http://Pixton.com/ic:fu0zui9w

The Game

Yo, my name is Reggie,

And yeah I’m from the ‘Nati.

I ain’t gotta classy daddy

And my neighborhood is trashy.

But who cares, I rep my city

Although it might not be pretty.

The park across the street

Where all my homies meet

Is prettier than all

The ladies I’ve ever seen.

It’s the oasis where we ball

And those who trip cause a scene

Can nothing in this world be clean?

I’m rappin for all those,

Who in this predicament

And for all those who chose

To not work for a single cent.

Their families are in need

And yet, they go buy weed.

When rappers talk bout the game

They talking bout the state of rap.

When I spit about the game,

I’m talking bout my life’s map.

Where I'm goin, What I'm doin

How I’m flowin, why I'm shootin.

This game’s like checkers, simple yet strategic

But play this game wrong, you end up a paraplegic.

Everybody’s equal with a gun in their hand

Until the gangs rise up and the kings take command.

Trapped in a corner, no place to go

Only friends and family to depend on, yo

They only want your doe, don’t care about your flow

You make a quick decision…

Pull out the gun?

Rush them head on?

Fall to your knees?

The smart ones run.

This is MY life.

It’s all a game?

This is MY strife.

Wish I could quit play’n.

Now I holla at the rappers

Who taught me to spit this creed.

Eminem, Tupac, Weezy, and Jay-Z.

I will always hold on to my freedom of speech

I feel like I'm in prison, or rather an escapee.

Tryin to claw my way out of this hole called poverty,

Imma try to clean this world by dropping some verbal bleach.

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Analysis

For my blog entry I tried to mix it up a little.  Instead of the normal, old language poetic poetry, I chose to try and make a more modernized version of Lord Byron’s romantic poetry.  Reggie, a rapper from one of the worse-off areas of Cincinnati, lays out a poetic story about his life in his city.

Lord Byron had many weapons in his arsenal.  I tried to mimic many of these unique methods.  Some include a relatively random rhyme scheme.  I tried to mix it up a little bit within the stanzas.  Reggie himself was also a technique that Byron used often.  The characters Byron often used were called Byronic heroes.  These were usually idealized but flawed characters.  Here are a few attributes that I modeled Reggie after as a Byronic hero: cunning and able to adapt, disrespectful of rank and privilege, emotionally conflicted, bipolar, or moody, jaded, world-weary, intelligent and perceptive, having a troubled past or suffering from an unnamed crime, having a distaste for social institutions and norm, treated as an exile, outcast, or outlaw.  I found these characteristics online and Reggie seems to fit these perfectly.  The last thing I tried to mimic is how Byron uses symbols in his poems.  He explains things through extended metaphor.  I tried this by comparing life in Reggie’s area to a game, more specifically checkers.

I also tried to closely follow the aspect of Romantic poetry.  I included elements such as love of nature (the park).  Connection/sympathy with the poor (he is poor and also calls out against poverty).  Individual freedoms (he speaks on life and freedom of speech).  And lastly, the concept of old traditions (He gives a nice shout out to the past rappers that helped him out).