Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The Colossus

The Colossus
Sylvia Plath
page 368

I think this poem is about a house. I could be wrong but there's some things about it that make me think that it's about a house like the last line "On the blank stones of the landing." If I'm right, I really like how the house is personified throughout the poem and compared to a Colossus in the title. Plath uses different body parts such as ears instead of windows. Of course it may not be a house at all and i may just be reading it completely wrong. I don't know.

Mad Girl's Love Song

Mad Girl's Love Song
by Sylvia Plath

The diction used in this poem creates a very surreal image for me. Words such as "stars," "moon-struck," and "dreamed" all help to create this surreal image for me. Furthermore, the idea of God toppling, stars waltzing, and blackness galloping all help to further a surreal sense. I feel like I am put into a childhood fantasy, a dream of some sort. It is quite weird for me to see certain lines within the poem put into parentheses. It gives me a sense of from this dream-like state, the speaker is adding in a sense of reality and is therefore putting in parentheses because it interupts the dream-like state.
The other aspect of this poem that caught my attention was the rhyme and rhythm contained within it. It flowed with ease, in a way, furthering the sense of a dreamy state. It was really easy to read through the first time and the rhyming invovled throughout the poem seems so suttle so as not to ruin the scheme of the poem with the rhymes. However, what strikes me is the fact, as someone else who read this poem, that the entire poem is in quotations, signifying a direct speaking of some sort. It is as though the speaker is telling the poem first hand, instead of writing it in a form of rememberance. For me personally, the quotations add a sense of "in the moment" in that the speaker is stating what happened exactly in that moment instead of taking the time to analyze and focus their thoughts on what had occurred.

Red Bricked by EVELYN LAUER

Red Bricked
by EVELYN LAUER

This is her spot:
a child in an apple tree, eyes falling
into the way things want to be
seen: fence sky lilacs stones:
what matters next is what
might just happen: the color
of bricks in her mind,
more red than they actually are,
brown really, but she makes them
as red as she wants them to be,
under a leap-year moon when the boy
enters her mouth, and leaves her
full of clouds.

http://42opus.com/v6n2/redbricked


For me, what actually caught my attention was the first line and not the title. “This is her spot:” The semicolon brought more curiosity to my mind and thus, I read on further. It was a poem of the view of a young child full of pursuances for imagination in her world. Her world is full of manipulations through the tool of her eyes… “into the ways things want to be seen”. Immediately, the speaker gives the reader an idea of who she is… a child.-it gives us a perspective and from who we are receiving these ideas supposedly. We are “warned” beforehand that this is a child and views from her can be an entirely different view we, as adults, hold of the world. Especially a child in an apple tree is a child full of life connected with nature and its miraculous details ranging from “fences,sky,lilacs,stones…”---. I also like how what really matters is the future.. “what might just happen”. This is kind of referring to how the imagination can take you to further places beyond us into perhaps how to mend the future even though we are not there yet; simply, it is possible through the imagination to create new things for the future and these “inventions” might just matter. I like how the young girl is hopeful for the color to shine and be “redder” than it actually is. This makes me classify her as a young spirit who is always hopeful for the best and strives to see everything as beautiful with the strength of her imaginative mind. She sparks beauty and molds her world like she wants it and does not let any other factor interrupt her creation of “redder bricks”. She does this under perhaps the strong force of the moon,perhaps like a strange force from the moon overtook her to create these inventions of her mind. The girl has experienced a kiss and is left with uncertainty and it is not clear as it was before with her red red bricks. She could manipulate the color and minor details easily with her mind but a kiss is left as something indefinable and can not be manipulated as she thought she could with everything. Thus, she is left in the clouds with a nebulous answer she cannott grasp. I enjoyed how the word “falling” is actually falling as the last word in the line and also how seen is isolated at the beginning of the line –emphasizing the importance of seeing-. I also observed how the words “fence, sky, lilacs,stones, “ have spaces in between them in order to give these usual common words are usually left without importance and how by being spaced out—they are given the attention they deserve as creations of life. I realized that colons are used three times; this possibly was used in order to show the child main spot of the child and base of mind of the child ----“a child in an apple tree,falling into the way things want to be---seems to be the main theme of the child’s mind in which everything is centered in. The structure of the poem is short and the structure reminds me of an hourglass—it is small at top , gets bulgier, once again short, bulkier, and then the last line is small once again. She was at first in a definite concrete place but after she is left in an indefinite place of clouds. Of course, it was this experience of a kiss that left her without a solid ground to stand on.

The Horse

"The Horse" (p. 311-312)
by Philip Levine

When I first read through this poem, it seemed as if there was an old horse that wanted compassion from a stableboy, but in its blindness it killed the stableboy without knowing. The ending of the poem, particularly the last stanza, signal that the horse must be used as a metaphor; I had the impression that the horse was a metaphor for a dancing couple who are unsure of their relationship, and only discover each other through dancing. After reading through the poem a second time, I noticed that it was dedicated or sent to Ichiro Kawamoto, "survivor of Hiroshima." In this new context, I perceived all the imagery in the poem, especially that of the first stanza - "without skin, naked, hairless, / without eyes and ears, searching...tattered walls, butting his long / skull to pulp...where iron fences corkscrewed in / the street and bicycles turned / like question marks" - to show the pain and suffering of the Japanese people who experienced the atomic explosion at Hiroshima. The second stanza further mentions a burning river and still rocks, which further show the burning flash of the explosion and the silence of death that occurred after the blast. The third and fourth stanzas explicitly discuss death - the stableboy and some outside spectators all with their mouths open as if they were suffocating continue to show suffering. The fifth stanza talks of new growth coming from the dead, as if a rebirth occurred after many had died. The sixth stanza begins with "There had been no horse," saying it as if the death of the horse was so terrible that it is better to not mention the horse at all. In this respect, it might be a sense of closure to say that it is better to forget the deaths that occurred during the blast, and that the "rage" that could have ensued should dissipate after the rebirth.

This poem first caught my eye with the title - it somewhat reminded me of The Sound of Animals Fighting's full-length album, Lover, the Lord Has Left Us, which mentions horses in a couple of its song titles. In particular, the imagery of a morbidly dead horse with scenes of death made me feel as if I had experienced so much death myself. In addition, stanzas that began with a large indent seemed to say "but wait, there's more," as if the pain and suffering would not end. The last two stanzas, thankfully, seemed to end the death and leave the state of my mind in a somewhat cold, dark, yet accepting mood.

Writing

- Howard Nemerov
p.118

This was a particularly interesting poem because the subject of the poem, was about writing itself. It depicts the flow of letters from a pen as a graceful and artful act, like ice skating. The poet also points out how powerful writing is. By simply moving the "small bones of the wrist" the world can largely be captured and recreated. Writing not only reflects outside images, but the poet also describes how the manner of writing, both based on content, and visual form can also reveal the nature of the writer.

The stanza division provides an almost a sobering image for the dreamy beauty of the written word that the poet has established earlier. Where in the beginning he was praising writing for its potentials and its forms, the second stanza bluntly points out that writing is not all that its made out to be. He writes that Writing intrinsically lacks the feel of the real world. The curvy tracks of an ice skater on ice are merely a shadow of what was there before, the tracks can never recreate the grandeur of movement of the skaters, or the wind created in their wake. The poem itself lacks any formal poem structure, and seems to be more of a short essay written in a fluid manner, although the poem does end with a slight rhyming scheme, but it seems at odds with the rest of the piece.

Thoughts on One's Head (in plaster, with a bronze wash)

by William Meredith
p. 112

What makes this poem great is the way it takes something everybody is familiar with and makes you think of it in a different light, bringing up something people don't normally think about when they see this item. And although it does make you think, it is also extremely humorous, bringing things up that are very true but not always thought about. It starts out with its title, kind of like that "Turning cliche's on their head" excercise. Meredith takes "Thought's on One's Head," and, instead of talking about what he or you may be pondering, he puts those thoughts into a bust of someone probably dead. It's title alone is great and captures attention, especially with what he inserted into the parentheses, flipping that cliche. The form of this poem is also great, and creates a sort of sing-songy vibe with seven stanzas of four lines, each stanza having an abab rhyme scheme. I think this helps build on the humor the poem creates. The subjects brought up throughout the poem, however, are what make this poem so great. It's hilarious when you think the thoughts Meredith speaks of are brought up in the heads of the people busts are typically made of: presidents, people of great achievemnts and moral, leaders of nations, and so on. "Erotic movies," making "love and money," even telling "some few extremely funny" jokes make me want to just giggle. It then ends on how he himself dislikes his own head because of the "thoughts on one's head." I really like this poem, it's humor, and how it makes you think of the things the go on in people's heads.

