Response to Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

For this post I decided to make a power point presentation. This focuses on Tim O'Brien as himself. I hope you enjoy!

Tim o’brien

View more presentations from Heath Midkiff.

Response to Sean Huze’s “The Sandstorm”

I have decided to respond to this play with a short fiction story that I wrote that explains how I felt after reading, "The Sandstorm" by Sean Huze. Here it goes:

The pain is real. I've lost my brother, and my best friend to this forsaken violence. The screaming still pierces my dreams and sends me into a downward spiral. All I have for comfort are the nightmares I brought back with me. I will always remember the day I lost him.

We had fought hard through the night, securing a small border town in Afghanistan. The commander had given the order to pull out and move back to base camp. We were exhausted, and sore. The temperature was well over a hundred degrees, and this was at four in the morning.

The flash was bright and my ears started to ring. I fell to the ground and searched with my hands to find my gun that had fallen from my grip in the commotion. My hands started to throb and I could smell burning flesh. As my vision started to return, my eyes adjusted and I ducked behind the jeep that now sat on its side.

I caught my breath, and listened as the air around me grew quiet. The gunfire had ceased; the only sound that remained was the crackling of the fire. As the adrenaline faded, the pain set in. Not only in my body from the shrapnel wound I had sustained, but also from the sight that greeted my vision as my mind focused. The image haunts me to this day, my brother's body lying in a pool of blood and gasoline; fire consuming his flesh. Dead.

The war stole some things from me that day: It stole my humanity, it stole my peace, but most importantly it stole my best friend. The countless tears that my family shed for him will not bring him back, I know this. The pain is something that will never leave, the nightmares will never cease, and I will never forget the day that he died.

Here is my link for this week. I found this very interesting and read many of the posts on it. It is a blog from a solider that served in Iraq. Please enjoy it, as it made for some interesting reading.

http://shawn_richardson.typepad.com/

As far as a visual is concerned, I went for a YouTube video posted by Emory University. It explains the symptoms of a solider that is diagnosed with PTSD. This is what a lot of soldiers have to deal with when they return home. I found this video to be informative and interesting. Thanks.

My Response to two “Poetry of Witness,” poems

This blog post was supposed to reflect our feelings about two poems from the poetry of witness section on the blackboard site. It was hard to pick two, because they were all so emotionally charged and engaging. The first poem that really struck me from this list was "Charlie Howard's Decent" by Mark Doty. It brought out a lot of emotions for me, and made me upset at the fact that people have to go so far as to kill someone before something is done to protect people who are different. Upon my first reading of this poem, I got the feeling that it was about a disfigured man, who might have been mentally slow. It was not until I did a bit of research on this poem that I found out it was a poem based off true events. It happened in Bangor, Maine. The man, Charlie Howard, was actually a homosexual who was very open and flamboyant. He was made fun of every day. After realizing what this poem was really about, it took on new life for me. I don't support homosexually, but I don't support people who make fun of others that live that lifestyle and I definitely don't support people who murder others because they are different (whether they meant to or not). That being said, this poem has a lot of emotion tied into it. One strong example that brings out an emotion reaction from me was when Doty used this line, "Over and over he slipped into the gulf/between what he knew and how he was known/What others wanted opened like an abyss: the laughing stock-clerks at the grocery/Women at the luncheonette amused by his gestures," (lines 4-7). I got the sense that he was made fun of pretty much everywhere he went, no matter where it was. Sad to think that someone would be tortured that bad.

In one of the other, "Poetry of Witness," poems, the poet Nicole Cooley talks about New Orleans. The emotion that is emitted from this piece of work actually comes from the images painted in our heads after we read the poem. It paints a vivid image of what New Orleans looked like both while the water was high and after the water receded. There are quotes like, "and lace valances from a Lakeview kitchen, where water rose six feet high inside," (Cooley line 8) and, "and a refrigerator wrapped in duct tape lying in the dirt of a once-yard" (Cooley line 9). This is where I get the picture painted. I can see every house underwater, and after the water goes away, I can just see piles of junk lying around, the whole town destroyed. It's from these vivid images that the emotion of grief is provoked from me. This definitely was a sad day for a lot of people.

