My Papa's Waltz

It really isn't easy.

I like it. I really do. But sometimes, it's just kinda hard.
You go through it and then you think, "What? I don't get it."

But sometimes it just clicks, and you think, "That was beautiful."
Or, "How interesting!" or maybe, "I wish I could do that..."

Literature is beautiful, interesting, makes you wish you could write as beautifully.
But studying and analyzing it is no easy task. It's tough. And I've only just started.

I don't know if I can do this!!

My literature text for this semester:

Short Stories:
:: Ustazah Inayah
:: The Tell-Tale Heart
:: The Rocking Horse Winner
:: Everyday Use
:: A Rose for Emily
:: The Prophecy

Novel:
:: Things Fall Apart

Play:
:: Death of a Salesman

Poems:
:: Dulce Et Decorum Est
:: Sonnet XVIII: Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day
:: My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose
:: My Papa's Waltz
:: I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud
:: The Eagle
:: Do Not Go Gentle into The Good Night
:: Ode on a Grecian Urr
:: Mother to Son
:: Tembusu

I have 2 poems I want to share with you that I particularly like at this moment. Bear in mind I haven't studied and analyzed them yet. So it's just based on my impression. Hope you like them too :)

My Papa's Waltz
Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.


Mother to Son
Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a'climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't turn your back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now--
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

I like Literature. Don't you? XD