Like Dead Flowers

I just stopped believing in happy endings and safe harbors I could find. After all, love is an emotion that calls for everything I am not. I’ve gotten so good at shooting down any emotion this tired world can bring that my mind is full of screaming hyperactive flaws. I just want to lie down because the colors from these inconvenient fireworks hurt my eyes and only remind me of the failed love than began last summer in the field of blue flowers.
So I returned to the scene of the crime.
The color of tranquility and intellect and healing found on the soft petals. I plucked a single stem with a snap. It felt cool and wet against my fingertips, slightly sticky to the touch from the chlorophyll. To me, this symbolized many things, including the man I loved when he asked me to marry him in this very spot.
But, of course, the world is full of charming devils with silver tongues. He was a liar.
The fight we had with the sharp words splintering the night, he said, “You’ll never be what I need.”
I replied, “But, oh, how I could make you bleed!”
Since then, I’ve known the border lines we drew between us and keep far on my side of the battlefield. But when I find myself dreaming about the past, I return and pick a blue flower to lay it down somewhere to die. When its wilted petals are brown and crackle like the sound of his dry, sarcastic wit, I feel more at ease. I know that this love is forever gone, but I’m not that kind and at least that was my life.
But you had to come along, didn’t you? Where do I go when every “no” turns into “maybe”? So what do I do with this sudden burst of sunlight, catching me with my umbrella when I think about the time I used to share with him? This cross-indexes every weatherman’s report.
I think it’s time for winter to well up so I can stop coming back to needlessly pick flowers. I think it’s time for me to heal. 

Community Assignment: "The Life of John Keats; A Romantic Poet"

After going through many blogs created by the groups of students, I found one containing posts that caught my eye.  These posts came from the blog "The Life of John Keats; A Romantic Poet"; it holds the analysis and interpretations of Keats’ various works.  The overall look of the blog held a simple and non-distracting look.  I liked the poll asking about our favorite romantic poet; it was a fun thing to add to the blog project.  The “Helpful Resources” of course helped; it had not only sources for the different poets but also sources that helped with English writing.  To give a better understanding of Keats’ works acted as this blog’s main goal, but to also help list resources of other poets obtained as a great touch.  I found that the section containing Keats’ poems was a smart idea, because it allows the readers to follow a post along with a poem.  There was a lot of thought put into creating this blog. 

A few posts caught my eye like the one “On Fame”.  The person connected Keats’s poem to the pop culture today, so it relates to current main stream in my life; I can understand the post better.  I liked how they mentioned the difference in who fame follows today and Keats’ view on whom it follows.  The most interesting posts I read would be the poems “Something to Nothing” and “The Moon is Mourning Beside Me”; they held a deep meaning and story behind it all.  The first poem described the life of a loved one from the start and letting them go.  It had great visuals along with the description of self conflict.  The second poem also revealed a love story; they couldn’t stand the separation from their love.  Although not in a literal form and hard to grasp at first, it was a good poem to interpret. 

            For those who are new to Romanticism or want to learn more about Keats, this blog provides a variety of different interpretations on the same theme from Keats, and they are all on different works.  I noticed that a lot of Keats’ works were about love, yet the works had a dark feel.  With these analyses in the blog, viewers will get a better understanding of Keats’ and his works. 

"Byron in our Day"

