Walden by Henry DAvid Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau has both abstract and concrete language. Thoreau's abstract language talks about living simply and meaningfully. He believes one should not just go through the motions of life and stand on the sidelines but honestly live it. An example of this language is when Thoreau talks about students. he says, “I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end." Thoreau's concrete language discusses his surroundings and home at Walden Pond. Thoreau describes his house and the process of building it. He describes the nature around Walden Pond. An example of this is when he begins to build his house, Thoreau describes the surroundings. "It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up." Thoreau mixes abstract and concrete language in order to paint a picture of a life lived to the fullest.

Poem

She comes downstairs with a smile dancing on her lips.

She is happier these days, more likely to laugh than yell.

His black car speeds around the curve of the driveway trailing gravel dust in its path.

Her smile grows wider.

She kisses him hello. He holds her hand.

 They say goodbye to my mom and tease my sister.

He climbs back into the car, only letting go of her hand for just a minute before touching again.

Always  touching.

The call comes later that night.

I tell myself it isn't true and pretend life's was normal.

Quietly coloring a picture for a person who isn't there, I deny what I know.

He's gone.

She looks at me with steely eyes and a hardened expression.

A quiver in her chin was all that betrays the hurt that mars her petite body.

The quiver overtakes her.  Sobs like screaming. My mother rushes over. Hugs her, rocks her, comforts her.

Suddenly she’s a child.

Fall comes all too quickly bringing college.

My mom is busy with extra long sheets and towels. She sits, blank.

Moving day's here. Through the chaos of boxes, parents, and new freshman, a heart-shaped leaf lands in her path.

A sad smile crosses her lips.

Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith

  In Blood Dazzler Patricia Smith describes New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina through poetry. In the prologue, she describes the city itself. She personifies New Orleans as a prostitute, a woman normal, upstanding people are strangely attracted to. She describes New Orleans as seducing the average person. I think she does this so the reader will get a sense of the relationship of New Orleans to the rest of America. New Orleans is known as "The Big Easy". It's a place people flock to in order to enjoy its pleasures and escape their lives. Another reason the author establishes this relationship early on is so the reader will be fully aware of the difference in America's attitude toward New Orleans before Katrina and after.
    Another element Patricia Smith weaves into the story of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina is the contrast between the poor's experience during Katrina and the affluent’s experience. This contrast is most evident in the poem in Only Everything I Own and Inconvenient. In Only Everything I Own Smith describes someone who lives modestly. Their one room house was their grandfathers. They eat food from their own garden. Their house is the most important and most expensive thing they own. This person has no choice but to stay in New Orleans because they have nowhere else to go. At the end of the poem it says, "That blistered sky has learned my days and hates me for everything I have." This person has had to work for everything they have. They have had a hard life. In contrast, in Inconvenient Smith describes an affluent family. The first line of the poem says, "Go. What, again? What nuisance, this back and forth." It goes on to say, "Best to consider this whole mess a holiday, a simple trade one home for its vacation version." The affluent family views Katrina as a mere nuisance, an inconvenience. They have the money and resources necessary to escape. In fact, they consider Katrina a chance to vacation. They are not worried about losing everything they have or preserving their life. The biggest thing they have to worry about is missed garden parties. The affluent family is even bored. This provides a stark contrast to the poor who are concerned with losing everything they have.

Is This Kansas by Eula Bliss

    In Is This Kansas by Eula Bliss the midwest, specifically college in the midwest, is viewed in a different light. The author examines the midwest from the standpoint of a visitor who had not lived in the midwest for very long. A major theme woven thoughout the story was that the midwest is not as wholesome as once thought. This theme is illustrated in the piled couches on streetcorners on move out day in Iowa City, the midwest city she highlights. The couches reflect people from all over the midwest. All of the couches, however, are cigarette burned and reek of vomit. Another major theme is the ungraduates in the midwest's naivete. This is illustrated in the undergraduate's view of racism and sexism. The students insist that racism and sexism are obsolete, but some students feel that we should send all homosexuals to one state in America so they can be seperate but equal. A minor theme in this story is the author's feeling that the university system does not have undergraduate's best interest in mind. In Bliss's words, " The philosophy of education that dominated the University of Iowa, an ideology not unlike the thinking that dominates many other many other universities, seemed not only to encourage but to depend on the quiet resignaion of the students." A second minor theme in the essay is that racism is still alive in America. This is illustrated by the reaction to the looting during Hurricane Katrina compared to the looting during the floods in Iowa City. The looting in Iowa City was downplayed compared to the looting in New Orleans because the people living in Iowa City are mainly white, midwestern students who are percieved to be wholesome compared to poor, black citizens who were some of the most effected people during Hurricane Katrina. An undertone of this story is that all people are essenially the same regardless of location or color of their skin. This understone is supported by the fact that looting took place in both primarily white, midwestern Iowa City as New Orleans.

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams

    In Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams strives to tell her story through her homeland, Utah. She begins with the landscape of the land, the Great Salt Lake. From there she describes her relationship with the the birds of the land and the role they play in her life. She moves to her family. She describes their history, ways of life as mormon people and how their history and the history of the land are a part of the other. She ends the story with hope. She chooses to focus on the goodness of the earth rather than others' destruction of it.
    Terry Tempest Williams begins with the Great Salt Lake in Utah. I think she begins this way because the Great Salt Lake is such an integral part of her history. It has become a character in her life, rising and falling with each season of her existence. As it rises and falls, the landscape of her home is changed and the things she loves are endangered.
    One of these things are the burrowing owls by the Bear River Migratory Bird refuge. Terry describes these owls as "Sentries" guarding the cycles of the land. These owls are almost spiritual to her. They represent regularity, dependability, and hope. I think this is why she is so passionate about preserving their life in Utah. Each spring they nest and bring new life to a desert next to a lake that she calls "the liquid lie of the West". They are the epitome of grace. The burrowing owls are a shining light of renewal in a barren land. When her owls' nest is destroyed for a gun club to be built Terry is furious. The nest, a source of life and hope, is to be replaced with a building dedicated to ending life. This represents a defeat to Terry. She was not able to save one of the most important things to her.
  Next, Terry tells the history of her family. She tells of the deep beliefs of her heritage. One of these beliefs is that the history of her family is connected to the land. She says, "I was raised to believe in a spirit world, that life exists before the earth and will continue to exist afterward, that each human being, bird, and bulrush, along with all other life forms had a spirit life before it came to dwell physically on the earth. Each occupied an assigned sphere of influence, each has a place and a purpose." These beliefs influenced her and her family in their treatment of the environment around them.
    Terry ends the story telling of a trip to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge with her gramdmother. On this trip they see ibises. Her grandmother tells her that black ibis symbolize death and white ibis symbolize life. Black ibises fill the field that the tour group is observing. Her grandmother points out that an ibis looks like a heart when it tucks its head under its wing, symbolizing its empathy. Terry then writes in her observation journal, "one-hundred white-faced glossy ibises". In the end, Terry chooses to believe in life and hope in spite of the other's destruction of the environment around her.