The Compass

by Carl Phillips
page 586-587

I decided to blog about this poem because I found similarities to both of the poems that were presented in class, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" and "Orange In". First of all, the poem is seems to be separated in terms of an image or idea being conveyed. The stanzas/lines of the poem do not necessarily have a logical connection to each other, but most have some association of a compass, which is like the "Blackbird" poem. For example, "a star" and "a dog with torch in its mouth" do not have any logical relation to each other, but one can see how both have some relation to a compass. Both have some association with guidance, i.e. the north star and the image of a dog with a torch in his mouth gives the reader an image of man's best friend somehow leading the way in times of need through dark times, a somewhat comforting image. Throughout the poem, random objects are mentioned but somehow there is still a sense of cohesiveness. Elements of "Orange In" can also be found in this poem, which is somewhat confusing to me. For example, there is a stanza that goes "x / that one and / that one and / what stands for". The repetition of "that one and" seems to be used not to make logical sense, but perhaps used to enhance the sounds in the poem or install a sort of rhythm here. This is the only place in the poem where repetition occurs, so I am not really sure exactly what type of significance this part has. The language used in the poem was also not very continuous, it just seemed like phrases and words were put together to make an image, although it does not make sense when just read straight through. For example, "a ship's windlass for around / what the intestine pulled out into / the salt air was bound fast" does not make logical sense, but one can imagine how the idea of a compass is integrated, being used to navigate through rough waters out at sea.

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

I like the rhyming and the rhythm in this poem. It is also very easy to read. The entire poem is a quote, which makes it different from other poems. The quotation marks make me feel like there is someone right in front of me telling me her thoughts. Thus even though the subject of the poem is in first person, the poet made it apparent that she is not writing her story nor with her perspective. From the title of the poem, it is obvious that the speaker in the poem is insanely in love. However, the love relationship is more than obsession. The speaker in the poem does not love a real person but someone whom she made up in her mind. Several times in poem. the speaker repeats “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.” When the speaker closes her eyes, nothing exists except her lover and she. This repetitive phrase in the poem makes it seem like she cannot stop shutting her eyes and stop thinking about her made-up lover. Even though she knows that her lover is not real, she cannot stop herself from creating a world where he exists. A love for someone unreal is madness, but an obsession with creating the love is extreme insanity.

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
by John Donne

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/mourning.php

I have always loved John Donne's poetry, and this one just seems to really strike me and interest me especially. It is in some ways, "another sappy love poem" where a man is proclaiming his everlasting and undying love for a woman, but it is approached in a different and very interesting way. The speaker is going away from his loved one, most likely a wife, for a while, but he says that there should be no crying, "no tear-floods," because their love is stronger than that, and they are connected no matter where they are. He uses a compass, used primarily for drawing circles on a page, as a metaphor for his wife and their love. He explains how no matter how far he may move from her, they are always connected. It can never be separated or lose that strong connection, as one end will always lean towards the other. He focuses on the fact that their love is so much, higher, stronger, and pure, that there is no need to fret or be upset because in their hearts, they are one. He eliminates the common sorrow of missing a loved one who is far away. The form of the poem is pretty constant and uniform, as it also has a set rhyme scheme. I contemplated whether this makes the poem stronger or weakens it, but it does seem to give it a loving and confident tone and flows very well. I like the cadence of the poem especially when I read it.

The Vow

by Galway Kinnell p. 302

This is a short poem. One stanza. One sentence: "When the lover / goes, the vow though / broken remains, that / trace of eternity love / brings down among us / stays, to give / dignity to the suffering / and to intensify it." The line breaks are interesting because you definitely can read the phrases within the lines in different ways. For example, "the vow though broken remains" is a phrase but is chopped up into "broken remains." That has to be intentional. It makes you think of the broken remains of the vow or the relationship or the person who has been left. This is a lovely way to look at love and how something stays behind after the relationship has ended. Something eternal is there. It makes the suffering seem more meaningful. I think this poem sounds soft, if that makes sense. The consonents are mostly soft ones: l, v, th, br, r, d, s. Maybe he uses these sounds because he is talking about love, or because it is abstract concepts that he is discussing.

For an Album

For an Album
by: Adrienne Rich, pg. 358

I love how this poem has line lengths that vary dramatically. The line lengths start from a medium and then end very short. Rich does a good job using line breaks to paint vivid images, as if her poem was the camera capturing the snapshots she describes. I think it is this vivid “storytelling” that captures the reader and pulls him in. Rich also is able to disregard a rule of rhetoric, and create a new adjective, “snowlit.” However, she does well and makes it flow with her poem. Some of the other words in her poem are intentionally strange. There is a “mime of the operating room where gas and knives quote each other.” How is it possible to mime an operating room, and more so with gas and knives quoting each other? A mime is by definition silent, so it is not possible for someone speaking being a mime. Then the juxtaposition of gas and knives is also strange in the context of answering a telephone, because knives cut but gas, and I am assuming this is anaesthestical sleeping gas, will keep a person silent and still. In any case, Rich is able to impart a her meaning of stillness, and use it to create a meaningful social commentary.
“Frederick Douglass” by Robert Hayden [pg. 85]

This poem is filled with a number of pauses. The pauses are mainly used to accentuate a phrase or word. For example, the poem ends with “the beautiful, needful thing”. The pause gives the listener time to digest the words. It also prevents the whole poem from being swallowed too quickly since it is two sentences long. It chops the rhythm into small pieces. The writer, who I see as the speaker, respects and praises Frederick Douglass for what he did. In this poem, he only mention’s Douglass’ name once. It is seated right in the middle of the poem. Looking at it, it seems to be the core of the poem. All of the other words just surround it. This may be done to frame Douglass in the poem. The tone of respect comes when Hayden constantly refers to Douglass as “this man”. By calling Douglass a man, he wipes away the idea of being a slave. Although the word “man” is impersonal when used instead of someone’s name, it actually exalts the subject in this poem. When I read the poem, I picture the speaker holds a formal tone as if this is a public address. This poem is two sentences long. It seems as if it is a continual string of ideas and phrases that are spoken. In the first sentence, the phrases start with the same string of words. The first line is a repetition of “this…” followed by another “this…,” in a parallel structure. This is to build momentum for what is next to come. By beginning the phrases to say something, it allows the next phrases to be said louder. It resembles (if memory serves me right) Lincoln’s Gettysberg Address. In a way, they both mirror each other in parallel structure and address.

Meditation at Lagunitas

Meditation at Lagunitas
by Robert Hass
pg.463

The tone of this poem is very interesting. The speaker has a sort of lecturer or philosopher type of presense about him. It is conversational in a way, because of it's easily understood vocabulary and sentense structure. However, it can also be seen as unconversational because he does not allow for any response by the reader (as in a conversation); he is purely lecturing.
Also, some of his comparisons I felt were rather unique. Such as, "I felt a violent wonder at her presence / like a thirst for salt". (He is speaking about the girl he made love to once in the past.) Comparing the feelings he is getting from her presense to a thirst for salt is something I have never heard before. A thirst for salt implys a thirst for flavor, or something to make the situation in question more interesting to experience (or eat). I am unsure of whether or not he is regarding himself as needing more "salt", or his lover as needing more "salt"; it is rather ambiguous. Either he is thinking he himself is boring and needs more flavor, or his lover has become boring and needs to add some excitement to her routine.

