”Austin, Texas,” by Kwame Alexander (Winter 2001) and ”Barton Springs,” by Tony Hoagland (July/August 2007)
Author: Kwame Alexander, Tony Hoagland, and Corby James (video)
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”Austin, Texas,” by Kwame Alexander
Tags:My thoughts
The photograph looks calm. But what mood does the POEM create for you?
i
would
Climb
The hills of Mt.
Bonnell at dawn blindfolded
Swim
the Colorado at noon barebottomed and
Dance
a poet's salsa at midnight barefoot
along the pavement
Of your soul
To get closer to this poem
to that fresh air music
of people coming
and going
in Austin, Texas
I feel like the author was told to remember a time in their life where they remember being at peace or a happy memory. I really enjoy the imagery used in the poem, it really helps make the piece seem like a memory.
I’m thinking about the capitalization of the verbs as more significant that the (proper noun) places. To climb is to work hard to get high above.
Swim is to surround yourself and submerge yourself and stay afloat.
Dance is to celebrate and release and move and find rhythm.
I think it is cool that there is no end stop in the poem. No punctuation.It is like a free flow and keeps going and going and going.
I go often to climb a hill in Fordham. It is hard to climb up but I like to get the top to see the view of stores and people hanging out.
i really like tis part becuase it had simliar things that made me think of being back home climbing to get fruits and walking barefoot some times different but almost the same
due to where i come from alot of bad things have happpen and it always been people who became famous because of how they expressed music and are able to keep going through life and deal with pain.
This is a nice poem because it just taking about blue beautiful the different states are .
A poet’s salsa -what is that? I’m not a poet. I like the image. Salsa is a mixture. Like words? Mixed together to make a poem
Tag:me
The mood set is calm. The author uses a soft word like a soul to create “atmosphere of the story.”
Mood- the mood the author sets is happy. It makes me happy to think about music.
Diction refers to the choice of words. Poet chose words that mean freedom like fresh air and barefoot.
it sets a mood for people to think of some “fresh air music” and makes people think about this place.
alliteration. when we think about Fresh air music i would think of something calming and i start to think that this poem could be something about calm things that he would do. this could help us think of things that are calming for us too.
Tag:Me
Does the author love his city? I like my city because I have a basketball hoop and park right around the corner, actually two parks, one big and one small.
Barton Springs 2017 from Corby James on Vimeo. Quick fly over of the gem of Austin, Barton Springs Pool
”Barton Springs,” by Tony Hoagland
Oh life, how I loved your cold spring mornings
of putting my stuff in the green gym-bag
and crossing wet grass to the southeast gate
to push my crumpled dollar through the slot.
When I get my allotted case of cancer,
let me swim ten more times at Barton Springs,
in the outdoor pool at 6AM, in the cold water
with the geezers and the jocks.
With my head bald from radiation
and my chemotherapeutic weight loss
I will be sleek as a cheetah
—and I will not complain about life's
pedestrian hypocrisies,
I will not consider death a contractual violation.
Let my cancer be the slow-growing kind
so I will have all the time I need
to backstroke over the rocks and little fishes,
looking upwards through my bronze-tinted goggles
into the vaults and rafters of the oaks,
as the crows exchange their morning gossip
in the pale mutations of early light.
It was worth death to see you through these optic nerves,
to feel breeze through the fur on my arms
to be chilled and stirred in your mortal martini.
In documents elsewhere I have already recorded
my complaints in some painstaking detail.
Now, because all things are joyful near water,
there just might be time to catch up on praise.
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