Sonnet Analysis Final Draft

Pursuit for a Proper Place

Exhausting to part those once near my heart,
As if pulling my roots of life from soil,
Closing the door of my soul to depart,
I ever so insincerely toil.

Flee the false home I now find destructive.
Go, resentful child, and never come back.
Search for a new Haven Reconstructive,
After seeing skies of venomous black.

I consciously swallowed the bitter cure
To rid foolish habits of lingering
Dangerous playgrounds of peril obscure,
I leave without intent of returning.

Forsaking the old for anew rebirth,
I find my proper place upon the earth.




Sonnet Analysis


“Pursuit for a Proper Place” is a personal poem inspired by a personal experience of mine. But because I wanted this poem be flexible enough for readers to think of different stories rather than my specific experience, I composed the poem purely based on ideas of each event that took place in the course of my experience. The poem’s bleak mood and expressions are so much more exaggerated in comparison to the experience where I found the inspiration to write “Pursuit for a Proper Place.” There is a greater bleed of emotion from the poem due to the fact that I’ve written it to feel depressing and heavy, even if my experience may not have been described in the same extreme illustration.
A challenge I came across while composing this poem was the limit deriving from the format of a sonnet, because I felt that I couldn’t fit everything I wanted to write. Although I could go a syllable or two more, change the rhyme scheme or tweak small parts, I wanted to take this challenge and make every line exactly 10 syllables and follow the ababcdcdefefgg rhyme format. When I did, I was forced to write only the most necessary words. The poem seems much more defined now and pure in its substance with a good beat. Following basic sonnet format improved my poem rather than hindering it.
“Pursuit for a Proper Place” contains numerous metaphors, similes, and expressions that cannot be understood at a first scan. I don’t mind the fact that the poem cannot be fully grasped with a first read. The poem is rich with meaning and deeper expressions in its entirety, a compact poem of 14 lines, thus it cannot be understood by simply glancing at the lines, but thought over to capture the purpose of the words used.
My poem kicks off with a visual verb, “Exhausting to part those once near my heart.” This is the beginning of my story and the theme of the first stanza, a struggle to break off from certain people close to me. My experience was actually just making a choice to hang out with different people at school. I had been making a lot of close friends with a certain group of juniors since summer and staying close to them for the majority of my freshman year. But for a reason, which is to be explained further into the poem, I felt the need to stop being so attached to these juniors. The line “near my heart” rather than “in my heart” seemed more appropriate since these certain people were close but not so close that they held a place in my heart. “As if pulling my roots of life from soil” is a simile for breaking my habit of always hanging out where they hung out during breaks. “Closing the door of my soul to depart” expresses the process of making up my mind to do what I was going to do, to leave. But simply leaving people that I had gotten so attached and used to isn’t easy, which is explained in the line “I ever so insincerely toil.” Toil means to labor and to work hard, but I toil insincerely, because a part of me wants to stay rather than make the effort to depart.
