I really enjoyed ‘123rd Street Rap’ by Willie Perdomo. The poem is appealing in many ways. First, it’s easy to read. It flows well, like any rap should. I found myself reading it aloud, attempting to rap it (though I don’t do it very well). It also appeals to the senses. It gives imagery, “Baby men growing on\/all the corners” and you can hear the poem, “Church bells bong for\/ drunken mourners”. I can listen to Perdomo read the poem on the CD, and I feel like I’m sitting in the middle of the street, watching the action happen in front of me. I like this poem so much because it is a beautiful description of a place that lacks beauty.<\/p>\n
Perdomo’s use of alliteration appeals to the senses, and brings about the imagery. In line 6, “bullets bounce” off “Stoop steps”. And in line 10, “bells bong”. The repetition of the same sound makes the poem flow better, and lets us know that there is importance in the lines. Those lines help us hear the poem, instead of just reading it. Lines 16-21 tell us about the visual aspects of the setting. “Sun that\/ don’t shine\/ Trees that\/ don’t grow\/ Wind that\/ won’t blow”. These lines paint a picture of the poem, and elicit the dark, dreary emotions that come from a place such as 123rd Street.<\/p>\n
Perdomo does an excellent job of appealing to the senses and making the situation believeable as well as depressing. Any thoughts?<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I really enjoyed ‘123rd Street Rap’ by Willie Perdomo. The poem is appealing in many ways. First, it’s easy to read. It flows well, like any rap should. I found myself reading it aloud, attempting to rap it (though I don’t do it very well). It also appeals to the senses. It gives imagery, “Baby … Continue reading 123rd Street<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2006\/325\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}