Emily's+Poetry+Log+(April)

Favorite Line(s): "Midnight’s merely blue,/but me, me, me, I’m/through" || Favorite Line(s): "To help us comprehend the magnitude/of absence, huge rooms/lie empty of their wonders—the Colossus,/Babylon’s Hanging Gardens" || Favorite Line(s): "a moonface, with a healed gash that means //harvest//" || Favorite Line(s): "I see a light but forget/to click. I didn’t remember dreams for a year." || Favorite Line(s): "Why no flames beneath stones that burn?" || Favorite Line(s): "We are all snow birds atop/the cherry blossoms of August." || Favorite Line(s): "How it burns on its axis/as if it were turning into/pineapple-colored kerosene/the way the Hawaiian pig, apple in snout, roasts/in its own tropical meat under the countdown sun." || Favorite Line(s): "Ghost sun half/hidden, where did you go?" || Favorite Line(s): "Philosophic/in its complex, ovoid emptiness" || Favorite Line(s): "Sometimes, like love, the neurons just cross fire./You don’t get everything back." || Favorite Line(s): "....foreboding forests and bottles of wine and/ivory and rainbows and dust everywhere. You hear piano notes and/ominous drumming screaming whispering laughing." ||
 * || **Date** || **Title** || **Poet** || **Comments** ||
 * 96 || April 2, 2012 || [|Bad Sheep] || Hailey Leithauser || The speaker in the poem "Bad Sheep" imitates the vocal expressions of a sheep as she describes her own faults. The imitation of the sheep is conveyed through repetition of words in the poem such as "me, me, me" and "scratch, scratch, scratch." The speaker incorporates sheep-related metaphors and descriptors to illustrate her misbehavior as well. The title "bad sheep" also suggests the act of nonconformism as the speaker diverges from the typical path rather than following other sheep in their actions. The speaker also conveys a desire to break away from the conformism of others, seemingly nonchalant to the punishments or condemnations that may befall upon her.
 * 97 || April 2, 2012 || **[|In the Museum of Lost Objects]** || Rebecca Lindenberg || "In the Museum of Lost Objects," the speaker describes the vacancy that is experienced by the ironic 'presence' of those objects that have been lost. The museum of lost objects is one that houses only the labels of the objects that had been lost. The speaker expresses sorrow at all the precious treasures that have been taken from the world, and is depressed at the inability to truly appreciate these works. At the same time, however, the speaker conveys the possibility for wild imaginations, the pretense that something may exist even though it does not in reality. The museum of lost objects is also said by the speaker to contain those "poems you will now never write," suggesting that it does not merely contain objects that may not have been literally lost, but perhaps also lost ideas and inspirations.
 * 98 || April 8, 2012 || [|Carnival] || Rebecca Lindenberg || In the poem "Carnival," the speaker explores the idea of masks and the way in which they succeed in hiding one's identity, "render[ing] lovers identical with night." The speaker suggests that masks ironically allow each person to be seen in the same way, despite the vast difference in the decorations and patterns upon the masks. The title of the poem, "Carnival," suggests that the role of masks is also to create an atmosphere of jollity and entertainment where judgement is absent.
 * 99 || April 8, 2012 || [|Vision Test] || Patricia Kirkpatrick || In the poem "Vision Test," the speaker describes her experiences as she undergoes the surgical process of resecting her brain tumor. The speaker is strangely nonchalant as she sits in the operating room. Random thoughts appear to pop up in her brain, perhaps reflecting the manner in which the surgeon is pressing different lobes of her brain. The speaker thinks of her childhood, which is immediately shrouded by the sadness of old age, "draping" her childhood like a curtain. Additionally, the poem is structured as one stanza, suggestive of the way in which the speaker's thoughts are all melded together and seemingly indistinct.
 * 100 || April 8, 2012 || [|Butterfly the Gnarled] || Amy King || In the poem "Butterfly the Gnarled," the speaker extrapolates the idea of having "butterflies in one's stomach," detailing such a feeling of anxiety through more grotesque imagery. Throughout the poem, parasites are not only within the speaker, but also described to be coming out of the speaker, "a plural centipede burrowing outbound/crawls the spine of my hand." The speaker also suggests that the nerves she is experiencing are associated with the process of writing, the bugs forcing her to write as if she were a puppet. Interestingly, what the parasites force the speaker to write down seem to be the actual body of the poem.
