Maya Creamer Assignment 3

1. In her poem "Singapore", Mary Oliver uses imagery to convey a tone of realization. She says that "a darkness was ripped from [her] eyes" while she was in an airport in Singapore; she came to the realization that there is beauty in everything and everyone. When she saw a woman cleaning the bathroom, "her beauty and her embarrassment struggled" on her face, and her dark hair was "like the wing of a bird". She is able to see the beauty in both the woman and the work she is doing; she notes "the way [the woman] folded and unfolded the blue cloth" she was using to clean the toilet and ashtrays. She compares this often unnoticed beauty to the beauty hidden in nature. The woman's scrubbing motions mimic the consistent flow of a river, as "[s]he does not work slowly, nor quickly", but rhythmically. The speaker had not noticed the beauty in such simple things as cleaning bathrooms prior to watching this woman do her job; she came to the realization that there is beauty in every situation, if you only think to look for it.

2. "Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in."  --Amy Lowell
This quote really sums up, in a simple way, the way I feel about art. I think every piece of art, whether it is a dance, a painting, etc., expresses something about the way the artist was feeling when they created it. Sometimes, this reflection of the artist's emotions is very intentional and planned out by the artist, while sometimes it appears unintentionally; either way, every piece of art somehow expresses the feelings of its creator. Often, art acts as a commentary on what is happening in our society, and the way the artist is reacting to it. Many times, seeing society's problems reflected in art opens our eyes to issues that we have been living with for a long time but never really noticed. In this way, art is one of the best ways for a person to express their feelings and reactions, and actually be heard.