September

> If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same:." || September 1, 2011 || It suggests that the dreams the speaker tills are never achievable; tending to them only increases the desperation of the speaker || September 6, 2011 || place deep wet underarms to our lips, and then their white asses, then those loud mouths" interest me. Does the speaker not deem him or herself worthy enough to first have a kiss on the lips from these boys, instead subjecting him or herself to a mouth full of armpit in his or her own fantasies? Thoughtful analysis of a wide variety of poetry. ||  || > That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it" It could almost be a poem on its own, it displays the message so clearly and succinctly || September 20, 2011 ||
 * 14 || If || Rudyard Kipling || * This poems suggests that finding balance and peace within one's life will allow one to live life to the fullest
 * The structure of the poem reflects the ideas outlined within it. It has a simple ABABCDCD rhyme scheme and is divided evenly into four stanzas of eight lines each, making the poem sound balanced and simple, like the lifestyle suggested by the speaker.
 * I feel that the poem offers lots of words to live by. It makes me think about how I live my life. My favorite lines are "If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
 * 15 || The Fountain || Anthony Hecht || * The way the stanzas are arranged on the page makes the poem look like a series of waves, like the ripples of the waters on a fountain
 * After the last stanza, the poem is signed with the name "Charles Baudelaire", suggesting that he is the speaker of the poem
 * The speaker seems to be reminded of his lover by the water in the fountain; he claims to see her in it ("the sheer luminous gown / the fountain wears / Where Phoebe's own / Color appears" ) || September 5, 2011 ||
 * 16 || The Farmer || W.D. Ehrhart || * The speaker uses the image of a farm as a metaphor for dreams and aspirations
 * The poem starts and ends with the same line "Each day I go into the fields", encasing the whole of the poem and suggesting that this metaphorical dream farm is a constant burden on the speaker; day in and day out he or she goes out to tend to his or her aspirations
 * My favorite line is "all that grows is the slowintransigent intensity of need".
 * 17 || Parthenogenesis || Brenda Shaughnessy || * I had to look up the meaning of the title of the poem. Apparently it is a form of asexual reproduction found in females that occurs without fertilization from a male.
 * The speaker seems to have a love-hate relationship with eating, "making cakes to celebrate any old day", but at the same time feeling that "fullness is dullness"
 * The speaker advocates for putting less emphasis on appearance, demanding to "stop the madness and just eat the mirror" || September 6, 2011 ||
 * 18 || ABBA || Dennis Cooper || * The subject of the poem is the 70s Swedish pop group ABBA, who were very popular in the US
 * I like how the speaker starts the poem by immediately introducing the drug problem that the speaker possesses, bluntly stating that "we snort all our coke / on the way to the party". This suggests that the speaker is in a euphoric, drug-induced state throughout the whole of the poem.
 * The speaker describes a deep connection to songs of ABBA, that his or her life is intertwined with that of the band, that band members are somehow watching and are inspired by the speaker ("they see what we're doing. they put it on record.") || September 7, 2011 ||
 * 19 || The Water Carriers || Angelo Giambra || * The title, "The Water Carriers" applies to both the bees and the children in the poem, the bee carries water back in order to cool down the hive, and the children carry water as they come back from an afternoon of swimming in a lake, juxtaposing the structured, workaholic nature of the bees to the carefree, fun-loving essence of the children.
 * The comparison between the children and the bees continues - the speaker likens the world of the children to a beehive through the metaphor "the August sun melting the world around us as if it were wax", bringing to mind the beeswax that is produced in a hive
 * The poem has an overall pleasant, dreamy mood to it, as the speaker is reminiscing about the summers of his or her childhood. Reading it leaves me feeling happy. || September 10, 2011 ||
 * 20 || Sacramento O No || Liz Waldner || * The speaker appears to be talking about a day in his or her life in Sacramento, as indicated by the title
 * I had to look up was "demasiado" (line 4) meant - it's Spanish for "too", perhaps indicating that the man living on the floor below the speaker that "makes demasiado noise" (line 4) is of Spanish decent
 * Despite his or her lack of sleep due to neighbors, the traffic, and strange happenings such as the "asparagus eating contest", the speaker seems to greatly appreciate his or her surroundings in Sacramento and to really feel at home || September 10, 2011 ||
 * 21 || Out at Lanesville || David Ferry || * To me the speaker seems very imaginative. They take advantage of the ambiguity of the scene he or she is observing from a distance, contemplating various ideas as to what the people on the boat and ashore might be saying and perhaps things that have happened in the past
 * The speaker suggests that what he or she imagines about the subjects is better than how the subjects really are in real life. When one of the subjects of the poem, a women whose back is facing the speaker, turns and looks toward the speaker, the speaker comments "her body, turned away is more expressive / than her blank face"
 * The poem leaves me wondering why the speakers mentioned the subjects were teachers - what were a whole pack of teachers doing down at a lake, just sitting there? || September 12, 2011 ||
 * 22 || Courtesy || David Ferry || * I really liked the simplicity of the language of this poem. It was almost like reading a novel - straightforward, yet very descriptive of the scene
 * The poem displays something familiar to me - two people, though strangers, awkwardly interacting with each other out of courtesy.
