter how miniscule it is.

"Aria" by George Bilgere

In the past year, I've been through an enormous amount of anxiety and overall trouble that was put on me by my family. I won’t go into detail, but to put it simply, there was a lot of resentment between my parents and it felt as if my family was falling apart at the seams. When listening and reading to this poem I also felt the same about this family. It seems as if the family had just gone through a huge loss and they’re trying to get their life back in order

When I was reading I was under the impression that the father was an opera singer, but he can’t sing anymore because he had to get a lung removed. Once he hears the song and pulls off the road, the children immediately go silent and stop fidgeting because they know how much opera still means to him. The wife just seems extremely frustrated with the whole situation and instead of staying there and listening, she gets out and smokes a cigarette wishing that he wouldn’t still lurk in the past and try to get over it.

There are a lot of things that ruin our moods and can really hurt or even ‘ruin’ our lives. I put ‘ruin’ in quotes when dealing with life because to me, no matter how bad things get, you have to look to the good, at least a little bit. If you don’t, things will just get worse and you probably won’t end up feeling happy for a long time. I’ve learned from first-hand experience how horrible things can get. But also, the fact that no matter how bad things get you have to open up to someone, tell them all your feelings or write your frustrations down, do something to get it out before it starts eating away at you. You just have to look up to something positive and try to enjoy yourself or else nothing will change.

"For the Falling Man" by Annie Farnsworth

When first listening to “For the Falling Man” I was overcome with such a sense of emotion, not just because it was September 11th; but because it’s one of those things that makes you think about what you have and how much we don’t appreciate the simple things in life. I feel a bit hypocritical writing this because it always takes something like that for me to realize what I have and how tomorrow is never promised to me, but after 5 minutes I forget about it and keep going about my day.

Regarding September 11th, everyone always says that you always remember where you were when you found out. I do remember where I was, but I remember having such a sense of confusion. I was 11, I had no idea what the World Trade Centers were or what terrorism was. I was so confused but I knew it had to have been a bad thing if the principal stopped into every class and told us what had happened. It wasn’t until I got home did I realize what was actually hit and how massive the damage was. Recently, I watched a video that was put out on September 11th of this year that had almost the whole destruction of both towers. The people who were filming were pretty far away, in a separate building, but when the buildings fell you could see all the smoke billowing out and finally coming in contact with the building where it was being filmed.

Manhattan was completely covered in a layer of dust and debris and soon the whole city slowly shut down. New York was put to a standstill for months; everyone was afraid to go outside and most feared for their lives. With all this tragedy, America, for the most part, came together as one. All of a sudden American flags and paraphernalia were seen all over the country. Not to make this subject more discouraging, but it irritates me how suddenly everyone is patriotic just because they have an American flag outside their house. Yes, everyone was somewhat affected about what happened on September 11th, but the hypocrisy surrounding this “patriotism” was astounding.

I’ve never been known to 100% positive about every decision out government has made, in fact, the percentage is no where near 100, but I do love my country. I love having freedom to do and say what I want without being persecuted. However, it is still extremely hypocritical (Yes, I know, I said it… again!) that we are supposed to be in this country that is so free and such a great place to live in, but still certain people are denied rights that others are automatically born with; that isn’t freedom, is it?

September 11th mostly reminds me of what a sad state our government is in right now. 5 years later, and what do we have to prove for it? A war on “terror” that has now turned into a war for oil and power, which is costing us millions each day, for something that could be used for much better resources. It agitates me how many bad decisions our government has made these past years and how they could have done a much better job.

I guess I’ll end this here since it’s turning more into a political opinion than a remembrance.



Ps: I know this is a bit longer than expected, but I wanted to add everything that this poem made me think about.

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