October

16, 2011 || 16, 2011 || 24, 2011 || 24, 2011 || 24, 2011 || 31, 2011 ||
 * 36 || Intensive Care Unit || Adrien Stoutenburg || * The speaker of the poem outlines his or her experience in an intensive care unit in a hospital after a presumably severe accident from which they suffered injuries that caused his or her face to become deformed
 * The speaker seems to have gone through some severe psychological trauma as well - to the speaker, what is real seems to be imaginary, and the hallucinations he or she experiences seem to be real
 * The speaker also seems to feel helpless and disconnected - due to their injuries, a plastic breathing tube has been shoved down his or her throat, inhibiting his or her ability to communicate verbally with the nurses and other patients. The speaker is also in a "windowless" room, isolating the speaker from the outside world and furthering his or her feelings of disconnection. || October 4, 2011 ||
 * 37 || The Cats Will Know || Cesare Pavese || * I am confused as to what the speaker means when he or she says "the cats will know" - is it a metaphor of some type?
 * There are reoccurring images of spring time and refreshing rain and sunrises, all adding to theme of renewal and freshness
 * The poem seems to hint at the feelings experienced when moving on from a relationship - there is the feeling of renewal as expressed by the rain, the dawn and springtime images, and the idea that one has to learn to be happy by oneself is conveyed ("they are the sad smile / you smile by yourself") || October 4, 2011 ||
 * 38 || Ex-Basketball Player || John Updike || * This poem chronicles the simple, almost melancholy life a star high school basketball player now lives
 * I found this line really intriguing: "One's nostrils are two S's, and his eyes / an E and O". I find it hard to imagine someone described as such.
 * The speaker emphasizes that the ex-basketball player, Flick, had his prime while in high school. When playing basketball back then his hands were quick, confident, "like wild birds". He was good at what he did. Nowadays, however, in his job at a garage, his hands are "fine and nervous", demonstrating that he is not particularly good at what he does any more - he has passed his peak || October 4, 2011 ||
 * 39 || Gotham Wanes || Bryan D. Dietrich || * I saw the word "Gotham" in the title and immediately thought of Batman. I really hope this poem is about Batman.
 * Reading through the poem, I sadly discovered that it is not about Batman. The speaker is talking about masks, the first few lines outlining the use of masks in various different cultures.
 * The speaker touches on the interesting idea that humans are trained to see faces in everything, to find humanity even in inanimate objects ("It's why we see the Madonna in mold / alien architecture in Martian crater creep") || October 4, 2011 ||
 * 40 || Buddhist New Year Song || Diane Di Prima || * The poem had an overall mood of mysticism, as if it were an ancient legend finally being told
 * The speaker outlines how he or she and another being had been sent to Earth from another planet - they are seemingly ranked in the likes of gods, sent to bring beauty and purpose to the world
 * As implied by the title, perhaps these two characters are god-like figures in the buddhist religion. This poem could be an interpretation of an ancient religious story. || October 9, 2011 ||
 * 41 || Epithalamion || Robert Fernandez || * I had to look up the meaning of the word "Epithalamion". It means "a song or poem celebrating marriage", so I anticipated that this poem would be about love and perhaps would have a happy, joyful mood to it.
 * The speaker chooses to speak mostly through metaphor and simile, which I find somewhat hard to follow. The line "We will walk, but our bones will carry / Ribbons of lead" I thought sounded particularly interesting.
 * In fact I find the whole poem very hard to follow on the whole. The title gives no guidance to me, as there is no mention of marriage or love or celebrating - the only thing vaguely related to any of those topics is the mention of "divorce" in line 18 || October 10, 2011 ||
 * 42 || Lastness || Galway Kinnel || * The poem appears to outline the concept of the circle of life - the poem starts out with a dying black bear, "his fur glistening in the rain" and then ends with the birth of a child, his hair described to be "black, glistening fur", as if linking the child to the bear. Perhaps the death of the bear brought upon the new life of the child in a way.
 * The images described by the speaker make me smile - the bear, though a simple creature, has come to the realization that it is dying, but remains calm and seems to accept it and happily moves on to the after life, living just as it did on earth
 * Perhaps the "great shoulders" of the newborn child further connect him to the bear, as the bear is a large and mighty creature with broad shoulders || October 10, 2011 ||
 * 44 || Song || Brenda Cardenas || * I really like the way the speaker describes the sensations of being on the beach. The images he describes are extremely vivid and make me feel as if I am laying on the beach as well. I especially liked this description: "I'm on my knees, / toes finding a cool prayer / beneath them, fingers pressing / sea foam to my temples".
