Author Archives: poetposits.com

Peer Review #3

I will be reviewing a website by my peer Milton Jang his website is MiltonJang.com The first thing I’d like to say is Milton’s blog is everything I wish mine was the front page is simple yet it captivates the reader with just enough to keep you exploring the website it features a Logo and then “I’m Milton” written and his little self quote below is little about me section with the cutest picture of a dog and it fits in so well.

His sidebar features an About the site page which goes in depth of telling us what he and his blog are about, a Blog which drops down to archives which shows magnitudes of his work sub divided by the months that he did them Immensely organized and his work was beautiful , nothing dull and many option to choose from he has everything intact to keep his audience engaged and never lacking

The question today is if i find Miltons blog marketable and i would like to say yes i do , i do not exactly know who he is marketing to but it certainly appeals to me he has a portfolio which includes featured pieces he has worked on this in my opinion speaks to his professionalism and his expectation for the website . My review ? Milton took this as more than just a class assignment , looking at his website the only thing that comes to mind is that anything worth doing is worth doing well , he put his heart and soul into this website and im proud i had the task of reviewing it. I had a lot to think about after and it only made me want to make my site better, so Milton thank you for a job well done.

To Milton, I would say keep doing what you’re. doing and don’t lose whatever fire made you keep this blog passionately going, Inspire more people like you did me, and don’t listen to hate because it will certainly come… you have built a brand don’t let it fall under your current standard. The world is your Oyster.

My Growing Online Presence

Essay II

wc – 890

Dec  08, 2020

Lisa Kakaraba Tswanya 

My experience as an online publisher is the topic matter of this paper. My first notable comment is that it is nothing like I thought it would be, I  thought it would be all fun and games with a platform to express myself but I didn’t account for the structure of some sort neither did I think about how the actual website would come to fruition. It is four months later and after getting many criticisms and advice I can finally say I am getting the hang of it. I never understood the point of a publishing class until I took PUB101 and now i see the significance of the class and i have gained great knowledge in the class 

My first task was figuring out what i would’ve liked to do with a site , and with all that was going on in the world i thought i owed it to myself to do something that is related to my identity , as a black international student/woman. My reasoning behind this was simple ; any chance to educate and teach someone about blackness was valid and i found a way to teach a whole class, I also remembered i had a knack for poetry and it was worth intehgrating it into my little cybe garden. “Everyone does their own weird thing” was a part of the Basu article we read earlier in the semester and i felt i had found mine.

Mark Bernstein said Gardens … lie between farmland and wilderness,” he wrote. “The garden is farmland that delights the senses, designed for delight rather than commodity.” my own little cybergarden tailored to teach and uplift  blackness  to hear the stories of those who were there before through my expression of poetry , In reality only if it was that easy.( Basu 2020)

I initially struggled making my blog my own as I had an idea but no execution on it and to top it all off I started building my site on a phone not a computer and this made my wordpress experience all the more “interesting”  I had to find a way  to make my site my own and still appealing to the readers. At this point  in the semester my readers were anyone as i mentioned in my week 6 process post  but as time went on i realised i had to have a niche  and it was black people , lost in westernization , lost in the effects of imperialism and colonialism , lost in the effects of slavery , trapped in an identity crises and needed help understanding themselves , understanding how the  world sees them and understanding who they really are .

Daynah boyd talks about this in her book searching for a public of her own  I tried to  make a networked audience and have reach to a connected group of people  she says “ networked publics serve as publocs that both rely on networked technologies and also network people into meaningful new imagined communities  in new ways. Publics are important , and not just for enabling political action but for also providing a mechanism through which we construct our social world, In essence publics are the fabrics of society” This is a view that i grew to hold, understand and respect because that is how my audience and public  formed the fabric in which my website ended up being made up of it showed me the realities that your audience  can affect your choices more than just your goals or plans aswell ( Boyd , 2014) 

This is the last week of school and with peer review i have been able to get the aid of my peers and i have been able to tap into their knowledge and be inspired by them. One of my  peers blogs in particular struck me as unforgettable and that is Milton Jang hsi site had alot of what i would like my site to embody , it featured a portfolio with his pieces and he worked on his website endlessly from his constant growth to his organizational tactics i loved it and that is why he is one of my sources he thought me something about marketability , he worked on his personal brand and he excelled  and that is how you market a personal blog like his and mine.  I got this quote from miltons peer review of my blog Gary Vaynerchuk  said  process of marketing yourself especially for more personal sites like poetposits  involves building up your personal brand. 

