"Ode to an Onion" by Pablo Neruda

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.
You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone
and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.


I really don’t remember how I came upon this poem. I was looking online for one with an interesting title and this one caught my attention. With a title “Ode to an onion,” you would think that the poem is supposed to be funny. I found out however, that it’s actually very serious. A Spanish poet, Pablo Nerudas takes something as simple as an onion and writes about how it is so wonderful. The more I read this poem, the more it appealed to me. Nerudas could have written about anything spectacular, but he chose to write about an onion...

First, instead of saying that an onion just "grows," Nerudas writes about it as some sort of a marvel. He writes, "Under the earth/ the miracle/ happened (8-10), when describing how an onion sprouts from the ground. His phrases like "and in the secrecy of the dark earth/ your belly grew round with dew" (6-7), make it seem like he's really telling a story. The onion is not perfect, as the poet calls it clumsy (11), but he goes on to explain in great detail, the elements of the onion's beauty. But my favorite lines of the poem are the last ten. Nerudas says, "but to me, onion, you are more beautiful than a bird of dazzling feathers..." (34-36). And the grand finale, "and the fragrance of the earth lives/ in your crystalline nature" (40-41). I've never thought of an onion as the "fragrance of the earth." Maybe this guy is saying that even simple, strong smelling things that come out of dirt can still be wonderful...pretty deep.

End of Quarter 1!!

I’m really happy with how I did in our English class this quarter. I started a little iffy, but I got the hang of things after about a week or so. I have already learned a ton—probably more in this first quarter than I learned all of last year in LA. The most important things that I learned were how to construct a good thesis, and how to site sources correctly. With those skills, I think I improved a lot in writing a five-paragraph essay. To “strengthen our learning community” I can contribute more to the class by sharing my ideas. My goals for quarter two are to continue improving my structured writing. I’m stronger at writing when there’s no format, so I need to work on writing solid papers that have structure. Another goal is to get outside reading out of the way because it’s a real pain to do it at the end of the quarter when there is already so much going on. Things went pretty well this quarter and to improve, I will stay on top of my homework load.

First of all, A Thousand Splendid Suns can be compared to Black Boy. Mariam is a lot like Richard. She finds no nurture or love in her home. All Nana did to Mariam was blame her. Nana yells at her for being stubborn in the womb, and says “and you Mariam jo, you were in no rush. Almost two days you made me lay on that cold, hard floor. I didn’t eat or sleep all I did was push and pray that you would come out” (10). Mariam is also like Antoine in the movie 400 Blows. Adults are always telling her what to do, and controlling her (partly because she’s a girl.) She runs away, too, just like Antoine does. Mariam decides to run to her father Jalil’s house because she’s fed up with dealing with Nana.
Another Character comparison is one between Fabia (Laila’s mother) and Thomas (the grandpa) in the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Both of these characters have lost love ones. Thomas lost the love of his life, and a future child. Fabia lost her two sons, Ahmad and Noor. Unlike Laila, her mom didn’t recover and move on after her sons’ deaths. She lay in her bed all day in mourning. Thomas, like Fabia, didn’t really make an attempt to recover. He let words slip away from him and let his child live a life without him, much like how Fabia ignored Laila for most of her life. At the end of the book, Laila reminds me of the character Terry from the film On The Waterfront. Terry decides to follow his heart and do what he believes is the right thing to do. He stands up to Johnny Friendly and his gang. Laila tells Tariq—who actually turns out to be alive afterall—that she wants to move back to Kabul. Laila tells Tariq, “I want to be a part of it all. I want to do something” (346). She wants to be a part of the transformation of her country, and wants to do what she can to help. This shows the qualities in Laila of bravery, devotion, and loyalty.

Someone New!

