Upon the Leaving of My House

In Friday night when rest I took

Lit up my phone I did not look
With every message heard the sound
And then the noise came all around.
I checked to find that dreadful sight:
Of texts inviting me at night.

I, starting up, began to drive

And quite soon I was to arrive,

But then my mind began to roam

Considering going back home.

I was convinced to stay some more

But still looking towards the door.

And when I could no longer stay,

And was socially drained away,

I looked towards the coming days

For I had time to sleep away.

So stayed some more I did with friends

Then to myself on the weekends.

In Anne Bradstreet’s “Upon the Burning of Our House”, she writes about the fire and the items she lost along with her home. She later realizes that her material belongings are meaningless, and her house in heaven awaits her. She places God above all else and praises him for his greatness. Overall, Bradstreet portrays how religion was the center of Puritan communities and how it shaped the literary era. She uses juxtaposition, end rhyme, meter, personification, and other literary devices to give her poem rhythm and communicate her purpose that God is all powerful and worldly goods are meaningless. In my mini poem, “Upon the Leaving of My House”, I mimic the work of Anne Bradstreet. I describe the exciting  start of my Friday nap, when it is interrupted by a text. I am convinced to sadly leave my home while I am in no extroverted mood. I make the realization that I have the whole weekend to sleep and “recharge”. I integrated the beginning line in the first three stanzas of Bradstreet's poem into my own. “In silent night when rest [she] took” (Bradstreet line 1), the fire started to burn her house down. Relating the fire to the text message, I changed her silent night to the “...Friday night when rest I took” to parody her work. I also used iambic tetrameter, end rhyme and inverted syntax to mimic her style.

We Need to Talk About Columbus..

The online world is an infinite source of information that allows even the most isolated hermit to stay connected. Through my own exciting journey of online exploration, I ended up getting lost within the dark and unpleasant history of Christopher Columbus. I quickly discovered how society has been lied to, and not only once, but twice! The idea of the heroic navigator who peacefully founded North America has been debunked for years, even in the eyes of many kids still in elementary school. But, the story of Columbus does not end with him practically causing the genocide of millions. The many accomplishments that are still linked to Columbus are also untrue. After poorly calculating his intended sea route, he arrived in the area of the Caribbean Islands- not North America. In fact, Columbus never sailed to any modern territory of the United States. He was also beat by the viking, Leif Eriksson, in arriving in the West. Instead, he violently murdered the Native population while robbing them of everything they had. So, Columbus died without accomplishing anything but mass murder and discovering land that was already inhabited. In the end, he was not the first European to reach the Western Hemisphere and he did not set foot in North American territory. He did, on the other hand, cause the death of hundreds of thousands of Taino people and the millions of Native Americans after him.

      

 The celebration of Christopher Columbus is especially absurd when indigenous culture is being ignored. People today know  “...little about the thousands of years of indigenous civilization that existed before European colonization”(npr). The constant overshadowing of native culture puts Native Americans at a disadvantage in being heard. In Indian Education, Sherman Alexie reveals his struggles of growing up in a white dominated world. He shares his “...most valuable lesson about living in a white world: Always throw the first punch”(Alexie). Alexie is acknowledging the importance of his voice and standing up for himself and his culture. From someone like myself who shies away from speaking out, Alexie's work is inspiring and contributes to greater representation of native culture. The celebration of writers like Sherman Alexie along with the history and contributions of native people should replace the admiration of Columbus and his horrific actions.