Post by elsulmo38 on May 21, 2012 16:13:47 GMT -5
Alice Walker grew up in Georgia, the youngest of eight, where she faced tremendous poverty and racism. At a very young age she turned to poetry as an outlet for the shyness and self-consciousness she experienced because of a scar found on her right eye. She says that this injury allowed her to become more patient and observant of others, creating an everlasting effect on her poetry. She eventually overcame her injury with the help of reading and writing poetry and saw how her injury, traumatic as it was, helped her mature and become a better person. With her new found confidence, she went on to Sarah Lawrence College, participated in the Civil Rights Movements, and eventually won a Pulitzer Prize, only to name a few achievements.
Alice Walker calls herself an optimist, which we see clearly in her poetry. As she says, life at times “may be half full of water, precious in itself, but in the other half there’s a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space”. Walker has the incredible talent of easing her readers into an optimistic viewpoint about the past, present, and future. She does so in her poetry by advocating the basic act of loving and a lack of discrimination when doing so. Walker reminds us repeatedly of love’s healing power and how it can solve many problems the world faces today.
As a passionate activist, she has seen these problems first hand. Walker has personally experienced oppression, war, racism, discrimination and violence, as well as its consequences. What distinguishes Walker’s work is her ability to describe a miserable and disheartening situation, most inspired by personal experiences, and through her carefully chosen words ease the reader with a resolution deduced by her wisdom. The theme found in these solutions is the acceptance of the past and actively choosing not to relive it every day, but gratefully learning from it. A line from one of her poems that truly describes this is when she says, “I will keep broken things. Their beauty is they need not ever be fixed”. Walker manages to find some good in every situation, no matter how painful, while still being realistic and presenting the truth. Shiloh McCloud describes Walker perfectly when she says Walker “has chosen to be happy, while still remaining present to the world”.
Walker’s words are not only entertaining when reading them, but they are truthfully memorable and useful. She does not sugarcoat life, but she does not overcompensate for any sadness we are surrounded in. Her poems are delightfully balance because she simply gives us the truth. She gives readers guidance that will forever help them in the ups and downs they are bound to face. Walker’s poems in reality are selfless through its lack of discrimination and the amount of wisdom she shares. She writes these poems to make the world a better place with hope that her words will inspire readers to love more, which they inarguably have the capacity to. I would like to thank Alice Walker for sharing her wisdom and experiences tonight. Please join me in giving Alice Walker a warm welcome.
word count: 523
Alice Walker calls herself an optimist, which we see clearly in her poetry. As she says, life at times “may be half full of water, precious in itself, but in the other half there’s a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space”. Walker has the incredible talent of easing her readers into an optimistic viewpoint about the past, present, and future. She does so in her poetry by advocating the basic act of loving and a lack of discrimination when doing so. Walker reminds us repeatedly of love’s healing power and how it can solve many problems the world faces today.
As a passionate activist, she has seen these problems first hand. Walker has personally experienced oppression, war, racism, discrimination and violence, as well as its consequences. What distinguishes Walker’s work is her ability to describe a miserable and disheartening situation, most inspired by personal experiences, and through her carefully chosen words ease the reader with a resolution deduced by her wisdom. The theme found in these solutions is the acceptance of the past and actively choosing not to relive it every day, but gratefully learning from it. A line from one of her poems that truly describes this is when she says, “I will keep broken things. Their beauty is they need not ever be fixed”. Walker manages to find some good in every situation, no matter how painful, while still being realistic and presenting the truth. Shiloh McCloud describes Walker perfectly when she says Walker “has chosen to be happy, while still remaining present to the world”.
Walker’s words are not only entertaining when reading them, but they are truthfully memorable and useful. She does not sugarcoat life, but she does not overcompensate for any sadness we are surrounded in. Her poems are delightfully balance because she simply gives us the truth. She gives readers guidance that will forever help them in the ups and downs they are bound to face. Walker’s poems in reality are selfless through its lack of discrimination and the amount of wisdom she shares. She writes these poems to make the world a better place with hope that her words will inspire readers to love more, which they inarguably have the capacity to. I would like to thank Alice Walker for sharing her wisdom and experiences tonight. Please join me in giving Alice Walker a warm welcome.
word count: 523