Brad’s Epilogue:
Although many of the poems I included in this project were from several hundred years ago, I was still able to associate them with the relationships the women in Connections for Life have experienced. I read poems about lovers breaking up for many different reasons, poems about the stress and loneliness one feels due to a friend’s suicide, poems about the sudden and unforeseen departure of a loved one, and poems about the tension a child feels toward an abusive parent. I believe that the women in Connections for Life, who have all spent a fair amount of time in jail, have all caused a great deal of tension in almost every one their personal relationships due to imprisonment. They are not alone, however, because everyone has problems in relationships at one time or another. Although these strained relationships can cause a great deal of pain, we must eventually try to resolve them and hope for the best, or do what we can to get over them.
Jonathan’s Epilogue:
This project was very interesting to me because I ran across very many old poems on relationships and many of their core feeling and ideas still apply to modern day relationships. Our theme of relationships developed from the idea that many of the women at Connections For Life have many problems with their own relationships. I believe that many of the women could at least relate to the poems we chose for our anthology. Developing healthy relationships is one of the best ways to insure a healthy and happy life and we therefore thought it fitting to focus on such an important theme.
John’s Epilogue:
Researching poetry for this project has been a very entertaining experience, not only because of the familiarity I have gained with the library resources, but also because of the poetic influence reading all of this poetry has had on me. Also, I honestly have gained a better understanding of the different aspects of our human relationships, and how there are comparisons and contrasts in all of them. I believe that our focus had a thorough parallel theme with the hardships that many of the women from Connections For Life suffered through during their struggles with addictions, jail, etc.
Elizabeth’s Epilogue:
It was exciting as a group to research different poets who use the same theme in some of their poems. Every person deals with (at the very least) a handful of relationships, and the baggage that can come along with them can certainly bring us down. Just like what is seen in our anthology, there is a mixture of sadness, tension, and even anger that I assume many of the women from Connections For Life have dealt with throughout their life, but just like there are glimmers of hope in our selected poetry, the CFL women have had an opportunity to reconcile their past decisions. Hopefully, in turn, this will allow them to heal their wounded past relationships.
Jim's Epilogue:
This project was very intriguing and helped stimulate my interest in poetry. The ability of poetry to motivate an individual to think introspectively and to apply the poetic themes to their own daily lives is my favorite aspect of poetry. This topic is based upon hardships and struggles in relationships and is especially provocative considering the state of the world and the intrinsic selfishness and greed ingrained in every human being. Due to these things our generation has to deal with trust issues more than the last, and confronting these ideas and looking for a solution before they occur, in expectation of them, will help us to cope with them when they occur and to help with our overall attitude and mindset.
Robert's Epilogue:
As a group we initially concurred that our poems should represent different situations that relate to the same theme or emotion. Our reason for doing so was because we knew that the women from Connections had at some point found themselves in a hard relationship. By the time we finished our project I was thrilled to see in retrospect that we accomplished what we wanted, and I am glad to have had this reflective experience.