Monday, January 29, 2007

The Illiterate

by William Meredith
p. 111

This poem is incredible at messing with your emotions and how you feel. Meredith puts you into the poem immediately, as you're sitting there in a room "Touching your goodness," whatever that may be, with a man holding a letter. It still seems though as if you remain in the poem as it continues, but not as "you," but rather as "I." Right after that first comma, Meredith puts you into the position as the "illiterate" man, and places all the things he feels upon you, the reader. You can feel his unfamiliarity, fear, confusion, curiosity, and pride.

The best thing to this poem, however, is its ending: the question Meredith asks of the illiterate man's feeling for the words he can't read. Words that could reveal wealth, death, or love. Meredith asks "What would you call his feeling...," however, personally, I can't describe that feeling with words. For me, that feeling would be one that is sad and depressed. But this is what's great about this poem: that feeling could be anything for anybody.

Mirage Oases

"Mirage Oases" (p. 531)

This poem talks about the illusions of oases that people see during hot days on the horizon, where mirages trick our minds into thinking that water exists in the distance. The first stanza introduces the "mirage oases" as places where people tend to "trespass," and this idea that an illusion can be trespassed seems to imply that these oases could be references to other, more concrete things such as personal possessions. The second stanza describes the contents of these mirage oases with grass, trees, and fish; it describes how delicate they are in that they can be easily "wrecked" after experiencing pressure (probably physical pressure). The third and fourth stanzas say that they only exist within our wishes and only when we are truly happy.

I found this poem particularly interesting because I would usually see these "mirage oases" when driving through the desert, where it seems like there is water on the road in the far distance. In this literal sense, I've seen such mirage oases and found that they appear in our line of sight. In that sense, such oases appear to be always "trespassed" in that when we travel forward toward them, they eventually disappear because we are too close (technically, we see them because the air molecules bend light such that we see the sky where ground should exist, giving the illusion of water, and this only works in large distances-in short distances, air molecules are not able to bend light enough). In the figurative sense of this poem, it seems that the "suspended wishes" in the third stanza refer to our wants that we cannot reach, so we resort to only thinking about them.

Solitude BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

Solitude
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.


Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.






What is a significant ands play with an eye-catcher in this poem is it play with words. (Even the title portrays a show of the own words “solitude” being solitude. ) It was interesting how ones actions reflect a consequence with the same verb. For example, “you weep and the consequence: you weep alone”, ”feast, and your halls are crowded; fast, and the world goes by” Other lines also show the reflected positive consequence coming from a “positive” action and vice versa. Solitude according to the speaker is gained through one’s supposedly negative actions as seen by others such as sighing,weeping, being sad,etc. I like how this positive/negative comparison is reflected through the indentations of the lines--- the “positive” lines come are placed more outward whereas the “negative” lines are more indented inwards as if the negative ones shouldn’t be taken as of importance just like people in solitude shouldn’t be taken as if important. Also, it is interesting how the poet started out with the possibility at the beginning rather than negativity—perhaps to emphasize that positivism is the aspect most demanded in this world –in parallel to the demand to place positivism first in the poem. the first two stanzas also contains two sentences with a semicolon after the first two lines and the third line would only have a comma and the fourth a period. Except for in the second stanza –after the first sentence “be sad, and you lose them all,-“ it has a hyphen to end the line. It is the only place in the poem where a hyphen is maintained. It is quite in the middle and perhaps to show that the most saddest consequence of the actions mentioned---this time you lose all your friends. The last stanza deviates because it has three sentences The very last sentence with two lines maintains a clear tone throughout of pain with the words such as “one by one” “we must “..showing negativity for once side by side rather than that repeating pattern of positivism/negativity. The line breaks are logical and make a complete thought rather than cutting my developing idea. The commas make a good partial stop for me to contemplate for awhile what I have just read. And if the sentence is broken at one time it is just broken before a preposition ;thus, it does not make much matter because the prepositional phrase is an entirely entity of itself.

One Art

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212

The first thing that drew me to this poem was its title. Based on the title alone, I thought it would be about drawing or painting. However after reading it quickly becomes apparent that it will be about not visual art, such as painting, but a social art, or learning to deal with loss. I love how Bishop has broken up her poem into siz stanzas, it is like looking in her mind and seeing her compartmentalize and deal with the things she has lost. She says she has “practice, losing farther, losing faster,” which seems to mee like she has analyzed and learned to deal with such loss. Bishop also is able to narrate in different persons. She switches back between first and third persons, and it makes the poem feel more personal. She is able to connect with her audience. I love how Bishop also uses some unusual punctuation and word choices. She turns vast into vaster, and does not capitalize the first letter of “my” after an exclamation point. The not capitalizing works because it just seems like she is continuing a thought. Slightly changing vast works because it makes the line seem slightly strange, but it also works because you understand what Bishop is trying to say.

The World

The World
Robert Creeley 223-224

This poem is very sensitive, discussing the relationship between a man, his love, and her relationship between her brother who is now gone. The poem has an interesting way of describing these relationships. It seems that the speaker is the new man in her life and her brother is now gone, but there is some conflict between them. They seem to be haunted by his spirit as it tries to come between them. The language in this poem is what is really appealing to me, and the syntax and line breaks add a very interesting affect. The pauses create an interesting cadence, making the reader take more time on each line. It does seem akward as phrases are offset by commas, breaking up each sentence into phrases so it doesn't flow, but I feel it serves its purpose very well.

The Shadow

by John Hollander

This poem uses very interesting imagery, it uses descriptions of light to describe the lack of it. Line breaks are also used cleverly to further the imagery of shadows. The poet writes:

"[...] in a room whose ceiling
Light was accidentally switched off-- [...]"

The line break mid-phrase creates a more vivid description for the scene the poet tries to paint. While saying that the ceiling light was accidentally switched off, the poet says at the same time that "Light was accidentally switched off" creating the image of total darkness. In numerous other lines Hollander breaks the sentences in ways such that every line can stand on its own as a striking image, as well as have meaning when the whole sentence is read. The speaker in the poem seems to be talking to another person, however from the way he refers to the other person it almost seems like he his referring to his shadow, because of how the other speaker only appears in darkness. The poem almost seems to be an homage to Allegory of the Den where a man believes reality to be what he sees in shadows.

I Went into the Maverick Bar

by Gary Snyder
page 365-366

I was drawn to this poem because of the peculiar way that the lines are broken. It seems like there is no clear pattern in the way the lines are broken; some lines are at a medium length, some lines remain long, others are broken in the middle of a line or thought. For the lines that are broken against the sentence or thought, some have the following lines start at the very left of the page but some start somewhere else. One thing that is cohesive is that if a line does not start all the way to the left, the line will start a little bit to the right of the center of the page. Most of these lines that are separated are just extra descriptions of what the above line was talking about i.e. "backed with beer" or "by the pool tables", and although the writer may want to put more emphasis on these phrases, none really made too much difference in the imagery that was being created. However, one line that is separated by itself is "America - your stupidity", which is much more different that the other lines that begin in the middle of the page. This line was preceded by a hyphen on the previous line, which is a change in the continuity, compared to the other indented lines. This causes the reader to pause a little longer at "America - your stupidity". This line is obvious a point of emphasis in the poem. All of the other indented lines were continuous from the previous line, making the the poem flow fairly easily despite the line breaks. Another thing I liked about this poem is how the imagery appealed to all the senses. For example, a "country-and-western band" playing in the background to let the reader hear the scene, and drinking "double shots of bourbon" to appeal to taste and also smell in some way. This gives the reader a better all around feel of the bar that the writer is trying to describe.

Reflective

Reflective
by A. R. Ammons

I found a
weed
that had a

mirror in it
and that
mirror

looked in at
a mirror
in

me that
had a
weed in it

Since we have been discussing line breaks over the last couple of classes, I decided to focus on a poem that contained interesting line breaks. Furthermore, both presentations focused some attention on imagery and the images produced through the use of diction. This poem clearly presents itself as having a different type of line break. Each line consist of only one to three short words, and each stanza, only three short lines. Furthermore, the word mirror is used three times throughout the poem and the word weed twice. Even after reading it over twice, I was forced to read it slowly and very carefully so as not to make a mistake. It is as if the structure and set up of this poem relates to the act of reflection and meditation, in that it must be done with care and at a slow pace. Furthermore, it is as if the poem is like a tongue twister, representing the act of twisting one's self inward to see their inner self.
The imagery presented in this poem is also very interesting. The picture that is formed by his diction shows a weed with a mirror in it, shining on a mirror in him that has a weed in it. It is clear that the flaw he notices with his eyes, sheds light on his own flaw. I truly enjoy how this poem is so simple, yet so filled with many different and interesting aspects.

