Blog 11- Two Poems

I guess for this blog I am going to just talk about the two poems we read over the last week, "The Heights of Macchu Picchu" by Pablo Neruda, and "In the Language of Memory" by Gioconda Belli, and the similarities and differences that I mostly saw between them along with what I liked and did not really like of the two poems. These thoughts are probably not going to be new to you but it just helps me to think it out and remember by talking (or typing) random ideas.

Obviously, the biggest similarity I saw was that both poets talked about and remembered the past indigenous culture. The way that my group and I saw them differ was that Belli seemed to express her emotion more in her poem than in Neruda's poem. Belli expressed more anger and showed that she was upset with what happened and the outcome of the Spanish Conquest while Neruda seemed sad and disappointed but did not seem to express it as anger as much as Gioconda Belli did. Also, Belli brings about the past indigenous culture through memory while Neruda actually visits Macchu Picchu and remembers and brings about the past indigenous culture through looking at the actual ruins. The poem "In the Language of Memory" also talks specifically about the Spanish Conquest and addresses the fall of the indigenous people while in "The Heights of Macchu Picchu", Neruda seems to be curious as to why and what happened, but does not specifically address it. The final similarity/difference is that both authors write about a journey and something that they are searching for, but Neruda is kind of searching more for the truth of life (his own life), while Belli seems to be more interested in learning more about her indigenous ancestry and their way of life. Obviously there are a ton of other similarities and differences, but these are a few that stuck out to me and a few that my group discussed in class.

Overall, I would say that I am slowly beginning to enjoy poetry more. I have always appreciated it, but never really liked it because of the difficulty it gives me. I enjoyed Gioconda Belli's "In the Language of Memory" more because of the simple fact that I was able to understand it better than the other poem. Both were a challenge for me, but I felt as though that in Neruda's poem, I had no clue what he was talking about and no clue what the general theme was... I would say it does help a lot just being given a broad direction in what the poem is talking about, but of course, there is an infinite amount of ways to interpret literature. That is why I like math and science, because there is one answer and it is not just guessing. Also, in Neruda's poem, I felt as though he was just throwing together random words with no meaning or reason... and it made me frustrated. These were just some random thoughts from the group discussion and from what I felt when I read these two poems.