 * 101 || April 15, 2012 || **[|Some Pink in Your Color]** || Amy King || In the poem "Some Pink in Your Color," the speaker incorporates pink and red imagery into an otherwise bleak, black and white atmosphere. The speaker illustrates somber events, from a girl laying in the hospital to the approach of winter, to the return of soldiers from a difficult war. The speaker's incorporation of pink and red images, such as cherry blossoms and hearts, within these scenes adds a tint of hope to otherwise sorrowful situations, as if the joyful colors are returning to a colorless world.
 * 102 || April 15 2012 || [|You Can't Build a Child] || Sandra Simonds || In the poem "You Can't Build a Child," the speaker lists many childhood stories and dreams, as well as some teenage desires, perhaps to show the extent to which such imaginations cannot create the idealistic child (as portrayed by media). The speaker also suggests that such fantastical ideas of "pirate's planks"and "Robin Hood" cannot allow an existing child to mature or develop, conveying that such ideas must be let go and forsaken in order to build a child up. The speaker incorporates many 'cliche' images of childhood such as a "carousel" and a roast pig with "apple in snout" to convey the lack of effectiveness in such ideas in building a child.
 * 103 || April 15, 2012 || [|Snow Tiger] || Yusef Komunyakka || In the poem "Snow Tiger," the speaker describes the scene of a hunter in search for a source to satiate his hunger. The hunter seems unfamiliar with the glacial atmosphere, lost in a "white field's point of view" and wondering where the "ghost sun" has gone. The hunter's only comfort, yet his simultaneous fear, is that "there's always a mother of some other creature born to fight for her young," suggesting that food will show itself, while hinting at fear of a possibly violent encounter. The speaker conveys the suddenness of the encounter between the hunter and the snow tiger through a burst of sound and action among the quiet field. The speaker conveys that "in this landscape a pretty horse/translates into a man holding a gun," suggesting that the snow tiger had been drawn towards the hunter by his odd and mesmerizing appearance, yet was unfortunately deceived, resulting in the "flash of eyes and nerves" and "cries from a cave."
 * 104 || April 21, 2012 || [|0.] || Hailey Leithauser || In the poem "0," the speaker expresses appreciation for the mathematical symbol. The speaker comments on the symbol's complexity yet simplicity and the phenomenon of such a figure, characterizing it as something "Romans never dreamt of."
 * 105 || April 21, 2012 || [|Survivor's Guilt] || Patricia Kirkpatrick || In the poem "Survivor's Guilt," the speaker conveys the ironic sorrow of being the lucky survivor of an accident. At the same time, however, this idea of "Survivor's Guilt" is often present when companions or loved ones are lost. The speaker conveys that his depression and sorrow are only present in privacy, that "how I've changed may not be apparent" in public. While the speaker does feel extreme guilt at his survival, however, he also reveals that he does treasure his life, stating that "I'm singed but intact: I don't burn down the house." Such a statement emphasizes his guilt at being the one who survived over others, and perhaps depressed at the loss of other lives though not necessarily sad about his own life. Although the speaker seems to remember the exact moments before and after the accident, he ultimately accepts the events that have occurred.
 * 106 || April 30, 2012 || __**Could Be You**__ || Kathleen Boyce || The poem "Could Be You" details the possible emotional and neurological experiences an IB English A1 HL student may experience during the initial moments of a Paper 2 examination. The speaker outlines the anxiety a student may feel as he or she enters the examination room, nervous and "doomed." The silent atmosphere of the examination room causes the student to be "preternaturally aware" of his or her surroundings, as if "the entire world/is braille." Throughout the poem, the speaker incorporates many allusions to Paper 2 examination works studied during the second semester of the IB English course. The first allusion from //Wide Sargasso Sea// by Jean Rhys is presented as the examination booklet opens "like a butterfly's wing--or a burning parrot's--" to reveal the Paper 2 essay prompts. Sensory imagery is then incorporated as the student takes a deep breath in preparation for delving into the examination before his or her eyes. Subsequently, "images explode in quick succession before [the student's] eyes." These images are flashes of symbols and significant scenes from the examination works, with flickering candles from //WSS// to shrunken heads from //HoD// to piano notes from //H&Dust// to ominous drumming from //TFA.// As the contents of the examination works flood the student's mind, the student is shown to be confident and satisfied, a stark contrast to the unease experienced at the beginning of the poem. The final stanza of the poem is written in short phrases, conveying the relaxed nature of the student as he or she begins to write. :)