Country Stars

Country Stars
William Meredith
page 115

I like the very calm and serene feel of this poem. One thing that helps this is the structure of the poem in terms of line breaks. All of the line breaks occur at the ends of phrases so the read is very smooth. Another factor that helps the poem's smoothness is the use of a lot of soft sounds such as "f" and "s", sometimes in repetition. I also really like some of the imagery such as "She blows on a black windowpane until it's white." I think this is a really creative way to describe fogging up a window with breath. Another thing I really like is the repetition of similar sounds in the same line such as "Two cities, a chemical plant, and clotted cars" and "distrust of darkness." It all really helps to make the poem a smooth read. I also enjoyed it because it's not very hard to understand and the poet's message is not buried.

Eros

by Louise Gluck, p 508-9

The first stanza is one long line. I like the way it flows. It starts a story. It sets the mood. It gives information.I like the idea of this line: "my heart had become small; it took very little to fill it." It is like your stomach when you don't eat much; it doesn't take much to fill it. And in the previous line she says she "was utterly sated" which could be about appetite. It could also be about sexual appetite. The first time I read this I thought it was about being alone--maybe after leaving her husband or being left by him. But it seems more about being alone after having an affair. After her lover has left her alone in the hotel room and she is grappling with the aftermath of it. She "acquitted myself" so there is some sense of being on trial or putting herself on trial. The last stanza is one line as well. It is not as long as the first line. It says she wanted to be naked. And she equates taking off her wedding ring to being naked. So there is a lot of ambiguity in this.
“No Kingdom” by Carl Phillips [pg. 587]

At first glance, this poem is more of a compilation of ideas than complete concrete thoughts. The lines in this poem are noticeably short and the text of the poem is shaped narrow. It makes it a quick read which gives me the idea that it is a series of quick thoughts. The only things that slow the reading are the commas and line breaks; it is really choppy to read. The rhythm of it seems very jumpy from idea to idea. It makes the speaker think of one idea after the another. Phillips puts many images into the poem in the form of nouns. Even though the sentences make little grammatical sense, the pictures of the poem give it its overall feeling: humid and cloudy. There is not much brightness in the poem to suggest something optimistic, nor is there any to suggest otherwise. It’s the words, such as “plague”, “empty”, and “small”, which gave me that overall feeling. The poem also contains many multi-syllabic words. It suggests that deeper thinking goes into the poem. Even though not much is said, much is implied. I think that the poem gives the feeling of being burdened with guilt. The entire poem is composed of four sentences; the first three are long while the last line is two lines long. What caught my eye is that one of the last lines contains “no kingdom” hidden between other words. That line keeps getting my attention since it seems important to the poem as a whole.

The Waking by Theodore Roethke (p. 44)

It is absolutely effective how Roethke wrote the first line in the poem – “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.” The line caught my attention and urged me to read on, however confusing it was. The second line indeed began to give me a hint of what the poem might be about. The fate that Roethke mentioned in the poem was the inevitable death that he eventually had to face. Roethke did not mean that he was not afraid of death. But because death is inevitable for him and for everybody, Roethke accepts it as something that he “cannot fear.” Here, saying this, Roethke express his effort to take death as something natural – something that he must not worry about. Then he said, “I learn by going where I have to go.” With this, Roethke stated his determination to live life as he saw it. He would do things that he felt need to be done. He would go wherever necessary for him to lead the life he wanted. This ties back to the first confusing line, which is repeated many times throughout the poem. Thus, when Roethke said “I wake to sleep,” he meant the cycles of his days in life. With every waking, Roethke lived his day to the fullest, since he “take my waking slow.” Later in the poem, when he said, “Great Nature has another thing to do to you and me, so take the lively air, and lovely, learn by going where to go,” one can see that he was in a very positive mood. Nature has its disasters, so whenever one can, he should enjoy the moments of life. The metaphor of the lowly worm climbing the winding stair refers to hardships in life. Even the worm is still working its way up the stairs, why would men refuse trying to fight hardships and to learn from failures. In the last stanza, when Roethke said, "The shaking keeps me steady," he meant to point out that through troubles and difficulties, one would become more "steady" in his principles and directions in life.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

may i feel said he

may i feel said he
by e e cummings

When I was reading it aloud in my mind, and I found it so difficult to articulate the words. But that is not all completely due to the line breaks, it is also due to the choice of words that e e cummings used. The repetition of 'said he' and 'said she' especially made it difficult to read. This is doubtlessly intentional, because the whole atmosphere of the poem is very awkward, and I even imagined the characters studdering while they spoke. (Since they were in a very awkward position, and they, especially the girl, seemed quite nervous.) Also something interesting that e e cummings chose to use was parenthesis instead of quotations to separate the diaglogue and the narration of the poem. I honestly don't know why he chose to make this deviance from the normal punctuation, so it's just an observation. The line breaks in this poem were not abrupt or interrupting; instead they aided in separating who was speaking which line. However, the lack of punctuation (periods, comas, quotations) made it difficult to distinguish between the girl and the boy, and also made it difficult to read aloud.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Keeping Things Whole byMark Strand

Keeping Things Whole
by:Mark Strand
p.381


In this poem, the end-stopped lines happen three times in the first stanza and likewise in the second stanza. This was perhaps purposely manipulated in order to have the each stanza in proportion to each other. Due to the short lines, I tended to read faster and it seemed gradual to me. The ideas seem to intertwine much faster than if it had been laid out like in a narrative sense. After the first propositions introduced, the line breaks perhaps to give that feeling of respite to the reader and letting him focus on the nakedness of the field before he enters the poem. (The field seemed naked to me because he showed no precise description of it ;thus, the reader has free reign to roam in it.)Also, there is a parallel between field and absence since both are the words that BOLD out since they are the last words of the sentence. Another line breakage after the words “this is” shows a starting point for which the reader to relax in again. The last word “missing” in the first stanza is of importance because it is where the line ends and also the last word of the stanza; thus, emphasizing that he is missing in this field The last line “I am what is missing” is significant towards the meaning of the poem. The next 2 lines in the second stanza show movement through the words “walk” and “air” which are the last chosen words in the lines. He especially wanted to point out that he does this always not several times, but always… The line “the air moves in” has an idea trapped in that line and cannot be joined with the other line such as “to fill in the spaces” because that is a different image in the readers mind. The next line “We all have reasons” stops with that word “reasons”:which makes us want to ask immediately what reasons may you be talking about? His simple answer: I move (in one separate line to emphasize his diligence in moving) to keep things whole( second line-which is the title but written slightly different-perhaps to emphasize the idea of wholeness and its constant motion.

Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand (p. 381)

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

The lines in the poem are short. The diction and sentence structure are simple. However, the idea introduced in the poem is quite profound. Hence, the interesting line breaks help the readers slow down so that the idea could be absorbed as the poem is read. Every line has its own picture or thought that contributes to the entire idea of the poem. The line breaks put more emphasis on the meaning of each thought. There are only six sentences in the poem. Each sentence, however, encompasses more than one idea because of the line breaks used by the poet. When reading a poem, readers usually picture what they have read at the end of each line. Having lines in a poem broken in this way gives readers more time to picture the entire scene the line suggests with more details than having the whole sentence on one line. For example, after I read the first line, I can picture “the field” with plants, trees, wind, and space. If the line had been “In a field I am the absence,” the picture I would have of the field would not be so complete, because then I would concentrate more on speaker, his absence, and the meaning of his absence. Thus, the poet chose to have his lines broken in this way to stress the importance of the picture he creates in the poem. This poem is very interesting. The words are so simple, yet they express such complex meaning.