 * The speaker appears to be outlining a personal experience in which they were awoken by their companion to come see whales surfacing out of the ocean near a beach.
 * The companion of the speaker is described to dive into the ocean in an attempt to reach and interact with the whales. The speaker wants to do the same, and is somewhat jealous of his or her companion, as he or she has a fear that holds them back performing such a bold and brave action, stating that "if I could grasp my own fear / I'd drown it" || October 14, 2011 ||
 * 45 || The End of Science Fiction || Lisel Mueller || * The speaker of the poem suggests that the genre of science fiction is coming to an end as it is no longer fiction. We are becoming like the futuristic beings described in science fiction stories, we our on the path of replacing our bodies with artificial ones, we are the ones allowing the advances in technology get drastically out of hand. The speaker makes this clear in the first line - "This is not fantasy. This is our life."
 * The speaker suggests that we revert back to the stories of yesteryear - ones with life and death and flesh and bleeding, not the mechanical and artificial topics of science fiction.
 * The author perhaps thinks that going back to the way stories were before science fiction will have the opposite effect on us, that our increasingly artificial and technology-dependent lives will somehow revert back to what they once were || October 14, 2011 ||
 * 46 || The Way To Keep Going in Antarctica || Bernadette Mayer || * The speaker seems to be the author herself - In the first line the speaker addresses someone named Bernadette, the same name of the author, making the poem seem like an open letter to herself
 * "Antarctica" is perhaps a metaphor for the emotional state that the speaker/author or perhaps for the seemingly cold, lonely world that she lives in
 * The speaker/author is empowering herself throughout the poem to push through the troubles that she finds herself in, though whatever those may be remain very vague || October
 * 47 || Lecciones de lengua || Brenda Cardenas || * This poem recounts the story of a little girl's father coming to her school to teach Spanish to her class - the title translate to "language lessons"
 * The visit by her father to the class appears to brighten up the day of the students which is emphasized by the final line which has a stanza of its own - "and makes the children laugh"
 * The new teacher also seems to bring excitement and adventure to the classroom. In the first stanza, before the new teacher had arrived, the language is rather dull, but once he arrived and started teaching, the speaker uses very vibrant words to describe the events. || October
 * 48 || Coming and Going || Pierre Martory || * The imagery of "pubescent monkeys", "adolescent pumas" and "vipers" brings to mind the idea of a jungle, perhaps metaphoric for the jungle of a world you lives in "as long as you believe in miracles", according to the speaker.
 * The speaker has multiple mentions of death - a "dead viper" and "mosquitoes place themselves on your forehead and die with you. "- giving a rather somber tone to the poem
 * My favorite lines are "all temple prostitutes are rotgut for two cents / are going to end up in the pink slit of a jukebox". || October 17, 2011 ||
 * 49 || Falling Leaves and Early Snow || Kenneth Rexroth || * The speaker outlines the beautiful changes in nature as fall arrives as passes, slowly fading into winter
 * This poem contains a lot of stunning imagery - it is practically a giant image of a forest in the midst of autumn. I think my favorite images are "ice forms in the shadows; / Disheveled maples hang over the water; Deep gold sunlight glistens on the shrunken stream".
 * I like how the speaker brings upon the transition into winter through the image of a rainstorm in the forest followed up by a snowfall "in the distance", as if the rain had helped to wash away the look of fall from the forest || October 17, 2011 ||
 * 50 || Gaslight || Tom Raworth || * The poem has a distinct lack of punctuation and capitalization. The speaker does use punctuation at one point in the poem - "t.v. programme" - though this is peculiar, as the correct way of spelling it would be TV
 * The speaker offers up an interesting metaphor for poetry, saying that it "is neither swan nor owl, / but worker, miner" (line 10, 11), suggesting that the speaker believes that poetry is not beautiful nor wise, but something gritty, real, deep, perhaps not very appreciated by the world
 * In lines 21 and 22, the speaker chooses to have the words "you" and "in" stand alone in their own lines, perhaps to emphasize the effect of poetry on the human population as a whole || October 18, 2011 ||
 * 51 || A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp || Thomas Moore || * The speaker presents the image of the white canoe in the last line of the first stanza - it could be symbolic of the innocence and purity of the subject of the poem - women who died
 * The speaker outlines how the lover of the women who died went after her, making a boat from a tree and venturing into the swamp. In the last stanza, the speaker reveals that the two lovers now row in the white canoe together, implying the woman's lover died while trying to find her in the swamp.