In the article, “Byron in our Day”, composed by the Discovers Authors in 2003, it explains the relation between Byron and the poem, “Don Juan” written by Byron, himself. In the article it speaks of how many different emotions are reviled in the poem. It also says how “Don Juan” was the poem at which Byron was able to find himself. It was also in the poems, “Childe Harold”, “Manfred”, and “Cain” where it is said Byron was able to mature from. “Don Juan” was the first poem where Byron truly reviled his maturity. In the article it states, “When Byron discovered himself in “Don Juan”, his mind had matured, his way of life had become more wholesome, his technical ability had reached its height; what was of particular importance, he had learned to write more slowly and with greater patience; his daily stint was two octaves of “Don Juan”.” Byron was mainly a man who loved to be wild and go to parties. Many of his poems focus on love, sex, and drugs for the theme. For many people in modern time it’s the same. People today’s main priority have turned into living life to the fullest including doing things that affect their lives negatively. For Byron life seemed boring and he wanted to spice things up. People could tell Byron’s way of life through his poem. Also, in the article it states, “Byron’s view of life was, after all essentially moral. He was deeply and sincerely interested in the moral aspect of things; only, he laid the stress elsewhere than on the conventional morality of his day. That conventional morality-often a mere matter of appearances-he stigmatized as can‘t; he hated that can‘t. not comically, at bottom, but earnestly, savagely; and he assailed it with furious blows, shocked it without mercy or caution.”  it continues on staying, “ There is no doubting his sincerity when he cries out in his letters, “It is the most moral of poems,” his contempt is as genuine as it is bitter, when he says to the British nation,- “You’re not a moral people and you know it, Without the need of too sincere a poet”.”
What I read this article as, was Byron’s way of trying to reach out to the people and make them see that there is more to life than parties, sex, and drugs. After he was able to discover himself in “Don Juan” he opened his eyes to the real world. The poem “Don Juan” is about a man who lives a rough life and in the end he makes it through. Byron compares it to his own life because he too lived a rough life. I really enjoyed this article. Some of the vocabulary was tough to understand, but after looking up the words the article made more sense. When I first read the article it did not make much sense at all, disregarding the vocabulary. At first it seemed to be about ho Byron was writing the poem, “Don Juan” about his own life, after reading it a few more times and looking into it a little deeper I realized that it wasn’t about Byron, it was just the poem that helped Byron realize that there is more to life. The very first sentence in the article is, “It was in “Don Juan” that [Byron] found himself…”, but then later in the article is says, “The scheme of the poem was such as to allow him to deploy all his powers”. I read this sentence as Byron letting all of his life experiences out on paper and allowing himself to look back on his life and to see all the things that have went wrong in his past. Then, after reading the poem, it was clear that the poem wasn’t his life, it was just a rougher life than his own. He lived on the edge, then realizing that he could lose everything he’s ever loved most likely scared him. I enjoyed this article once I understood its meaning and the moral behind it. Byron’s life story is confusing because most of his life was secret, but once his secrets were reviled his poems and the article of his life become more clear.

Community Blog; "Lord Byron"

         The blog group “Lord Byron” has a very good point when they bring up how Bryon could be argued as a sexual magnet or a hero. Many of Bryon’s poems that, were not published, are bases off of sexual things in life for both females and males, but the question is could his poems have helped the human species? Bryon was able to relate to both men and women, considering how he was attracted to both genders, causing him to have the ability to show two different sides of him. He has his more manly side where he was able to show men how to soften up and let a women feel loved and beautiful. In the poem “She Walks in Beauty”, it is telling how beautiful this girl is to him and how she can be compared to all the beautiful things in nature. This poem can be a good way to help males realize that women are not just people in a room; they can be as gorgeous as anything. It also could help a woman’s self-esteem. For example, poems such as this one by Lord Byron, can remind woman that they are beautiful and not only what men make them out to be. For this generation people need to be reminded of poems such as this one. 

       The blog created by this group did a really good job in going past just the poems written by Byron and pointing things out in his life that greatly affected his writing. There is more to Byron than his poems and not everyone is able to understand his point of view. This blog group did a great job on being able to bring to view all of the key facts in Byron’s life. I really enjoyed reading the blog posted by Danielle Henery about the personal life of Lord Byron. She did a great job in identifying Byron’s secret life that only Byron’s close friends knew about. All together the blog group did wonderful work on describing Byron’s life’s work and his own personal affairs.

It's like a parallel universe! {Blog Community}

The blog Lord Byron is a blog made by Sydney Leliefeld, Alejandra Hernandez, Natasha King, and  Danielle Henry featuring George Gordon, Lord Byron and the many aspects of his life and writing. The colors are soft, moody, and dark; a good reflection of Romanticism itself.
The picture of Byron in the upper left hand corner is a nice touch, adding a piece that gives the person looking at the blog a sense of being able to relate to an actual face rather than words. Overall, the colors and slight opacity of the main table make the site appealing to the eye. The font is easy to look at when against the dark background.
Lord Byron has a variety of information regarding Byron's life, including a post on the sexual scandals he was involved in. It also highlights some of his poems with reasonable opinions by the poster, while also explaining the writing itself.

The post that really caught my eye was written by Natasha King and explains the Byron poem "We'll Go No More A Roving." It has a picture of Byron at the top with the poem underneath, followed by an in-depth description and evaluation of the poem. It tells you what the piece is about, and also connects how it was possibly significant in Byron's life. It was very well written with important details that expresses King's interpretations of the poem alongside supporting evidence found within the text.

I also found that this blog had an informative post alongside a video that explored the sexual and scandalous aspect of Byron's life, which was very interesting and not a topic I've seen explained in detail. This also interested me, because in the article I chose, it touched bases with a few similar themes. This part was something I thought intriguing and didn't know:
" His memoirs were so explicit and crude that they were not published and it was decided that they'd never be seen by the public. Byron's closest friends gathered one month after his death in May, 1824, and burned them. Most of the poetry that have published are still seen today as provocative, even in a society filled with sex, drugs and war."