The World

The World
by Robert Creeley

I wanted so ably
to reassure you, I wanted
the man you took to be me,

to comfort you, and got
up, and went to the window,
pushed back, as you asked me to,

the curtain, to see
the outline of the trees
in the night outside.

The light, love,
the light we felt then,
greyly, was it, that

came in, on us, not
merely my hands or yours,
or a wetness so comfortable,

but in the dark then
as you slept, the grey
figure came so close

and leaned over,
between us, as you
slept, restless, and

my own face had to
see it, and be seen by it,
the man it was, your

grey lost tired bewildered
brother, unused, untaken--
hated by love, and dead,

but not dead for an
instant, saw me, myself
the intruder, as he was not.

I tried to say, it is
all right, she is
happy, you are no longer

needed. I said,
he is dead, and he
went as you shifted

and woke, at first afraid,
then knew by my own knowing
what had happened--

and the light then
of the sun coming
for another morning
in the world.

Creeley is able to do some very interesting things within this poem as far as structure and line breaks. It is clear after reading the very first stanza that he decides to have line breaks that go against the "norm." Reading this poem for the first time was somewhat difficult, in the sense that you can't just read each line, but instead you have to, as we discussed in class, be proactive while reading. You have to be able to see the sentences within the lines. However, this was quite hard to do when reading it the first time because I had no sense of what to expect. Furthermore, the structure Creeley decided to use added to the chaos and confusion when reading it for the first time. He used numerous commas throughout the poem, furthering the sense of confusion and chaos. However, after reading through it for the first time, it seemed to flow a little better the second time. Furthermore, I noticed that he had only used four periods throughout the entire poem. This seem to almost reflect the Father poem in that sense; however, Creeley's peom seemed to be relaxing and calm unlike Dickey's somewhat frantic and choppy poem. I believe the line breaks help to add a sense of surrealism to this poem. I truly like how Creeley set this poem up, creating a peaceful and elegant situation throughout all aspects of his poem.

Keeping Things Whole

by Mark Strand

The poet describes himself as a void. Where ever he is standing he is subtracting from the whole picture. When he is in a field, he is the only thing that is not a field. Whenever he moves, the air moves:

"to fill the spaces
where [his] body's been."

The poet structures his poem to add further meaning to the words that he uses. Since each line is cut mid-phrase it has the reader grasping for the rest of the meaning. Just like in the content of poem, when the author says:

"I move
to keep things whole."

The poet has the reader constantly moving forward to fill in the gaps in meaning. The line breaks also provide pauses, which in a sense give the feeling of a gap, so once again the line breaks serve directly as a conveyance for the poets meaning.

Hawk

Hawk
Mary Oliver 415-416

"Hawk" is a really great example to show how line breaks and form really affect a poem and emphasize it's meaning. The stanzas are shaped like wings, each line indented more than the one previous. This form also gives a floating, swooping sense of flight. Without even focusing on the words and just seeing the rhythm created by the shape, the reader gets the sense of some mighty bird in flight, being admired. Most of the lines are broken against the phrase and phrases are even broken into different stanzas. This makes the reader take more time on each part of the line rather than breezing through it, as it would probably flow if it were set in longer line. The lines breaks also place more emphasis on significant words and phrases like "and I said: remember" and "lake." The last two lines are longer than the rest, sticking out to the reader and make the words, "which fell" even more powerful. This is a very calming poem that strikes the reader and makes him or her think of admiring nature's gifts and the "admiral" hawk.

Authmn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
James Wright
page 289

Wright leaves no lines enjambed in this poem which makes it very easy to read. Addtionally, almost all of the lines end with some sort of punctuation, further facilitating the smooth and structured reading of the poem. Also each of the three stanzas is one sentence ended with a period, clearly showing the completion of a thought. The poem seems to be, on the surface, about a high school football game although I'm not sure what the actual subject is.

Sweet Will

Sweet Will
by Philip Levine
page 317-318

The first lines of this poem really got my attention, and made me interested to read the rest of the piece. ("The man who stood beside me / 34 years ago this night fell / on to the concrete, oily floor / of Detroit Transmission, and we / stepped carefully over him until / he wakened and went back to his press.") Terrible as it may seem, but I liked the image of a washed out and drunk business man falling onto the floor of a station, and the public just step over him in stead of helping him. The line structure of this poem also was interesting. The poem was arranged in 10 stanzas, each 6 lines long, and approximately the same length and amount of syllables. It appeared really clean cut, planned out, and well-organized. The actual lines of the poem, however, were nearly all enjambed. This made me force myself to slow down, because when the sentences are long and take up several lines of text, I have a tendancy to read quickely. I felt the line structure was unique because mixed the characteristics of a really organized poem, as well as one that is less so. There was a clear stanza pattern, however the lines were not as organized as they seemed at first glance.

Postcard Psalm by Christopher Janke

POSTCARD PSALM

Christopher Janke

milk gone bad

in my mouth

everybody

spit it

dies

into yours

drive to

a different town

people

driving cars

the movie

about a city

bombed.

so many people

tying

their shoes


From first reading this poem it was not obvious to me as to what exactly the author is trying to convey. This poem reminds me of the free writing excercise we did in class writing random thoughts for a certain amount of time. Each of the phrases from the author can relate to another. By rearranging the phrases or words in actual sentences, the poem makes sense. I think the author is trying to get at the fact that as life goes, people all around the world are going through different things. People might be driving, drinking bad milk, or even simply tying their shoes but others are dying and suffering. I like the way that the author scatters these thoughts and creates confusion for the reader. I feel as if the author is indicating that people need to pay more attention to what goes on in their world and that there is really more to life than what goes on within one person's world.

Air: "The Love of a Woman"

by Robert Creeley, p. 219-20

There are only three end-stopped lines in this poem: two in the third stanza and one in the last (fourth) stanza. And none but the last stanza is end-stopped. The three enjambed stanzas creates some tension and suspension which seems appropriate to this poem describing the aura of a woman left behind after she dies. There is forward movement in the first two stanzas; the poem moves along quickly through these stanzas, but then when you get to the third stanza, you are slowed by the extra punctuation. The poem hovers (like the aura) here. The line breaks in the last stanza emphasize the words "sang," "song" and "happy" and the tone and the movement seem to pick up again with a more upbeat feel compared to the previous stanza. The poem gives you a resolution and the tension is gone.

Two Butterflies went out at Noon

Two Butterflies went out at Noon— (533)
by Emily Dickinson

Two Butterflies went out at Noon—
And waltzed above a Farm—
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested on a Beam—

And then—together bore away
Upon a shining Sea—
Though never yet, in any Port—
Their coming mentioned—be—

If spoken by the distant Bird—
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman—
No notice—was—to me—

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19365

I love how Dickinson uses word structure to make us stop and look at an emphasized phrase. Dickinson not only has line breaks, but also dashes, and capitalized words to emphasize her writing. I guess in this poem’s case she uses the dashes to indicate a “full rest” instead of the half-rest that the traditional line break indicates. She eschews punctuation and instead uses the dashes to indicate the pauses, which makes for a more interesting and fresh reading. The dashes not only serve as line breaks, but also make you want to continue reading. Since words with dashes in them usually modify another word, every time I come to a line I want to keep on going. But after seeing the blank white of the rest of the sheet it is almost as if I have to remind myself to look at the carriage returned next line. It helps give the poem suspense, and that helps the poem’s last line. Throughout the poem you expect a warm fuzzy fluffy piece, but then the last line shows you that the persona was lonely, and perhaps melancholy.

Drops in the Bucket

by Kay Ryan
page 533

This poem automatically caught my eye with its very thin shape. Most lines of the poem only have two words in it, some with three and only one line with one word. It makes sense for the poem to has this long rectangular shape because of the subject matter. When one thinks of drops in a bucket, it is almost an instantaneous action. As you read the poem, your eyes flow down the page at a very rapid rate, paralleling the journey of a water droplet hitting the bottom of the bucket. Just having the poem shaped this way enhances the feeling the poem is trying to exude. If the lines were longer, it would definitely have a different flow to it, more like the action of a river traveling downstream. Something that stands out is that both of the last 2 lines of the poem have 3 words; these still make the lines short but the lines do not break like this in any other part of the poem. This reminded me of the bottom of the bucket where all the drops eventually pool into one another to create a bigger surface area. The poem even talks about the water at the bottom of the bucket as if it were its own bigger entity, totally different from the incoming drops.

