TPCASTT – Natasha Trethewey

TPCASTTs is something I am unfamiliar with, and this year was the first time I ever learned this strategy to dissect poems. However, this is a very time consuming task, often taking me 30 mins or more. As shown on Schoology, my initial TPCASTTs were pretty terrible. My analysis was fairly shallow and I didn’t utilise the paper space to annotate. Below, I’ve linked two TPCASTTs that I feel shows a good progression of my skills

TPCASTT #1

TPCASTT #2

Original Poem #2

During the course of typhoon Mangkhut’s destruction, I wrote this poem depicting my thoughts during this period. I thought this poem was a lot better than my first one, as I strayed from rhyming every sentences. I think this upped the ante because it doesn’t read like a  childish folksong.

Sleep Tight

Mangosteen, a fruit bursting with sweet flesh

Who knew the destruction it could cause?

The wind’s whistling and heavy rain stirred

me to life.

Who knew a day that ruined hundreds of homes

and injured the innocent

was the best night of sleep I had in a while.

Ten hours of peaceful dreaming went from

two days to four.

Before I slept, I felt guilty about the fruit

that wrecked havoc on others,

but my head touched the pillow and my body went still.