The Girl In the Mirror

My head hurts as I sit here thinking as hard as my brain could possibly handle.  So much happens in one day all I could do is stress out.  Instantly I think of a young man stroking his chin, while resting his elbow onto the ball of his knee. His eyebrows crunched downward so hard as if something bad happened.  They call this man “The Thinker”.  I thought to myself, “I’m in pain from thinking so hard, so do I look like him”?  I look in the mirror at myself, and I do not see a perfect reflection.  The girl that stands there does not have furrowed brows or the stance that I stood in.  She does not act as a reflection but acts as guidance.  The reflections’ eyes gaze deep into me.  She cocks her head to the side, and she gives me a stern look as if trying to speak.  I question her in my mind, and like an instant response she slowly slides her left foot out, popped her hip to the left, and placed a hand onto her hip.  She does not say anything, but I understand and nod my head.  Although she remains in the mirror, her gaze pierces me.  I feel as if I fought myself in a world unknown.  I retreat from the mirror and rest on the couch. 

My brain has nothing to say without a mouth, nothing to do but throb in pain as I try to color this white paper.  It pushes out pressure I can feel.  It says, “Stop and remember the girl in the mirror”.   I start to empty my mind and go off of thoughts.  So many thoughts come up at a time like dominos striking down at one another, or a rush of water in a river.  Like the white water rapids my brain has gaps, bumps, and holes in the thinking process, yet they both look so beautiful.  The rapids speak to you.  They ask if you would like to join them in an adventure.  The brain also speaks to you, asking if you could explore and study it.  Study it so others call learn and others can teach. 

My mind eases as I start to relax.  I realize now why I did not see my true reflection.  This girl within me knew what I really needed; I needed a day to myself, a day to think of whatever flowed in and out.  The couch starts to hug me and rock me into a drowsy state.  All the stresses of the world and the thoughts float in the air.  Gigantic words reminding me of what I must deal with each day.  No it actually acts as Satan’s spawn.  It causes distress in my life.  I said to them, “How’s this for a change”?  I slowly fade away into a slumber.  The words start to deteriorate, and as each one vanished, a chip fell of my shoulder.  In the corner of my eye I see the girl in the mirror with a smile on her face.  Although she looked like a girl in a mirror, she only existed as me.  She was deep inside, and she knew what I needed.  I smile back and sleep.  I think to myself, everyone needs a break.

The Dream

            Many people depict dreams that seem so real they mistakenly felt as if they remained awake.  The Romantic poet, Lord Byron, illustrates a love story in his poem “The Dream”.  Byron wrote this poem in the summer of 1816; this was around the time Byron’s marriage with Annabella Milbanke could not survive any longer.  If Byron did not produce “The Dream” as a result from influence of his relationship with Annabella, then it exists as an actual summary of their love story.  In the first passage, Byron describes how dreams act, compares them to reality, and starts to transition into his dream of love for the second passage.  In passage two the poem reveals the feelings of deep love from a young boy, while the young girl does not share the same feelings.  Later on the boy grows into a young man, and discovers the young woman’s’ true feelings and flees.  He spends his nights alone in a house of his own, but he returns after the woman gets married.  She has children with this new man and feels happy, yet deep inside she feels hardship for something she cannot grasp.  The man marries another woman, but at the ceremony his mind wanders elsewhere.  In the conclusion they think of one another and live in madness or misery deep inside.

Byron believes a thin line acts as the difference between the world of dreams and reality as he says, “Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of reality” (D, I, lines 1-4).  In the first passage, Byron explains the similarities that dreams and reality hold, “And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy” (D, I, lines 5-6).  What an individual dreams of can and most likely will be affected by what occurred in their life.  Dreams can carry powerful emotions, because of strong influences from reality.  Reality can influence the direction in a dream, and dreams can also influence an individuals’ life.  Dreams may influence an individual’s personality once they wake up, goals, or perspective in life.  Dreams influence an individual both positively and negatively as mentioned in the first passage, “They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off waking toils, They do divide our being; they become A portion of ourselves as of our time,” (D, I, lines 7-10).  Once in a while an individual may receive a visit from spirits.  Byron describes what these spirits have in store for an individual, “And they look like heralds of eternity; They pass like spirits of the past- they speak Like sibyls of the future; they have power- The tyranny of pleaser and pain; They make us what were not-what they will, And shake us with the vision that’s gone by” (D, I, lines 11-16).  I believe people shape their dreams, and dreams shape them.  There is truly a thin line between dreams and reality.  The matter of keeping it as a dream or changing it into a reality makes the difference.