"Men at Forty" by Donald Justice [pg. 199]

The first line starts with the title. It make it feel as if "men at forty" is the main subject of the poem. It identifies the subject for the poem right in the beginning. The first two verses are broken into sentences. The third verse continues into the middle of the fourth verse since the idea is unfinished. The sentences are broken this way to keep the structure of four lines per verse. A few of the lines rhyme. The first three lines end with the sound "tee", "lee", and "bee", respectively. The lines could have been broken to keep the rhymes. Usually, one line would begin with a noun or an action. The next lines become the adjectives and other descriptions for the previous lines. I have tried reading the lines one by one. After reading the end of one line, I'm left asking "what?". The next line would respond to my question or even do farther in describing what I wanted to find out more about. The poem does not have many natural pauses (4 periods and 6 commas). The line breaks naturally slows the reading of the line to introduce the next idea. The lines with figurative language seem to be the longest. They are not broken up since that would break up the image into to semi-separate ones. Justice keeps the ideas in whole pieces as he separates different ones.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Eros

Louise Gluck
page 509


This poem caught my eye with it's one line opening, "I had drawn my chair to the hotel window, to watch the rain". This first line stands alone in the poem, and I thought it was a good hook because the ambiguity of it made me wonder where this poem was going. After reading the poem, the reader gets a sense of what woman is going through and the relationship between her and her lover, although the poem states no actual details of their relationship. The author uses very simple words to describe her very simple setting in a hotel room. I think that the choice of words is appropriate for the poem because it exudes a sense of emptiness and being barren. In fact, she states in the end that she is "naked", perhaps stripped of all emotion that she ever felt for this man, freeing her from all of the emotional baggage of the relationship. This woman is finally beginning to let go of her lover and knows exactly what she feels about it; she is not going through the various, complicated emotions of love, a case in which more complex words would have been appropriate. Other details can confirm that she is ready to let go, such as "I could let you live as you needed to live" and "afterward, I took off my wedding ring". Not too many objects/nouns are mentioned in the poem, which further helps to paint a simple picture. The only things that the reader may "see" in the scene is the room with the woman, a chair, and a window overlooking a rainy city. I also thought that the use of rain in the poem added to the woman's emotional state. As she watched out her window, the rain went on. "At dawn the rain abated", and it is at this time that the woman starts to do things, which leads up to her taking off her wedding ring. The rain may have symbolized some sort of cleansing, having a fresh new start afterwards. The poem is written in first person, and when read aloud, I can imagine myself in her shoes, especially since it deals with relationships and gaining the confidence of moving forward. Another thing I noticed is that this poem mentions the woman's wants and needs, using those actual words a couple of times. By the end of the poem, she realizes that she neither wants or needs him anymore.

Fast Break

by Edward Hirsch
p. 545

First of all, this poem first caught my attention because I am a big fan of basketball. I love to watch and play the game. After hooking me with the title alone, the poem then does a fantastic job of using details with many adjectives and adverbs to build this scene on a basketball court. It has great imagery; I can picture the whole thing happening, like it were a commercial for the NBA, moving in slow motion. The form of the poem contributes to this, as every action is separated into two-lined stanzas: seventeen actions that make seventeen stanzas which this poem consists of. It also has great language with its diction and uses many similies and metaphors. The poem flows very nicely as you speak it, as does the fast break the poem describes. It consists of one team possession of the basketball, and includes every player on the team, starting from when the center is "gathering the orange leather from the air like a cherished possession" to the two fowards "moving together as brothers" and ending with "an orange blur floating perfectly through the net." The story of this poem is also timeless within the realm of basketball; this could've happened the year basketball was invented as it happens today and will continue to happen as long as the sport is played.

Last Songs~

Last Songs
by: Galway Kinnell
pg.296 -297



This poem caught my eye after looking after so many poems for the right one because the title “Last Songs” was an unusual title that has no description of what is to come in the poem. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the title’s vagueness had a sort of mystery factor to it that made me curios enough to stop and read it. It was interesting that the poem was divided in to sections that are numbered. (part 1 and part 2) I like how the first word is a question already..already questioning the reader… The word las is repeated to emphasize the last song of the birds of the day. The imagery is very delightful to my taste because it definitely paints out a picture in my mind when I read the words used to describe the birds flight and its relationship to the night. (“frayed wings curved on the world like a lover’s arms…”) I also like how the words “frayed wings” are in a separate lines in order to emphasize that the wing of the bird is very important for making night perhaps. The second part begins with the word “silence” and that is all…silence. And also the word “ashes” follows it perhaps trying to emphasize the theme of death in the poem. The words silence and ashes usually pertain to the issue of death. One also needs to keep in mind the title “Last Songs” which could also have the underlying theme of death surrounding night as well as ashes. I particularly liked the last sentence about only reinventing these humane feelings trough song. As if song was the passage into heaven in some strange sort of way.

The Rescue

by Robert Creeley

The title of the poem seems to set a frame for the content of the poem. The poem heavily repeats the word time, some times in the form of the word "timelessness" as if to emphasize the importance of the concept. The idea of a rescue fits well with the poets emphasis on time because a rescue depends on having enough time to be carried out. The exhaustive repetition of "time" also gives a sense of urgency to the reader as if the man on the horse described may not have enough time. Another connection that the author makes with the concept of the flowing of time is with sand. Robert Creeley reworked the cliché phrase "The Sands of Time" into his entire poem by creating the image of a man on a horse running through a vast sandy desert (the image of vastness comes from his description of the sand as "timeless"). By the end of the poem, the man and horse and wind who have become synonymous with the flow of time, are described as burning as well as a house in the distance. This seems to signify the time that is being lost as in a more literal sense a house in the distance is burning down. Time is running out and they are running to arrive in time.

With Mercy for the Greedy

With Mercy for the Greedy
Anne Sexton
page 307

This poem starts off with a (well I can't remember the word...a sentence that goes before the poem) that sets up the poem and lets the reader know that this poem is going to have something to do with religiosity and probably the author's reluctance to attend service. It reads "for my friend, Ruth, who urges me to make an appointment for the Sacrament of Confession." In the first stanza there's some interesting repetition that makes it feel very rhythmical: "Concerning your letter in which you ask/me to call a priest and in which you ask/ me to..." The first two lines end the same way and the second and third lines begin the same way. I also found the author's pacing interesting especially in the third stanza in which she uses ellipses to really slow the reader down. A simile I think works really well is the poet's comparison of Jesus on the crucifix to a frozen chunk of beef. I like the message of the poem as well (at least what I think is the message). She seems to be saying that although she has tried to connect with religion in the past to absolve her sins, she recognizes that poetry serves this function for her.

Filling Station

Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop p. 33-4

There are a lot of repeated words in this poem: Dirty, oil, station, wicker, color, doily, taboret, somebody and why are all repeated at least once, and dirty is repeated four times. There is repetition also in the mention of the "extraneous plant" in stanza five, and also in the sound of the line in the last stanza "ESSO-so-so-so." The speaker sets this scene of the dirty oily gas station and then asks why the plants and the doilies on the taboret (a stool or similar piece of furniture). And who is watering (or oiling--this is funny) the plants and arranging the poetic cans. This must be the person who, in the last line, "loves us all." The repetition of "somebody" in the last stanza changes the emphasis and makes us wonder about this person who is and how the setting of the filling station is changed by him or her. There are as many repetitions of "somebody" as there are repetitions of "dirty" which make them both important but the poem starts with the "dirty" (triggering subject) ends on the "somebody" (the actual subject).

