'Two Countries' Analysis

Nardos Yosef

Anlicker

English 1102

18 November 2016

‘Two Countries’ Analysis

The assigned reading for this Friday was a poem called ‘Two Countries’ by Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinian American poet from St. Louis, Missouri. The first thing I noticed about this poem was that it was not a rhyming type of poem-this two-stanza text was meant to tell a story. She starts it off by describing the way skin is touched by stating ‘Skin remembers how long the ears grow/When skin is not touched, a gray tunnel of/Singleness’ (Nye 1-2). This line is saying that as time goes by, when a body is not touched, you lose your sense of self. You begin to believe that you are alone. The next line that stood out to me was ‘Skin ate, walked/, Slept by itself.’ (Nye 6-7). She is describing the loneliness of being single and how you begin to be isolated after a period of time, and even describes how people see her-as just skin. ‘But skin felt/It was never seen, never known as/ A land on the map’ (Nye 8-10). To me, this line shows the feeling of not being seen or having anyone notice you at all while you are at you loneliest, or just having people not taking time to get to know who you are. She follows up by comparing skin to other things like ‘nose like a city, / hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque/and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.’ (Nye 10-12). I believe these comparisons to intimate things such as a city and a mosque kind of contribute to the idea of seeing people as just skin or something that is not real.

            The second stanza has a sort of mood change by starting off with ‘Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.’ (Nye 13). This is a definite change of gears from the melancholy, dejected tone that the first stanza was full of by stating that there was hope indeed. Nye continues with ‘Love means you breath in two countries. / And skin remembers—silk, spiny grass, deep in the pocket that is skin’s secret own.’ (Nye 15-17). These lines are saying that when you feel love, it gives you a sense of relief. It leaves a memory on your skin. ‘Even now, when skin is not alone, / it remembers being alone and thanks something larger/ that there are travelers, that people go places/larger than themselves.’ (Nye 18-21). These last few lines have a sense of peacefulness. She states that even when someone is not alone they remember the feeling of loneliness on their skin. She is grateful for the people that can get past the isolation and knows her for who she truly is. 

            I really enjoyed this poem. I believe Naomi Shibab Nye had more than a few different meanings for this poem, but what I got out of it was that she is more than just skin. These days, people do not really take the time to know others and understand others. It is a hopeful piece that understands that even though she is a complex person, there are still possibilities and people that she has not encountered yet that may one day understand her for who she really is. 

Seperating Sickness

Nardos Yosef

Anlicker

English 1102

14 November 2016

The article we were assigned to read this week was called ‘The Separating Sickness’. The title is appropriate because it discusses how people with diseases and people with disabilities are separated because of society’s perception of them. The diseases not only have a physical effect on them but also emotional.

            The article focuses mainly on the disease of leprosy. It gives an anecdote about a man named Eddie Bacon. He was a forklift driver in Alaska who developed mysterious rashes on his body. After seeing the doctor and being prescribed medication, nothing was changing. He became weak and started losing weight-he even began having trouble seeing. One day he ended up passing out and was rushed to the emergency room. No one knew what was wrong with him. Four weeks later, he was finally diagnosed: he had leprosy. Eddie Bacon was luckily diagnosed in time to get proper treatment. He also states that his body suffered irreversible damage which includes losing an eye, both feet, and scarring on his arms and legs. He luckily is alive and healthy, and even ended up getting married.

            Leprosy is not a common disease in the US. Only 173 out of a quarter million people were diagnosed with leprosy in America. He was sent to America’s largest leprosy clinic in Louisiana. The clinic was called the Louisiana Leper Home. Up until the late 1940’s and 50’s, people with leprosy were denied basic rights such as the right to vote, marry, live with uninfected spouses or to even leave the hospital.

            Society and its response to people with illnesses like leprosy is another disease. In Hawaii, people who suffered from leprosy were hunted down and were offered a choice to either be exiled or killed. It was not until doctors realized the leprosy was the least contagious disease that the perception of people with leprosy was changed. The drug Promin was a painful injection that improved the symptoms of leprosy dramatically. Leprosy is now curable within a year or two worldwide.

             Today, leprosy researchers focus on the care of patients. Although the disease does damage tissue and scar the skin, researchers realized that the cured patients were getting injured more than people who have never suffered from leprosy. They would literally injure themselves doing normal tasks that people do. Researchers began focusing more on rehabilitation and how to help heal the victims of this disease.

            I believe that people with disabilities suffer enough as victims of their disease. The way society treats these people have a lasting affect and can encourage others the do the same, which leads to a cycle that harms people. This article calls to attention the harmful way society treats the disabled. I believe it is important for us to treat others with respect and even with plain equality. The civil rights act clearly refers to the disabled as people who need to be respected as well. America and other coutries around the world should adhere to this rule and protect its disabled citizens.

Our Crime on Environment

Nardos Yosef

Anlicker

English 1102

12 November 2016

Maya Lin’s “What is Missing?” project brought attention to our class about the environmental problems in America. Humans in this generation have committed a crime against humanity-environmental degradation. This crime is the result of the damage of species, future generations, and ecosystems. Some people who are guilty of this crime include business owners that have a big impact on the fossil fuel industry or any company with a large carbon footprint. These businesses have a massive impact on the world and how the environment can either be helped or harmed.

            Although there are laws against some of these environmental crimes, the punishment in itself is the human suffering and environmental destruction. We continue to annihilate the habitats in which we and millions of other species live in. If we continue on this path, we can hurt the possibility of a healthy, future life for our great grandchildren and the environment they live on.

            The question this article asks is “Should we confer greater existential importance upon present generations of human beings than future ones?” to which it answers that environmental degradation is something of dire importance right now. If we do not take action now, the world as we know it will be different for the future generations and will ultimately hurt us.

Some places that have been affected environmentally are the war stricken lands of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They are ‘burnt out’ and ‘battered’ as a result of the millions of refugees fleeing the country because of the violent war ground. Humanity is being hurt by the liberal state power that is always trying to innovate or change things, which ultimately harms the planet in terms of businesses and factories. Capitalism is also hard at work by exploiting and oppressing a routine that we all live by-we hurt the environment without thinking twice. Every second, the earth is dying.

The speakers in this article state that in order to fix this problem, we must strategically work with political platforms because they hold all the power in most issues involving land. Policies can be made to protect and give justice to the environment. Even small changes can hold a big effect in government. Blame cannot be given to any certain group ion this problem as well-social conflict is a distraction from things like climate change and species extinction. Giving climate or environmental degradation a name like criminal violence may serve justice for the environment.

The article calls the citizens of the world agents of history, and states that observing this change in the world is denying us of our humanity. I agree with this statement: as long as we stand back and watch the issues in this world go by without doing anything we have no right to complain. If we do not do anything to stop this then the future generations of the world will be left to deal with this problem except it may be ten times worse. In order to protect the future of the world, change must take place now.