Emily's+Poetry+Log+(September)

Poetry Log (September)
Favorite Line(s): "No light, no light in the blue Polish eye." || Favorite Line(s): "...forming the lip of a milk jug reaching into the sky/ready to pour pure air." || Favorite Line(s): "I have sown my seed on soil/guaranteed by poverty to fail./But I don’t complain" || Favorite Line(s): "Tomorrow, it will all run backwards." || Favorite Line(s): "I can only do two things for them--/describe this flight/and not add a last line." || Favorite Line(s): "It stands,/a testament of one life, one story/of a hardworking young man/struggling, moving forward/to a place where bicycles/lead to dreams of better days ahead." || Impressive quantity, diversity, and commentary. You will show up armed and ready to attack Paper One in May. Keep the great work. Enjoy. || Favorite Line(s): "Here, where God lives among the trees,/Where birds and monks the whole day sing" || Favorite Line(s): "That same small fire/That wanted to come home/With something of its own/To tell,/And it did,/A small piece of blue in its mouth." || Favorite line(s): “On the glass, its light carving out the curtains/Like the shadow of a wing across the windowpane.” || Favorite Line(s): "To everlasting rest,—and with them Time/Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face/Of a dark dial in a sunless place." || Favorite Line(s): "How to swim beyond the sharks/inside the lake of my own heart?" || Favorite Line(s): "Me in my too-small pajama pants stacking juice jugs on neighbors’ juice jugs." ||
 * || **Date** || **Title** || **Poet** || **Comments** ||
 * 26 || September 10, 2011 || [|More Light! More Light!] || Anthony Hecht || The poem "More Light! More Light!" is a poem describing two executions during the English Renaissance and World War II respectively. The poem serves to illustrate the heinous executions of people during these time periods. The first execution seems to have been an attempt to burn the victim. However, the "gunpowder failed to ignite" and "his legs blistered sticks on which the black sap/bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light." This light refers to the heavenly light the victim sees as he is dying. The victim seems to repent his sin and show faith in God as he dies. The second death is said to be even worse than the first. During the second execution, four are killed, three buried alive and one shot and left to die for three hours. These people, however, had no repentance nor prayer and saw "no light" as they passed and decayed.
 * 27 || September 10, 2011 || [|Within the Great Wave of Kanagawa] || Julia Reckless || The poem "Within the Great Wave of Kanagawa" refers to the [|famous woodblock print] by Japanese artist Hokusai. Contrary to popular misconception, the art does not show a tsunami, but is most likely just a 'wave of the ocean.' The first line of the poem, "Swallows porpoise the sky," suggests wordplay, as while porpoises are mammals of the ocean, the word also means to bounce, or to move like a porpoise, up and down out of the water. This shows the lack of violence in the wave, as birds seem to be playfully flying around it. The wave is also described as gentle, "its white finger tips gently [falling]." The speaker also makes reference to Mount Fuji as the "Rowan." The speaker again seems to use wordplay here, as rowans, in addition to referring to volcanoes, also refer to berries of a type of tree. The speaker describes the volcano with the characteristics of rowans from a tree, stating "its berried cargo scattering." Throughout the poem, the speaker suggests the volcano's impending violence. However, at the end of the poem it is revealed that no disaster is to come, perhaps reflecting the common misconception of the artwork as a violent tsunami.
 * 28 || September 10, 2011 || **[|The Farmer]** || W.D. Ehrhart || The mundane routines of "The Farmer" serve as a metaphor for determination and perseverance. The farmer describes his life as a cyclical routine of constant disappointment. "Every day [he does] in to the fields/to see what is growing/ and what needs to be done," even though he knows that "nothing is growing" and "everything needs to be done." He works until his "bones ache," and states that he has been "guaranteed by poverty to fail." Despite the speaker's knowledge that he will constantly fail, he knows that he must be patient and, determined, continues to try to reach his dream.
