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                                 The Atmosphere of the Poem 

           The busy street, the floating cloud, the verdant trees, the humming bees...all of these subjects can be written in poems, no matter they are lovely or not because there is no limitation. Moreover, poets can give anything a totally different meaning than its original meaning by creating the atmosphere properly. The atmosphere of a poem helps readers understand the poem better physically and psychological. In " Once Upon an Autumn Day" , Joseph T. Renaldi creates a soft and peaceful atmosphere to show that death is not horrible and accepting is the best way to face it. 

          “Once Upon an Autumn Day” is about the life-time of autumn leaves. It shows the pressures of those leaves’ change during autumn day by day and finally nest in a haven to welcome their winter-----death. Renaldi also wrote some sceneries in the woods which create a peaceful, cold and a little bit blue atmosphere of the autumn. The poem is separated into four stanzas, and the first sentence of each stanza is all the same which is “ once upon an autumn day”. The title is also the same. This kind of repetition of sentence makes the poem look much more neatly and orderly. And other three sentences in one stanza are different. And it will let people focus on the differences between the last three sentences of every stanza that indicates the change of autumn leaves and trees as the passing of time. The poem clearly shows that the leaves first change their colors and then fall down roaming in the wind, and they stop in the haven and finally be covered by the snow.

            The poem is not only just telling the fact of leaves’ falling or winter’s coming, but also uses many figurative languages that portrays the deeper meaning of the poem. This is the way that helps readers understand the poem mentally. For example, the whole poem uses personification to describe the breeze and leaves. It says “whispering breeze was here to stay/ moving aimlessly through the countless trees” which means the breeze is soft and not that strong. It creates a peaceful and quiet atmosphere. And the leaves “until at last they came to rest/ finding a haven in which to nest” also indicates that it is the end of the leaves life, and they find their belonging to start the long dreams. The important thing of writing a scenery poem like “Once Upon an Autumn Day” is to create the atmosphere and images because by doing this way the readers can imagine the pictures of the poem and can think about the plots by themselves. It is kind of to arouse the same feelings between the speaker and readers, and Renaldi tries to let readers taste the feelings of watching the falling of human-like leaves. It is a psychological way to help readers understand the poetry much better. Renaldi also uses hyperbole. “ the countless trees” shows the number of the trees is big, however, it is still a countable number, so here is hyperbole. The tremendous number of trees is trying to show that here is the homeland of leaves and trees which matches up with the “belonging” that mentioned above, which is much easier to lead readers get into that sense.  

          Moreover, the rhyme scheme is AABB AACC AADD AAEE which is very strict, however, the meters are not strictly following the rule. For the first stanza, it uses assonance, which is the repetition of /i/ sound, that gives readers the feeling of chilly to indicate the autumn’s coming. It is not the hot summer any more, which lays the foundation of the temperature of the poem. Actually, the repetition of /i/ sound appears all over the whole poem. Renaldi also uses consonances, which is the repetition of /s/ sound. It imitates the sound of the wind and the sound of leaves falling down. The repetition of sounds is a physical way to create the feelings and atmosphere which lets readers involve in the poem successfully.

            When I read the poem, there are many images floating in my brain which are the fading leaves hanging on the tree branches and be blown down to the ground by the wind; a haven which is full of dead leaves and finally is covered by the white snow. I even can feel the chilly of autumn wind and winter snow, and my world becomes silent and peaceful all of a sudden. Normally, death is a sad and scary thing. However, in this poem, because of the way the author writes and the atmosphere he creates, the death of leaves becomes to a peaceful thing that is much more acceptable. They are just resting in their belonging, the haven, and having a sweet lengthy winter dream.

Thesis

The atmosphere of a poem helps readers understand the poem better physically and psychological. In " Once Upon an Autumn Day" , Joseph T. Renaldi creates a soft and peaceful atmosphere to show that death is not horrible and accepting is the best way to face it. 

Peer review of Johnny's paper

          You did a good job! I really like your thesis which kind of gives readers a lesson that everything has two different sides which makes the world variable and colorful. You got this thesis by finding the deeper meaning of the poem, so that the thesis statement comes from the content part.

          By reading you paper, I can understand that you want people to see the different sizes/ perspectives of one thing. The thesis is pretty clear, and my suggestion is to make your thesis stronger which could help your aim of this paper become much clearer. So the way I suggest you to do that is taking of the words such as "should" and adding strong words in.

          The second paragraph talks about the meaning of the poem which analyzes profoundly but a little repetitive, and I can clearly understand the poem because of your analysis. And the quotes you chose are good because you chose the quotes that you can talk a lot about. My suggestions are what about combining those quotes together in order to make your analysis concise. Otherwise, readers might feel boring when they read this kind of similar quotes with similar analysis.

          And the other good thing which I noticed while I was reading your paper was you even pointed out the second meaning of the poem: "everything has reasons why it exists" which rises an upper level for your paper. And you use a metaphor to explain. You said everything is like a door, and on one side you need to pull it to open, however, when you stand at the other side of the door, then you need to push it to open which indicates that everything has two different sides, and no matter which side you face, you should always remember that there is another side waiting for you to explore.

         Your analysis of the poem structure was pretty good. However, you forgot to say the rhyme scheme of this poem which is ABABCDCDEFEF, and it is kind of clear and strict. And I have a question that I wish you can answer in your paper: Number 1 and Number 5 are questions, and other lines are statements. Does the author mean to do that? I think you can analysis about it a little bit. 