In part two of A Thousand Splendid Suns, the story shifts to the life of Laila, a girl who lives just down the street from Mariam and Rasheed. Laila’s dad is Afghani, but her mom isn’t. Laila’s blonde hair stands out in her neighborhood. A school bully once said to her, “You’re so very pretty, Yellow Hair. I want to marry you” (105). Laila is a very responsible girl. Her mother spends the majority of her time in bed, grieving for her two sons, Ahmad and Noor. Because of this, the cleaning, cooking, and washing responsibilities fall on the shoulders of Laila. Later on, Laila has an opportunity to leave her warring city of Kabul. Her decision however, is to stay with her father because she’s all he has. This shows that Laila is a loyal and sacrificing person.
Tariq is Laila’s best friend. He’s two years older than her, and about a foot taller. Tariq lost a leg due to a small bomb when he was very young. He has a fake leg, and he hits Laila’s bully in the head with it! Tariq is loyal too. He will beat anyone up who hurts or makes fun of his friend. Laila finds Tariq’s house as a kind of safe haven from the arguing and the sadness from her own home. Laila and Tariq seem to motivate each other. When Taiq goes away for a few weeks, Laila can hardly stand it. She describes what time is like without him: “like the accordion on which Tariq’s father sometimes played old Pashto songs, time stretched and contracted depending on Tariq’s absence or presence” (97). When Tariq gets a little older, he picks up habits like smoking, and wearing tight shirts to show off his muscles. From this, we know that he is a bit of a conformist—but despite that, Tariq’s love for Laila never changes.

What happens next between these two characters is your classic tragic romance story. Tariq has to leave Kabul with his parents. He tells Laila that he loves her and wants to take her with him. She wants to go, but feels guilty about leaving her dad at home—it would break his heart. He begs her to come with, and she refuses. Both characters are denied true love, because they are devoted to their families. The day they said goodbye was the last day they ever saw eachother.

More Struggling

Mariam’s marriage to Rasheed is her most difficult struggle so far. After her mother Nana died and her father Jalil practically disowned her, Mariam had no choice but to obey Jalil and get married. A woman living alone and supporting herself was not an option in Afghanistan—or at least not for her. She did not love Rasheed, and “most of the days, Mariam stayed in bed, feeling adrift and forlorn” (56). At first, she dealt with her struggle by mourning and keeping to herself. The only thing Mariam learned from wallowing was that if she gave up on her life, it would be like that forever. However, after a while, Mariam decided to make the best of her situation. She got out of bed and began to clean the house. She made dinner that night for Rasheed, and when he liked it, Mariam felt like “a flare of pride caught her off guard. She had done well—maybe better than good, even—and it surprised her, this thrill she felt over his small compliment” (62). I’m not sure if their relationship reached the point of love, but the Mariam and Rasheed lived harmoniously for the most part. They learned to appreciate each other. From this, Mariam learned that she could rise above almost anything if she tried.
Rasheed has faced multiple struggles throughout his adult life. His former wife died years ago, which is why he is now married to Mariam. So, for starters, had to deal with the death of a family member. Whether he truly loved her or not, we can’t know for sure. No matter how many times the two of them try, Rasheed and Mariam are not able to have a child. In the result of Mariam’s several miscarriages, Rasheed yells at her and makes her life miserable. Mariam feels extremely guilty and thinks, “in the most essential way, she had failed him—seven times she had failed him—and now she was nothing but a burden to him. She could see it in the way he looked at her” (90). Rasheed overreacts to the point where he causes Mariam serious physical pain. He forces small pebbles into her mouth and makes her chew them until her molars break.

Jalil’s Struggle:

So far, every character in this book that plays a significant role has struggled at some point. For example, Jalil, Mariam’s father, struggles with the embarrassment of his child whom he fathered out of wedlock. He is also embarrassed of Nana (Jalil’s former cleaning lady and Mariam’s mother.) Jalil is a wealty man who lives in the city and is ashamed to be seen in public with Mariam and Nana. Jalil faces this struggle in an inhumane way. He builds the two of them a shack on the outskirts of the city so they will be hidden from society. Even though Jalil could have paid someone else to build the shack, Nana said that it was “His idea of penance” (Hosseini 10). Jalil comes to visit once a week, on Thursdays and his relationship with Mariam consists of buying her expensive gifts.
One day, Mariam decides she wants to live with her father in his mansion in the city. She sits outside his house all night long waiting for Jalil who is “stuck at work.” Later, Mariam sees him through the window and realizes that he was home the whole time. She says, “The face was there for only an instant, a flash, but long enough. Long enough for Mariam to see the eyes widen, the mouth open. Then it snapped away from view” (Hosseini 32). When Nana commits suicide, Mariam comes to live with Jalil. However, he decides that he doesn’t want to live with the embarrassment of Mariam, so he sends his fifteen-year old daughter to marry a forty-five-year old man named Rasheed!! Despite Mariam’s pleas to her father, “Jalil’s eyes lifted slowly,met Mariam’s, lingered for a moment, then dropped” (Hosseini 46). Jalil betrayed his daughter because he was too caught up with his own struggles. This leads one to think that he never really loved his own daughter.

