While looking through my poetry packet, I had completely forgotten about the poem 1943. I don't know why I forgot about it since it struck a pretty big chord on me when Shelby and Julia presented it in class. This poem is about war, but the way Mr. Donald Hall presents it is pretty intense.
To start off, he begins by comparing war to football back in highschool. He mentions how the boys from football thought they were geting practice for war while playing this strict sport:
They toughened us for war. In the high-school auditorium Ed Monahan knocked out Dominick Esposito in the first round
of the heavyweight finals, and ten months later Dom died in the third wave at Tarawa
These lines hit home pretty hard seeing as my brother was enrolled in the Army a few years back. It's cruel to make these high school boys believe that football is a form of teaching the ways of the Army because you and I both know that football doesn't even compare to war.
It's also horrible to think Dom, the boy in the poem who gets killed, didn't know what was coming when he went overseas to fight a brutal war. In the third stanza, Hall makes it clear that life back on the home front continues to go on as men overseas are dying everyday trying to protect its people.
Our class decided that the comparison of milk related to a nurturing feeling, which is felt on the home front. The comparison of milk to the frost bite of the soldiers is an uncomfortable transition for people thinking differently of the war. It makes the reader feel somewhat ashamed that all this is going on while people at home remain unaffected. It's an eerie and gloomy poem, but I really, really liked it.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
To Myself by W.S Merwin
Since this is the poem I presented a few days ago, I thought it would be appropriate to write a poetry response on it. So to start off, my first reaction to this poem was I thought it spoke about death. It really made me think that this was the main theme of the poem especially because of the line, "...and the air was still alive around where you were." I think that by using the word "alive" it really makes the reader think about life and death.
But the more I read this poem the more I started thinking differently. It seemed way too straight-foward to be just about death, so I looked on a much lighter note. When I re-read the poem for avout the 20th time, and I read the title, I realized that it was a poem to...well, himself. I guess I feel a bit ridiculous for not catching on to this earlier, but oh well! It's a really cool poem since the author uses almost like a third person perspective to narrate himself and his past and just the way he is. Merwin writes about finding himself through this poem--almost as if he's lost. It's a poem many people can relate to. I didn't like this poem all that much; there really wasn't a line or anything that really stood out to me. The structure was neat, and I liked the topic of it though. :)
But the more I read this poem the more I started thinking differently. It seemed way too straight-foward to be just about death, so I looked on a much lighter note. When I re-read the poem for avout the 20th time, and I read the title, I realized that it was a poem to...well, himself. I guess I feel a bit ridiculous for not catching on to this earlier, but oh well! It's a really cool poem since the author uses almost like a third person perspective to narrate himself and his past and just the way he is. Merwin writes about finding himself through this poem--almost as if he's lost. It's a poem many people can relate to. I didn't like this poem all that much; there really wasn't a line or anything that really stood out to me. The structure was neat, and I liked the topic of it though. :)
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Beginning Again by Franz Wright
For this poem, two rather distinct pieces stood out to me: The beginning = good; The ending = ???
The beginning (aka) the good part :)
I think that the imagery here is just darling, So darling, in fact, I believe I'll post it on here.
“If I could stop talking, completely
cease talking for a year, I might begin
to get well,” he muttered.
Off alone again performing
brain surgery on himself
in a small badly lit
room with no mirror. A room
whose floor ceiling and walls
are all mirrors, what a mess
oh my God--
Hopefully, you'll notice that I tried to keep the structure intact as much as possible. The way a poem looks is so important, even if you are not a fan of the awkward structure. Personally, I love it. It gives the poem personality, and it makes my brain read it differently. For example, in this poem, I mentally "paused" and added emphasis. I think Mr. Wright did a lovely job of arranging his brilliant words. On to the brilliant words part of the poem I assume the most important part? ;)
The imagery is excellent--flat out perfect. You ask yourself, 'Why wasn't there a mirror, mister? You're going to do a positively crummy job of brain surgery if you can't see what you're doing." Then the whole room becomes a mirror, and only then would a handmirror be completely useless because everything would be a big shiny mess! (...that totally made more sense in my head.)
