Dear Ms. Doering,

     Over the past two months of free reading I have read the book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. The genre of the book is biography since it retells the life of Louie Zamperini during World War II. The book contains 496 pages. I chose this book because my brother and mom read this book and absolutely loved it. They showed it to me, and I decided to give it a try.

     This book is about Louie Zamperini who rises to become a track star at UCLA and a member of the 1936 Olympic Team in Berlin. In Berlin he meets Adolf ****** and also steals one of ******’s personal flags. When WWII breaks out, he enlists in the Army Air Force division and becomes a crewman on a B-24 bomber. After passing training, he is sent overseas where he is shot down over the Pacific Ocean. He survives a record 47 days at sea on a life raft only to be captured by the Japanese. They move Louie to a training camp and somehow he lives despite horrible torture and treatment to be released after the war ends. One key topic in this story is how people from all walks of life, including superstar athletes, joined the war cause. This really stood out to me because nowadays you can barely get people to think about war let alone get professional athletes to join the army in a time of need. One literary element that stood out to me during the course of the book was indirect characterization. We learn about how Louie feels about going into war by his description of the setting. He describes the land by being “empty” and “ghastly” which tell us that he is somewhat scared and uncomfortable about the war.

     I found this book to be a lot more interesting than some other biography books that I have read in the past. Some biographies are very boring, but this one contained events you might see in an adventure thriller. This might possibly be the first biography that I really enjoyed reading. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an adventure book while also wanted to learn a little bit about the history of WWII. This book is a little long with a lot of words but isn’t a particularly hard read.

     One thing I noticed while reading this book is the constant loss of life there is during time of war. I always thought that death came in spurts during war but it seems like there is lots of death that the media and the common person doesn’t notice. I am doing great on my free reading goals this trimester and don’t see any reason to make adjustments. The book I plan to read next is, The Book Thief, Markus Zusak. My mom read this book and really enjoyed it so I thought I might as well give it a try.

From,
Matt McDaniels

She once said
"The first time I saw you,
I saw a story in your eyes."
This simple confession got my attention.
I wanted to kno more
I wanted her to talk more about me
I had to kno what she thought
No one had ever talked about me like that before
It was all new
Someone interested in me?!
Whaaaa!
Nothing exciting ever happens to me
She retells a story that I should remember but later I confess that my memory is a horrible thing
It goes like this
"You won't remember this but
I came over to you one day and asked you if you had a pen that isn't a pencil.
You shook your head and said no."
Honest, I don't remember
But I remember you telling me that story very clearly
There was something about you that was very interesting
You reached down into my gut with your words and pulled a good side out of me
Every time
You had magic in your words
I swear
I could listen to your rhymes in creative writing class forever
You were so good haha
I won't forget that
Promise
You sat on the opposite side of the room
in the back
Another statement from you saved in my memory some how
"I loved when Bonnie would volunteer you to go up and read what you wrote out loud to the class"
Bonnie, she was always volunteering me
No one else would go
So I was forced to read my crap to everyone
All the time
I also remember texting you one day
About a year later
The reason for having your number has been lost somewhere in the fog
But I think it was about math?
We had math together
Quote from her, "I had been thinking of a way to get your number and then one day you texted me and I got excited."
>>Fast forward>>
We talked
Got close
Closer
Really close
We could talk about everything and anything
No sensors needed
We let loose and relaxed
What was it, a week straight?
We hung out for quite some time
Days in a row
Light up night became a tradition
Hopefully it will continue
We'll see
I started to like you
You got that deep down inside my heart
You found a way to slip through my wall
I trusted you
Felt for you
But your other life that was put on pause ... Resumed
And I wasn't in it before
And I'm not in it now anymore
I was there and gone
Your previous lover took over the reins
Not a word to me
Not even a warning
We just stopped talking altogether
Hands held while watching movies
Hands intertwined while falling asleep
You warned me of your nightmares but I didn't care
I witnessed one and when you woke up screaming
I squeezed your hand tighter
I wanted you to kno I was still here
To comfort you
I didn't go anywhere
But all that was just.....
A moment
Your lips to my hand
...
Just a moment
Nothing to come of it
A fling
A person to fill in while you fixed things with the ex
But it was nice while it lasted
I won't lie
I enjoyed those moments
But lost and gone
Just a memory
One that I won't lose
Nothing held against you
Friends is what we settled on
And I'm fine with that
Glad I didn't lose that one person I could talk to
The thought on the back of my mind
Will it ever happen again?
Do I have a chance?
Do I wanna take that chance?
The answer is probably not
You seem happy and I want you to stay that way
No need for me to go messing everything up
Lets just say our story is over
Moved on
Separate ways