 * The poem seems to flow very slowly, as if to mimic this slow start to the beginning of the subjects' relationship
 * Favorite line: "a couple of blocks away the wash of traffic / dimly sounds as if we were near the ocean" (Line 17-18) || September 12, 2011 ||
 * 23 || The Soldier || David Ferry || * The speaker offers up an interesting metaphor for a soldier - a spider in the sea, only its thin string of web, its "guts" (line 6, 7, 13) holding it in place, much like how a soldier's connection to his or her home is often the only thing allowing he or she to keep their sanity in the midst of war
 * The speaker is writing a letter, presumably a loved one ("I love you and miss you" (Line 15)), the speaker mentions that the recipient of the letter is "hard to imagine", implying that the speaker was deployed a while ago, long enough to start to forget the faces of his or her loved ones
 * Though this is a personal letter, the speaker never directly describes his or herself and his or her feelings, choosing instead to divulge information through the metaphor of the spider and speaking about the other soldier in the room || September 13, 2011 ||
 * 24 || After School, Street Football, Eighth Grade || Dennis Cooper || * I was disturbed by how the speaker continued to comment on the boy's attractive appearance even after he was hit by a car and presumably dead ("so a car hit him and he sprawled, fifty feet away, sexy, but he was dead")
 * The lines "We wanted them to wander over,
 * The speaker seems to downplay the death of the boy, instead focusing on the absolute joy that he or she received from getting to talk to his attractive friends || September 14, 2011 ||
 * 25 || Potato Soup || Daniel Nyikos || * The final line of the poem, "I turn off the computer and eat alone" left me feeling particularly sad for the speaker as it gave the impression that the speaker feels that he will inevitably end up alone, especially when it is juxtaposed with the happy laughter described in the second line ("They laugh and say I must get married soon")
 * I thought the contrast between the use of technology (the computer, webcam) and the traditional family atmosphere between the speaker, his mother and his aunt was interesting, When the speaker talks about his aunt and his mother, it is as if they are really with him
 * The use of the computer and webcam seems to emphasize the lonliness that the speaker feels. The speaker makes it feel as if his aunt and his mother are really in the kitchen with him throughout most ofthe poem, describing their arguments and laughter, so when they're immediately disappear when the speaker turns off the computer at the end is startling, and you can really sense how alone the speaker really is || September 18, 2011 ||
 * 26 || The Flurry || Sharon Olds || * Though the speaker never says it out right, it seems that the subject of the poem is a divorce between the speaker and their spouse, a saddening yet peaceful one
 * The speaker's spouse, the one demanding the divorce as implied by the lines "//I'm// / the killer" (line 3-4), seems to be handling the situation well, sitting on the couch as normal, while the speaker appears absolutely broken, contrastly sitting on the floor, perhaps too taken aback by the situation to even sit next to her spouse on the couch
 * I like the metaphor of the speaker's tears to a flurry of acrobats jumping through the air - the image gives the impression of extreme, almost chaotic sadness on the speaker's part in reaction to the divorce || September 18, 2011 ||
 * ||  ||   || Checked 18 September 26/15-25 KBoyce
 * 27 || It Couldn't Be Done || Edgar Albert Guest || * The ABAB rhyme scheme and upbeat sing-song quality of the lines reminiscent of Dr. Suess help make the voice of the speaker sound positive and happy, helping to instill the message of the poem - that you can do anything if you try
 * The speaker is very vague as to who "he" is and what exactly the seemingly impossible challenge he conquered was - to me it dampens the message of the poem. So, he did something. What was it?
