Author Archives: blake beaton

Final Assignment

The New Curriculum

The world’s going to hell in a hand basket
But at least you’re learning useful things at school,
Even got a new curriculum:
English
Math
Science
Socials
P.E.
Career Prep

It’s the New Curriculum.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

New Math:
Quadratics, trigonometry, graphing…
God forbid we learn how to budget,
Cuz the debt crisis didn’t come from nowhere.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

New English:
Novels, poems, dead people…
All necessary to succeed in life,
Cuz who can really live without that drama?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

New Science:
Periodic table, body parts and physics math…
All fascinating information at parties,
Cuz ya know everybody remembers it all.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

New Socials:
Ancient civilizations & Old-Canada
Don’t get too bored or you might miss something,
Cuz all this relates to your life somehow.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

So in a world full of problems
How about a curriculum that relates to our lives

Day 1 Block 1: Climate Change & Sustainability
Cuz this is not a debate. It’s a fact!
Can we survive like this? Well, can WE survive like this?!

Block 2: Medicine and mental health
Cuz one in five of you will suffer depression,
And anxiety and suicide are pretty bad too.

Block 3: Waste & water management
Cuz that land fill ain’t gettin’ any smaller,
And the Exon Valdez spills every year in the tar sands.

Block 4: Democracy, Law and Politics
Cuz how many of us voted last election,
And NAFTA lets gas companies put nerve toxin in gas.

Day 2:

Block 1: Computers & Programming
Cuz they run your lives,
And most of you don’t have a clue how.

Block 2: Racism & Oppression
Cuz most of the world deals with this problem
And Aboriginal people live what kind of lives?

Block 3: Equity and Equality
Cuz one is not the other,
And ladies make how much less money?

Block 4: Engineering
Cuz you drove here in something, you live in a building
And you should know something about them.

And anybody tell you that I missed poetry…
We in here talking about poetry.
I mean, listen, we talking about poetry
Not reality, not reality, not reality,
We talking about poetry
Not reality, the reality that I go out there and die for
And live every day like it’s my last
Not reality, we talking about poetry man
I mean how silly is that?
We talking about poetry.
I know I supposed to love it,
I know I supposed to lead by example
I know that,
And I’m not shuvin’ it aside
You know, like it don’t mean anything
I know it’s important
I do! I honestly do.
But we talking about poetry man
What are we talking about?
Poetry?
We talking about poetry man.
We talking about poetry.
We talking about poetry.
We ain’t talking about reality,
We talking about poetry, man.

Totally Unknown

Irely more fated than I understand
In some VIEW, I think a well-off WORLD
isolating

To LACK with TECHNIQUES and DATA,
really ideal knowledgeable DECISISIONS,
and conflicting SKEPTICISM,
I live—am myself
not the other perpendicular RIGHT

constantly is fat SYNTHESIS,
Sometimes it leads me to leads
more than tight in my anterior MIND
or without those BELIEFS of EXERCISE

I feel it Often very to find
but to know CHALLENGE with THINGS.
And ya believe this a CONVICTION
of KIND to know And APPROACH
to APPROACH THAT THINKING
hard very the IDEAS of HABIT,
and it make to me that IT SEEMS
healthierer to hip DECISISIONS
than inferior enlightened DECISIONS,
And with the DECISIONS of RESPONSIBILITY

Beaton Assignment 1

Blake Beaton
Kedrick James
LLED 445
August 8, 2017

Poetry is often enigmatic, but rarely is the the mystery of a poem’s figurative language both stylistic and didactic. The poem “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath uses metaphorical imagery that increasingly depicts a coherent theme within the poem. The poem’s opening line reveals the speaker’s intention to perplex the reader by creating a metaphor comparing the speaker to a “riddle,” after which several very perplexing objects are compared to the speaker: “An elephant, a ponderous house,/ [and] A melon strolling on two tendrils.” The connection between the three objects is at first unclear, though the first two suggest that the speaker is of great size, while the third suggests that the speaker walks on two legs but that a disparity exists between her torso and lower limbs. The varied use of image continues in a perplexing pattern as the speaker exclaims, “O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!” none of which have obvious parallels to previous images with perhaps the exception of “fine timbers” which are slender in the same fashion as plant tendrils. At this point in the poem, the speaker references an object that is “big with its yeasty rising,” suggesting growth, and continues on to suggest the creation of something new in the line, “Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.” Until this point, the metaphorical images of the poem have been cryptic, though as the poem comes to a close their continued use becomes slightly more accessible.

