In his poem “Dreams,” Langston Hughes puts heart-touching words to address society and the world. Hughes develops the idea that life is hard when you don’t have dreams. He develops this theme by using repetition and metaphors. First, Hughes uses repetition. For example, Hughes restates the line, “Hold fast to dreams” twice. He is trying to emphasize that you should really hold on to your dreams and chase them. You should do this no matter what because otherwise your dreams may slip away. Another way Hughes uses repetition is through his line structure. The first 3 stanzas in each verse start with the same 3 words: Hold, For, and Life. To describe a world without dreams, Langston Hughes uses two metaphors. The first metaphor is: “Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” Here Hughes compares a frustrating life without dreams to a “broken-winged bird.” When Hughes makes this comparison, I picture a bird’s broken wing who can’t fly but tries his or her hardest. It makes me think life may be hard, but you can still try to make it better. This reminds me of my dad. In 2018, he had a seizure and passed out on the floor. My uncle found him and took him to the hospital. Ever since then, he’s been sick, but he gets better every day. My dad’s situation has demonstrated to me that you can bounce back. No matter what he’s going through he still keeps fighting. The second metaphor Hughes uses is: “Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.” This image makes us see how hard it would be to get back on your feet after losing something as dearly important as your dreams. This reminds me of my cousin. She loved the house she raised her children in. One time her checks came in but they weren’t enough to pay her rent that month. Then the same thing happened the next month, so she got evicted. She felt hurt and cried. She was devastated and forced to stay in a homeless shelter. She went around looking for a new home, but the houses she looked at were too expensive or not available. She went back to the shelter, feeling stuck. Because she remembered her dreams, she never gave up. She realized she had to push herself harder, and eventually she found another house and got on her feet. Both images let us see how Hughes thinks about how life is so hard without dreams. By using repetition and metaphors, Hughes allows the reader to get pulled in to get thinking about the importance of dreams. You have to be diligent to get what you want and you have to prove yourself. Then maybe “the barren field filled with snow” won’t be so hard after all. Read Langston Hughes’s “Dreams” here. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes. VintageClassics, 1995. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book, or any poems by Hughes? Let us know in the comments below!
poetry
Saturday Newsletter: November 30, 2019
Dandelions by Alicia Xin, 13 (Scarsdale, NY), published in Stone Soup November 2019 A note from William Rubel Did you know we have a special offer running all Thanksgiving weekend? 25% off annual print subscriptions! Visit Stonesoup.com, click the Subscribe button, and get a year of stone soup delivered to your home for just $67.50. It will go back to the usual price of $89.99 at midnight on Monday, so please consider doing your Holiday shopping now! Thanksgiving! My best wishes to all of you on this Thanksgiving weekend. I am writing to you from Guanajuato, Mexico, where I came with my daughter for the Thanksgiving school break. It is a lovely town! I cannot recommend visiting more highly. News! Our latest anthology has just been published! The Stone Soup Book of Science Fiction, edited by Jane Levi, is now available at our online store. It is 222 pages and includes the best science fiction we have published over the past 45 years, including some fantastic recent material. Copies are in stock, and shipping next week. With the addition of this brand new volume we now have nine anthologies for sale. This is over 1,800 pages of amazing writing by Stone Soup authors. Besides science fiction, titles include anthologies on the themes of friendship, sports, animals, fantasy, historical fiction, family, festivals and holidays, and a volume of poetry. Other publishing news: The Stone Soup Annual 2019 is at the printer and will be available to ship in time to get copies to you for the holidays. It frightens me to write it—but the 2019 Annual is 458 pages! And, that is a Yikes! It is a big book. It is a heavy book. It is a colorful book. It is a great book. The Annual includes all 11 published issues of Stone Soup plus an issue’s worth of some of the great blog posts published during the year. I’d like to thank Sarah Ainsworth and Jane Levi for their hard work putting this year’s volume together. We put in the work to publish the best writing and art by kids in a quality format so that can read it and be inspired. But, only you can actually be sure that our Stone Souppublications end up in the hands of kids. Thank you. A Brilliant Poem: Weekend Poetry Project William Chui’s poem, “Playroom,” published in the current issue of Stone Soup does something that is very hard to do. It is an elegant evocation of the mundane–the everyday around the house–and at the same time achieves one of poetry’s ultimate goals: to help us see beyond the surfaces of everyday life to deeper feelings. To deep insights. My favorite sound: Lego pieces falling onto the smooth, polished hardwood, little souls trapped inside and unable to help themselves. As you read William’s poem, please listen to the beauty of his language. Let his images form in your minds’ eye. Smell the scents, touch the fabric. This is a poem that reads like prose. The lines don’t rhyme. The cadence is prose-like. And yet, and yet, it is not prose. William creates a density of imagery, of voices, of feelings, of thoughts that is one of poetry’s hallmarks. And the moist lemon and herb tea, as savory as a summer salad. The steam rising from the tea links us to a warm summer day and then the “savory” which William uses to describe a a good tasting summer salad is also an herb with a strong smell which brings us back to the scent of the steam rising from the tea cup. And this is only one way one is drawn into this sentence. Within the few lines of William’s poem there is, indeed, a novelful of experience, thoughtful observation and deep feeling. Thank you, William! After reading William’s poem several times, and I recommend reading it aloud, I want you to put it down and go about your day. Then, sometime later today or tomorrow, sit down in a favorite spot—which could be lying on your bed!