 * I like how the speaker introduces the character of the woman's lover by writing the first two stanzas as if they were the character's dialogue, putting quotation marks around the stanzas. The speaker then continues the poem as an omniscient narrator, describing the man's actions to regain his dead lover. || October 24, 2011 ||
 * 52 || Field of Skulls || Mary Karr || * The speaker appears to be outlining the irrational feeling of fear that commonly creeps upon people during the night - we let our imagination get the best of us
 * The speaker is perpetuating this fear through his or her language - he or she presents scary images of killers lurking in the night near our homes ("that's him / rustling in the azaleas") that fuel our fearful imaginations
 * Though we are seemingly aware that our fears are irrational, at the same time we are absolutely convinced that our delusions are true, and there truly is something horrible out there, something trying to get us ("You stare and furious stare / confident that there are no gods out there") || October
 * 53 || All Souls || Michael Collier || * I like how the poem starts out somewhat humorously, grouping the drastically different characters of "Hillary Clinton, Vlad Dracula / Oprah Winfrey, and Trotsky" together. I had to think for a second before I realized that they were in fact Halloween costumes that the subjects of the poem are wearing
 * The speaker goes onto the reveal that the subjects are at a Halloween party, though they are not participating the various festivities - they are rather observing a raccoon that is currently munching on some food that was left on a table
 * I like the contrast between the casual voice of the poem but the seriousness of the title ("All Souls") - why would the author go with a more serious way of saying Halloween for the title? || October
 * 54 || My Dear and Only Love || James Graham || * The speaker presents a metaphor for the type of relationship he or she would like with his or her lover - he or she imagines his or her lover as a kingdom, while the speaker is the ever-present ruler of it
 * I like the simple ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. It gives the poem a sweet, musical feel.
 * To me the speaker seems to want to be overly controlling in his or her relationship with his or her lover - the speaker emphasizes the idea that he or she would rule with an iron fist over his or her metaphoric lover ("Always give the law, / and have each subject at my will"), making the relationship seem rather unhealthy. Though I suppose looking at the context of the poem (it was written in the 17th century) this type of relationship between a man and a women would not be entirely uncommon. || October
 * 55 || Soon The City || Liam Rector || * This poem outlines the onsent of summer in the city - it gives lots of imagery of the unbearable, slow, humid heat that envelopes everything ("soon the choking / humidity / in the city")
 * I like how the speaker depicts spring as a"pleasant purgatory" before the summer, subtly implying that summer in relation to spring is like hell
 * The speaker references a person named Rilke in line 19, which I think alludes to Rainer Maria Rilke, an Austrian poet of the late 1800s and early 1900s. I would think in the lines "as Rilke said we would / where we will / wake, read, write" that the speaker is quoting one of his poems. || October 31, 2011 ||
 * 56 || Buried Life || James Longenbach || * I like the metaphor offered by the speaker at the end of the poem - "In the dust, at the scent of water / it will germinate", meaning that new life can come out of what we think has withered, given the right circumstances
 * I also like how the speaker directly addresses the reader, commanding them to imagine things, go through the situation outlined the poem ("Now imagine yourself..."). Most poems I have read are not so assertive.
 * I think my favorite line is line 26 - "wood has hope". It's so simple, yet there is much meaning behind it - new life can spring from perhaps unexpected places. || October 31, 2011 ||
 * 57 || Watch || Greg Miller || * I love the beautiful imagery of the whales in this poem - the speaker describes them so vividly and creatively. I think my favorite image is "the mottled chin's marble / veined, swirling / through it's green veil, which / the top jaw slits".
 * The speaker outlines his or her encounters with whales. The speaker seems particularly interested in the method by which whales sleep - they are able to rest one hemisphere of their brain at a time so that they can sleep and still go up for air when they need it
 * I particularly liked the assonance and rhyming of the lines "Cranial hemispheres wink and wake / and alternate". It really makes the line roll off the tongue and frankly it makes me smile when I read it. || October