If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit
for yourselg only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.
This poem most directly relates to death. The first stanza is about a person's life like wandering to "it", meaning death. Once death comes, you will have a place to sit, in a nice big chair. When death comes your friends will be there with smiles and they all will have places to sit as well. This poem is Robert Creeley's personal interpretation of death. Most readers can relate to this, it does have a very different twist compared to what most interpret death as heaven with god and angels and such, or in another perspective death is just death with nothing more to it and nothing coming after you die. This writer's interpretation is very interesting and gives its readers a new perspective.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
The Sick Rose by William Blake
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
This writer is using an analogy of a rose representing a woman or a girl. The girl is sick with an invisible worm, it flies in the night- this most directly means she got sick during the night probably becuase of a man or of an affair she had. The "howling storm" and the man with "his dark secret love" are lines in the poem that most directly relate. The woman is swept off her feet by a howling storm a man of crimson joy and from this small affiar she had her life was destroyed. It is most commonly thought that this woman got an STD from this affair or a sickness from the man she slept with, but it can also mean that she is sick from the giult that she commited. The guilt of having an affair or helping this "storm" of a man cheat can cause this rose to be sick or this woman to be guilty.
The structure of this poem helps it flow and makes it easier to understand. It consists of two stanzas both four lines each. the second and the fourth line in the poem rhyme. From this small amount of words and easy structure it adds to the luminosity of the poem. This poem is about a woman swept off her feet in the middle of the night struck by love and mystery- which ultimately leads to her destruction.
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
This writer is using an analogy of a rose representing a woman or a girl. The girl is sick with an invisible worm, it flies in the night- this most directly means she got sick during the night probably becuase of a man or of an affair she had. The "howling storm" and the man with "his dark secret love" are lines in the poem that most directly relate. The woman is swept off her feet by a howling storm a man of crimson joy and from this small affiar she had her life was destroyed. It is most commonly thought that this woman got an STD from this affair or a sickness from the man she slept with, but it can also mean that she is sick from the giult that she commited. The guilt of having an affair or helping this "storm" of a man cheat can cause this rose to be sick or this woman to be guilty.
The structure of this poem helps it flow and makes it easier to understand. It consists of two stanzas both four lines each. the second and the fourth line in the poem rhyme. From this small amount of words and easy structure it adds to the luminosity of the poem. This poem is about a woman swept off her feet in the middle of the night struck by love and mystery- which ultimately leads to her destruction.
Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
The writer of this poem uses an extended analogy with a person eating poetry and then becoming a dog hungry for poetry. In the library the man literally eats poetry and the writings having "ink running from the corners of his mouth" and the librarian becomes upset. This poem is extended to mean a lot more about poetry. The man is the writer of the poetry eating it up happy as can be. The librarian is a personal critic who reads the poetry and "does not believe what she sees", The other dogs "coming up" are also critics. But critics who post views and are very badly opinionated about the poems. The librarian listens to these critics and listens to her own thoughts of the poetry and is so upset she weeps. I think she is confused on how she actually wants to interpret the poem and how others interpret it as well. I think the writer of the poem or the newly transformed dog finally realizes that he should not write poetry for the critics and try to please them or to lick their hands and convince them that the poem is good, the writer writes not for others but for himself now. He is newly transformed into this state and he is in "joy in the bookish dark".
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
The writer of this poem uses an extended analogy with a person eating poetry and then becoming a dog hungry for poetry. In the library the man literally eats poetry and the writings having "ink running from the corners of his mouth" and the librarian becomes upset. This poem is extended to mean a lot more about poetry. The man is the writer of the poetry eating it up happy as can be. The librarian is a personal critic who reads the poetry and "does not believe what she sees", The other dogs "coming up" are also critics. But critics who post views and are very badly opinionated about the poems. The librarian listens to these critics and listens to her own thoughts of the poetry and is so upset she weeps. I think she is confused on how she actually wants to interpret the poem and how others interpret it as well. I think the writer of the poem or the newly transformed dog finally realizes that he should not write poetry for the critics and try to please them or to lick their hands and convince them that the poem is good, the writer writes not for others but for himself now. He is newly transformed into this state and he is in "joy in the bookish dark".