So what’s the reason for this struggle to get away from people so close to me? The second stanza gives the answer. “Flee the false home I now find destructive.” This shelter I found in the group of juniors was never really a home, it is a “false home,” it only had only felt like home. During summer, I had bonded with these juniors while not knowing them all too well. They had been friends for years and I happened to jump in all of a sudden during a time where the stress of school didn’t exist and everyone was lighthearted. The way that they were very warm and fun during summer made me feel as if though I was the missing piece of the puzzle. But as summer went away and I started to see the true colors of people, I realized that I had ignored what could possibly be hiding behind the curtain of bliss that I had wrapped myself in. I found myself in a swirl of high school drama, the reason for the words “I now find destructive.” By this time and part of the poem, everything I had gotten myself into seemed unreasonable.
I was only a freshman in a group of juniors that had known each other for years. “Go, resentful child, and never come back.” My discovery was that being two years apart in high school made the biggest difference, so to them, I probably was a naïve, unknowledgeable freshman. And I discovered that I was. I was not just a child, I was a “resentful child,” because I wasn’t really an equal to these juniors and I felt that I didn’t fit in like they way I thought I did. It was time to “go” and “never come back,” coming back and getting just as attached to them again wasn’t a choice. I knew that I could find healthier friends out there.
“Search for a new Haven Reconstructive” is the line that probably puzzled most people. Along with my struggle for departure came the struggle to find new friends. I describe this search as the search for “a new Haven Reconstructive,” because I was looking for a new place where I belonged, somewhere safe where I could rebuild myself “After seeing skies of venomous black,” or after having gone through unpleasant episodes and drama. I capitalized “Haven Reconstructive” since I wanted to exaggerate my search as if I was on a journey to reach a specific destination point as solid as a landmark.
The third stanza is where I solidify my decision to leave, expressing how this decision is for the better. The line “I consciously swallowed the bitter cure” explains that I am leaving on my own will, not because I am being pushed away. I “swallowed the bitter cure,” meaning that although it is difficult, my choice to leave will be good for me like medicine. “To rid foolish habits of lingering-Dangerous playgrounds of peril obscure” was how I worded that it wasn’t smart for me to get so attached to these juniors, because being with them was like being in “Dangerous playgrounds” where it seems fun at first, but things turn into dramas and it’s no fun at all and people start getting upset. There are “peril obscure,” a metaphor for the negative impact that I hadn’t foreseen when I first started to bond with these juniors. The last line of the third stanza, “I leave without intent of returning” further solidifies my choice to depart and leads into my last, conclusive stanza.
“Forsaking the old for anew rebirth, I find my proper place upon the earth.” I end the poem with the lines that finally free me. “Forsaking the old,” I get to put everything that had bothered me and made me upset all behind me and find “anew rebirth,” so refreshing, a new start. Now, I can “find my proper place,” where I truly belong and fit in as equals with friends that have respect for me “upon the earth” where it is vast with an endless choice of people to be with, the earth that I cannot leave but must make a home in, and find true friends in.

