Postsecret

The entries on this website relate directly to a variety of different styles of poems. The ending lines have the most reverberating lines on many of the posts, and the entire format of the actual posts themselves are very artistic.

I think the posts are a little intense as they really surprised me when I read them.

I definitely believe that this website is beneficial to people who are afraid to post their issues publicly. It's similar to many other websites, like the "FML" website.

The real issue here is why people are afraid to be public with this type of content? In many circumstances, it is almost not an option to say something publicly and reveal that you are the person who has said this comment. For myself, as a Presidential Candidate for the upcoming student government elections, it is vital that some comments that are made be very anonymous and secretive, for example.

To me, I don't know how effective this type of site can be used for my personal issues. I think that people who post these comments or poems do not have other people that they can regularly turn to; and I believe that is the foundation of the whole website.

It gives us a lot of insight of all the work we really need to do as a country to assist people who need to use this website as a resource.

Concrete.. Looking for some critics

CONCRETE

Why does life take such a

Unique and unpredictable outline

When one first believes in the nature of life

To be predictable, growing, and unhesitating it then

Tricks you into new ObStAcLeS

Which

Take any forms

Of existence

And

erratic

circumstances.

WHAT

IS

Happening

Poem Review

We almost had a compromise, although shady, daring, and skewed.

So close was this coalition, there was no need for Robert's Rules.

What a beautiful site, all of SG together?
Too good to be true, they said. I begged to differ.

There was one e-board proposed,
One government, if you will
Shoulda' brought the parties together,
We were in for one hell of a year!

But I was wrong.
And accusations flew left and right.
Unity this, Maize and Blue that,
Criticizing with all their might.

And so we split,
As the two sides drifted back to their bases,
Choosing their own candidates and senators,
To sway the masses and persuade faces.

Now you're forced with a decision,
Vote Unity or Maize and Blue?
At first glance and first sight,
One doesn't have a clue!

Either way you look at it,
Your all in the same boat.
Whatever you want to do,
Just get out there and vote!

So you ask for my opinion?
Well I guess that's my cue,
Get all your friends, comrades, and rivals
To VOTE MAIZE AND BLUE.

We want to reduce our tuition,
An agenda item that can’t be beat.
Or at least use our money
To get us BETTER FOOD TO EAT!

Too late to withdraw from your class,
We should change that too!
What if you didn’t have your first exam?
What if you had the flu?

Never find a place to park?
Causes you to leave class and ditch?
Then let’s go to the administration,
Because parking is a B****.

Now why do we have a field house?
People just come and go like headaches.
What's that Maize and Blue?
OH, Expand Our Athletics!

We're all college students here,
Too broke to even tan,
I wonder how we can save you some money,
How about a Student Health Care Plan?

Now please don't be shy,
We'll listen to any of your advice
Come up to us at any time,
We're all active, friendly, and nice.


So go out and vote,
You know what to do!
Let’s have an awesome year, and remember
Maize and Blue Crew Works for You!

-Moneer Al-Nabolsi

Haiku # 3

A long, dreadful night
Followed by a short busy day
Life of a Student

Haiku # 2

Everlasting Sky
Why Are Your Colors So Bright
Stay a While, my friend

Haiku # 1

Cold Temperature
Always around the corner
Why does it chase you?

It is the living who cannot

BY HILDA MORLEY
It is the living who cannot
live without the dead,
who wish them
back,
who need their presences,
their hands,
as Orpheus
held her hand, Eurydice’s,
to lead her
back to earth out of
the gulf of Hades,
as I
need yours
It is not so much
the dead
who need us
now
(as we think they do)
& that reconciliation
we long for, that knowledge
of each other to the uttermost,
which could assuage us,
they are
one step beyond it & suffer us
to long for them.
If they could
return, it would be out of
patience with us merely: their need to
console us. For somehow an indifference
possesses them, for all their tenderness
& they see beyond us,
even if
what they see seems to us
nothing

This is a poem I literally had to read twice before reflecting, unlike the others. I’m kind of confused

as to my reaction, to be honest. This had a very serious tone to it, yet something did stand out to me

very evidently.

Some of the lines are written spatially different. That is, there are lines that only have one or two

words and these words are placed either to the far left or far right of that line. In addition to the

actual content of the poem, this was the most thought provoking as to the positions of all the words.

It is surprising to me that many poets write this way and expect the reader to understand; on the

other hand it may be my incapability of comprehending a deeper meaning of a text.

February

BY MARGARET ATWOOD
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.

Here we have another piece that portrays the negatives of winter. This poem is written in a different

style than the other poems, as it is very blunt and does not rhyme. There are a variety of different

images that are portrayed within the story, which I really liked.

What I thought was more interesting, however, was the fact that there was much to take out of the

poem. This was the most abstract that I have yet to encounter. I like poems that make you think..

and here’s one where the reader has to review it over and over again.

The ending, however, is pleasing to me as it ties in the whole theme of the story. That is, it

characterizes winter as death and hopes for a new season.

