Jackson Boutin                                                                                                                     3/20/14
805                                                                                                                                     Blog Post

Tell The World

 

 

 

 

                         Through poetry we tell the world who we are, where we're from, what we love, what we think, what we feel, and why we hope. The book Tell The World by Sherman Alexie is a stunning collection of poems by Teens. Their words represent the thoughts, hopes, and dreams of teens around the world. While reading these poems I have encountered many connections with the poets like dealing with what we love, where we are from what we feel. But overall who we are as a person. Still being only 13 years old I haven't found my own path in this world and hope to eventually find one in the future. This is a theme that I never wrote about in the past and didn't really pay attention too. But after going over it in my head I have come up with a theory. In the book one of the many themes is who you are as a person and I think the author included this message so teens can express their personality.

 

                         One reason why Sherman Alexie chose to include this theme so teens can express their personality and to separate themselves from other people. For example in the text it says "I am Hip Hop and Rand B. My mother is Old School. I am Rap. My grandmother is smooth Jazz." This proves that teens are expressing their personality because in this poem the poet is trying to tell the world that she is different from her parents and her grandmother and that she's her own person.

 

                          Another reason of why Sherman Alexie chose to have teens  express their personality is also to express how they feel about who they are. for example in this poem it said "Half Palestinian, Half Jew what is this world coming too? How did this happen? How can I feel ." in this part of the poem it shows how she is obviously confused of who she is and doesn't know how to react because she doesn't know if she's Jewish or from Palestine. another example from another poem is "I'm like a modern day tea cake. my mom named me Michael Newby but I'm better known as prince Akzionz." From this the poet Michael doesn't really like his name and feels like prince Akizionz is what he truly is.

 

                           My Final reason why Sherman chose to have teens express their personality to is also to accept who they are as a person. for example in one poem it said "I am lightning, I crackle and I boom look at me, look at me I branch across the sky." in this part of the poem the poet is not only accepting himself but trying to get the world to accept him I think the lighting representing him being a reckless and every where he goes he messes up everything but he 's trying to say that just accept me for who I am. Another example of a poem that describes a poet accepting himself is "I can be American and not from America, but the fact that I'm hear it's who I am! America is and will always be my country." in this part of a different poem the author is trying to tell the world that even though I might not look American that's who I am. Also again the poet is asking the world to accept her as an American.

 

                        In Conclusion Poetry can tell lots of stories and can help with problems and expressing who you are as an individual. The book Tell The World has collections of poems from teens of who they are as a person, because at this stage of life many teens throughout the world are trying to find out who they are what they like and what they dislike. The author Sherman Alexie used this method so teens can express who they are and accept who they are and how they feel about who they are and also to use these poems to separate themselves and become their own person. After reading this book I have many solutions and wonders about my self and who I am now, who I was in the past, and what I dream of becoming in the future. Now let me ask you a question, who are you?

         The book Hoop Dreams is an inspirational, heartbreaking, and a true story about two high school basketball players from inner  city Chicago. One named Arthur Agee and William Gates, who both dream of playing in the NBA. These two ball players go through obstacles that will change there life for ever.  For example issues with parental drug abuse, poverty, gang violence around the neighborhood, and teen pregnancies. While this is still going on at home characters in the book go through many obstacles at school, like injuries on the basketball court, school grades, college struggles. But throughout all these things that are going through each characters life they always keep track on what's really important and never gives up.

        
             Throughout the book  poverty is a real big issue for Arthur Agee.  His parents just didn't have enough money to pay his school and to take care of there kids. As a result Arthur couldn't come to school anymore until his parents paid tuition. Arthur was not in school for over two months. This shows how his parents are poor because they didn't have enough money to pay for the school and be able to pay for food  and bills. Another example to show how poverty was a problem for Arthur is that when the Agee family stopped paying the water bill, the light bill and the heat for the house every thing shut down all the lights went off and there was no water or heat in the house it was just dark and extremely cold. It was hard surviving in the dark for the Agee family.  Although there were hardships the Agee family had to go through, it didn't stop Arthur who battled hard to keep his dream alive.
           In the Agee family Arthur's father Bo does drugs and cheats and beats his wife. Bo is the only one who supplies the family with food. So when Bo left the house to get high of drugs he didn't come back for a long time and was caught and was sent to jail. Without Bo, Arthur and the rest of the family didn't really have food. and the mother couldn't keep a job to provide all the supplies that her family needed and after a while they started to live in a very poor environment. This shows how Arthur is poor and that Sheila couldn't provide her family with anything after her husband left.
              In conclusion poverty was a big issue for characters in the book, as the adults didn't have enough money to pay for the children to attend catholic school. Another example of poverty discussed in the book is how they couldn't pay their bills, therefore everything was shut off in there house. The light, water and heat went off, the Agee's lived in darkness for a long time. Another example is when Bo left the family and Sheila was not able to keep a job and bring food for her family. Because of all this, it was hard not only for Arthur but his whole family suffered as they lived in very poor conditions. But all this didn't stop Arthur for working to achieve his goal, it didn't stop Arthur from keeping track on what really is important. Arthur like many people in the book are brave and have courage for not giving up on there dream. Even in the worst moments he didn't give up of going to the NBA