Adding to my heritage paper...

These are youtube video clips for the beginning and end of the movie Teagukgi: The Brotherhood Of War.
In my heritage paper, I wrote about my grandfather and his experience as a Korean War survivor. This movie, a personal favorite of mine, is a historical fiction movie of the Korean War, a story of two brothers forcefully drafted. The movie portrays a very real story for many Korean seniors today.

Note: Jin-Seok is both the surviving young man and the old man. Jin-Tae is his older brother, who is shot dead and is found at the excavation site. *There's a somewhat graphic part at the beginning of the second clip where Jin-Tae stays behind and is shot to death in order to let Jin-Seok escape safely*

Pursuit for a Proper Place

Exhausting to part those once near my heart,
As if pulling my roots of life from soil,
Closing the door of my soul to depart,
I ever so insincerely toil.

Flee the false home I now find destructive.
Go, resentful child, and never come back.
Search for a new Haven Reconstructive,
After seeing skies of venomous black.

I consciously swallowed the bitter cure
To rid foolish habits of lingering
Dangerous playgrounds of peril obscure,
I leave without intent of returning.

Forsaking the old for anew rebirth,
I find my proper place upon the earth.



Note from the writer: Thanks for the great comments, I've added a title, a picture and changed the last line.

Ghost Revelation: My Unfriendly Lady

The indescribable feeling of fear overwhelmed me in the darkness surrounding my bed. My mind leapt out of its state of sleep as the most unpleasant sensation climbed rapidly from my toes to my head, it felt cold. I could see the blurry images of my furniture from the window light and there she sat on my chair, a dreadful terror. She wasn’t welcomed, but I had expected her arrival tonight, I had sensed it before tucking myself in. Whenever she let me feel that she would come by, she never failed to show up.
Sleep paralysis is what the experts have used to term this lady, Maxine described her as “the Sitting Ghost,” but I call her no name. I do know that she takes joy in frightening the very soul out of my body. It is easy to imagine the lips of her pale, ghostly face menacingly curl into a smirk to see me frozen in a pool of fear. This lady usually visits me when I sleep late at night, anywhere from 2am to 3am. My mother says I become an easy target during these silent hours, my spirit weak from fatigue.
This mean-spirited lady doesn’t even let me whisper for help nor does she allow me to move a finger, yet she cleverly allows my eyes to freely look at the room around me and heighten my fear when I see her vague figure sitting on a chair near my bed. Oh, how heavy my body becomes when she shows herself. I am filled with sand; it’s almost impossible move myself. I struggle to break free.
Sleep paralysis is experienced in the R.E.M. sleep stage, where the mind is as active as its awakened state; this is the type of sleep that we dream in. In R.E.M. stage, motor neurons, the neurons responsible for movement, are stilled. It is believed that the brain does this in order to stop one from acting out their dream and this is also what the experts say is the reason why I can’t move whenever the miserable lady comes around. In sleep paralysis, the mind becomes awakened in R.E.M. stage before motor neurons have become active, explaining how I can feel fear and think yet cannot move.
So here I am tonight, scared of her once again. This lady has commitment; she’ll come more than once a night when she does show herself. She’ll wake me once and announce her presence. She’ll wake me twice to let me know she wants to have her fun. She’ll wake me a third and let me see her in a blurry imagination, unclear, but so believable. I’d spend a night battling her, falling asleep instantly from strong fatigue after feeling a jolt of horror run through my numbed mind and repeating this for anywhere from three to ten times in a single night.
She has haunted me since I was a toddler, how can I just make her leave me for good? The lady that has always hidden herself in the back of my mind and loosened free through a crack of my closet or revealed her form in the midst of my darkened room, so how can I make her disappear? In a way, she is a part of me. I have grown up with her: she is my version of the childhood monster in the closet and she continues into my adolescence. My feelings of terror toward her have never changed. But it’s time it did.
I am so familiar to her, I have her figured out and I know what to predict from her. I’ve even done a major science project with the inspiration to know as much I can about her or what experts call it, sleep paralysis. How she looks, what she does to me, when she will come, I know everything I need to know about her. Yet, I still fear her for the amazing sensation of terror I experience she marks me with.
Is this all that I despise her for, for the feeling of fear? Fear is an emotion like no other; it lasts the longest and leaves its impression the strongest. But the truth is that my source of horror, this lady, isn’t “real.” She has no body, no voice, no breath, she is just the trick my mind plays on me. Armed with this obvious knowledge that I never fully grasped to my advantage until now, I must confront her like how Maxine had confronted “the Sitting Ghost.”
“Lady,” I will think as I look at her dim form. “You are not so scary after all, now that I’ve thought about it. You’re not even real, you are merely a pigment of my very playful imagination with the combination of sleepy hallucination and my room’s lack of illumination.”
All she could do in reply is send more chills up my spine and make me feel heavier. But the fact that she’s not real would keep my going with my insults, hurling them like stones at her in a conversation of the minds where no words are spoken, but only understood. My fear would dissolve as I mock her failure to be real. She would panic as I start to gain control over the game that always used to be in her hands.
“Choke me and keep me frozen in my bed as long as you want,” I’d think. “This doesn’t scare me anymore. I’m much too tired to deal with this. I have school tomorrow and friends to see. Lady, I’ll leave you to your attempts to frighten me, because it doesn’t bother me at anymore and you’re wasting my sleeping time.”
Without even bothering to struggle to break free from the paralysis, I would fall back asleep as though all that had awakened me was nothing but the sound of a passing car. She would attempt to wake me up one more time, pressing harder than usual. But by that time, I would be so unafraid of her that at this point, I’d be rather annoyed by this lady’s behavior.
“Go away, will you? You’re really getting on my nerves tonight, do you understand?” I would scold.
And just like that, she would flee from my room and out of the back of my mind that she had occupied for years of my life, never to frighten me ever again.

