The Golf Links

The golf links lie so near the mill That almost every day The laboring children can look out And see the men at play. This poem has an interesting rhyme scheme, I don't think it's an ABAB rhyme scheme but it does rhyme. I think the poem is talking about back in the late 1800's during the Gilded Age many children would work, usually under horrible conditions and were given the jobs no one else wanted or could do. I think the poem is very literal, it depicts the children working and seeing the rich men play. It's interesting because it shows a reversed role, usually the child would be playing while the men would work.

the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

I really liked this poem, I believe it was talking about how there's a certain magic in nature. When your appreciating the beauty of the world you just feel peaceful. I thought the structure was interesting as well, it was simple and short but it flowed well.

For A Lady I Know

She even thinks that up in heaven Her class lies late and snores, While poor black cherubs rise at seven To do celestial chores. From this poem, I pictured a young girl's ignorance to the rest of the world. I remember conjuring silly ideas of angels and heaven. My siblings would tell me they used to say when they were young that when it rained it was because the angels were taking a shower, and when they heard thunder it was because the angels were bowling, the sound the bowling ball would make when it crashed into the pins was what they compared to thunder. So for this poem I imagined a young girl imagining that an angel's life was much like her own. The black cherubs part I thought might have been a symbolism for oppression of black people, if this poem was during that time period it might be a play on how on a plantation, the white owners would sleep in while their slaves would get up early to go work.

Many red devils...

Many red devils ran from my heart And out upon the page They were so tiny The pen could mash them. And many struggled in the ink. It was strange To write in this red muck Of things from my heart. My take on this poem, was the author was feeling scorned and let all the hate and anger he was feeling leak into his writing. He compared them to red devils perhaps because he feels that those hateful words are almost a sin to be in his writing. In the third and second line from the last, it says, "It was strange to write in this red muck," so obviously the author was not accustomed to allowing anger and hate be shown in his writing. P.S. I commented on Shelby's and Ana's blog

Not Waving but Drowning

This poem had no rhyme scheme and some of it's lines didn't flow very well. Such as in the second stanza where it says, "It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,".
As for the meaning of the poem, I believe it is meaning that people sometimes try to hide the bad things in their life and make it seem like everything is okay when it's not (I think we talked about this in class). This idea is shown in the poem, especially in the first in last line, "Nobody heard him, the dead man, - And not waving but drowning." I thought the last line was interesting, it brought the visual of when you are on the beach and you see someone in the water, waving their arms, like they are sending a friendly, 'hey there' to their companions on the beach until suddenly you realize they're not actually waving their arms in greeting but in terror, asking for help because they are drowning.

Group Poem From Class

How do teachers expect students to be exceptional?
Do they care?
Why do they care?
Do they have homework?
Do they like our suffering?
Are they afraid to die?
Are they people too?
Why are there teachers?
Should they be eliminated?

Goodbye to the Old Life: Poem From Class

From Old To New: A Different School

Surrounded by the people I have grown up with
Joyful feelings for the warm season of freedom called summer
The swings we used to play on
The gravel that soaked up our blood
The memories will always be remembered

Nervousness and sorrow fill me
Faces that I do not know
I am unfamiliar with this place
But new memories will be made within these walls

Sort of a Song

"Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait
sleepless.
--through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks."
I really liked the first stanza of this poem, it flowed very well and the images described were very vivid. The second stanza seemed kind of garbled and erratic. The two stanzas show the two different way of writing. The first being when the words just flow and come easily. It is like a snake that moves smoothly and can strike with deadly force. This is like when a writer has a profound sentence that just magnifies the whole collaboration of sentences to make their point.
The second stanza is when a writer has writer's block or has a hard time getting their point across.

Introduction to Poetry

I thought the structure of this poem was interesting, the author beings many of his stanza's with I and these stanza's differ from one to three lines. The structure is simple but it flows well. As for the meaning of the poem, I believe the author meant that what he wants is for people to simply enjoy a poem but instead he says that people analyze it too much and look too hard for a deeper meaning. This is shown in the lines where he says, "I want them to water ski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it."
We have discussed this in class, that we analyze things too much which I think is very true. Some things are meant to be symbolic but others like this poem has the meaning right in front of us, we do not need to look for a deeper meaning.

Alone

"From childhood's hour I have not been As other were--I have not seen As others saw--I could not bring My passions from a common spring-- From the same source I have not taken." I thought that Poe might be talking about his childhood literally and how he felt ostracized because as I have seen in his other poems he has a very dark thought process. In this poem he is describing how he felt different than everyone else. I also did some background research on Poe and found out that he was orphaned at the age of two and taken in by a man who eventually disinherited him leaving Poe penniless. So I began to think that Poe felt he wasn't the same as others in his childhood because he didn't have parents like they did and that made him feel like an outcast.
Poe continues the poem by describing different things like the fountain and the mountain, which I think might be the part of his life where he made a name for himself and became rich but he still feels like that outcast child who couldn't relate to anyone and the demon in his view, is his past memories of that and the tragedies of his life.


