Emily's+Poetry+Log+(November)

Favorite Line(s): "It seems/to have been/a train./There seems/to have been/a track." || Favorite Line(s): "The way we stand there, soaking in it,/mittened fingers reaching." || Favorite Line(s): "sit/bathed in the royal jellies" || Favorite Line(s): "The walls are black/and soft, the bed a balloon/of night-clothing." ||
 * || **Date** || **Title** || **Poet** || **Comments** ||
 * 56 || November 23, 2011 || **[|A Hundred Bolts of Satin]** || Kay Ryan || The poem "A Hundred Bolts of Satin" describes the human mind, and the horror at losing any connections within the mind. The speaker uses a train as a metaphor for the deterioration of the mind. The speaker states that "all you have to do is lose one connection," which uses the concept of a car that has broken off of a train to show the magnitude of devastation a broken link in the brain would cause. A lost car can have chaotic effects by causing a train to speed up due to lack of weight or causing accidents by crashing into other locomotives. Similarly, a lost connection in the brain can not only kill one part of the brain, but can also affect the entirety of the brain and hence human behavior. Interestingly the poem is written in a very broken format, with each line containing only a three or four words. On the other hand, the poem is written entirely in one stanza, which shows the flow and connection between the lines and conveys the wholeness of the poem. "The things you unpack from the abandoned cars cannot sustain life," shows that the entirety of the brain is required in order to have a fully functional living being. The speaker ends the poem with "perhaps you specialized more than you imagined," suggesting that the 'lost car' is necessary for life, and you cannot make anything out of the cars you have left: "tractor axles," "a dozen clasped knives," "a hundred bolts of satin."
 * 57 || November 23, 2011 || [|Winter Sun] || Molly Fisk || "Winter Sun" brings about a nostalgic feeling of the cold winter seasons. The speaker describes a somewhat desperation for warmth amidst the cold, focusing on the small amount of warmth that is available during the winter season while the bitter cold, despite its severity, remains in the background. Although the speaker describes the cold with words such as "Death," the imagery that conveys the winter sunlight reflecting off of the snow, and the "mittened fingers reaching" for the sun as "we stand there, soaking in it" places a focus on the desire for the distant warmth. This poem, although simple, serves to recount and describe a rather common experience among people, evoking the feeling of yearning one experiences during such an event. The speaker emphasizes the yearning for the warmth of the winter sun in the final stanza of the poem by stating, "and how carefully we gather [the warmth] we can/to offer later, in the darkness, one body to another." While this final stanza suggests the attempts to keep warm in the night, it also seems slightly morbid, as the darkness seems to allude to the "Death" mentioned earlier in the poem.
 * 58 || November 30, 2011 || [|Queen, You Are Fathomed] || Joseph Spece || "Queen, You Are Fathomed" seems to reveal the ignorance of royalty in contrast with the struggles of ordinary citizens. The speaker describes the royal as having "slavish attention" and being "bathed in the royal jellies." But above all, the speaker emphasizes the Queen's "ignorance of desire." The Queen never "wonder[s] what tastes abound in distant clusters" because she is so rich. The Queen never wonders "Why" as the speaker does. Although the speaker often wonders if he may "someday escape," the queen never raises such questions. The Queen's riches prevent her from pursuing reasons for inequality and suffering. She merely yearns for more attention and more wealth while those such as the speaker yearn to escape their comparative poverty, looking for a way out of this injustice.
 * 59 || November 30, 2011 || [|The Cenotaph] || Fanny Howe || In "The Cenotaph," the speaker begins by stating that he wishes to "leave this place unremembered." These first two lines of the poem directly contrast with the title, in which a cenotaph is a tomb-like monument for one who is buried in another place. Throughout the poem, the speaker describes the dull atmosphere and through imagery and description, portrays his environment as one with a very grayscale appearance. It seems that the speaker is inside a gloomy kitchen. He states that the "gas stove is leaking" and the "refrigerator [is] stained with rust." "There are only two forks," revealing the lonely atmosphere. The speaker seems distant from the outside where "street life goes all night" and "freedmen shout and laugh outside the kitchen." The speaker concludes that "[his] pillow is [his] friend," suggesting that the only way for him to escape such misery is to sleep.