Four Seasons (Haiku Poem) by Randy Yelitza Duran

Four Seasons

(Haiku)

As the buds are bloomed

In the springtime of my soul

New hopes start feeling

Promptly summertime

Appears baptizing with warm

The Earth's living things 

 

Autumn gets closer

And the color of the trees 

Gloomily changes

 

The winter spreads its

White blankett all over the

 Green and blue nature

 

By Randy Yelitza Duran

Home Burial Summary

Home Burial by Robert Frost

 

Home Burial is about a man and woman who have lost their child and bury him in the backyard. This loss is affecting their marriage. The pain is unbearable. Everytime the wife looks back at the grave of the child, it pains her. In the beggining, the husband is unable to understand what she is facing but then, he does it. The way for the man to deal with this loss and the pain is by physical working which includes digging the grave for his child. he tries to rescue their marriage, but he does not know how to do it and fails everytime. She asks herself how he can get over it and hide the pain. He asks her to express her feelings but his unability to read between the lines and to see beyond, makes the situation unfixable.

Robert Frost

 

Born on March 26, 1874, Robert Frost spent his first 40 years as an unknown. He exploded on the scene after returning from England at the beginning of WWI. Winner of four Pulitzer Prizes and a special guest at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, Frost became a poetic force and the unofficial "poet laureate" of the United States. He died of complications from prostate surgery on January 29, 1963.

Lives of Girls and Women Summary

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

 

This is the story of Del, a young girl who lives in a poor and neglected area at the end of a place called Flat Roads with her mother Addie and her father, who hate their lifestyle. She also lives with her younger brother and his dog. Her story takes place in rural Canada of 1942. The people have a lack of sophistication and spend most of their time getting drunk. Del introduces us several strange an peculiar inhabitants of Flat Roads who help to create a unique and quirky environment.

Alice Munro

 

 Born in Canada in 1931, writer Alice Munro, primarily known for her short stories, attended the University of Western Ontario. Her first collection of stories was published as Dance of the Happy Shades. In 2009, Munro won the Man Booker International Prize. That same year, she published the short-story collection Too Much Happiness. In 2013, at age 82, Munro was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Grapes Of Wrath Summary

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

 

The Grapes of Wrath is about an ex-convicted man named Tom Joad during America's Great Depression. He and his family are forced to leave Oklahoma and set out for California. Thousands of people are along with them in search of new jobs to survive. During the journey, some relatives such as the grand-father and the grand-mother, die on the road. Two of the family members leave the group and separate. The remaining members continue as nothing is left in Oklahoma. 

Once in California, they find a state full of abuses, exploitation and starvation. After they leave that place, they find a better one which offers them better conditions and protection, but not for all the families. 

Jim Casy, a friend of Tom and a former preacher who lost his faith, works as a labor organizer and tries to help the other inmigrants, but is involved in a violent strike in which he is fatally beaten. Tom witnesses it and kills the attacker. Tom runs away from there to avoid getting arrested.

Tom says good bye to his mother and promises to help the opressed ones. The Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon has a stillborn baby. When the family shelters in an old barn, they find a boy and his father, who is dying of starvation and Rose of Sharon feeds him with her breast milk.

John Steinbeck

 

 John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (February 27, 1902 to December 20, 1968) was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and the author of Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. Steinbeck dropped out of college and worked as a manual laborer before achieving success as a writer. His works often dealt with social and economic issues. His 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about the migration of a family from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California, won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Steinbeck served as a war correspondent during World War II, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

Leaves of Grass Summary

Leaves Of Grass by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass is a collection of poetry in which the author expresses his thoughts on the themes about life. 

The Self talks about the man physically and spiritually. His individuality, quality and being. The Body And The Soul is about these two elements in man. The author says that the body is as sacred as the soul. Nature is about the love that the author feels for everything that inhabits the nature such as the flora, the fauna, the moon, the stars, the sea, and the other elements of nature. In Time, the poet realizes that the past, the present and the future are not disjoined, but joined. They are flowing stages and cannot be separate or distinct. Cosmic Conciousness tells that the universe has awareness. The cosmos is God and God is the cosmos. Mysticism is about the unity of God and man, man and nature. In Death, Whitman deals with it as fact of life. Trascendentalism implies that the true reality is the spirit and that it lies beyond the reach or realm of the senses. Personalism indicates the fusion of the individual with the community in an ideal harmony and democracy. In Democracy, Whitman emphazises the individual virtue, which he believed would give rise to civic virtue.

