Aryan Marandi October 21, 2009 English II Pre-AP/ 7 Ms.

Nommensen Pursuing Dreams Be happy in life, do what you love Pursue your dreams and fulfill your ambitions Become the best, exceed your expectations. No barrier shall stop you, no disappointment can extinguish the vibrant flames of your motivations You can accomplish greatness and triumph through perseverance. Make yourself proud, disprove the pessimists insincerity. Engrave your story in the minds of others Become a legend, the hero who is marveled by all. Your name will go down in history: The person who aimed for the sky and landed in the stars You accepted the challenge and went quite far. You cannot live with regret; your mind must be at peace Living life to the fullest will guarantee you sweet dreams. And turn those dreams into reality, Life and fantasy can have commonality Find the balance that suits your path, Explore what it means to be truly happy. What purpose is there to live a somber existence? Without happiness or joy? You cannot be content with the burden of regret Seek the pleasure your soul desires Find your game and ignite the fire. In Pursuing Dreams, I ask the reader to find happiness through something he or she enjoys and does well. The overall tone I hoped to convey by the conclusion of the poem was an inspirational and optimistic attitude that would encourage others to find their talents. Through the use of diction and images, the tone was better conveyed. Words such as perseverance, accomplish, legend, happiness, and motivations are examples of words that have positive connotations that can be associated with the optimistic tone being conveyed. Along with the diction, the main image in the poem is a vivacious flame representing the readers motivation to achieve; fire is an element of great strength in nature and symbolizes the durability of ones motivation. In regard to the format of the poem, I punctuated the ends of sentences with periods that needed to be separated, yet were not unrelated to the respective stanza. Stanzas were separated when a definite shift occurred. I used commas to separate ideas within a line and to express the desired way to orally present the poem. Keeping the poem aligned to the left creates an organized layout for the text that is more presentable and legible compared to the center alignment. I did not have a definite rhyme scheme but used rhymes in various places to improve the flow of the poem.