Essay 22

Colin

Mr. Salsich

8 English

5/5/10

Unseen Beauty:

An Essay About Rare Beauty in Unexpected Places

And the Poem Valentine for Ernest Mann

_____(TS)Beauty is a rare commodity and can only be acquired by a few. (CM)Or can it? (CM)According to Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Valentine for Ernest Mann," you can find beauty in everything, and everywhere you look. (CS)According to the poem, a man says "Nothing is ugly just because the world [says] so," and this is true in many ways.

_____(TS)In Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Valentine for Ernest Mann," she talks about a man who thought every thing was beautiful, even the most hideous of things (Bell Word). (SD)In the minds of certain people, things are ugly and things are pretty, and this all depends on the person's persona (Apt. Thesaurus Word). (CM)According to the man in her poem, beauty can be seen by everything depending on how one perceives it (Apt. Thesaurus Word). (CM)This was the purpose of her poem to me, to try to teach people that if you look closely, beauty can be found though sometimes people don't see it. (SD)In addition, there are many ways the poet could have developed this theme, as I believe all she did was look around. (CM)In the media, you can find beauty everywhere, ugliness everywhere, and nonacceptance everywhere (Purposeful Repetition). (CM)The media also throws things way out of proportion so if there was a beautiful act, all you would see was the ugly side and this is where I believe the poet got her theme from. (CS)Beauty is always evident yet our innocent minds have been altered by the media, people and other forms of commercialism to turn beautiful actions, places, and people into into ugliness.

_____(TS)"Maybe if we reinvent what life has given us," we would discover more beauty in our world (Bell Word). (SD)I believe that most stories in the media are not ugly, but are the opposite because we only see one side of the story. (CM)The papers, the magazines and the televisions show you only part of the alluring story, so in most cases, you may not even know why the person did the crime (Apt. Thesaurus Word and Purposeful Repetition). (CM)Often you may not even be told the truth at all and thats when things become ugly to some. (SD)In addition, a long time ago, I used to go down to my friends swamp and play around in the deep mud. (CM)To any ordinary person, the thick swamp would be repugnant and people would try to stay away, but to me, this was a place of nirvana (Apt. Thesaurus Words). (CM)Because I knew the swamp better than those that looked at it from afar , I was able to appreciate it's value and beauty in more depth. (SD)The more you come to understand something, the more you come to know something, the more you come to find beauty in that something. (CM)In "Valentine for Ernest Mann," the man talks about finding beauty in the two skunks eyes and he came to find this by learning about the skunks. (CM)To him, they were not just that black thing that sprays odors at you, but instead, those magnificent creatures in the forest. (CS)The more we come to know something, the more beauty we will find no matter what it is.

_____(TS)Beauty is everywhere you look, everything you see, and all there is. (CM)You can not find one thing on this beautiful earth that would not have beauty surrounding it. (CM)"Nothing is ugly just because the world said so." (CS)And in the words of Francis Duggan, "It is a rare beauty that will never die."