Maggie's Journal 5

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of the pieces that were read. However, I don't appear to be much of a multitasker and I spent most of my time watching the readers emotions instead of taking good notes. However, there were a couple poems that stood out to me.

The first poem was Ammar's piece "Dear Ola Ali", a let to his mother. I appreciated this piece perhaps more for the reason that it seemed original and creative rather than the same old piece about mom. He continued to specify that throughout the world there are seven billion people, but only one of those people could make him feel the way he does and call her his mother. I think that moreso than anything I liked this poem because of the feelings and the thoughts that it left me with. The lines "tolerated my wrong-doings" and especially "Time flew by. I grew up." really stood out to me. I think that as kids grow older we forget to show our parents how much we appreciate them and how much they really mean to us. Throughout all of the years that we have been alive on this planet, they have been making sacrifices and dealing with our irresponsibility- without much in return. I myself (or should I say my mother?) is a victim of this. When I began my teenage years I pushed everyone away but the last year or so I have really realized how much this woman means to me and I have absolutely no idea what I would do if I lost her. The final (?) line also stood out to me, "Today, a lot matters to me, but you definitely top that list".

The second poem that really stood out to me was Remy's "Dear You". I don't really know why, but I really liked this piece. Truthfully, I think I really liked the piece because of the way Remy read it. I think it's hard for most men to put to words how they feel, especially how much they care about a girl. I truly admired the words and emotions that Remy put into this piece. Watching him read he seemed to be full of excitement and hope - it was nice to see. Though I think many descriptive words of girls' seem to be cliché I think that Remy did a good job avoiding that and coming up with his own original descriptives (locks of golden honey). I think that the shyness that he reveals is something that is really valued in the piece (not naming the girl) and I liked that he explained why. Hope seemed to be a continuous theme throughout the piece, even when it revealed that the girl was taken he still had hope. The final  thing that really stood out to me and that I absolutely love was the way he signed the letter, "Signed Hopeful". I thought that was really clever and went along well with the poem and the theme.