The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.When at first reading this poem there were some definities and research that needed to be done in order to better understand its meaning. I looked up who William Butler Yeats is and what Innisfree is as well. William Yeats is an Irish poet and playwright. He was born in Country Siglo and studied poetry in Dublin. He is known for his intrest in the occult and inIrish legends. The occult is the idea the knowledge is only known by people who were meant to understand it, it is also know as knowledge of the paranormal. Innisfree, whose name means "heather island" in Gaelic, is an island off the coast of Ireland of intense natural beauty. It is located in County Sligo, which is where Yeats's mother's family came from, and which he identified as the part of Ireland and the world closest to his heart. In the idea of building a home there and living as a hermit, Yeats was influenced by American transcendentalists such as Thoreau. He wrote in a letter: "My father read to me some passage out of Walden, and I planned to live some day in a cottage on a little island called Innisfree."
From this background information a reader can then better understand the poem. Yeats wrote this poem as a soothing connection with his hometown and with nature. He wants to return to the home of his heart and live there in tranquility and peace.
The structure of this poem is very particular and interesting. The rhyme scheme is very hard to pick up on but does exist. Yeats consistantly rhymes the first line and the third line. Also yeats rhymes the center word of the first line with the center word of the third line "there" "glimmer", "day" "roadway". Also the second line and the fourth line rhymes as well. From this rhyme scheme the reader can flow into the poem and see the tranquility of it. The words flowing like "water lapping with low sounds by the shore" can really influence the reader to take part in and appreciate nature and become one with it. The structure takes a major role in the peice as a whole.
Sign for my Father, Who Stressed the Bunt by David Bottoms
On the rough diamond,
the hand-cut field beneath the dog lot and the barn,
we rehearsed the strict technique
of bunting. I watched from the infield,
the mound, the backstop
as your left hand climbed the bat, your legs
and shoulders squared toward the pitcher.
You could drop it like a seed
down either base line. I admired your style,
but not enough to take my eyes off the bank
that served as our center-field fence.
Years passed, three leagues of organized ball,
no few lives. I could homer
into the garden beyond the bank,
into the left-field lot of Carmichael Motors,
and still you stressed the same technique,
the crouch and spring, the lead arm absorbing
just enough impact. That whole tiresome pitch
about basics never changing,
and I never learned what you were laying down.
Like the hand brushed across the bill of a cap,
let this be the sign
I'm getting a grip on the sacrifice.
Any poem written about a sport is never really just describing the sport. The peom is used to give off a deeper meaning of life and the lessons learned from playing the sport. This baseball poem is obviously about the lessons a young boy learned from his father when his father was teaching him the "strict technique/of bunting". Since I am not a true baseball fan and don't know much about baseball I talked to my father about the reasons to use a bunt and how it contributes to the game. According to him, a bunt is used to help progress another player across the bases or even to help them score, but there is a sacrifice. The sacrifice is that the player who hit the bunt is almost always thrown or tagged out.
In this poem the young boy was obsessed with home run hitting. That was his passion, even though his father tried so hard to progress and advance his game by teaching him to bunt, the son never understood. The boy never understood what the adantages of taking a bunt during a game rather than a homerun would be. The son finally understands his father's "sign" near the end of the poem. The sign the son is "getting a grip on the sacrifice". This obviously is associated with the idea that sacrifice for the greater good or the better of the team is better for humanity and could be better in his life lessons too. The greed and glorification associated with a home run rather than that of the bunt is not always better when it comes to life and learning from things in life.
This poem was not simply about the game of baseball but about the journey the father tries to teach the son through a game of baseball. The sacrifice the son can make for the greater good is always better than fame and fortune.
the hand-cut field beneath the dog lot and the barn,
we rehearsed the strict technique
of bunting. I watched from the infield,
the mound, the backstop
as your left hand climbed the bat, your legs
and shoulders squared toward the pitcher.
You could drop it like a seed
down either base line. I admired your style,
but not enough to take my eyes off the bank
that served as our center-field fence.
Years passed, three leagues of organized ball,
no few lives. I could homer
into the garden beyond the bank,
into the left-field lot of Carmichael Motors,
and still you stressed the same technique,
the crouch and spring, the lead arm absorbing
just enough impact. That whole tiresome pitch
about basics never changing,
and I never learned what you were laying down.
Like the hand brushed across the bill of a cap,
let this be the sign
I'm getting a grip on the sacrifice.