--But maybe the mirrors don't have to make sense. Maybe they're just imaginary mirrors the sick man thinks he needs. The man is performing brain surgery on himself; which pretty much classifies him as a crazy in my book. But, that's me trying to rationalize the poem, and poetry can't exactly be rationalized because it's not exactly rational. (You know, beating it with the hose...am I making any sense here?)
Next comes my favorite part :)
And still
its stands,
the question
not how begin
again, but rather
Why?
In all its puzzling glory, it's practically truth. Why should a person change? Who has the right to say that the person was bad before? (A side note: the form here is absolutely beautiful. It definitely got the point across.)
I don't really have much else to say about this stanza rather than it's fantastic. Some things are better left untouched.
Unfortunately, this brings me to the second half of this poem. It's short so I'll post it:
So we sit there
together
the mountain
and me, Li Po
said, until only the mountain
remains.
First and foremost, who is Li Po and how did he get there? I honestly read that line and got a bit irritated; I feel like Li Po had trespassed on such a brilliant poem. (Ridiculous, I know, but I didn't like it.)
Secondly: mountain? What mountain? I was enjoying a room full of mirrors, not a huge rocky mountain. I live in Colorado, Mr. Wright; We have plenty of mountains, thanks.
The ending just didn’t make sense to me. I felt it was unrelated and irrelevant. And I didn’t really like Li Po (or the mountain for that reason) they both felt really out of place. Then again, I doubt Franz Wright cares what I think about the last portion of his poem since he wrote it, and became famous because of it. :P
Hopefully, the ending might make more sense after hearing other people's thoughts in class. Thanks for reading!
P.S I do believe my blogs are getting longer every week... :/
The beginning (aka) the good part :)
I think that the imagery here is just darling, So darling, in fact, I believe I'll post it on here.
“If I could stop talking, completely
cease talking for a year, I might begin
to get well,” he muttered.
Off alone again performing
brain surgery on himself
in a small badly lit
room with no mirror. A room
whose floor ceiling and walls
are all mirrors, what a mess
oh my God--
Hopefully, you'll notice that I tried to keep the structure intact as much as possible. The way a poem looks is so important, even if you are not a fan of the awkward structure. Personally, I love it. It gives the poem personality, and it makes my brain read it differently. For example, in this poem, I mentally "paused" and added emphasis. I think Mr. Wright did a lovely job of arranging his brilliant words. On to the brilliant words part of the poem I assume the most important part? ;)
The imagery is excellent--flat out perfect. You ask yourself, 'Why wasn't there a mirror, mister? You're going to do a positively crummy job of brain surgery if you can't see what you're doing." Then the whole room becomes a mirror, and only then would a handmirror be completely useless because everything would be a big shiny mess! (...that totally made more sense in my head.)
--But maybe the mirrors don't have to make sense. Maybe they're just imaginary mirrors the sick man thinks he needs. The man is performing brain surgery on himself; which pretty much classifies him as a crazy in my book. But, that's me trying to rationalize the poem, and poetry can't exactly be rationalized because it's not exactly rational. (You know, beating it with the hose...am I making any sense here?)
Next comes my favorite part :)
And still
its stands,
the question
not how begin
again, but rather
Why?
In all its puzzling glory, it's practically truth. Why should a person change? Who has the right to say that the person was bad before? (A side note: the form here is absolutely beautiful. It definitely got the point across.)
I don't really have much else to say about this stanza rather than it's fantastic. Some things are better left untouched.
Unfortunately, this brings me to the second half of this poem. It's short so I'll post it:
So we sit there
together
the mountain
and me, Li Po
said, until only the mountain
remains.
First and foremost, who is Li Po and how did he get there? I honestly read that line and got a bit irritated; I feel like Li Po had trespassed on such a brilliant poem. (Ridiculous, I know, but I didn't like it.)
Secondly: mountain? What mountain? I was enjoying a room full of mirrors, not a huge rocky mountain. I live in Colorado, Mr. Wright; We have plenty of mountains, thanks.
The ending just didn’t make sense to me. I felt it was unrelated and irrelevant. And I didn’t really like Li Po (or the mountain for that reason) they both felt really out of place. Then again, I doubt Franz Wright cares what I think about the last portion of his poem since he wrote it, and became famous because of it. :P
Hopefully, the ending might make more sense after hearing other people's thoughts in class. Thanks for reading!