Heritage paper

How Great, My Grandfather

The story of my grandfather is familiar to me, his days as a young man spent in countless years of wartime and hardship. Dongbae Yim, my maternal grandfather was the only grandparent I can still remember clearly. I never appreciated his strict and hardheaded presence until I truly started to understand the greatness of my grandfather. My grandfather was a very capable man. He may have passed away like all, but unlike many, he rose to truly live.
“My father…or your grandfather, was in the Korean War and he lead all of his family and his brothers’ families as well,” my mother explained as she looked up from her laptop. “When the war began in 1950, all of his families were on the northern side of Korea. It was clear to him that the communists would dominate the north, so during the war, he wanted to migrate south.”
The Korean War, an experience to almost all Korean seniors, is common but heartbreaking for every one of them. During that time, Korea’s north and south were in war. Brothers against brothers, it has sub-consequently scarred many generations. My grandfather was caught in the similar story, a large family escaping communist power by fleeing to southern borders.
My mother began to speak again. “My father and all his family once had to cross a damaged bridge over Han River once. During that time, the weather was very cold and it was winter. All that remained of that bridge was a metal skeleton, because it had been bombed and all the wood burned. Your grandfather led everyone across that bridge, grabbing onto the cold metal. Many people crossed that bridge this way back then.”
“Did anyone get hurt or die while crossing?” I questioned.
“No, actually. Your grandfather was a great leader, he got everyone across safely,” my mother replied. Although I already knew the answer from hearing this story before, the same anxiety I felt while I heard this story for the first time remained. When her answer with the sound of her sipping at a cup of coffee assured me, that same burden disappeared once again.
“There was another incident that your grandfather told me about. Didn’t I ever tell you how they were attacked under bombing planes?” My mother brought up a part of the story I’d never heard before.
“You never did, tell me!” I demanded.
“Well, they were all resting at a refugee when a flight of enemy planes bombed the area. Everyone had to crouch or roll up on the ground and that was all they could do. Your grandfather heard people screaming, yelling, dying…and when all was mute after the planes had passed, he held his breath in the deafening silence.”
I held my breath as well, afraid to hear that at this point, a son or a sister-in-law was lost. I looked at my mother intently.
“So…did anyone die?” I raised the question, hoping for a no.
And I got it. “Amazingly, no! Your grandfather stood up and started shouting for his family in the sudden quietness. And one by one, he saw people stand up from their protective crouch. Your grandfather said so many people died from that. But miraculously, everyone in his family made it through,” my mother said.
“Wow, that’s amazing! Some luck, huh?” I exclaimed in awe.
“Yeah, they were very lucky people. But you know, your grandfather still did lose a brother at one point,” my mother replied.
I knew of this lost brother, my grandfather’s younger brother. My lost great-uncle, Dongchin Yim. Stories of separation between siblings, parents and children, wives and husbands, dearest friends, and relatives are very common in Korea. My grandfather’s story was no different. The stories of separation are so common that there was a television program that arranged and broadcasted reunification meetings of separated families. The emotion captured in these 30-minute programs is unimaginably moving. Loved ones see each other once again after four to five decades of searching and writing un-replied mails, they cry and embrace, unwilling say goodbye again.
“He lost his brother at one point while they were traveling south. Your grandfather must’ve always missed him,” my mother said as she finished the last sip of her coffee. “Whenever that television show came on, he never took his eyes off during the scenes where they showed the families meeting each other again. I think he was wishing that he just might see his brother’s face.”
I’d never seen my grandfather do this, or remember him do this before. But it broke my heart all the same to imagine him staring at the TV with desperate, sorrowful eyes, its lids sagging from the years, yet owning a glint of small hope that perhaps he may catch a glimpse of his aged brother’s face. Then he would turn away from the TV when the show ended as the host thanked the audience for watching, he’d sigh and move on to whatever he had been doing before that darn TV show started.
“We still haven’t found his brother yet, so we don’t know if he’s alive or not,” my mother said. “Even after your grandfather passed away. But nonetheless, everyone else who made it across to the south and are now living comfortably in South Korea instead of North Korea have a lot to thank for to your grandfather. And when he came to the south, your grandfather made a fortune at one point and gave all of his children education, including your aunts and me, even though we were girls. He was so strong.”
My mother wrapped up the story at that, and I thanked her for sharing with me what she was told about her father’s life. I stood up from the table, full of thoughts about my grandfather. Was this the same, stubborn man I had despised at the age of six? By this time, I felt nothing but respect for my grandfather. I was amazed at his strength to lead his family through a time of danger and his willpower to live his life so fiercely, even after the horrific experience of war. Now that I reflect back, my grandfather wasn’t a mean, strict grandpa but actually a very compassionate man, a thoughtful man, and undeniably, he was a great man. He was never bitter about the past and his life wasn’t a dead one after the ordeal, but he lived it fuller than ever.
I applaud his greatness through treacherous moments, like the Korean War. But what I am most awed of is how he lived after the Korean War. Nothing from his past hindered him and he never let the agonizing memories of war take over his life.
My life may not be an extreme case of wars like my grandfather’s, but I’ve learned from his spirit to live as though nothing could hurt you. I believe in moving on and never letting hard times of the past hinder you, because I witnessed my grandfather do it every second he was breathing. He lived like there was no tomorrow, he did others good, and he held himself up with integrity to the end. I can only hope to have half the sort of strength that my grandfather showed me.
This is what I pride most of my heritage, to have this great man as an ancestor that I get to call my very own grandfather and I have the honor of being his favorite, mischievous, youngest granddaughter. I have a great man in my record of heritage, and he is my grandfather, the man who rose to truly live.