Anagrammar...hidden meanings within the poem

        The poem Anagrammer by Peter Pereira confused me because I never looked at words in the way the poem displays them. The title fits the poem perfectly because anagram means forming a word or phrase formed by reordering the letters of another word.

     The poem allowed me to see things from a different perspective. The way the poem begins threw me off. The first two stanzas begin with the phrase “if you believe”. The words the author chooses go hand in hand. Senator becomes treason, senators are known for political scandals. Debit card becomes bad credit because if one overdrafts in their bank account they can have bad credit. Listen is the same as silent, however one must be silent if they want to listen to what the other person is trying to say. Stained and Sainted are on two opposite end of the spectrum but indeed go hand in hand. When someone is need desperation, a rope ends it. That means many people be at the end of their rope because of desperation. Admirer is also married, when you are married you admire the one you are married to. The words are chosen to reflect the feelings behind the words.

         The poem is focusing on words, but taking a different approach. As the words have a double meaning the poems does as well. “Rearrange things the right way you'd find your true life”.Everything in life is not set in stone. Sometimes in life rearrangements must be made in order for other things to fall into place. The way life is lived sometimes one is on the wrong path and is not making the wisest decisions. However, something can happen that allows them to take a step back and reevaluate the way they have been living. The reevaluations causing a change and a re-arrangement of their life. Sometimes we all need a re-arrangement in our lives at one point or another to either see what we have been missing or to find what we have been missing.

            I had questions of how and why the author chose the specific words he did. The meaning he had for each phrase and how he selected the poem to flow and represent such meaning hidden between each line. Each stanza shows a hidden message displayed within it.

Not so Happily Ever After

                   In the poem “Ever After” by  Joyce Sutphen she left a lot of clues within her poem. This allowed the reader to make assumptions, read between the lines and fill in the blanks.  From my perspective the poem is discussing the act of marriage dissolution or that of divorce has deep devastating consequences on one of them. It is described by many it as that of death. Emotions interplay profoundly and it’s after effect can be terrible. 

                  Though the poem describes emotions, it is displayed not by doubt or cynicism but by maintaining its intention of what happens when two people who loved each other at one time. It describes the changes that occur within each other. When I read the poem I can feel the sadness of the poet. Each line goes more in depth than the previous one. The poems title is “Ever After”, as most fairy tales end with the phrase and they lived happily ever after. However some don’t always end that way. In fact this poem explains the feelings that one may have when face with the issue of divorce. Divorce affects everyone differently.  Marriage is a commitment a forever promise. Things do happen that cause people to get divorce.   It is not always an easy adjustment for some. In the poem it mentions that they are no one to one another, just the word that goes in from which is ex. That line sends a strong message. Someone who used to mean the world to one is now an ex-husband or ex-wife. The reason of why they divorced is not listed in the poem but as a reader I am able to pick up the distance the author portrays. 

              The poem discusses sadness can be felt as it describes the distance, separation, silence and yet it also mention sweetness as it describes the layers of their lives as that of the wedding cake. The wedding cake is example of the sweetness that used to be apart of their lives. 

                When reading the poem questions of why ran through my mind. Why did they get a divorce? Did they attempt to work things out? Did they just quit? Was there someone else?  The poem makes me wonder what exactly happened during their marriage. She talks about being young and helpless.  Were they so young and when they matured they decided they were not compatible anymore. The lack of information did not make the poem difficult for me to read. The poem just sparked my curiosity of why. The poet did a marvelous job getting her emotion and feelings across through the poem. I was able to speculate that possibly it was an ugly divorce because of the way the poet states who are we to each other now. At one time they had the title of husband and wife and now they are no one to one another just an ex. It is a beautiful poem of a relationship even though it came to an end.

Stitches.....my thoughts....

             The graphic novel Stitches was a book I would have probably never picked up at the bookstore and read it just for the fun of it. The book was a hard book to simply just put down. I wanted to continue reading it every chance I had to see what was going to happen next.

          The novel allowed the reader not only to read the captions presented but also showed various types of elaborate illustrations that really made an impact when reading the novel. There are many illustrations throughout the book that have no text whatsoever but one is able to draw conclusions and relate to what the is being illustrated. By reading this book I was able to learn what a tough childhood David had growing up. The lack of love presented by both parents was evident. Betty his mom did not know how to be a loving, nurturing mother.  Because growing up as child Betty was not shown that attention it was more of a tough love attention. When reading the novel we were introduced to Betty's mom the grandmother, and she was not very loving at all. The way she disciplined David by scrubbing his hands and dragging him was probably only a glimpse of how she treated David's mom Betty.His parents always complained about how much money they were spending on David. It seemed as if David was more of a burden than a blessing. However, it was perfectly fine for them to spend money on luxury items. 

                I enjoyed reading this graphic novel. It allowed me to relate more with the characters because I was able to visually see what was actually occurring with the characters in the novel. I also enjoyed it because sometimes you had to draw your own conclusions on what was actually happening or why some illustrations were present. All in all it was a great read.