You talk a lot about the meaning of the poem, maybe add more about the analysis of the way the author wrote the poem. But you have already written a lot of words, so maybe cannel some repetitive sentences before you add. 

        You can add a hook in your introduction paragraph to grab readers attention.

You have some grammar mistakes:

" He is not a famous poet, his poems are about everything in his life, he didn't focus on one specific topic, the poem I choose is about 11 pairs of thing." You should add the connect words such as "and" between the clauses you wrote. Besides, do not use abbreviation in you paper because this is a formal paper.

        Here are the things that I realized after reading your paper. Keep working hard, and I wish you can get a good grade!

Theater Review

                                                                 Theater review

      It was an unusual show!

      This show was different than those last several shows I had seen before. Although every show was impressive, this new form still made me feel surprised. The main part of this show was comedy and the goal was to make everybody laugh. It was a very relax and happy show, and I liked it very much. 

     During the show, people around me, include me, laughed a lot. And my tears even came out when I saw the “morning meeting” in Act two. Every actor focused on each teacher’s characteristics and zoomed them out which can let audiences recognize who was acting who immediately. And they let everybody cannot help laughing. Besides, the show separated into several different little shows which were also much more easy to understand. And the style of each was different than the other that made the whole show much more interesting and free. I would not feel that I was overwhelmed by the super long plots.

      The actors face emotions were very variable and vivd. I believe this is one of the characteristics of comedy. Not only actors’ dialogues but also their emotions and actions also make audience laugh, and they did that successful. 

      The most impressive thing was those three actors dressed like women in some stories. It was a very brave and challenging thing. However, they handled their characters perfectly. On this stage, they showed their totally different personalities to audiences. I felt really impressed because of their hardworking.

      After watching this show, I felt pretty relax and happy. I thought that might because I laughed a lot and released my pressure. It is really a good show that deserves to see especially before the coming final exams. I want to thank every drama member that brought us a lot of fun and joy.

      Good job!!   

Poem recitation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0OLr5PHBj8&feature=share

Poem analysis---The Atmosphere of the Poem

                                                     The Atmosphere of the Poem 

           Poem is beautiful and when you read it, it sounds more like a song than a prose. It is not focus on the grammar and correct English but the feelings, emotions and atmosphere. How can a poem be readable without using full sentences for each line? How can author’s emotions when he wrote the poem be understandable by reading the poem? Some of the poems can be understood by people who are not good at analyzing poems, the reason is the feelings and the atmosphere of the poem can bring readers into the world that it describes. The atmosphere of a poem helps readers understand the poem better physically and psychological.

           This poem is about the life-time of autumn leaves. How those leaves change during autumn day by day. And also some sceneries in the woods, which create a peaceful, cold and little bit grey atmosphere of the autumn. 

           The poem is separated into four stanzas, and the first sentence of each stanza is all the same which is “ once upon an autumn day”. The title is also the same. This kind of repetition of sentence makes the poem look much more neatly and orderly. And other three sentences in one stanza are different. And it will let people focus on the differences between the last three sentences of every stanza that indicates the change of autumn leaves and trees as the passing of time. The poem clearly shows that the leaves first change their colors and then fall down roaming in the wind, and they stop in the haven and finally be covered by the snow.

            It seems as just telling the facts, but the whole poem uses many figurative languages that portrays the deeper meaning of the poem. For example, the whole poem uses personification to describe the breeze and leaves. It says “whispering breeze was here to stay/ moving aimlessly through the countless trees” which means the breeze is soft and not that strong. It creates a peaceful and quiet atmosphere. And the leaves “until at last they came to rest/ finding a haven in which to nest” also indicates that it is the end of the leaves life, and they find their belonging to start the long dreams. The important thing of writing a scenery poem is to create the atmosphere and images because by doing this way the readers can imagine the pictures of the poem and think about the plots by themselves. It is kind of to call the same feelings between the speaker and readers. It is a psychological way to help readers understand the poetry much better. 

            The author uses hyperbole. “ the countless trees” shows the number of the trees is big. But the trees are countable, so here is hyperbole. The reason why the author writes there are lots of trees is to show that here is the homeland of leaves and trees which matches up with the “belonging” that mentioned above. 

           The rhyme scheme is AABB AACC AADD AAEE which is very strict, however, the meters are not strictly following the rule. For the first stanza, it uses assonance, which is the repetition of /i/ sound, that gives readers the feeling of chilly to tell that autumn is coming. It is not the hot summer any more, which lays the foundation of the temperature of the poem. Actually, there are many /i/ sounds in the whole poem. The author also uses consonances, which is the repetition of /s/ sound. It imitates the sound of the wind and the sound of leaves falling down. The repetition of sounds is a good way to create the feelings and atmosphere which lets reader involve in the poem physically.

            When I read the poem, there are many images floating in my brain which are the fading leaves hanging on the tree branches and be blown down to the ground by the wind; a haven which is full of dead leaves and finally is covered by the white snow. Normally, death is a sad and scary thing. However, in this poem, because of the way the author writes and the atmosphere he creates, the death of leaves becomes to a peaceful thing that is much more acceptable. They are just resting in their belonging, the haven, and having a sweet lengthy winter dream.