 * I like the final line: "Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
 * 28 || A Toast To Men || Edgar Albert Guest || * When saw the title "A Toast to Men", I thought it strangely contrasted with the first line: "//Dedicated to the Women."// I was intrigued and really wanted to further read the poem.
 * Within the first few lines of the first stanza I realized that the speaker was not really in praise of men. The speaker conveys a very sarcastic tone, in turn expressing their distaste for the frequency that women are blamed for the faults of man
 * The last line, "But, after all, here's to the men / we love them just the same" suggests that despite blame being constantly put on women by men, society still feels the need to give all men praise and put them on a pedestal || September 20, 2011 ||
 * 29 || Only A Dad || Edgar Albert Guest || * In contrast to the previous poem, the speaker is sincerely praising men - specifically fathers
 * The poem outlines the "daily strife" (line 9) that fathers go through in order to provide for their families because they love them
 * The repetition of the line "only a dad" brings home every point that the speaker makes. The speaker makes me think of my own father and what he has gone through for my sake. || September 20, 2011 ||
 * 30 || How You Know || Joe Mills || * This poems outlines a conversation between a father and a daughter about how you know when you are in love.
 * The speaker acts as the father's inner monologue and it seems that he has obvious difficulty answering the question for his presumably young daughter; he weighs the pros and cons of various answers he can give her
 * It saddens me that the father explains love so beautifully in his head ("I want to say love is this / desire to help even when I know I can’t, / just as I couldn’t explain electricity, stars, / the color of the sky, / baldness, tornadoes, / fingernails, coconuts, or the other things / she has asked about over the years"), but chooses not to actually say this to his daughter, instead opting for the usual answer to life's hard questions: "go ask your mother." || September 20, 2011 ||
 * 31 || Adam's Curse || William Butler Yeats || * Before even reading the poem, I thought that the "Adam" in the title referred to Adam, the father of all mankind as proclaimed by the bible.
 * I also thought the "curse" might refer to women - after al, Eve was the first human to ever sin, causing her and Adam to be thrown out of the Garden of Eden
 * I found that the speaker of the poem does not label women as a curse - After describing a conversation about poetry and love between a friend as well as a friend of a friend (" that beautiful, mild woman"), the author describes the fading of the day into night and subsequently goes into how he is striving to continue to love his significant other, but has found that his feelings for her have faded having become "as weary-hearted as that hollow moon", suggesting that the love and affection that men feel for women (or want to feel) can be quite draining and difficult to maintain || September 21, 2011 ||
 * 32 || Cabbage Gardens || Susan Howe || * For about the first thirty lines, the speaker uses extremely short sentences, some lines only consisting of one word, causing the poem to move along very quickly.
 * These first thirty lines seem somewhat disconnected from each other in terms of meaning - it is as if the speaker is speaking frantically, without much thought as to what they are saying
 * After the flurry of short lines, the poem slows down, the literal shape of the poem taking on that of slow, soothing waves || September 22, 2011 ||
 * 33 || Chicago || Carl Sandburg || * At first the speaker appears to be talking to Chicago, telling the city that people have proclaimed how horrible and wicked Chicago is
 * However, the speaker then shifts to replying to said people, defending the great city of Chicago, even with all its faults
 * The speaker uses a lot of metaphors to describe the city, often personifying it and making it out to be a living, breathing thing ("lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning") || September 26, 2011 ||
 * 34 || Reading || David Dominguez || * The first four lines give me such a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. The speaker uses such cozy imagery that I want to somehow jump into the poem and experience exactly what the speaker is experiencing
 * The speaker outlines his or her feelings of hopelessness after reading a play by Federico Garcia Lorca - he or she feels as if they could never write as well as he could, and give up on the will to write, instead spending the days listlessly, only with the vague hope of finding inspiration in his or her surroundings
 * The speaker ultimately finds inspiration not from the present but from the past - a time when the speaker and his or her father were listening to music together, which eventually lead to the speaker attempting to play the song on a trumpet || September 28, 2011 ||
 * 35 || A Geography of Poets || Andrei Codrescu || * The poem has a distinct lack of punctuation and capitalization, making the speaker's voice seem casual, informal
 * The speaker emphasize that poets take inspiration from pain, and that they tend to move from location to location in order to escape it
 * The speaker uses Latin phrases in lines 25 and 26 ("ubi patria ibi bene / or ibi bene ubi patria"), one being the inverse of the other. I could only find the meaning of the first phrase: "I owe my allegiance to the country in which I prosper." || September 28, 2011 ||