Favourite Poet

My favourite poet is James Langston Hughes. He is born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. This is one of his poems that I like.
Let America be America again

Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!


O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

This poem shows that the writer, James Langston Hughes, is very patriotic. He wants to change America into the America that he thinks it should be.
He uses words very well and hence his poems are always with a very deep meaning. Heres another one of his poems.

Dream

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.


Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

This poem shows that he has a lot of unfinished dreams and yet he knows it is important to dream as he says in his poem, "For if dreams die, Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly." He wants others to know that we must dream because if we do not dream, life would lose its colour and we would not have any ambition. Hence no power to drive us on.
James Langston Hughes is a poet that wants to tell us something through his poems and that is why I like him.

Figurative Language

For the IT learning first task, I am going to it on the song True by Ryan Cabrera. This is the part of the song I am going to do about:

I'm weak
it's true
cause I'm afraid to know the answer
do you want me too?
cause my heart keeps falling faster

I've waited all my life to cross this line
to the only thing thats true
so I will not hide
its time to try anything to be with you
all my life I've waited
this is true

I know when I go
I'll be on my way to you
the way that's true

There is a hyperbole at the part "cause I'm afraid to know the answer" This is hyperbole to show how weak he is.
There is a personification at the part "cause my heart keeps falling faster" The writer give the heart human characteristic so that it can "fall".
There is a metaphor in the part "I've waited all my life to cross this line, to the only thing thats true" The write compares the other side of the line and
the thing thats true without using the word like or as.
There is another hyperbole in the part "all my life I've waited". It exaggerates the time the writer have waited.
There is another metaphor in the part "I'll be on my way to you the way that's true". The writer is again comparing 'you' to the way thats true without using the words like or as.

This is the song True. Hope you like it :D