 * 29 || September 11, 2011 || **[|Tomorrow]** || Michael Brett || The poem "Tomorrow" is a poem that describes the future of the world after 9/11. While the speaker seems to provide some hope that one day the sorrow and devastation of 9/11 will lift, the speaker also seems to convey skepticism towards our attitudes towards the event. The speaker believes that "Tomorrow, everyone who died will come home." While this line suggests comfort that everything will be all right, it also suggests that tomorrow, all the people who have died will be forgotten and we will move on, as if nothing is missing. The speaker believes that we will eventually live as if 9/11 never happened, and "mobile phones," instead of being a means of communication and connection to those we care about, "will be just toys again." We will forget the smoke, and as if events rewound themselves, "The sky will be clear, blue, unbroken." The speaker's suggestion that we will forget the events of 9/11 in our daily lives also alludes to all other terrible disasters that have happened in the past. From natural disasters to terrorist attacks, the devastation most of the world has felt has only been short-lived. Only on anniversaries and holidays are people reminded, and only then do they commemorate and remember the events that have devastated the world. This attitude reflects the self-serving nature of the human race, spending most of their days in their own small world.
 * 30 || September 11, 2011 || **[|Photograph from September 11]** || Wislawa Szymborska, Translated from the original Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak || The poem "Photograph from September 11" refers to [|a photograph] taken during the 9/11 incident by Richard Drew of the Associated press. The photo depicts a man allegedly leaping to his death in order to avoid being killed by the smoke. The poem by Symborska describes the falling man as frozen in time, stating that "The photograph halted them in life/and now keeps them/above the earth toward the earth." the photograph seems to allow the man to live on forever, never reaching the ground. The speaker attempts to immortalize the falling man by "not [adding] a last line" and hence repeats the lines of the poem once again. The poem is meant to be continuous, with the same lines repeated again and again. Thus, just as the poem will never end, the man in the photograph will never hit the ground.
 * 31 || September 11, 2011 || [|Bicycle] || Frank Messina || The poem "Bicycle" remembers the delivery boy Juan Gutierrez, who died while making a delivery at the World Trade Center on 9/11. The bicycle, awaits for the return of its owner, only to be left standing alone forever. The abandoned bicycle seems to symbolize those who lost friends and family during the 9/11 incident. "Now a shrine," the bicycle stands, as though mourning alone, "its wiry basket tied with paper ribbons/its grey, skeletal frame encircled." The description of the bicycle seems to reflect the physical appearance that the delivery boy had, and just as the bicycle was surrounded by paper ribbons, the delivery boy was encircled by the debris and smoke of the Twin Towers in the World Trade Center collapsed around him. The bicycle is now a mere memory of the delivery boy, and for those who knew Juan Gutierrez, the world has "[moved] forward/to a place where bicycles/lead to dreams of better days ahead."
 * ||  ||   ||   || Checked 18 September 31/15-25 KBoyce
 * 32 || September 18, 2011 || [|At the Three Fountains] || Arthur Symons || In the poem “At the Three Fountains,” the speaker alludes to his arrival at the gates of heaven. The poem begins with a reference to God, suggesting that the “Three Fountains” in the title refer to the three forms of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Interestingly, the poem also follows a three-line-per-stanza pattern, suggesting a relation to the title. In each stanza, the second line seems to be an interruption, suggesting a worry or a sigh, since it is the only one that does not rhyme. In the second stanza, the speaker questions his future, wondering whether or not he will be able to enter heaven, seeing that upon his arrival the “gates are closed.” The third stanza seems to confirm the setting of the poem, referring to “Souls of the twilight” and the “garden of that death.” In the final stanza, the speaker wonders what it would be like, perhaps to finally enter heaven, and to experience love for eternity.
