Project Introduction
In this project, my class was given an assignment relating poetry and history called the Poet Laureate Project. The synopsis for this project was that Dr. Patton, our teacher, was part of the Omni-Temporal Poetry Society and that our jobs as poets was to create a poem commemorating a United States event from our assigned time period. Our class was then assigned jobs to work on a book containing our poems that would be sold to the public.
My Event and Time Period
The time period that I was assigned with was the 1910's to the 1920's. Within that time frame, I chose the United States' entry into World War 1, which took place in 1917. The main reason why I had chose this event was because, in my opinion, it was the largest and most important event in the decade.
Reflection
This project taught me a lot of new information, not just about history during my time period, but also about the different writing styles and forms of poetry. The stuff that I learned about poetic forms helped me to understand that poetry isn't about rhyming words but more about number of syllables in each line and a certain pattern within the sentences. I remember learning about Iambic Pentameters, which were key in writing our poems. I am most proud of my final poem, mainly because of the positive criticism that it had got from other classmates. However, I have learned over the course of this project that I need to work on my skills in quickly developing information for my assignments and typing it down. I feel like most of the poetic skills that I have learned, mainly in writing, will help me in school sometime in the future.
My Brother, Gabriel, reading his poem aloud at the Book Launch Party at the Old California Coffee House in San Marcos