Outcast? Totally. (halfway-through-novel: Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

        The book "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson is a very interesting novel. A freshman in MerryWeather High school named Melinda  Sordino becomes a complete outcast in a time where all of her friends leave her after she did something "unforgivable" through their eyes.

        Melinda is hiding a secret, and nobody knows what it is. She has no one to tell, except her only friend, Heather from Ohio. But Melinda doesn't tell heather the reason of why she called the cops at an end-of-the-summer party. So Melinda became the outcast she is. I realized that Melinda carries around many emotions along with her hardships. I found a poem called "Outcast" By Timothy Venard. It represents Melinda's life.

VERSE 1:
What lies outside my bars, 
Where the wild beast run free? 
Why am I forced to lurk in the shadows, 
And never to show who I really am? 
While ostentations peers, 
Amaze and amuse their friends




*** I think the first verse of this poem represents the lies she had to give her parents, and the lies she almost had to give to her parents, and the lies she almost had to say.  For example, on Halloween, she had to pretend to be mad and stomped up to her room when her parents told her that she was too old to go trick-or-treating. She had to pretend like it wasn't fair, when inside she was glad, because no one had invited to anything. She would've had to lie of having plans to be in a group of friends, when she has no friends- except Heather from Ohio. In the poem the line "Why am i forced to lurk in the shadows, and never to show who i really am?" relates to Melinda very well. Melinda has no way to speak the truth of what happened at that summer party. And lurking in the shadows for her would be spending time in her hiding place, an old janitor's closet in the senior wing of the school building. She makes it hers, personalizes it, and uses it when she needs to think.  She has to find a way to be cool, go back to her friends, according to the book.


VERSE 2:
Who am I?
I am the beast
I am locked up
I am unable to be accepted


*** I think the second verse of this poem represents Melinda's life becuase