A Setting Sun by Arlene Ang

A Setting Sun

like the restless

rearrangement of radio static,

precludes twilight:

it leans shadows across the room—

amputation camps,

war memorials, a lady bug

in mid-journey across

the torn cornea;

it is the child you met

in Cairo who—indirectly—

admitted food was scarce,

the women with hands cupped

towards prayer,

a Frankenstein of sorts;

and it sinks behind elm trees,

behind a mountain slope:

the weather report

would have it at 5:27 p.m.



This poem is an example of something simple like a sunset that has various meanings to different people. I enjoy how the first line of the poem feeds off of the title, "A Setting Sun". At first the poem describes where the rays of a setting sun would hit, then different experiences might one go through while the sun is setting. The sun is setting and although people might not realize it, there is a predicted time of day when the sun will set. I think the author is trying to convey the message that whereas science in terms of the sun setting can be predictable and set everyday at a certain time, life passes and the events of the day are not as consistent. The poem makes a person want to think about what he or she does everyday at the time the sun is setting. The sun will always cast a shadow, hit the mountain, and people all around the world might find that time to pray, but what are you as an individual doing? Then again, the last line of "would have it at 5:27p.m." can also give the idea of appreciating the sunset and realizing it is there day after day. If the time is known and available to everyone in each time zone, why aren't more people taking time during that hour to appreciate such a breathtaking event that only nature can give.

Winter Field

Winter Field (p. 529)

The poem as a whole seems to describe the speaker's body and the events that surround it. The speaker first talks about a winter field and says that it is not a summer field in snow, and later mentions her body under layers of blankets. The use of two different states of a field gives two different views: the summer field is the view of the poem's audience, and the winter field is the poet's view of herself. The intended audience seems to have misinterpreted her responses, particularly in the second stanza, where they tried to awaken her despite that she did not give any sound or display of an awakened state. In the third stanza, the speaker compares herself to what seems to be a fish by the descriptions, and instead of packing the fish in ice, the speaker is packed under blankets, which may harm the fish more than ice (I think that when fish are frozen in ponds, they only hibernate, and later awaken when the pond thaws). Overall, the poem seems to describe the torture that the speaker faces after the audience find her.

This poem particularly felt like one of those poems where I felt immediately decapitated, when I read the last stanza, where the audience has tried on multiple occasions to resuscitate and comfort the speaker, but the speaker still does not show any love to the audience. I have felt the receiving end of what the speaker says in this poem through several people I've known, and it helps to remind me that nobody is ever one-sided, and that there is always more than one side to each person, despite their outer appearance.

All the World's a Stage

All the World's a Stage
by William Shakespeare

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.


http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15740


I love how Shakespeare is able to use a play as his triggering subject to express his feelings regarding life and growing old, which turn out to be his actual subject. His first line of “All the world’s a stage” draws his audience in, and he manages to turn a cliché into a fresh metaphor. Instead of just using the well worn go-for-it! attitude, Shakespeare is able to encompass the life of a soldier in “acts… [spanning] seven ages.”

The imagery, especially of the soldier portion of the subject’s life is especially vivid. I love how you can you can imagine the bearded soldier “full of strange oaths,” and he uses unexpected word choices to make you pay attention to the images he has painted. The alliteration also helps the flow of his poem. One example is his usage of the harsh s and l sounds in “The sixth age shifts / Into the lean and slippered pantaloon.” By interspersing the smooth l alliterative sounds within the harsher s alliterative sounds Shakespeare is able to make the lines roll together. His last line, which utilized repetition, is such a change from the rest of the piece that is a stark contrast that is pulls you in and invites you to read his poem again.

Again

Again (by Robert Creeley) p.223

While reading this poem, I could not help but have a sort of tired or burnt out voice read it in my mind. I read it slowely because the narrator seemed to be slow, and sort of depressed at the monotony of his/her routine life. The poem is a reflection of the speaker's day that has just passed. The way the author is able to evoke these feelings of distress on a reader is through their use of grammatical pauses. Also, the quality of the language cues the reader into realizing the boredom and dryness that the speaker is implying, such as in "One more day gone / done, found in / the form of days." The commas that are found throughout the piece force the speaker to pause and, in a sense, make the phrase drag. There is a moment half way through the piece where the speaker becomes elated and mentions the time during the day when he/she was happy (because, it seems, they were in the company of friends). However, they speaker "then came down / on the ground again", coming back to their senses and going back to bed, to prepare for another day which brings the same routines.

Eyes Fastened with Pins

Eyes Fastened with Pins 436
Charles Simic

How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters
Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer. Death,
Meanwhile, in a strange
Part of town looking for
Someone with a bad cough,
But the address somehow wrong,
Even death can't figure it out
Among all the locked doors...
And the rain beginning to fall.
Long windy night ahead.
Death with not even a newspaper
To cover his head, not even
A dime to call the one pining away,
Undressing slowly, sleepily,
And stretching naked
On death's side of the bed.

Simic has a very interesting way of personifying death, and it really caught my attention. He puts everything is a much different perspective than we are used to. The poem begins by describing Death as a hard-working family man in a rural town. Death becomes this father figure whom we pity and like, feeling sorry that he is out working late while the rest of his family is at home. Death is not feared in this poem as it is usually hated and cried over. The tone gets darker and more somber as the poem progresses, while Death searches for someone to take away. The tables turn as he has no one to take and is left alone and cold. It seems that the poet wants the reader to either feel bad for Death, or this is a way of getting revenge, showing that Death will not take anyone away tonight. The last line strikes me when mentioning "death's side of the bed." This reminds me of the phrase "getting up on the wrong side of the bed." The ending still puzzles me, but it seems as if Death is stuck out in the rain and cold, while someone else is laying comfortable in Death's bed. Rather than being on their "death bed," he is in Death's bed, where he can not be taken. I liked the way it makes the reader view death in different ways, possibly even getting revenge against death instead of just hating and scorning it.

Oranges by Gary Soto

http://www.tatteredcoat.com/archives/2005/04/16/national-poetry-month-gary-soto/

This poem has a very light and touching tone. The words are short and simple. Even the sentences are not complex at all. Yet the poem could describe such a vivid picture of what the speaker wanted to share with his readers. The simplicity of the entire poem seems to express something pure and innocent in the relationship of the speaker to the girl and that to his oranges. The speaker walked to the girl’s house with oranges in his pockets. These oranges were brought along for some reason: could it be that the speaker wanted to share those oranges with the girl? When the girl wanted a chocolate that cost more than what the speaker had, the speaker gave up one of his oranges for the chocolate. The relationship of the speaker to his oranges is realized in when the speaker, paying with his nickel and orange, “set them quietly on the counter.” The speaker exchanged his orange for the chocolate that his girl wanted. By taking the orange, the saleslady understood the value of the speaker’s orange. The orange that was left was portrayed in a picture full of life. The orange was “bright against the gray December,” like “a fire in the my hands.” There is entirely different view of the oranges in the last sentence. Although the title of the poem is “Oranges,” the entire poem seemed to make no significance of oranges until the last sentence. The orange glowing in the speaker’s hands could symbolize the warmth the speaker feel having the orange in his hands. Thus there must be a close relationship of the speaker with his oranges. The glowing orange could also be a symbol of love of the speaker to his girlfriend. With his orange, the speaker was able to buy his girlfriend something she wanted. The orange could have been a tie between the speaker and his girl. However, the relationship of the speaker to his oranges is more evident in this poem than his relationship to the girl. The orange was fire in the fog to the speaker - like love, like passion, like something he must have in his life.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

“The Wars” by Howard Moss [pg. 146]

What came first to my mind is the number of parallels drawn between the restaurant and war zone scenes. In particular, the first and second verses mirror each other. They both are very lengthy questions. I guess it is a complex thought of the speaker as he related the ideas of the “polite wars” to real ones. There is mention of China in both verses. The first verse takes place in a Chinese restaurant while the second one takes place in an Asian rural village. In doing this, the speaker is comparing the people in the restaurant to the people in the field. In the restaurant verse, the speaker gives the image of a red lamp and parallels it to a red moon. The red lamp is symbolic of good luck but describing it as “blood-red” gives the image of something heavier. The same goes with the “blood-red moon”: the feeling of death hangs in the air. I think there is a tale that says the moon is red when blood is spilled. The author uses this idea through his poem. He uses numerous parallel ideas and structure to relate the two stanzas. The “terrible cries” of the second stanza seemed to echo in the first one as I read the poem again. The last verse switches from line to line with the restaurant and village. By doing so, the idea of the war is kept fresh in the mind as the “war” at the restaurant is occurring. The two ideas set up the atmosphere for each other; they are sort of symbiotic. One part is about a hellish killing of people while the other is about the constant chaos that occurs daily.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Again

Again
by Robert Creely

One more day gone,
done, found in
the form of days.