P.S I do believe my blogs are getting longer every week... :/
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Wallflowers
(A side note: I didn't realize how late it was, but I wanted to get this poem done with since for some oscure reason, I'm not tired, so I thought I'd do something with my life. Anyways, moving on...)
I decided to do a poetry response on Wallflowers by Donna Vorreye since it talked about adopting wierd words and making them your own in a cute and light-hearted way. As I read this poem, I assumed that the 'weird' words were actually real words and that Ms. Vorreye wasn't pulling a fast one on us. Nevertheless, I took the extra effort and looked them up on Dictionary.com. To my surprise, gegenshien was nowhere to be found! I know I have a real dictionary lying here somewhere...
Nope. Nothing.
Google? I think so.
Here we go! Gegenshien-a faint brightening of the night sky in the region of the anti-solar point.
Continuing.
zoanthropy- a mental disorder in which one believes oneself to be an animal.
Woah. Okay, so I assume that these have no connection to the poem whatsoever besides the fact that they are obscure words. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any huge symbolism here.
The title 'Wallflowers' was a very unique and lovely title for this poem since the words are lonley and shy like a wallflower.
“…hollow-eyed orphans in Dickensian bedrooms, longing for someone to say, ‘yes, you… you’re the one?’”
When read aloud, this line is absolutely brilliant; it was almost like a lullaby. Plus, the way Vorreye puts together the lonliness of people and the lonliness of the words is such a vivid and beautiful connection.
“…give me your tired, your poor, your gegenshein, your zoanthropy–”
Hey, look! The words we looked up earlier finally came into play!
"I want to make room for all of them, to be the Ellis Island of your diction–”
Am I the only one who read this line the first time and found it slightly humorous? I'll be the Ellis Island of your diction. Oh yeah? Well, I'll be the Statue of your Liberty.
But immaturity aside, after I read this poem aloud again, I realized this line was actually pretty cool. It took a comparison of something relatively small and compared it to something massive. (ie. Ellis Island)
I also have to admit that I am a sucker when it comes to poems comparing objects or ideas to flowers:
"Or do they wait patiently, shy shadows
at the high school dance,
knowing that, given the slightest chance,
someday they'll bloom?"
You got me, Ms. Vorreye. Touche.
I decided to do a poetry response on Wallflowers by Donna Vorreye since it talked about adopting wierd words and making them your own in a cute and light-hearted way. As I read this poem, I assumed that the 'weird' words were actually real words and that Ms. Vorreye wasn't pulling a fast one on us. Nevertheless, I took the extra effort and looked them up on Dictionary.com. To my surprise, gegenshien was nowhere to be found! I know I have a real dictionary lying here somewhere...
Nope. Nothing.
Google? I think so.
Here we go! Gegenshien-a faint brightening of the night sky in the region of the anti-solar point.
Continuing.
zoanthropy- a mental disorder in which one believes oneself to be an animal.
Woah. Okay, so I assume that these have no connection to the poem whatsoever besides the fact that they are obscure words. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any huge symbolism here.
The title 'Wallflowers' was a very unique and lovely title for this poem since the words are lonley and shy like a wallflower.
“…hollow-eyed orphans in Dickensian bedrooms, longing for someone to say, ‘yes, you… you’re the one?’”
When read aloud, this line is absolutely brilliant; it was almost like a lullaby. Plus, the way Vorreye puts together the lonliness of people and the lonliness of the words is such a vivid and beautiful connection.
“…give me your tired, your poor, your gegenshein, your zoanthropy–”
Hey, look! The words we looked up earlier finally came into play!
"I want to make room for all of them, to be the Ellis Island of your diction–”
Am I the only one who read this line the first time and found it slightly humorous? I'll be the Ellis Island of your diction. Oh yeah? Well, I'll be the Statue of your Liberty.
But immaturity aside, after I read this poem aloud again, I realized this line was actually pretty cool. It took a comparison of something relatively small and compared it to something massive. (ie. Ellis Island)
I also have to admit that I am a sucker when it comes to poems comparing objects or ideas to flowers:
"Or do they wait patiently, shy shadows
at the high school dance,
knowing that, given the slightest chance,
someday they'll bloom?"
You got me, Ms. Vorreye. Touche.
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