I'll Open the Window

BY ANNA SWIR
Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right down to the bone.
I hear the bones grind, I see
our two skeletons.

Now I am waiting
till you leave, till
the clatter of your shoes
is heard no more. Now, silence.

Tonight I am going to sleep alone
on the bedclothes of purity.
Aloneness
is the first hygienic measure.
Aloneness
will enlarge the walls of the room,
I will open the window
and the large, frosty air will enter,
healthy as tragedy.
Human thoughts will enter
and human concerns,
misfortune of others, saintliness of others.
They will converse softly and sternly.

Do not come anymore.
I am an animal
very rarely.

This piece, by Anna Swir, is the opposite topic of the previous poem. It is deeply illuminating a dark,

vivid reaction to a break up. This poem surprised me in how relatively graphic it was. What I found

distressing, as well as interesting, is the vivid imagery that appealed to most of my senses when I

read it. I also liked the fact that this was a poem that got me thinking a little more than the poem

before it. It was vivid, dark, and had some very abstract ideas in it which I was not able to fully

understand. These are the types of pieces that I like.

What is also interesting about this piece is that it is relatively accurate, not based on my own

experiences. When one does indeed break up, this poem is accurate in defining the feeling a person

may get. Again, not based on my own experiences!

"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. – Dante
Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. – Petrarca
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.




This poem, by Christina Rosetti, did not surprise me at all. I chose this poem because I wanted to see

if love poems coming from relatively unknown artists are comparable to those of well known artists.

This was a poem that had content that I had expected, and furthermore was a poem that that

rhymed. Conventionally, the poems that I have read recently have not been ones that have rhymed.

Nevertheless, surprisingly, this was a poem that I could relate to and understand very easily. This is

a poem that I would give to somebody on a holiday. However, I couldn’t write something like this.

This piece illuminated different images that I was able to imagine while reading it. Definitely

something I would read to my girlfriend.

Haiti

Source: New York Times Online

This is a picture that inspires me.

Nobody really understands the significance of the Haiti situation and how many people were affected.

So, last week, along with a fellow student leader, we hosted a Haiti relief event that raised a great amount of money.

Seeing how people are affected and how their lives are so significantly different than ours is important to understand the huge tension in terms of the differences of our civilization and somebody elses'.

In Haiti, you had all of these people making about $800 a year, on average, who were already having a difficult time with their lives.

And then an earthquake.

There are about 57 more aftershock earthquakes that are expected in Haiti.

This type of image inspires me to research into different types of cultures and civliizations across the world and how this differs from the civilization that we live in.

Why are we so isolated?
Why is there a lack of focus on the rest of the world?

Ultimately, we should never be divided and we should always look into other cultures.

That's one reason this picture inspires me aside from the reason that it calls for help from fellow citizens.

So, in summary, this picture motivates and inspires me because:
1) The obvious need for relief in Haiti
2) The need to research and look into other civilizations and cultures all across the world!

-Moneer Al-Nabolsi

My Life

Campaigning is my life. I am trying to get my face out there as much as possible.

There was a Haiti relief event this past week that I helped coordinate and we raised about $1500 for Haiti!!

I am trying to work on gathering a group of students and campaigning and elections and meetings and campaigning and meetings and elections........ ITS CRAZY!

Here's a little info of what we're working on:

◦Academic
■Alumni student meet and greets (networking)
■Library access solely to students after 8pm with ID required
■Seek investment in solar energy and continue sustainability (to cut University spending)
■Seek unpaid internships in University offices for students (give students experience while also cutting University spending)
■Increase student input on University spending
■Continue increasing student input for University faculty hiring
■Continue efforts on parking, food, and withdrawal policy reform
■Continue working with administration to diversify and expand class selections
■Continue advocating for free, state-paid tuition
■Force all required textbooks to have at least one copy available in the library (cut students' costs)
◦Student Life
■Point system for RSOs (award "RSO of the Year" for recruitment to events)
■Battle of the USOs (increase awareness of USO presence on campus)
■Increase student involvement in recruitment, marketing, and public relations
■Give more support to Fairlane organizations and Engineering organizations (bring student life to these areas on campus)
■Host a Cultural peace summit ("Erase the race")
■Motivate Mayor and City Council for a student seat on the council board


•In the 2008-2009 school year, we:
◦Attended monthly Board of Regents meetings to express the concerns of the University of Michigan-Dearborn Student Body to the Chancellor
◦Co-sponsored the Election Day Watch Party
◦Co-sponsored Global Fest
◦Co-sponsored Inaugural Watch Party - we were given a special budget at the last minute and the event turned out to be a huge success (over 200 people)
◦Started up fundraisers for the Student Legacy Scholarship, which was created by our Student Government
◦Hosted a Student Association of Michigan Conference
◦Hosted Rock the Vote Week from September 29th to October 3rd


•Committees we are currently attending:
◦50th Anniversary Committee
◦Alumni Association
◦Budget Committee
◦Campus Safety Committee
◦CASL Advisory Committee
◦Code Appeals Board
◦Faculty Senate
◦Regents Meeting

AND MANY MORE.