Some Different Kinda Books

The document is an extract of the poem " Some different kinda portfolios " published in 1999 and written by Sapphire, an American novelist and a poet. It is a poem in four parts(parties) and in verse free paper. He tells the history(story) of a Puerto Rican, Carmen Lopez, who attends class(course) to learn to speak and to write correctly English and the husband of which is sick. This poem approaches four themes: the language, the AIDS, the racism and the education which we are going to study.

The language is at first correct thought simple, we thus understand that it is the professor who speaks. Then it become informal, incorrect spoken and even with for example the double negation in lines thirty five and thirty seven, or still the oversight(forgetting) of the "s" in the third person singular, lines twenty nine. These faults show us that it is Carmen who speaks. The language of Carmen and the professor are set and allow us to know who speaks in the course of the text.

In the line thirty three, we learn that the husband of Carmen is sick, that he is at the hospital and that he takes drugs. But Carmen does not know what there is because the doctor and the nurse are in the silence of the plot, they think that she cannot understand because it is Puerto Rican. When we propose him(her) condoms, she(it) refuses because it is her husband and she(it) was never with another man. A nurse Puerto Rican helps her and explains her that her husband has the AIDS (line fifty). But when her husband returns at home he denies his disease, nevertheless Carmen sees that he is very thin but he repeats her that everything is well " he say of wrong nuthing " and refuses to use condoms. If he accepts them he has to recognize that he is sick. He eventually accepted his disease and returns in Porto Rico where he dies, lines eighty and lines eighty four.

Carmen is determined, she goes to the school to learn to speak and to write correctly, but also to be able to have the welfare. She is naive but remains inclined to improve. His professor gives her  an education in an alternative class and adapts his program to the desires of his students. Carmen has never missed the school except when she accompanied her husband in Porto Rico where he dies. She asks for a letter to his professor to have all the same the welfare and his professor does not blame her for being lazy.

The poem ends as it started, with Carmen wanting to escape from her real life condition. When you read a story from the out side , you are not involved, and you might understand how the main character talckles the major problems in his life.