P.S. I commented on Ana's blog

It Was A Dream

I felt that this poem was pretty straight forward. The other part of herself or what she refers as her "greater self" is telling her at the end of the poem, what she could have done is make her voice heard, her presence known. The author describes her "greater self" with "wild hair" and "wild eyes". I think this is to further accentuate her point to be more confident, raise her voice, and voice her opinion.
Another point of view I took on this poem was perhaps the author experience a great loss, and feels guilty. Her "greater self" is the part of her that believes she should have done something to prevent whatever happened. If the woman with "wild hair" is her "greater self", then she is screaming at herself, and she is screaming that she should have done something.
As for the structure of the poem, I thought it was a little odd that she begins the poem as if the title of the poem was the first line. When you begin reading the poem as if the title is the first line it makes much more sense as well.

Untitled

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
The author Stephen Crane uses a lot of descriptive words to start the poem that helps create the scene of his poem. I noticed he used a comma after good, before he says friend, almost as if he is hesitating to say it. He uses friend perhaps because he is frightened of the creature and wants to approach the being in a way that is non-threatening. The last few lines, where the creature responds to the man is talking about how the evil inside him or the bitterness, he enjoys. He likes the bad parts of himself because they are what makes him, him.

P.S. I commented on Shelby's blog :)

Cottonmouth Country

"Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras. And there were other signs That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us By land: among the pines An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss Reared in the polluted air." I found that Hatteras is an island off of the coast of North Carolina and as a part of nature dead fish will sometimes wash up on beaches which would explain the first line about fish bones. I did research on the author Louise Gluck and found that she often has poems about dark subjects such as death. The line about death wooing "us" is perhaps referring to that the ocean's tide can be dangerous and the uncurled cottonmouth is also a sign of death because a cottonmouth is a venomous snake often found in the southeastern swamps of the United States. They are also called water moccasins. I thought the line in which it mentions polluted air could be another sign of Death.
The next part though, "Birth, not death, is the hard loss. I know. I also left a skin there." Might refer to losing something dear to you, that you once had as a child, like innocence or ignorance. I thought it could also refer to losing a child or when a child grows up and starts there own life. I'm not really sure what that line means. The part about leaving a skin there I believe is referring to the snake again since snake's will shed away a layer of skin periodically so she is saying she left a skin of her own there but not literally.

Personal Helicon

After some research, I found that Helicon is a mountain situated in Boetotia, Greece, celebrated in Greek mythology because of the two springs that were located there. The springs were said to be the source of poetic inspiration so this lead me to believe that Heaney's poem was about finding inspiration within himself. The well symbolized his sould and looking into was like looking deep within himself.
Mount Helicon was also savored by Apollo and the muses, some of the things I read mentioned Narcissus, the Greek figure obsessed with his reflection which could parallel Heaney's reccuring theme of a coming of age which is supposedly something found in many of Heaney's poem.
The change near the end of the poem, represents the coming of age from childhood to adulthood, the well is like a memory of his childhood.

Praise In Summer

This poem reminded me of a sonnet, especially with the ABAB rhyme scheme. In a few things I read about the author, Richard Wilbur, it said his work was characterized as a formal and refined beauty which I agree with since this poem Praise In Summer is beautiful and flows well.
"Obscurely yet most surely called to praise, As sometimes summer calls us all, I said The hills are heavens full of branching ways". I found this poem to be very difficult to determine the meaning. I thought perhaps these first few lines is talking about that feeling you get when it's just a beautiful day and you want to go outside and enjoy it, it's like your called to go outside. The hills could be the different paths you can take on your journey outdoors.
"Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead; I said the trees are mines in air. I said See how the sparrow burrows in the sky!" I figured the mole part was literal, since they are burrowing animals they can literally move over the dead if they are burried in the ground. I did some research on star-nosed moles though and found they lived in marshes and wetlands, so the part that they fly overhead the dead was confusing because usually corpses are not burriend in wet ground. Such as in New Orleans, all graves are above ground because they don't want the graves to get swamped. The tree part could mean that the trees hold a lot of value such as a literal mine with precious stones inside does. The tree is of value to the sparrow so that is may rest in the tree, which is like burrowing in the sky.
"And then I wondered why this mad instead Perverts our praise to uncreations, why Such savor's in this wrenching things Awry. Does sense so stale that it must needs derange The world to know it? To a praiseful eyes Should it not be enough of fresh and strange That trees grow green, and moles can course in clay, And sparrows sweep the ceiling of our day?" I am really unsure as to what he means by this and why he italicized instead.