Here's a picture for you to analyze! I like it... but it makes me hungry.

A Thousand splendid Suns (that's a lot of sunshine)

A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini

Awesome book so far. I am not too far into it, but I can tell that I'm really going to enjoy it. I have not read Kite Runner, but it's by the same auther. So all of you Kite Runner fans, make this your 2nd quarter book. It also ties in really well with what we've been studying in AP world, if any of you take that class.

The main character in this novel is Mariam. She's a young girl (around the age that a girl would go to school, so maybe beween 6 and 10) who lives with her mom, Nana in the outskirts of a town in Afghanistan, Gul Daman. Mariam has a curious and outgoing personality, though she is sheltered from the "real world." Jalil is Mariam's selfish, inconsiderate father. He is a rich movie cinema owner who lives in the city of Gul Daman. Jalil comes to visit Mariam once a week, with a false expression of love. He buys the approval of Mariam by giving her fancy gifts. Mariam's mom, Nana has a significant role in the beginning. She is pessimistic, but for a reason. Once a maid in Jalil's house, she became pregnant with Mariam and was banished to the outskirts. Nana is a victim of her own sadness and depression.

Nana struggles simply with living out her life. The unfairness of her situation eats away at her, and it pains her to see Mariam find the good in things. Mariam is fond of Jalil because he "seems nice." When Nana tries to tell her the truth about Jalil, Mariam doesn't believe her. Mariam even goes over to try and live with Jalil. STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nana deals with all of her disappointment by hating the world and everyone in it (including Mariam.) Finally, Nana decides she's had enough and ends her own life by hanging herself. Nana's actions demonstrate how hard life must have been for a women in Afghanistan.

Nana, reminds me a lot of Richard's mom, in Black Boy. After Richard's dad left, his mom became a little depressed and let out a lot of anger on her kids. Nana is so upset that she often calls Mariam a harami or a @%*&$. After Mariam accidentally broke Nana's sugar bowl, Nanna screamed "You are a clumsy little harami this is my reward for everything I've endured. An heirloom-breaking, clumsly little harami" (4). Both mothers are abusive to their child partly because of an act of their husband.

oops

Sorry I didn't break that one into paragraphs! I hate reading a paragraph that goes on forever. Read it anyway though :) I'd go back and change it but I honestly don't know how. There should be one of those "Dummies" books for blogs. like, "BLOGGING for dummies." I think I would probably read it.

Why write a memoir?? Why wouldn't you!

Well, one of the first things I thought of after reading this blog assignment was our lovely summer reading novel, good old Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I know that a lot of you probably don't really want to be reminded of this book again :D but think about this; Thomas gets Grandma a book where she can write out her life story. Aka, a memoir! Thomas describes Grandma's writing and says, "I was so happy for her, I remembered the feeling she was feeling, the exhilaration of building the world anew, I heard from behind the door....everything being, for once, better than it was and as good as it could be, everything full of meaning" ( Safran Foer 119-120). This is a perfect example of why someone would ever decide to write a memoir; TO LET IT ALL OUT! Grandma can't exactly talk to Thomas about all of the struggle and the tragedy that she has experienced. He's still trying to figure out his own life. So the point is that people write memoirs to get things off their chest, to breathe a sigh of relief, to tell people something without actually having to "say" anything.I think that memoirs are also written simply to tell a story. Maybe someone has had a hilarious childhood or any experience for that matter, and they knew that if they got it down on paper, it would crack some smiles. There's a book called All Things Bright And Beautiful by James Herriot, and it's either the first or second book in a series of four. These books make up the memoir of James Herriot's life as a country vet, and if you haven't read them yet you should at least try, because they're super funny! He writes about all of the hilarious things that happen to him while he's curing sick sheep and things like that. People become so much wiser throughout their lives, and writing a memoir is a way to share knowledge, and a way to make people laugh by reading about all the funny and embarassing things that have happened to you.There is a lot of power in sharing a story about yourself with the public. You get to be the teacher, and the one reading the memoir is doing the learning. Memoirs help members of the human race to better understand eachother. The more memoirs there are, the more we will know about personal thoughts, feelings and experiences. The communication of these things leads to a stronger and more closely knit community.

