Book of Rhymes #6 Mosh, Eminem

Let me be the voice in your strength and your choice
Let me simplify the rhyme just to amplify the noise
Try to amplify the times it, and multiply by six...
Teen million people, Are equal at this high pitch
Maybe we can reach alqueda through my speech
Let the president answer a higher anarchy
Strap him with an Ak-47, let him go, fight his own war
Let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil


I love this song by Eminem who happens to be one of my favorite artists. This song screams empowerment, autonomy and liberation. Eminem wrote this song as a form of protest right before the election in 2004 and shortly after the war started. This stanza of the poem is the one i deem most powerful. Eminem is embodying the voice of the nation speaking up for the soldiers on the front line.


Eminem uses a repetitive rhyming scheme. An A,A,A,B,B,B pattern. His flow is also repetitive with his strong emphasis on the final words. He doesn't bother using many metaphors and similes but instead just gets straight to the point. He uses a clever device that breaks up words and sentences that also stress the importance of 16,000,000 people, just for example.

Book of Rhymes #4 Sexual Healing, Marvin Gaye

And honey I know you'll be there to relieve me
The love you give to me will free me
If you don't know the thing you're dealing
Ohh I can tell you, darling, that it's sexual healing

Get up, get up, get up, get up
Let's make love tonight
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up
'Cos you do it right


I love this song by Marvin Gaye. He tells about how beautiful love can help heal many tribulations that may fall upon someone. Companionship is sometimes the only thing you may need. Although many songs nowadays preach the same thing the descriptions that Gaye uses really help the listener depict and establish an emotional connection to the song, their loved ones, and their future relationships.


The repetition helps the listener replay the visual over and over again of "getting up" and "waking up". This song was rated one of the top in the early 1980's and there is a perfectly good explanation why many still fall in love with it still today because the devices used and the lyrics speak out to any listener of any background.
He uses a unique rhyme scheme that begins at A,A,A, and continues on to an A,B,A,B scheme. He uses slant rhymes and sometimes rhymes words within the same sentence.

Book of Rhymes #3 And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.



Maya Angelou is writing a poem to her "haters". She is describing her experience as a strong black woman. No matter what is thrown her way she will continue to be strong and overcome. The first stanza is describing what most hope she will experience, discouragement, loss of self esteem, and emptiness. She lifts the tone of the poem in the next stanza by stating that she has no care in the world as depicted by the rich. 


Angelou uses an A,B,C,B rhyme scheme. It is pleasant sounding and gives the poem a lighter, more playful tone. Her similes are exquisite. "Shoulder falling like teardrops" perfectly depicts to the reader how low the haters want her spirit to be. 


When listening to the recording of Maya Angelou reading her own poetry her tone is soft and light. Though she naturally speaks that way, it was more daunting, almost like a laugh in the face of the haters.