It began, it
ended--was
forward, backward,

slow, fast, a
sun shone, clouds,
high in the air I was

for awhile with others,
then came down
on the ground again.

No moon. A room in
a hotel--to begin
again.

There were many things that immediately caught my attention after reading this poem, most of which lead me to blog this poem. Furthermore, our presentation group had briefly discussed the aspect of rhythm and its effect on the reading of a poem. After reading this poem, I was immediately drawn to the rhythm of it and the effects it had added to it. It was clear after the reading that Creely wanted to convey the idea of a tiresome, repetitive day in which the subject repeated himself over and over each day. However, Creely was able to further this idea through his use of rhythm in which he created a repetitive structure. At first glance, you would notice the symmetry within each stanza as well as within the whole poem. It is as though each line and stanza is structured identically, adding to the idea of repetitiveness. In addition, he also decides to put numerous line breaks and punctuations within the poem, causing a slow, drawn-out reading of it. It is as though you have to pause or slow down to read the poem, adding to the idea of tiresome-repetitiveness. Furthermore, Creely inundated the poem with single syllable words causing a further sense of repetitiveness. Although he had a few multisyllable words, it focused on words that dealt with a sense of elapsed time or repetitiveness, such as "awhile", "forward,"
"backward." By having these multisyllable words placed within a bunch of single syllable words, Creely got me to focus on them as I read them causing me to realize their relation to the theme of the poem.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Coal

by Audre Lorde
p. 402

I really enjoy reading this poem, and it's a fantastic example of having amazing language and great triggering and actual subjects. The first line is very striking, as it is a single word, a single pronoun, a single letter: "I." This immediately caught my attention, and I like it because in a way it makes anybody reading this poem the speaker. Then, right away she uses "is" to start the second line. This catches the reader because it's grammatically incorrect, and it makes the reader think why she chose to use incorrect grammer. And still, it is understood what she means and where she is going with the next line. Lorde continues with the great use of language as she builds upon the triggering subject, the metaphor of being coal, and the simile of words being like diamonds. The similes and images she uses make this poem very beautiful. This is a very strong poem, a love poem of her affection towards her African peoples and culture, displaying her pride and joy to be a black woman, to go from being a piece of coal to becoming a diamond.

Tapestry

"Tapestry" (p. 431-432)

This poem to me has amazing language because all of the scenes of the tapestry seem to have almost no connection with each other, but in a sense they are all connected in that they cover space.

The first stanza concentrates on things that seem pleasant to most people - trees, cities, rivers, and snow. Most of the subjects in this stanza appear natural to people and civilization. The second stanza, however, focuses specifically on moving objects and people who perform seemingly mischievious deeds. Not until the last line of the second stanza, however, is any mischief really happening. The fox carrying off the chicken is not necessarily going to kill and eat it, the naked couple on their wedding night may not necessarily engage in intercourse, a column of smoke might be rising from a fire to keep people warm. The woman spitting into the milk, however, intentionally wants to contaminate it. The third stanza consists of a "question-and-answer" section, and focuses mostly on the sleeping man who will eventually enter a barbershop to remove all of his hair from his head. That he is sleeping at the moment seems to show that all of the appealing objects in the first stanza and the supposed mischief in the second stanza are largely ignored or unseen by most of the people in the world, despite that all are somehow connected to each other through space. The last two lines of the poem sound anti-climactic and blunt. The single-syllable words that imply the areas where his hair will be shaved seem to reflect the barber's speed in removing the hair, as if the barber is accustomed to doing such an act of removing the man's specific facial identity as well as possibly making him seem androgynous. The removal of hair occurs at the end of the poem (but in the poem itself it will happen in the future), showing that at the end of the day (or our lives), all people end up as the same - humans who are connected to each other through proximity in "space" that the tapestry keeps together.

The third stanza, to me, is particularly striking because of the "question-and-answer" form - it seems somewhat more personal, as if the speaker tries to ask questions about the tapestry and where it is located. It begins ominously, as if to say that all people live on the same tapestry because behind it, there seems to be only empty space. Any person who might become disconnected from the social and natural interactions formed within the tapestry will become lost and may fall into the space behind, where they might experience a loss of identity as the sleeping man (who lost his identity due to either ignorance or lack of knowledge of the world).
The Children's Hour
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!


http://poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173894

This poem creates a feeling of nostalgia and wonder. The language, the usage of words, the tone, etc. all compromise for the sweet sound of the poem. It is a soft” poem and it feels delicate , rather than harsh and crude. This is due to the many words with “s” sounds and also it contains more multi-syllabic words. The rythmatic flow of the sound of the words when read outloud makes it seem like a song. Also the style of the second and fourth lines ending words rhyme.- The “patter of little feet” can be almost heard by the “tt” sounds in patter and feet. In only the second stanza, words such as “sound, soft, sweet” make the poem sweet and nice to listen to. The poem through its use of nouns and verbs dose not need to use as much adjectives for the reader. The reader intuitively knows how to form a picture in his mind without the use of adjectives bring along restrain to his imagination. The words such as “whisper, silence, eyes, surprise” also emphasize even more the softness and gentleness of the subject of children. The sudden rush is introduced by the word “surprise” and again emphasizing the “s” for sweetness into the poem. The first line creates a division between times ;however in the last lines his definition of time is forever with no divisions. This creates a parallel between time and children –that children are free with their of hour of play. However in the end the adult one tries to capture the young into a time frame of forever and a day to keep for himself. His selfish agonies will destroy the randomness of play and fun for these children.

A Display of Mackerel

A Display of Mackerel
by Mark Doty

They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,
which divide the scales'
radiant sections

like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery

Prismatics; think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

Think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in anyway

Distinguished from the other
-nothing about them
of individuality. Instead

They're all exact expressions
of the one soul,
each a perfect fulfillment

of heaven's template,
mackerel essence. As if,
after a lifetime arriving

At this enameing, the jewlers
made uncountable examples,
each as intricate

in its oily fabulation
as the one before.
Suppose we could iridesce

like these, and lose ourselves
entirely in the universe
of shimmer-would you want

to be yourself only,
unduplicatable doomed,
to be lost? They'd prefer,

plainly, to be flashing participants
mulititudious. Even now
they seem to be bolting

forward, heedless of stasis
They don't care they're dead
and nearly frozen,

just as, presumably,
they didn't care that they were living:
all, all for all,

the rainbowed school
and its acres of brilliant classrooms,
in which no verb is singular,

or every one is. How happy they seem
even on ice, to be together, selfless,
which is the price of gleaming

The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry page 565

The assignment had been to find a poem that either had amazing language or a different triggering/actual subject within it. At first I was hoping to find a poem that would convey the second of the two for the simple reason that many poems have a triggering/actual subject within it. However, as I was glancing over the numerous poems within the book, I found one that immediately stuck out to me as having amazing language. I had never been able to see such a clear and beautiful picture thru reading a poem. Doty was able to create a poem which used amazing language so as to turn something as simple as a line of fish at a market into something with meaning and value. I love how he uses words like "wildly rainbowed," " oily fabulation," or "splendor." Doty is able to use language to create a surreal scene of fish on ice. His words flow magnificently well together creating such a beautiful poem.
I appreciate how he is able to create a beauty from all the fish as a whole rather than just focusing on one single fish. He constantly reminds us throughout the poem that it is the school as a whole that creates this wonderful image; "no verb is singular" as he puts it. It is like they are happy just to be together, to create a wonderful scene of shimmering, even though they are dead