Commentary 2

 Each "if" is an if that I will wonder too like the similar if's in the poem. The title "if" seems mysterious but I like how it leaves you wondering what its going to be about. There are so many things you can "if" about so  thought the title was a creative yet mysterious touch to the poem. I thought that all these ifs are something that a teenager thought of and the author wrote them down in a poem. This poem yet deep and interesting at the same time. Normally I don't like poems but this poem caught my attention because after I read it I felt that I could relate to it.


 The theme to me is the Ifs that deal with a different aspect of life that young teenagers think about as they get older. The first stanza I paraphrased it so that it could say what happens if you can keep your head up, if you can trust yourself, if you can wait, and not get tired of it. The second stanza is the ifs to your dream and your thought but also bearing the truth. The third stanza paraphrased it to say the two main ifs which are making a heap of all your winning and force your heart. The fourth stanza I thought it could say the Ifs of the friends, men you in the end.


The most obvious pattern in "If" is the topic organization in all the stanzas. The effect it might create is the organization of the ifs  since there are different major themes in each stanzas. The major themes Kipling addresses are waiting and trusting in lines one through five, ten through fifteen are about dreams, thoughts, and truth then lines seventeen through twenty-four are about winnings and heart. Lastly the major themes in lines twenty-five through thirty-two are men,(un)forgiveness and friends.


In the end this poem built up a great story that had a mysterious title to it so I liked a lot. This poem seems like something that I could read over and over again which is the first for me. I still love the title "If" because its mysterious and creative.

Commentary 1

The poem "Ain't I a Woman" was very interesting to read and I would think that it sounded like a Hip-Hop poetry. I liked this poem, it made me feel something though not just feel something but dream something as I fell asleep. "Ain't I Women"  made me think if Cinderella and Rosa Parks. You might wonder why Cinderella why her? Well it was her because she was slave but not really she just did a lot of things on her own and stood up for herself. I thought of Rosa Parks because she also stood up for the things she believed in and for the truth but instead of a fairytale like Cinderella it was real, it was real life.

When TP-CASTT the poem the first thing that had to was consider the title and I thought that it was going to be about women in general but then I had to examine the title again so I thought women having the same rights as men do. The theme of this poem in my own words is women work hard as men do therefore women should have the same rights men did or do. The "man" can be her husband or her father, stepdad possibly.Each line spoke to me because it was so deep and it all made sense to me. The first part, lines one through eight I paraphrased it and in the end I came up with women should be taken care of we/they are women. Then in the second stanza I thought that maybe she has done a lot one her own, without a man by her side. In the fourth stanza I paraphrased it and the result was children make you feel like a slave and you cry out for your mom's help along Jesus's help too. The following stanza I came up with just because Christ was not women does not deal with the fact that women should have less rights and that women are powerful. The "calling to action" the author put forth all women to embrace if the world is to be turned "right side up again" is making a scene like a Rosa Parks or a woman voting for president.

The other famous moment that the author is alluding is Rosa Parks scene. The question about line 12 is that it could mean that men do not always have to lead women because women are capable of doing certain things without a male's help. In line six the author is alluding that obstacles in life when she or he talks about "Or over mud puddles". In order for me to answer the question about line 10 I had to check out the definition of plowed because it was the first time I ever heard that word. These questions had me flipping the page to check line in each stanza so that I could answer the question.

Social Imaginiation

I do agree that we all have social imagination because I would say that, that's how dreams are started and ended because of social imagination. Inventing our visions is where imagination comes from. Imagination comes from inspiration of the things we are sourrounded by school, the streets, our neighborhood ,and work.  All those things come from society which help us create or invet our visions.