While the poem appears to be inaccessible, the final three lines reveal a theme in which the speaker is describing herself as a pregnant woman. The words, “I’m a means,” suggest that the speaker is a vehicle through which something else is accomplished, and the words “a cow in calf” are a common idiom denoting a pregnant cow (though the speaker’s meaning of “a stage” is ambiguous as the word may denote numerous things). As the speaker continues with the line, “I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,” the numerous connections between fruit and the distended belly of a pregnant woman become clearer, and the poem’s final line “[I’ve] [b]oarded the train there’s no getting off,” suggests a necessary and unavoidable term of waiting for the woman. It is likely in the final three lines of the poem that most readers begin to make the connections between its earlier images, the poem’s initial line, and its title, thereby coming to see that metaphors are a way of using words that express something literally untrue but also a way of communicating meaning through implicit comparison. The poem has the potential to teach its readers that metaphors are like riddles in that meaning must be inferred using as many of the available and readily understandable meanings that surround it. Ultimately, however, the poem also serves to educate the reader as to the dangers of using metaphors in a context that makes it too difficult for the writer to express an intended meaning.

“Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

Proxy Poem:

Riddle

I am that which is sought but unfound,
A vestige of what guides your sages.
A gnarled and broken awen of crystal
That shattered lies in art and power.
Aletheia in time’s dark lethe
Forgotten in Promethian’ gift,
Banished from souls and minds by rabble
I lay in darkness despite my light.
Seek me, find me, and uncover the…

Within the mists of time
a father betroth his daughter to the hugest man in the village
The man was black hearted and fierce.
He was evil, sadistic and cold in his fierceness
It bit me like a delicious spider-monkey
Because I bit it first.
My sister is young. Yet she is knowledgeable.
Growing into an Empire State building
Out of the frying pan and into the fire it went
“Where there were no onlookers”
He concluded
We float on the rocks.
More buoyant then them,
quite contented with their matrimony.

Scar the writhing salt meadow of stranded jade
And trench the oozing sepia
Frame shambling barques and splintering quays against the sapphire glory
Ravage the ebbing expanse
Live the dying profession
And dye in living meagreness
Then fade into the swelling seas of generations
And watch the living strands of emerald transpose the harm
Festoon your expanding pupils with skyfire silhouettes
And adorn the flowing darkness with your insight.

I once asked myself
“If you could reach back
into time
and change anything
what would you do?”
And different answers presented themselves
from different parts of my being.
A well-lit knoll at the center of me said
“I would teach those before me
how to build a legacy for themselves,
one that is so much greater than that
which they have left.”
But a darker corner of my being
glared with savage eyes from the shadows
and growled, “And what is great about
the legacy they have left?”
“Why, much” came a cautious response
to which a long and piercing silence followed.
“Would you start by showing your ilk
what it means to destroy a human being
and reveal to them their successes
on reserves?”
A bewildered response spoke volumes
in gaze alone, though
further questions followed.
“Would you show them the tattered remains
of a people whose potential they squandered?
Would you object when your knowledge
was used to better rob a peoples of their homes
and languages
and minds
and souls,
Or would you take solace that such was being done
with expertise?”
The glare of bared teeth shone merciless contempt
brighter than any sun.
“Would you moralize and preach
their wrongs only to watch
fruition brought unto them,
And if so,
could you stay your anger?”
The air of shame was palpable
and the voice in the shadows
drew closer to the knoll
“And if you harboured anger toward them
would not your fondness for them wane?
Could you still teach them
knowing them as they truly were?”
Startled
a part of me left the light
and backed into the shadows
speechless,
As a darker part of myself lurked into the light
and sat atop of the well-lit knoll.