Professor Sabir's Posse

Isaiah Teague
Professor Sabir
English 201A 8-8:50
15 September 2011

Freewrite Reflection

In Tupac Shukur's collection of poetry The Rose grew from Concrete, he shares his emotion, thoughts, and confusions. The poem "In the Depths of Solitude, Dedicated to me" expresses the authors loneliness, isolation, and regret. He says, "I exist in the depths of solitude pondering my true goal/Trying 2 find a peace of mind/ and still perserve my soul."(5) Afeni Shakur, Tupac's mother, taught her children that mistakes werent always fatal, she says, "Every young person is going to make a awful erorr.... We can teach them you can really recover from an error. You can do better."(Dyson 42) with this in mind, Tupac concludes his poem on hope.
 

Aman Bharji
Professor Sabir
Eng 201B 8 to 850
16 September 2011

Freewrite

In the poem "Life Through My Eyes" put me in a state as if i were Tupac. I felt his pain and suffering to the deepest level. The poem explains the general outline of Tupac's mindset and puts the reader through the experiences he's endures everyday. THe line"poverty ,murder , violence" is traumatizing to any human being and for him to motivate youth while experiencing these things has caused me to gain a unexplainable appreciate for Tupac. A reference from Dyson is on pg(73) "He didn't like his life , but he loved escaping through characters he played" really realtes to the poem. It shows that it was hard for Tupac to deal with the life he was living and i think finding way to escape were minimal. At the end of the day, he would be in the same situation no matter how many times he played someone else and it just was destructive on him as a person in my opinion.
 

Selma Adam
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 201 A 8-8:50 AM
September 17 2011

Free write

In this poem "Under The Skies Above" Tupac shows that he want his own child to grow up in a good way and to be surounding with love from everyone. In the line "I welcome this gift of life given from GOD under the skies above" he express his feeling and shows that he is happy to have this baby. Tupac wanted this child in contrast his mother was not 100% sure that she want him because she knows that she is going to be a singel mother as we see in dyson "When afeni become pregnant, she hoped that her sister would raise her child, since she and her comrades faced 352 years in prison on 156 count and assumed they would be convicted. "I had never been able to carry a child past three months of pregnancy," Afeni says. "But in the midst of this, this child stayed." Dyson (30).
 

Ben Towers
Professor sabir
English 201a 8-850
16, September 2011

Free write

In the poem “Sometimes I cry”, Tupac says it all in the title. He talks about being lonely. At times feeling alone by himself and it being very difficult to carry on. In sometimes I cry Tupac says,”Sometimse I cry when Im alone, I cry cuz Im on my own.” This can be refrenced from dyson on page31 in the chapter dear momma. Dyson states,” tupac’s father , Billy Garland, abandoned his seed and left Afeni to raise him alone.” This must have felt worse for Tupac, only having one parent to raise him to become a man. Sometimes females cant teach a growing boy some life skills needed. Ya most of his needs would be met but not all of them. That’s where I think the balance comes in to play with a father and a mother raising a child.
 

Jason Lee
Professor Wanda Sibir
English 201 A/B 8-8:50 AM
14 September 2011
Free Write
Sometimes I Cry
In the poem from Sometimes I Cry, “It’s painful and sad and sometimes I cry and no one cares about why”. In a way we all get to that moment sometimes when we feel sad and crying is the only thing that works in expressing your raw emotions but not having someone or somebody to hear and to be heard by lending a shoulder is perhaps why people fail to show compassion in one another. Holler if you hear Me, Shakur enlightenment from the pain and sadness erupts from “Tupac spurned the light and clung willfully to his darkness later in life because he didn’t believe that “people who were in the light would… embrace him. Pg 44 Maybe at the time Shakur didn’t know that many people did listen, not only through his poetry and music but the significance of understanding his struggles and throbbing pain is heartfelt with vigor and vengeance.
 

Manuel Flores
Professor Wanda Sibir
English 201A 8-8:50
14 September 2011

Free Write

In this poem Tupac talks about being alone. The poem "sometimes I cry" he is really trying to express how being alone hurts and how bad it can really make you feel. I think growing up really had an affect on him because he never really had a mom and no other relatives. In the book he states "sometimes when I’m alone I cry because I’m on my own"(p.7). Michael Eric Dyson agrees with this because in his book he says “Tupac admits that he’s bitter about being poor for his principles, since he missed out on a lot of things” (p51)