Where the blue of sky
tosses the dream within ones eye
and opens the pastoral fields of life
amidst the strife, the rife
that here upon the land bears
shares
the tormented moments, the smiles
that crossed the miles and miles
where frontier pried open the dream
upon these wildest green
fields of their prosperity.

They journey a faith
a belief
and took life as would a thief
into their own rights of being
seeing
freedoms expanse there abound
gathered round
the old stories of their homes
Miles away, miles away
from where the root and birth
did inspire
here within them that desire
to reach out and there grasp
the very breath of which they gasp.

Time draws fast the privileges few,
herein drew
the straws of fate
the opened gate
to shower as best destiny it can
the prospects within each human hand.
History retells the story
praises the great with the holy
and draws the prospering fields a plenty
of the days of man threescore and twenty.
To cry into this wilderness , here their name
forgotten sons of forgotten fame.

Birthed now the dream
where grass of blue
filled the hue
of the Kentuckian.

Alisdaire O'Caoimph

Yes.
And we all know how to
Make poetry pay.
We all know what it is
That makes Sammy run,
Run Sammy Run.
But I take it to its
Absurd conclusion:
Ads right in the middle of
The ******* poem!
“That was,”
If I do say so myself,
“A stroke of pecuniary brilliance."
Pecuniary adjective pe·cu·ni·ary \pi-ˈkyü-nē-ˌer-ē\
: Relating to or in the form of money
Full Definition of PECUNIARY
1:  consisting of or measured in money 2: of or relating to money
— pe·cu·ni·ar·i·ly   -ˌkyü-nē-ˈer-ə-lē\ adverb http://www.thesaurus.com
Would not this be an excellent conceit?
Villainy of a close & potent kind?
Put the cart before the horse
(So to speak):
POETS AS SWEAT EQUITY.
That’s right!
Make us pay for our sins,
Financing our sins.
(So to speak).
What a concept!
Why not run the Merriam-Webster logo here . . .
Would this not be the appropriate time?
(logo)
Advertising right smack
Dab in the middle of
The ******* poem!

My third world soul
Having a difficult time
Navigating this Toddlin' Town
Allow me to show you around, town.

And lest we forget:
Our first poets were religious crazies,
With diction gilding Version, King James.
"My Schtick,"
As Mel Brooks might say.
Mel's History of the World
(Part 2, i.e.),
Retells the Essence of Story Telling,
The Misnah Pentateuch,
Told again with the usual **** genius.
Scene:  Moses stumbles on Sinai,
One of three burdensome
Stone tablets is dropped,
Shatters on a rock.
What could possibly have been proscribed
In those 5 lost commandments?
What freaky human pleasure,
Could possibly have been lost to humanity?
It is pointless to speculate.

'Tis better to think about this,
Dear Poetry Publisher Query *****:
Ads right in the middle of the ******* poem.

i never did listen to the first words you ever said to me, i was just fixated on your lips and i wish i could remember. i keep wracking my brain because maybe if i remember them we can start all over again and it wouldn’t be the way it is now. maybe if i remember our story retells and i can relive the last 2 years 3 months of my life with an embrace tighter than the moon’s gravitational pull of the tide.