Using Imagination to Create

            Nothingness. All white. My mind is blank. I start to think of something, something really beautiful that could fill the empty space. Then lose myself in the process of planning. The canvas looks so white, with the little dots that cave in all over it. The smell. It smells so paint-like. So fresh. I feel so desperate for an image to appear in my head. And I can almost imagine the worlds that I, as an artist can create. People just like me: artists, writers, and others who use their imagination to create new worlds, they call themselves the creators but the worlds we create aren’t our own. We can’t take credit. We merely copy them from the one creator that created us all. It is him that we owe our gift of imagination and many other talents that we obtain.  

            Again I start thinking of all the other beautiful pictures I came across in the painting gallery. Horses. Beautiful houses and beautiful trees. Then a thought comes across my mind. "I know!" I gasp really loud, "I know what I want!" Trying really hard not to loose the image that I created in my head I take the brush. It feels so light in my hands; in fact, my hands start to shake a little when I start to sketch the image onto the canvas with light colors trying hard not to mess up. But it happens all the time. Messing up, its one of those moments a person can not foretell in the process of creating. Sometimes I need to mess up in order to accomplish something even greater. A beautiful tree is starting to reemerge. The twigs are so twisted and dark. The paint is starting to clog up on my brush so I wash the brush with a stinky liquid that makes the paint dissolve. The liquid almost makes me puke, the smells of the chemicals aren’t attracting at all. At least not to me. Then as some time passes and the oil based paint is beginning to dry, I start adding little details. Fruits. Leaves. When time passes I add on little lines on the leaves that would make them seam real almost touchable. Every little megapixel on the canvas is full of color; nothing is just pure white anymore. Everything is full of ideas. Finally. Finally my tree is complete. I feel happiness when I start to sign the painting. “VALPRO”, just like always, and then the date. The white canvas is not so white anymore. I created the tree and named it the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then I put my paint away, wash my brush and leave the room. I leave the room because I have to change my perspective on my own creation to see the flaws if there is any, and then fix them. Of course there are people out there that are always better at creating something beautiful but using my imagination and skills makes my mind evolve and that is a gift.

Byron's Club Blog

            Byron's Club is a parallel blog to our own blog that was created by a lovely group of students Athena Proctor, Austin Bell, Bailey Copeland, and Alejandra Garcia. The theme of the blog is Lord Byron, just like our own. What I like about their blog is the formatting. Their background fits in with the theme and with the place where Lord Byron grew up. The colors that are used on the blog are: light green, light blue, white, gray, and orange. The use of numerous colors makes the blog stand out and attract attention. The other visible characteristics I like about the blog are that at the bottom of the page the group has combined three images, Lord Byron, London, and Scotland. The images are totally appropriate to the theme of the blog because Lord Byron is the main subject, who was born in Scotland and then lived in London.

            Now, as for the content I found a lot of valuable information that was interesting. The facts about Lord Byron’s life totally had my attention. The poem Don Juan by Lord Byron is really one of his greatest works if not the greatest. The posting, “Byron’s Masterpiece- Don Juan”, by Bailey Copeland really pulled my attention because of the big sized font. I wanted to write something about Don Juan in my blog but I couldn’t really think of what format I should write it in. The other thing that really pulled my attention is the drawing of Lord Byron by Lydia Burris. It can mean a lot of different things for people who look at it but my interpretation of the drawing is that Lord Byron is the root of the Romantic Movement or at least one of the main characters. The other interpretation that kind of makes sense to me is Lord Byron’s thoughts were strong as the roots of the tree that hold the whole tree.

            This blog is great for someone who doesn’t know anything about Lord Byron and his works because the blog includes Byron’s biography and a lot of details that are needed to shape the opinion of a reader on what the author’s message was and what the author was as a person. Great blog! 

Byron's Self-Consciousness and Gothic Side

            The portrait below shows Lord Byron when he was young. It was painted by the famous artist Richard Westall in 1813.  It is the most famous portrait of Byron and it is displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

            Lord Byron was a really self conscious individual and why he became very self conscious is because he was born with a defect called the clubfoot. This defect describes a person with one or both feet turned inward at the ankle. His childhood was not so much effected by the defect or at least it didn't say so in my research. Just imagine though, having a weird looking foot and being made fun of. (Previous sentence is my guess not a fact.)  

