Identity by Julio Polanco and The Rose that Grew From Concrete Tupac Shukar #edu307 #AnnotatePoetry

This is the poem project I first presented at NCTE in our study of playing with Billy Collin's idea of "Drop a Mouse into Poetry" I took it literally and dropped a computer mouse into these poems. The wiki where I found the poems that gave me this idea is still up here.

We will first read the poem, identifying powerful phrases.

We will then describe the extended metaphor used by the author by categorizing these powerful phrases into the target and source of the metaphor.

Finally you will ask someone for a metaphor about yourself. You will then create a multimedia poem as an extended metaphor.

Identity

 by Julio Noboa Polanco

 Let them be as flowers,
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.

I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed,
clinging on cliffs, like an eagle
wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.

To have broken through the surface of stone,
to live, to feel exposed to the madness
of the vast, eternal sky.
To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,
carrying my soul, my seed,
beyond the mountains of time or into the abyss of the bizarre.

I'd rather be unseen, and if
then shunned by everyone,
than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,
growing in clusters in the fertile valley,
where they're praised, handled, and plucked
by greedy, human hands.

I'd rather smell of musty, green stench
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
If I could stand alone, strong and free,
I'd rather be a tall, ugly weed.

 

 

The Rose That Grew From Concrete

 

Did you hear about the rose that grew

from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it

learned to walk with out having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,

it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else ever cared.

 

                                                By Tupac Shakur