i swear things were never meant to be this way, see, i went to a fortune teller and she said that i’d meet someone who dances with two left feet and you dance with two left feet and a walking stick; you’re not good, at all, but you tried for me and the fortune teller said that it was supposed to last so i’m not sure why i’m sat here in a pool of your love letters trying to find hints of what went wrong. i’m looking for grazes, cuts, scratches, molehills.

i always got told you weren’t good for me anyway and it’s probably better that it happened like this and we’re only young and there’s so many more people in the world i’ve yet to meet but i don’t want to meet people if every trait they possess isn’t yours and i don’t want to meet people if their hair doesn’t fall the same way and i don’t want to meet people whose front tooth doesn’t cower in slightly and i don’t want to meet people if their favourite food is noodles when you hated noodles.

you were good for me because you made me think and i thought about construction and how things are built and how a fire can burn it to the ground because nothing is more powerful than nature itself. i think maybe we were a house but i keep hoping we’re fire and i’ll set fire to the thorns stabbing my heart and it’ll all be on fire everything will be on fire and it’ll be dangerous and exciting, like you and it most likely won’t be good for me but at least it’ll be ******* pretty. i want to hold your hand as my heart bolts out of my chest and melts into a drain outside your house.

I hear the girl again,

Strumming the air.

She knew the waters so well,

Of those bitter and of those sweet.

Intoxicated with them,

She strums the air

Night and day.



She retells my story,

But I never confessed to her.

She just knew.

She breathes on it

Of chosen words,

Of finest melody.



I don’t hate her,

I found on her an ally,

The girl who moves the stars.



Has she seen the rains?

Has she read my soul?

If you hear her voice,

She speaks of me,

Strumming the air again,

The girl who moves the stars.

I don't know where I am anymore,
Your arms are wrapped around me
I can feel you softly snore;
Breath quiet, warm, and slow
Dancing on my forehead.
This is all that I have left,
These disgusting, precious moments
That I'll never forget.

You transport me to this place
Whenever we're alone.
You rip me out of our space
When I'm thinking-
With eyes closed;
And you're sleeping,
In this bed of time-machinery.
Ripping me through threads,
Forcing me to relive
When we were alright.
When everything seemed bright
But I was lost in the shadows,
Projected by your lies.

And sickly, I smile
As my brain travels miles
To reach destinations,
I haven't been to in a while.

Like that lonesome beach
Where I surrendered myself.
Giving you all that I had,
In our moment on the sand.
I thought you'd never reach
For my unembellished shell,
But you held me in your hand,
Taking all that you could grasp.

Or those tender, treasured seconds
Where you'd cradle my heart in heaven.
Rocking it in your cloudy arms,
While delicate fingers traced coarse scars.

I'm reminded of happier times,
That felt like dancing in sunshine.
Now we keep behind black clouds
To never come back out.

So please,
Just stay there sleeping.
You're happier in your dreams,
That will never include me.

Your soul I never could appease.

I'll lie here with my mind
As it retells these
Fantastical stories,
Of a make believe boy
Who found something beautiful
In something boring.

-SLuR

There are no monsters
Underneath my bed.
But they exist in other places.
They exist in my head.

The monster that says
I should stay home today.
Why would you work hard,
But still be called lazy anyway?

Another monster that says
Love isn't real.
And if it was,
Then it's something I've yet to feel.

There's a monster that feasts
On my fears and insecurities.
And another that tears apart
Logic and rationality.

And in the darkest corner,
Bound in chains.
My biggest monster
And most terrible bane.

He whispers to me
At night and even when I'm awake.
He retells me every regret
And every deep mistake.

And some nights,
When he won't let me sleep.
He tries to pull my thoughts with him
Into the darkness deep.

To show me everything I hide
In the abyss of my mind.
Memories of happenings
And people unkind.

There are more monsters.
They never leave me be.
And I hope one way or another,
I can set myself free.

It’s NOT FAIR.
YOU get to have one.
Someone who watches football games with you
And tells you you’re his baby girl
And retells the story of when you were born
And watches movies with you
And who you can tell things to that no one else will understand.
You get to have a father.
I don’t.
It’s.
Not.
Fair.