For my link this week I found a Wiki that actually gives a little bit more background information on the story behind Charlie Howard's Decent. It was an interesting read for the most part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Howard_%28murder_victim%29

For my visual, I decided to stick with the theme and give you a YouTube video of the poet Mark Doty reading his poem, "Charlie Howard's Decent" to a live audience. It goes along with the theme from the power point presentation we were required to watch for this week's assignments. It does give you a good feel for the voice of the poem and answers a lot of identifying questions, like who is the speaker and who is the addressee. I hope you enjoy it!

Works Cited:

Cooley, Nicole. "Compendium of Lost Objects." Poets.org. 2010. 10 September 2010. Web.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21526

Doty, Mark. "Charlie Howard's Decent." Angelfire. 2010. 10 September 2010. Web.

http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/strawberry/descent.html

Response to “The Necessity to Speak” by Sam Hamill

The essay by Sam Hamill entitled "The Necessity to Speak", is completely full of emotion and hard hitting facts. I never knew some of these facts until I read this essay. I agree with him on many points that he makes in his essay. I also disagree with some of his points. What I really agree with is the fact that women are disrespected and battered in this country, that equality is still not on the level it should be. Women can be just as valuable as men, and it sickens me when they are treated as inferior. I love that he just comes right out and speaks about it openly, where many can't speak about it. Even after he experienced being raped and battered, and being the batterer, the way he can speak up about such issues with conviction and control is commendable.

I love his stance on abortion and the killing of unborn babies. I agree whole-heartedly with the fact that he refers to them as unborn children, as living creatures not just a fetus. I also agree with the fact that parents need to be more active in the parenting of their children, talking to and educating them about sex. If parents sat down and talked to their kids about this, it would reduce the amount of teenage pregnancies, which would reduce the amount of abortions in this country. Mr. Hamill hit it right on the head when he talked about how a girl who hasn't been properly educated in sex and love can easily fall in love with a batterer. Mr. Hamill goes on and talks about what the kids learn in the home they will carry on with them through life. If they see battering in the house, they will grow up to be battered (because that is the life they know and are drawn to) or they will grow up to be a batterer (because that is all they know how to do).

The facts that I don't agree with Mr. Hamill on is spanking of children. I was spanked growing up, and there is a fine line between spanking and abuse. If you are leaving marks on your child, if you are making them bleed, and leaving them to cry, you are abusing them. If you are spanking them, leaving no physical damage on their body, and you explain in full why they are experiencing that pain, they can learn and grow from it as I did. I turned out very well, and I know the difference. The reason some people are against spanking is because they have only experienced or they only know about abuse. It saddens me to see anyone go through abuse, and reading this essay really makes me remember the stories my mom told me about her childhood and the sexual and emotional abuse she suffered.

Relating this essay to the poems we were required to read this week can be easily done. In some of those poems, namely "Charlie Howard's Descent", you can feel the pain in that poem and relate it to physical and emotional abuse and torture suffered at the hands of others. Charlie Howard had been abused and mocked. He was made fun of and eventually killed. The violence that we see imaged in this poem is some of the same violence Mr. Hamill is speaking about in his essay. I can see the correlations, and I can see what both men felt like as they were being tortured. This essay was definitely eye opening and heart touching. I probably will never forget it for the rest of my life.

This link explores in more detail the statistics regarding domestic violence. The numbers are shocking. http://new.abanet.org/domesticviolence/Pages/Statistics.aspx

The visual I provided is a YouTube video posted by CBS (The network station). It is a short clip talking about a domestic violence case that was all over the news. I posted it not only so people can see the story, but also because it gives great reminders to get involved when you think someone is being abused. If you don't, that person could pay a huge price.