Our firsts poems this year were Rooms by Charlotte Mew and Home is So Sad by Philip Larkin. Both poems deal with to different meanings of the word “rooms”. Mew used experiences to describe the security of a room and how we all spend lots of time on our rooms. How every room is personal and especial. On the contrary, Larkin described desolated rooms and used voices to conclude that despite the changes home is home. However, both conclusions give the same message.

What does home mean to me?

Home is not a house nor a building. Its is not the place you live in. Home is the place where you feel loved, comfortable, safe, happy. Where you can be yourself, where no one will ever judge you, where you will create lots of memories. Home is a place which you can go back thirty years later and will still feel the same, because in that moment it was your place i the world. It is like, for instance, when you love a song. You will hear it ten years later, and it will still give you the same feelings it gave you when you were ten years younger.

I love walking down my street and start remembering all the memories I have in each place and I can certainly  imagine myself going back after I grow old to the places I appreciated the most. Where i laugh, cried, hug, suffer and love.

This year I learnt a lot about literature. I could notice that it was easier for me to analyze and understand a poem by myself. When I started having literature in Senior 1, I could not understand a bit the first time I read a poem. Eventually, it became easier and easier. But this year was particularly easy for me.

This year I have learnt a lot about Virginia Woolf as we also saw her in Literatura. I found her writing very interesting, compelling and meaningful. Nevertheless, my favorite topic these year was War poetry since I liked very much the way the poems we read were written. I found it wonderful how the two poems and the story were about the same topic, how excruciating war was, but  so different at the same time. They all tackled war in different points of view.

Although my favorite topic was war poetry, the activity I enjoyed the most was making the essay of the Hollow of the Three Hills and Harry Potter, since that series is my favorite of all times.

I took my a while to think what I disliked the most and sincerely I could not really think of some poetry of prose which I did not enjoyed at all this year. Of course I found some parts that bored me a little, like some parts of The Destructors. But at the end, I enjoyed either the story itself or the message it carried. I do not regret reading everything we have read this year.

I consider that the e-portfolio is an excellent way of learning since it gives us freewill and makes us exploit our creativity. Literature is a subject which I do not really need to study hard since when you pay attention to the class, it is sufficient for you to understand. I cannot think of another way of learning since the way we use now is very useful for me. However, I would like to see movies!

Ode on Melancholy is a poem that reflects the author’s feelings about the word melancholy. The main message of this poem, what the author feels when he is melancholic, is that higher the sadness you feel, higher the happiness will be afterwards.

For this poem I chose another feeling present in the daily life.

Ode on Jealousy

Her anguish was reflected in her eyes.

The eyes,

the portals of the soul,

a machine of the truth.

Eyes that do not let you fool anyone
or pretend.

Her eyes mirrored a huge hatred.

It seemed as she was not enough

Like she could not reach the top.

In his eyes, she became unseen

When had it happened so fast?
she thought.

How?

A lot of meditation had to happen
so that she realizes that,

the more he walked away,
the more satisfying was going to be for her to get him back.

The moment he realized the error he had made,

he would go running to her arms again.

Her arms, protective as a shield and comfortable

as an old lucky shoe.

She did not want to wait for him
but after a while,
she would eventually forgive him.

An epic love like that could not be lost
only for jealousy.

Jealousy
was not so bad after all.

The Death Bed is a poem about a soldier in World Word Two who was wounded during battle.  Sassoon’s aim was to prove that soldiers are hurt as much as in war even if they do not die in the battle field. In other words, veteran soldiers suffer equally in their homes after war than if they had passed away in there. He tackles death, and makes the readers feel disorientated about whether the main voice is dead or alive.

“Soldier, Rest!” is another war poem written by Sir Walter Scott whose aim is to protest the whole meaning of war. Scott criticizes the causes and consequences of it. He concludes that it is even better to die than to live after war since living as a veteran is that bad. Moreover, he also emphasise that it is better to die in war than to fight. According to Scott, war is the worst fate.

Dulce Et Decorum Est starts talking about how the soldiers lived in the trenches. They were dehumanized because they were so exhausted that they couldn’t even see the gas bomb that had fallen besides them. Furthermore, the poem shows an inside of how difficult was to survive in the war by showing a reaction of the soldiers when a bomb was thrown at them. Thirdly, Owens shows his feelings towards war, and how he was very traumatized because of the events. Lastly, Dulce Et Decorum Est shows a criticism to the church and the government, that made kids go to war compulsory

I found a Ted Talk that could make me understand how war is really the worst fate and brings nothing but misery to the soldiers, their family and the society.

https://www.ted.com/talks/janine_di_giovanni_what_i_saw_in_the_war/transcript

“One day you’re living your ordinary life, you’re planning to go to a party, you’re taking your children to school, you’re making a dentist appointment. The next thing, the telephones go out, the TVs go out, there’s armed men on the street, there’s roadblocks.”

In my opinion, Scott is right to portray war not as the ultimate solution, but as the worst event it can occur. War not only damages soldiers badly, but also hurts society, the environment and the relationships between the countries. In the ted talk it is described how war changes your whole life and daily routine. War affects soldiers, citizens, society and nature.

I made a movie with my friend Lola Villegas Argento with the help of Martina Ibarbia that aimed to portray how friends and family are lost during battle. Furthermore, the movie shows how the families of war veterans suffered.

https://youtu.be/aO1iiIz3t_s