Too much yellow???

hehe well, I went a little color-crazy last night. I really am not good at matching colors. If this hurts anyones eyes, just tell me and I will change it...because I just realized it's very bright. :D
I am open to any and all suggestions from those of you who have good taste in color. (or even if you don't, I guess.)

Richard = hungry

I'd say we can all agree that Richard is a very hungry kid. Here, the word "hungry" can be applied in both the literal and the figurative sense. It's very obvious that Richard is practically starving. He has a bowl of "mush" every morning before school, and various greens for dinner. Richard talks about how he must adjust to his meager diet (126). For lunch, all of Richard's schoolmates go and buy their lunch at the grocery store. Richard lies, and says that he is never hungry during that time of day. He desperatley wishes that he could eat lunch like the otherh kids.
Richard is also hungers for knowledge. Talking about school, he writes, "I studied night and day and within two weeks i was promoted to the sixth grade. Overjoyed, i ran home and babbled the news" (125). Richard is actually excited about learning, and we read about him seeking more knowledge when he burries himself in the magazine additions to the paper that he sells. He is enlightened by all of the worldly stories he reads, and says, "For the first time in my life i became aware of he life of the modern world, of fast cities, and I was claimed by it" (129). Along with knowledge, Richard craves answers. He asks many questions to his family, but they never really answer him because they think that he's too young to understand (24).

These hungers have both positive and negative effects. Constant physical hunger takes a toll on a person, and it causes lack of energy and lack of nutrition. Also, Richard's small size costs him job opportunities. For example, he is too small to work at the mill (170). On the good side of things, Richard's hunger for books and learning evoked his interest in writing. He decided that he wanted to become a writer, and go up north to write books (168). This gives Richard a goal and a purpose. By wanting to be a writer, Richard is being a non-conformist. He is doing what he feels in his heart, and that is a step in the right direction.

Is Richard a bad boy?

When Richard accidentally sets his house on fire, I think that he was actually being a bad boy. You might say that he's only four years old, and that he didn't know any better, but Richard's year-younger brother was telling him to stop playing with fire. For example, his brother says, "Don't do that...you'll burn the whole broom" (Wright 4). Richard shows poor judgement by lighting straws from the broom on fire. What's more, Richard holds the flame under the curtains! His own brother who is a year younger is telling him not to and saying, "Naw," and shaking his head (4). If a boy at the age of three has the sense to know not to play with fire, then a boy who is four should certainly know not to play with fire. He also decides to run away without even telling his mom about the fire! He admits being in the wrong, and says, "I had done something wrong, something which I could not hide or deny" (5). There are many things that Richard could have done better in that situation. Though I wouldn't say it was entirely his fault, I still think that he was in the wrong.
I don't think that you can ever blame something entirely a single person, or entirely on their environment. With the exception of infants, and those unable to speak or act of their own will, the individual deserves at least a portion of the blame. When one can think and act for themselves, regardless of the environment, peolple can make whatever decision they choose. In Black Boy, Richard lights the house on fire. It was an accident, and he was only four. Also, his mom wasn't in the room with him, so he was unsupervised. He was restless, bored, and tired of being quiet all day. But Richard's brother was in the same environment and he didn't light the house afire. Richard made the ultimate decision to light the broom on fire, and therefore, he deserves a portion of the blame. I think that in most cases, both the environment and the individual should be blamed.

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