 * 33 || September 18, 2011 || [|A Small Story About The Sky] || Alberto Rios || The poem “A Small Story about the Sky” seems to refer to the pollution caused by man-made fires that tear apart the sky and destroy the ozone layer. The first stanza of the poem seems to allude to the existing hole in the ozone layer, “a piece of the sky burnt/and which then/could not be counted on/even by the birds.” The speaker also describes the fire as being “along with the land,” suggesting that the fire was indeed on the earth (not the sun). In the second stanza, the speaker laments on our forgetfulness of the danger of fires. The speaker describes the childhood and lifetime of a fire, its desires just like those of humans, hoping to “do something big.” The parallelism between mankind and the fire suggest the fire is of man-made origin. As the fires continue to grow, with us oblivious to the size and magnitude possible for a fire, the sky is torn apart and disappears forever. The personification of the sky as it disappears, “[running] left, […], The sky with all its arms,/Hands, fingers, fingernails,” suggests that the fire created by man is and has begun to harm us. The final stanza refers the selfish nature of man by stating that the fire wished to have "something of its own," suggesting the short-sighted persona of mankind. Instead of trying to protect the sky and the environment, man wishes to make fires so that they can develop things of their own.
 * 34 || September 18, 2011 || [|The Wound] || Tom Sleigh || In “The Wound,” the speaker describes the nightmare that befalls upon him as he sleeps. The speaker illustrates the horrors of being tortured in his nightmare, being “blind” and cut by a blade. He describes himself as being “as of an animal […] round and round, trapped, stealthily desperate,” conveying a frenzied emotion. The speaker is kept in the dark, oblivious to what is around him. The speaker alludes to the Biblical story of Jacob Wrestling with the Angel who “dreaming met his dark angel,” his life spared by God. The speaker subsequently conveys that although he too wrestles, “nothing blessed [him].” As the nightmare climaxes to become more terrible, the speaker awakens and sees the “moon a warning-bell beating/On the glass, its light carving out the curtains/Like the shadow of a wing across the windowpane,” as if an angel had been protecting him all along.
 * 35 || September 25, 2011 || [|The Sea of Death] || Thomas Hood || In "The Sea of Death," the speaker illustrates death as a sorrowful yet beautiful thing. In the first stanza, the speaker describes the silence and stillness of death, using words such as "sad" and "silent" as well as a metaphor of a woman disappearing into the ocean, the sea of death. In the next stanza, the speaker reveals the beauty of death, with "cherubs" and "loveliness." The speaker describes the dead as appearing peaceful and innocent, free of worry or emotion. In the last stanza, however, the speaker returns to a sorrowful view of death, the people laying alone and gone from the world, into a "sunless place."
 * 36 || September 25, 2011 || **[|In a Dark Wood]** || Chard Deniord || In the poem “In a Dark Wood,” the speaker describes his journey through a place of nature. During the first half of the poem, the speaker illustrates the animals, plants, and streams he sees, giving the poem a relaxed mood. However, the speaker later reveals that he was at first lazy and unwilling to come walk in the woods. The speaker then questions himself, referring to the spider that he had seen on his path. The speaker wonders how these animals can be so free, and specifically how the spider can spin a web of such complex thought while “[riding] the air,” free and adventurous. The speaker asks, “How to swim beyond the sharks/inside the lake of my own heart?” suggesting that reaching out to nature is outside the human comfort zone; we would much rather be shelled in our homes. The speaker expresses a desire to escape this confinement and be a bigger part of nature.
 * 37 || September 25, 2011 || [|Tonight] || Ladan Osman || "Tonight" is contrasted with other usual nights that the speaker has experienced. The speaker describes "Tonight" as a "drunken night," as if everyone except the speaker busy washing their worries away, relaxing, or partying, taking a break from their usual lifestyles. As the speaker takes out his garbage, he expresses slight melancholy that there is no one there to say hello or to brighten this mundane chore by lending him a hand like their usually is. It seems that everyone has something new or exciting or even interesting to do, except for the speaker. The speaker then expresses slight anger or irritation at the "smell of sour breath" and "water bottle rolling under a car." The water bottle seems to symbolize the drunkenness of the night, as it shows the ordinary and common drink disappearing, leaving the speaker alone. Finally, the speaker "tells [himself he] will wave" if he sees anyone drinking as he looks up onto the balcony. This suggests that he is trying to cheer up and forgive the drunkenness of the night.