Any poem written about a sport is never really just describing the sport. The peom is used to give off a deeper meaning of life and the lessons learned from playing the sport. This baseball poem is obviously about the lessons a young boy learned from his father when his father was teaching him the "strict technique/of bunting". Since I am not a true baseball fan and don't know much about baseball I talked to my father about the reasons to use a bunt and how it contributes to the game. According to him, a bunt is used to help progress another player across the bases or even to help them score, but there is a sacrifice. The sacrifice is that the player who hit the bunt is almost always thrown or tagged out.
In this poem the young boy was obsessed with home run hitting. That was his passion, even though his father tried so hard to progress and advance his game by teaching him to bunt, the son never understood. The boy never understood what the adantages of taking a bunt during a game rather than a homerun would be. The son finally understands his father's "sign" near the end of the poem. The sign the son is "getting a grip on the sacrifice". This obviously is associated with the idea that sacrifice for the greater good or the better of the team is better for humanity and could be better in his life lessons too. The greed and glorification associated with a home run rather than that of the bunt is not always better when it comes to life and learning from things in life.
This poem was not simply about the game of baseball but about the journey the father tries to teach the son through a game of baseball. The sacrifice the son can make for the greater good is always better than fame and fortune.
Monday, May 2, 2011
The Golf Links by Sarah N. Cleghorn
The golf links lie near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
This poem is about the times in America before child labor laws came into existance or even into effect. Children and families at this point in time had little to no money and companies would hire children to work very long hours with dangerous jobs. The children in this poem are working for hours and hours next to a golf course and every day the children can see the rich men playing golf and having a carefree time, probably not even noticing these children. I looked up information on Sarah N. Cleghorn and she lived between 1876 and 1959. She was a writer and a poet. She was against child labor which this poem explicitly represents and she was mentioned by Robert Frost many times for her great talents as a poet and writer.
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
This poem is about the times in America before child labor laws came into existance or even into effect. Children and families at this point in time had little to no money and companies would hire children to work very long hours with dangerous jobs. The children in this poem are working for hours and hours next to a golf course and every day the children can see the rich men playing golf and having a carefree time, probably not even noticing these children. I looked up information on Sarah N. Cleghorn and she lived between 1876 and 1959. She was a writer and a poet. She was against child labor which this poem explicitly represents and she was mentioned by Robert Frost many times for her great talents as a poet and writer.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Guitarist Tunes Up Frances Cornford
With what attentive courtesy he bent
Over his instrument;
Not as lordly conqueror who could
Command both wire and wood,
But as a man with a loved woman might,
Inquiring with delight
What slight essential things she had to say
Before they started, he and she, to play.
This poem is passionate. The author compairs the quitarists passion for his instrument just the same as a passionate and loving relationship should be. The man is not bent over his instrument with power and greed but with love and compassion just as a man should do the same for a woman he loves. This love and compassion can be reflected into anyone's passions. A person who is passionate for reading, writing, singing, playing, composing, making, anything; these things a person is passionate about shoud be with love and care not with cruelty and power. The poem has a continued sentence with only a period at the very end. The rhyme scheme is a, a, b, b. This adds to the flow of the poem. It is almost as if the guitarist is playing this poem in his song. Also from the flow the reader can imagine the guitarist playing for his lover and his sweet music is compassionate and caring just as his feelings for his loved one is. This is a fun love poem.
Over his instrument;
Not as lordly conqueror who could
Command both wire and wood,
But as a man with a loved woman might,
Inquiring with delight
What slight essential things she had to say
Before they started, he and she, to play.
This poem is passionate. The author compairs the quitarists passion for his instrument just the same as a passionate and loving relationship should be. The man is not bent over his instrument with power and greed but with love and compassion just as a man should do the same for a woman he loves. This love and compassion can be reflected into anyone's passions. A person who is passionate for reading, writing, singing, playing, composing, making, anything; these things a person is passionate about shoud be with love and care not with cruelty and power. The poem has a continued sentence with only a period at the very end. The rhyme scheme is a, a, b, b. This adds to the flow of the poem. It is almost as if the guitarist is playing this poem in his song. Also from the flow the reader can imagine the guitarist playing for his lover and his sweet music is compassionate and caring just as his feelings for his loved one is. This is a fun love poem.
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