As for the future i have decided to keep working on my blog  and use it as a place of refuge for my feelings and poems for the rest of the year ,  I will work with all the tools ive been given in this class to ensure success of my website and I will channel myself more into it  I only wished that I had seen this website as an extension of myself all along.

To my classmates i bid you adios and i beg you to keep following your creative instincts and using it to fuel positivity in your lives. I will never forget this class . To my teacher and TA thank you for the guidance and effort you put into our success

Basu, T. (2020, September 03). Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. Retrieved December 02, 2020, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/

Danahboyd Follow. (2014). It’s Complicated. Retrieved December 02, 2020, from https://www.wattpad.com/203798155-it’s-complicated-8-searching-for-a-public-of-their/page/3

Jang, M. (2020, December 04). Milton Jang. Retrieved December 09, 2020, from https://miltonjang.com/pub-101/blog-review-poetposits-com/

Black

Black is a colour

It should have no meaning

but this “BLACK” has defined us

more and more each day its seemin

Rooted in my DNA in my dark skin you see

my curly Afro hair and curvy body thats the black in me

Exotic , Special , foreign , tropical, oriental i hear it everyday

it’s just fancy language for different , but we’re all kinds of different aren’t we ?

but there’s other narratives can’t you see

the angry black person, the bum or hoodlump, the thief and the liar

that is what the system has painted us out to be

But my black is different , one word REVOLUTIONARY

I see it all around me , Black is the colour of success

And thats all black means to me

Peer Review #2 

The review should assess theme and customizations, typography, layout, social media integration, site structure, usability, and any other design decisions you notice. Your review should be 400+ words and posted to your Process Blog, with clear links to your peer’s site.

My second Peer Review is of my classmate Regina’s website – http://rtopianist.com/saysomething/

The second peer review tasks us to assess our peers themes and customisations and various layouts. Regina on her home page has a moving background which i found quite unique and beautiful the picture is dark because it happened to catch the image while it was changing and moving . The layout of her home page is simple and easy to navigate she chooses subtle typographies and they are not all over the place. It is quite inviting and interesting to look at and it makes me want to explore more of the site .

The usability of my peer Regina’s site is quite high in my opinion it was full of content and she did not leave any weeks without content , weeks where we had no assignments or assigned process posts she would fill in by making a movie review, another reason why i believe in the usability of her blog is because it is simple and not overcrowded.

The theme she uses isn’t one of the default ones that comes with wordpress which entails that she did some exploring before figuring out what she wanted and how she liked it. In terms of social media she doesn’t really integrate her social media on the blog she has her instagram linked at the contact area but that is the only social media listed.

At the top right of Regina’s website she has five chain links before her search bar and if you click any of them you would be taken to her mean items at the top left of her website she has one for her home ,mumble , process posts , peer review and essay this is like a mini short cut to her menu i thought it to be creative and helpful My only criticism is that it is somewhat too simple in some areas like the backgrounds of her posts and could do with some more colour other than that i. loved her blog and found her content riveting

Process Prompt #9

Talking about analytics they are a very good tool to have at one’s disposal as they are one of the key elements in the success or failure of your website, to my understanding this can be viewed as another way of connecting and interacting with your audience and finding out how they interact with your content, finding out what draws them and keeps them on your website. it can help with knowing what the best content to put up maybe … I found out that posts with pictures draw attention, as well as my poems, have traffic

Process Prompt #8

All bottled up inside 

Matters filling inside me 

Abruptly I shatter 

Into a million pieces 

Hit the ground with a loud clatter 

I can’t take it anymore

I can’t shake it anymore

I’m rattled 

sweat dripping down my face

A look of despair in my eyes

keeping secrets no one should have to hide

crushing under the pressure

i can’t take it anymore

Not The Original

Equality 

Telling me I’m different based on the color of my skin 

The texture of my hair 

The breast on my chest 

A lecture on perfection 

Constantly told I’m nothing but the lesser 

And I need to be taught the lesson 

To be prim and proper and to tie my hair 

Holding my dreams back 

To suppress myself

For the comfort of my 

oppressor

Constantly told I’m nothing but the lesser 

That I am gold but not the original 

Forced to fit a mold That im nothing special

The Black Female form

The black female form 

Wanting to be free

The black female form

Needing to find me 

The black female form 

They think they can see 

What’s really behind the concept of she 

The black female form 

Her body the speck of perfection 

The black female form 

Above the standard

Slave to her 

Mini Assignment #5

This is an infographic that traces my online presence telling the story of my history as briefly as possible, the significance is a backstory to both of my media presences and why they are both important to me. I have one that is for my family so they see me in the light that they would be proud of that also leaves me with a sense of peace and one where I can be who I am including the things that I couldn’t be part of in the eyes of my family.