Walt Whitman

 

Poet and journalist Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, New York. Considered one of America's most influential poets, Whitman aimed to transcend traditional epics and eschew normal aesthetic form to mirror the potential freedoms to be found in America. In 1855 he self-published the collection Leaves of Grass; the book is now a landmark in American literature, though at the time of its publication it was considered highly controversial. Whitman later worked as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, writing the collection Drum Taps (1865) in connection to the experiences of war-torn soldiers. Having continued to produce new editions of Leaves of Grass along with original works, Whitman died on March 26, 1892 in Camden, New Jersey.

The Catcher In The Rye Summary

The Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger

 

This is the story of Holden Caulfield, a boy with a lot of attitude who has been kicked out from Pencey Prep School in Pennsylvania because he failed all of the exams, except for the English one.

He has some friends there such as Robert Ackley, Stradlater and Jane Gallagher (he has some feelings for her). Stradlater is dating her but Holden is not too excited about the idea, but despite of this, he writes an English composition for Stradlater.

This writing composition is about Holden's younger brother Allie who died of leukemia. The composition tells about Allie's left-handed baseball mitt which had green ink written poems on it in order to Allie read them while being out in the field. The night Allie died, Holden was so sad, frustrated and devastated, that he broke all the windows in the garage with his hand. That is why he is unable to make a good fist.

 Ward Stradlater and Jane Gallagher come back from their date and Holden is asking if they had any kind of intimacy. Ward Stradlater avoids to say a word, Holden tries to force him and Ward punches him in his nose. After this incident, Holden finds himself fed up with everything and everyone, and decides to leave Pencey in that right moment. He thinks about a plan for not letting his parents know that he has gotten the ax, so he goes to New York.

Once there, he gets a pretty hotel room and tries to get lucky (without succeeding). He reminds Jane, but not in sexual situations, just innocent stuff and holding hands. 

He goes to Ernie's bar, where he can drink no matter the fact that he is a minor. But leaves the place because he does not want to be in trounble with adult people. Back in his room, he is with a prostitute whose name is Sunny, but they do not have sex because Holden prefers talking. Sunny gets bored and leaves with some of the Holden's money. Soon after, she comes back with her pimp for more money and the pimp punches Holden in the stomach. 

Next morning, Holden makes a date with Sally Hayes (an old friend). When he is having breakfast, meets two nuns. He leaves and buys a record for his sister Phoebe.

After this, everything was weird, confusing, uncomfortable, frustrating and depressing for him before the appearance of Phoebe, the greatest girl in the World.

When they are talking, Holden opens up and says that he wishes to be the catcher in the rye. Phoebe tells him that he is misunderstanding that phrase that he heard from a song, actually is a poem by Robert Burns about bodies meeting bodies, not catching bodies.

J. D. Salinger

 

Born on January 1, 1919, in New York, Jerome David Salinger was a literary giant despite his slim body of work and reclusive lifestyle. His landmark novel, The Catcher in the Rye, set a new course for literature in post-WWII America and vaulted Salinger to the heights of literary fame. In 1953, Salinger moved from New York City and led a secluded life, only publishing one new story before his death.

Walden Pond Summary

Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau

 

Walden Pond is based on the experience of Thoreau living in the cabin that he built by Walden Pond, a place near Concord, Massachusetts. He calls it ''his personal experiment''. His plan is to discover as much as he can about human nature; he thinks that is easier for him to achieve it if he does not have to deal with normal worldly concerns. 

Thoreau carefully observes the seasonal changes during the two years he stayed there. His days are filled with many amazing things, animals and plants that inhabit Walden Pond.

Sometimes, when Thoreau is not contemplating life, he invites and entertains friends at his cabin. Among his friends, we find a philosopher, a poet, various hunters, settlers, farmers and laborers who tell him stories about Walden Pond.

Thoreau takes time to explore other ponds such as Flint's Pond and White Pond. By the fall, he observes how the color of the trees have changed, and he finishes the chimney on the cabin to prepare for the winter. By the winter, he finds himself observing how everything gets frozen outside. When the spring arrives, he observes how the ice melts right before his eyes. A lot of changes come with the spring, more varieties of birds and animals, the pine trees pollinating and plants blooming.

Henry David Thoreau

 

Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. He began writing nature poetry in the 1840s, with poet Ralph Waldo Emerson as a mentor and friend. In 1845 he began his famous two-year stay on Walden Pond, which he wrote about in his master work, Walden. He also became known for his beliefs in Transcendentalism and civil disobedience, and was a dedicated abolitionist.