Unsettling America Review

"English Speaking-Persons Will Find Translations"
Well, I liked it. I like how it sort of compares America to the Nazis with the whole idea of, "Well, they had concentration camps. Normally we hate that, but when you compare that to the fact that we caused Nagasaki and Hiroshima, as well as raped the Indians, then..." It was interesting to see a poem like this, mostly because you don't really see it them all that often. People are usually very ignorant as well as arrogant and say that the people that we brought such atrocities upon had it coming, and it was our divine right given to us by God to commit these inhumane crimes. Usually as long as people aren't the ones having something happen to them, they don't really care about it. Like the teacher in the poem, who said how many lives were "saved" by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I put saved into quotes because when people say we saved lives by dropping the bombs, we actually caused the people in those cities to go through unbearable agony, and then they died. Many people died very painful deaths because of the bombs.

"Always Running"
I liked this poem as well. One reason I liked it is because of the part where he starts to question his emotions about who he wants to kill and if he should actually kill anyone. Recently I wrote a poem where the person questions himself like this, and I've got to say that it was rather entertaining to do. I much prefer reading and writing poems where the person questions things, and ones that deal with the inner mind. I can't really do imagery, and even though reading a poem with images is nice, I like having to think. Also, i like how he was managing to stay strong even during hard times. He's living in a house filled with cockroaches, his wife leaves him, and he has the constant threat of gangs, but he still manages to tough it out.

"Mnemonic"
Well, I liked parts of this poem. I can't say that it interested me much for the most part, but when it did the contrasting ideas of the earth being both flat and round, it managed to grab a hold of me. The contrasting ideas make it seem like this poem is worthwhile to read, even though I didn't enjoy most of it. It really didn't interest me much with reading about an immigrant's sweater that he wore to America. Call me crazy if you want, but reading a story where the bulk is about a sweater doesn't pique my interest.