Parody

Author's Note: This is a parody of the poem "This Is Just To Say," by William Carlos. In my poem I changed it by writing from the point of view of a character to the main character in the book Hate List, by Jennifer brown.

Girl I've tortured since kindergarten

I have taken

your MP 3 player

and broken it

which 

you are probably mad 

and upset

about

Forgive me

it was fun

making you

so mad

A Way With Words (revised)

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of figurative language and tone. I also focused on A-B transitions and making my point clear and detailed.

Imagine surfing, riding a wave with great power and strength.  Reading the poem “Song for a Surf-Rider,” by Sara Van Alstyne Allen is just like riding a wave, you can feel the waves below you and the strength of the current, just by reading her vividly written poem. The figurative language and tone she used puts a clear picture in your head as you read her so beautifully written poem. The poem, “Song for a Surf-Rider,” by Sara Van Alstyne Allen, shows a lot of tone and figurative language throughout the poem.

There is a lot of personification in this poem;  it helps give a clear image of what’s going on. The personification the author used to describe the wave, made it as though the wave was a human. One example of that, is how the author kept referring to the was as him or he. Another example of personification in this poem is, “We race together, the sea and I,” when the author says this it gives the reader a feeling of the wave as an actual person, or even friend and it gives the text a friendly feeling. Lastly when she says “His eyes flash with an emerald fire,” is another example of the personification used in this poem, to create a feeling of life and features only a living thing can possess. The personification in this poem gives a feeling of life behind the waves.

Not only is there a lot of personification, there is some metaphors as well. For example the author is consistently comparing the waves and sea to horse. The quote, “His hoof beats echo on the sand,” is an example of how the author used metaphors to compare the waves to a horse. Another example of how the author used metaphors to make the wave seem more like a companion than a body of water by comparing it to a horse is, His mane of foam flows wild and free. The metaphors in this poem help the reader understand the friendship and companionship between the person and the wave.

Similar to figurative language, tone helps make the writing much more clear and fun to read. Tone helps show the author’s attitude what she wrote and it’s express through word choice and style. An example of how the author used tone is when she says, “We race together, the sea and I.” When the author wrote this, it shows a friendship, like the sea and the person work together and are friends. Another example of tone that the author used is when she said, “Under the watching summer sky. To where the magic islands lie.” The tone the author used in this quote is a relaxing and safe kind of tone like the character in the poem is calm and like she is where she loves to be. Many good writers use tone, and they use tone to show the reader how they are feeling about something or how what they’re writing about makes them feel and the author Sara Van Alstyne Allen does a good job of showing tone in this poem.

Figurative language and tone are the main things shown throughout this poem and the author, Sara Van Alstyne Allen, shows it in a clear-cut way in “Song for a Surf-Rider.” The next time you read a poem or any writing piece at all, look at what figurative language and tone is in there and see how it impacts the way you feel about the poem or story. It could change from how you originally thought about it. 

The Journey

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of properly citing information in a piece of writing. This is a creative writing piece, from the point of view of an orphan, with real facts about the Pony Express.

April 3, 1860 (Walske)

The day the pony express started, my first day. The pony express is a mail service that travels to Sacramento California (Godfrey). Which is way better than how the mail used to be delivered, by wagon trail and station coaches and even ships, but it took so long to get your mail. Especially compared to how it is now which is only about twelve days in the spring, summer and fall months (Godfrey). The only reason I was doing this was because they randomly chose orphans like me. Nobody would care if I never returned, nobody would ever come looking for me. On the bright side, I should get a good pay, the mail costs are quite high, ten dollars an ounce (Godfrey). The time of the year scared me a lot, soon it will get unbearably hot. The dangers of this job are something that makes me hesitant to start, because I’ll be traveling through some hostile Native American territory (Encyclopedia). Possibly even encountering a grizzly and getting killed, or worse injured and dying out here where nobody will ever find me (Encyclopedia).  

April 4, 1860

The time between stations where was a long time to be completely alone, soon I would transfer letters to another rider and they would takeover (Encyclopedia). The load of letters are really heavy, I feel them slowing me and my only companion, Scooter, the horse I am riding, down. Although they are written on tissue paper, they still are slowing us down (Godfrey). I am like a snail, slowly moving along, with no hope of getting where I’m going anytime soon. I look up at the sky and stare at the blueness of the sky against the pure white of the stringy cotton ball clouds.

April 10, 1860

 I felt myself dosing off while riding Scooter when all of a sudden I snap back, as alert as ever. I realize that it was the rustling in the bushes and trees that awoke me. I could feel my pulse quicken. Slowly I stopped me and Scooter and stopped dead in our tracks. I fear that something was going to burst from the woods and spook Scooter into throwing me from the saddle. Slowly I turned us around and hopped off of Scooter. As I looked into the woods I saw two eyes staring back at me. Immediately I froze. I could sense I was staring straight into the eyes of a massive grizzly bear. I could only breath slow shallow breathes, I knew I not to move, the second I’d move he would attack so I remained perfectly still.  As time went by I knew I was not going to get off easy, this grizzly was not planning on just walking away.

I took a deep breath and slowly shifted my weight to my left, where Scooter and the open trail waited for me. I had a bad feeling about this, and I knew that if this grizzly bear did attack me and injure me, nobody would ever find me and I’d just die out here. Quickly, the bear jumped at me and I knew it was over. I felt myself scream and attempt to run but I knew running would be useless. With a loud roar, I felt teeth plunge into my leg, tearing and ripping into my skin. Immediately, I felt the warmth of the blood rushing down my leg leaving me unable to move, while the bear stood on over me on his hind legs. My surroundings became fuzzy, but then I only saw black.

I remember nothing between that moment, and waking up in this tent laying on a bed. I’ve been told that a man on the trail found me and took me to this tent where a medic stitched my leg back together. If it were not for this man I would have probably died out there.

Works Cited

Encyclopedia, The Columbia Electronic. Fact Monster. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Godfrey, Anthony. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Walske, Steven C. Pony Express Mail. 16 November 2007. Document. 28 February 2013.