            All the portraits and drawings of Lord Byron were changed a little because Byron wanted only perfect pictures even if it meant that the pictures will not look 100% like real him. Historians describe him as a beautiful young man who had the looks. From my point of view he was a total player. Byron had a lot of young women who wanted his attention and sex.

            He made himself a legend. When he wrote his works, some of them were not published, actually a big amount of his works were burned. It is unknown exactly why, but the burning of his works made people use there imagination and try to guess what exactly was in the pages he burned.

            In the research I have found out that Byron had a dark side to him, a gothic side. The research states that he had a mansion and he was throwing a lot of parties there. Inviting a lot of young women and men made it possible for him to bring the word out. Costume parties were one of the personal favorites for Lord Byron. His favorite costume was monk costume. At the parties there was everything, alcohol, drugs, and sex.

            In the picture below you can see a whine container. This wine container was one of the favorite things Lord Byron liked to use. It complimented his monk look.  

Citations:

http://englishhistory.net/byron/images.html 

http://ssad.bowdoin.edu:9780/snipsnap/eng242-s05/space/Lord+Byron

And Thou Art Dead

The poem And Thou Art Dead, as Young and Fair is about the teller of the story experiencing the death of someone who was beloved and close to him. It talks about his feelings for the deceased and how even as the days go on and cannot be changed, that death cannot conquer love. Although this person has died, they are still being loved as shown in stanza II.

"I will not ask where thou liest low,

 Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I lov'd, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,

'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well."

It says that even though this person is dead, he doesn't think that he needs to know where they are buried or to see their gravestone to still love them.

"Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,

Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see

Or wrong, or change, or fault in me."

People seem to think death is the end of everything. A life is extinguished, but life still remains. When a person is born, they begin creating a conscious stream of memories. Others can remember times they can't. It shares a similar theme with some of Shakespeare's works. That love can conquer all.

"I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn

Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again."

The way this poem is written in rhyme is what caught my eye. Looking into it, I thought how much you have to love someone before you can not feel the same way for someone else after they're gone? There is also guilt, as the teller of the story couldn't bear to see his loved one die and so he kept away, forever feeling guilty that he wasn't there in the last moments of life.
It's a very sad, bittersweet poem that can be entirely realistic. It has different shades of emotion in each line, some subtle and others not so. If we were able to cover Byron's work in class, I'd present this as a preview.

Darkness

        Not a day exists when the world and all its’ people stood united; differences in culture, beliefs, and race set up tensions that prevails today.  Once the world comes to a halt, everyone unifies as disputes disintegrate in Lord Byron’s shot poem “Darkness”.  Byron envisions the world ending in his dream, yet he says, “…which was not all dream” (1); thus possibly implying a sight into the future.  Opening the poem, the sun’s fire, lava, heat, and energy suppresses until it finally reaches the point of nonexistence.  Without anything to orbit around, without the moon in sight, the world holds an imbalance.  Water and the ships that sail come to a standstill, food perishes without the nurturing sun, and creatures along with humans struggle to find food.  Everyone’s mind, power, and efforts shift into one sole purpose and focus; find food and produce light and heat. All the hard work, all the prized possessions, all the materialistic things, all burnt for survival.

            The “Darkness” sends a message to the culture and society the world currently lives in. The valuable character of an individual slowly breaks down as it molds into what others want to see, what society put out as the “norm”, and what everyone else follows.  To reach the norm people begin to act selfishly.  They focus on getting the new, the cool, and the high tech thing which in the end revolve around money and wealth.  These selfish needs play a factor in why people remain disunited.  With the things one has to fulfill their selfish needs, they forget to appreciate the basic essentials of life.  In the “Darkness” it describes how people are affected, once some of the essentials vanish, “The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth and howled” (30-32)…  It also illustrates what happens to an individuals’ focus on the norm, “Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread” (6-7). 

The “Darkness” sends a lesson to people; they need to depart from the influences of the society and resurrect their true selves.   To not remain yourself and to form into something else means to not present your uniqueness, your individuality.  Some people believe the journey someone goes through when following society helps them find their true self.  I insist it influences a person to live what they like to believe as their true self.  I think the destruction of the world acts as a metaphor to the destruction of individualism.  When everyone follows a society, everyone is the same; therefore Byron would say, “The world was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump” (69-70).  The world is useless, when the powerful or influential society has no backbone.  With all people acting alike it is just a lump without a shape of an individual. 

Lord Byron Biography

                                                                           Part One 

Part Two 

Part Three 

Part Four 

Part Five