Poetry and Literature, and the blurred lines of language and literature
In English Language and Literature, throughout the week we read Langston Hughes and other literary works. We read excerpts from Watchmen, Nguigi wa Thiong'o, Nick Joaquin, and Macbeth. We also read poetry from Sylvia Plath, Philip Larkin, and Jose Lacaba. The poems we read included Santong Paspasan and This be the Verse. Those were the poems that struck me most, because Santong Paspasan describes an event so raw and so real its shocking, and This be the Verse, because it inspired me to write about my relatives.
While reading these poems and literary works, we were exposed to how literature is performed. We got to feel the emotions of the narrator as we read the works aloud. We also realised how blurry the line between language and literature texts are, because the historical context shows that many of what we would consider language texts today were literary texts before the established canon was created in the 1800s. We also tried to distinguish poetry from the rest of literature by noting the rhythms and stresses seen in poetry. We concluded that poetry has more rhythms and raw displays of emotion as opposed to prose. Ultimately, both poetry and prose express the human condition in their unique ways.