—and let your thoughts flow. The only way I want you to control them is that I want you to put them on paper in the form a poem. Let the act of creating a poem force you to really focus your imagery, focus your words so that with only a sentence or two you can suggest so much more. As always, if you like what you achieve, please submit it to Stone Soup so Emma can consider it for the magazine. Until next week, The brand new Stone Soup Book of Science Fiction Available in the Stone Soup online store now! We are thrilled to announce the publication of another book in our series of themed anthologies: The Stone Soup Book of Science Fiction. It’s a brand new collection, with some brand new work, as well as some old favourites from our archive. You can read all about it and check out the list of authors and contributors here,where you can also pre-order your copies (it will be ready to mail out next week). Congratulations to all our authors–we are so proud of all of you, and we love this new book! P.S. for all the Sci Fi authors in this collection: remember to use your special code to get a 50% discount on all copies you buy! If you don’t have the coupon code, write to us and we’ll remind you. Current Contest: Personal Narrative The way we approach fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as both readers and writers, is drastically different. For this reason, we’re happy to announce that Stone Soup is partnering with Society of Young Inklings in our very first nonfiction contest and that, in 2020, we will begin to publish all nonfiction under its very own label in the magazine. What makes this contest extra special is our partnership with Society of Young Inklings (SYI): we are very excited to share that their team of professional writers has designed a mentorship experience for both the youth and the educators who take part in this contest. Check out the details on our website here, including links to
Saturday Newsletter: October 12, 2019
Snowflake Hiding in Blues by Hannah Parker, 13 (South Burlington, VT) illustrating “Northern Night” by Poppy Lowenthal Walsh, 12 (Minneapolis, MN) A note from Sarah Ainsworth I recently subscribed to a poem-a-day newsletter, and it has changed my mornings for the better. I like how the poem delivered to my inbox each a.m. gives me a moment every day to slow down, think about something in a new way, and carve out time for reading for the sake of enjoyment. For a long time, I’ve felt like I’ve been stuck in a poetry rut—reading only the poets I know and like. This newsletter has provided me with a new poet every day, some from poets I’ve heard of, but many that I hadn’t. I don’t always like the poems, but it exposes me to writing I wouldn’t have otherwise found, and it can be helpful to take the time to discover what you do and don’t like. Would you be interested in a similar newsletter from Stone Soup dedicated to poetry? Let us know! I encourage you to take the time today to scroll down and read Poppy’s poem “Northern Night,” which is published in full down below, with a striking accompanying photo from Hannah Parker. Concentrating your energies fully on a poem, even just for a minute, feels like a nice change of pace from what sometimes feels like an increasingly frantic world. Happy weekend, Contest, Partnership, & Project News We’ll soon be announcing an exciting contest in partnership with another writing organization—stay tuned! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Former Contributor Abby Sewell On Monday we published another Former Contributor Interview, this time with Abby Sewell. Abby wrote the story “On the Headland,” from our March/April 1996 issue, which is also featured in our Friendship Stories anthology. Abby now works as a journalist in Beirut, Lebanon, and she reflects on how she has shifted her focus from when she got her start in Stone Soup. Young Blogger Lucinda Chu What are your methods for studying for a test? Our young blogger Lucinda Chu gives you some suggestions in a blog post from this week. Lucinda emphasizes the need to practice moderation in studying—or in other words, space out your study sessions into smaller portions. Also, don’t forget the importance of sleep! From Stone Soup, October 2019 Snowflake Hiding in Blues Northern Night By Poppy Lowenthal Walsh, 12 (Minneapolis, MN) Illustrated by Hannah Parker, 13 (South Burlington, VT) Flashlight light draws two silhouettes walking side by side. As the canvas of this heavy darkness turns to this silent night tonight I gaze into the sky’s sweet face sprinkled with freckles of stars. The crickets sing and spread their wings. Whose song, they ask, is most true? It’s true when the day fades there’s a special way that the sky is the brightest blue. Our Fall Fundraiser, 2019: The Refugee Project We are raising funds to support the production and publication of creative work by children in refugee camps around the world. We have almost reached our preliminary target of $5,000 to support a special issue of Stone Soup and associated projects—and we want to keep going! You have already helped us fund workshops in the Za’atari camp, Lebanon, and put us in touch with other organizations we can work with to expand our efforts. Please help us raise the money to continue this work. You can read more about this initiative at our website and help us by sharing the link with others. Thank you. Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. Stone Soup’s Advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
