Abhinav's+Poem+Log

Unless it's given in the poem, I'm referencing speakers as either he or she, just because using his/her consistently is really annoying. [|**Street Football,**] [|**Eighth Grade**] || Dennis Cooper || The referencing at the bottom of the poem tells us that this is a part of a compilation of Lesbian and Gay poetry, which gives it some appropriate context. I found that the perspective through which the poem is narrated is the most interesting aspect. The kids on the porch are characterized as nonathletic (they wear glasses, Arthur can’t throw properly, they’re more interested in books), yet they seem to have a sensuous attraction to the players on the field, One of my favorite parts of the poem was after the kids on the porch walked over to Tim’s body and told the cops they were part of the group – the irony in terms of their priorities were striking, but I had trouble understanding what the author was trying to say by this. || Cool selection of poems with thoughtful commentary. || I was quite interested by the poet's use of '&' (he does it in several of his other poems too), but could not quite figure out why the poet would use the symbol instead of 'and'. || Hughes describes his dream in the first stanza, which is "In some place of the sun,/To whirl and to dance/Till the white day is done." This description evokes the emotion of movement, motion and freedom, especially when contrasted to the second stanza, where the poet writes "Dance! Whirl! Whirl!." The second stanza sounds commanding--describing the reality of the situation. Hughes is trying to convey the feeling that although he dreams to be free, reality holds these dreams back. Another important comparison between the stanzas is when the poet contrasts his location as "In some place of the sun" with "In the face of the sun." These two references imply that the speaker would like to be with the 'sun', but in reality is forced to fight against it (probably referencing segregation). || The poem is also represented by an [|interesting video] narrated by the poet. I initially reacted to the poem humorously, but the anecdotes seemed to also contain certain consistent themes. For example, the "mirror grown dark with age that was given to a blind man" and the "young woman who has set herself the task of scraping her shadow of the wall" seem to parallel each other with themes of identity and even vanity. I don't think that this poem was meant to have any 'meaning' or purpose, other than to express the poets literary qualities. A part of structure that I found interesting was the use of four periods at the end of each stanza (not sure if there's a name for this), but this literally gives the reader an opportunity to consider what has been said, in line with the title of the poem. || A predominant motif in this poem is one of color; the speaker defines the air as green, the walls and the woman's arms as white, and a bruise as blue. I found the description of the air extremely interesting, because the color green gives of a sense of murkiness and the unknown, indicating the speaker's lack of knowledge of the events in the room. || The speaker attempts to differentiate her request from others' by claiming that if the God is only concerned about "prayers dressed/as gifts in return for your gifts--disregard the request." This statement helps indicate that the speaker is a realist, who is tired of the appeals to God she finds superficial. An interesting part of this poem was the lack of the capitalization of "god," possibly indicating that the speaker did not want to claim that there was only one God (which might be the implication of capitalizing the word?). || [|(YouTube video)] [|(Text)] || Naomi Shihab Nye || Nye's poem clearly seemed to be about the American involvement in the Palestine-Israel situation. As a supporter of the Palestinian cause, Nye is frustrated at her President's (she's a US citizen) continued support for Israel. She expresses this anger in a series of fictional letters that the President could be sending to individuals living in Palestine. Through the letters, the President is portrayed as naive, foolish and even unethical. The fictional President appears to give sympathy to the individuals who have suffered through the troubles of war, but is ignorant of their situation and his explanation often reveals the irony behind the American involvement in the war. Interestingly, Nye ends all of the letters mid-sentence, without giving some crucial information. I thought that this was especially effective as it not only gave the reader an opportunity to fill in the blanks and think about the case she was making, but also allowed the reader to apply this case to several different individuals (ie not something that only affects one person). || [|**NYTimes Video**] [|**Text**] || Don Paterson || Paterson's poem is about a small isle generally isolated from the rest of the world. He wrote it encouraging a friend who believed she would never fall in love again, hoping that going to this place would inspire her. The poem is written in 6 4 line stanzas, and has a certain beat to it with 10 syllables per line. This gives the poem a slow, consistent and rhythmic beat to it, making the isle seem all the more attractive. His language helps emphasize the serenity of the place, using words like "unsung," "innermost" and "intimate exile." The speaker seems to revel in the fact that very few people actually visit the isle, claiming that it has it's "own tiny stubborn anthem." The rest of the poem engages in an extended metaphor, comparing the isle to a woman, as a passenger explores it, as he could explore a woman's body. The language used to describe the isle/woman also brings about a sense of longing and even sensuality, which I though was particularly well written. || The ending about trees clothing the continent, but there only being houses here seemed to remind me of suburbanization, but I'm not sure if that's a point the poet was trying to make. || The poem creates a metaphor of the speaker's children coming to greet and play with the speaker and a siege on a castle. The poem consists of 10 4-line stanzas (quatrains?), which maintain a consistent ABCB rhyme scheme. This is an adaptation of the traditional form for a ballad. I loved the structure because it helped give a musical quality to the poem, which lightened the mood and conveyed the joy the speaker felt as his children surrounded him. The stanzas also allow for a shift in tone, which is clearly noticeable if the poem is read aloud. Between stanza 4 and stanza 5, there is a clear shift towards a more excited and surprised tone, emphasized by Wadsworth's parallel structure "A sudden rush from the stairway,/A sudden raid from the hall!" Wadsworth also compares body parts to parts of the castle, comparing his arms to turrets and his body itself as a castle. The speaker then takes the time to reminisce about the moment, and how he hopes to treasure it forever. || The poem is about the lynchings that took place during the height of racism in the Southern part of the United States. The speaker juxtaposes the calm and serene southern atmosphere ("Southern breeze" "Pastoral scene of the gallant South" "Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh") with the vivid and graphic imagery of a body hanging from a tree. This juxtaposition reminds the reader of the unnatural nature of the scene within a very 'natural' place. In addition, the use of a "strange fruit" to describe the black person does two things: it objectifies the subject, and it functions as a litotes (understatement, and yes, apparently the singular form is litotes). || Tagore || This poem appears to be from the perspective of a speaker looking at a child playing with a twig. The speaker feels sorrow that the child is able to find joy in such a simple plaything, while he himself chases after elusive goals ("I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver"). He emphasizes this by using negative words to describe his goals, such as 'costly' and 'lumps'. The poem generally follow's Tagore's narrative style, which includes longer phrases/sentences with no rhyme scheme. The poem attempts to remind readers that in the end, everyone is just playing a game--whether it be a child with a twig or an adult with a job. || Tagore || This poem is about a man who is looking for someone to hire him. He talks to a man with power, a man with money and a woman with beauty, yet all of their promises either fade away or are broken. Finally, when a child playing with shells offers to "hire you with nothing", the speaker feels free. The first thing I noticed was how the the poet characterizes the scene in which he finds each person. He finds the king on the "stone-paved road" (signalling power), the rich man near "houses [that] stood with shut doors" (materialism, disconnect from society) and the beautiful woman who "went back alone into the dark". However, the child himself is characterized as essentially the opposite of all of these things. He seems to be unconcerned about the world around him, and content with his shells as playthings. || The second stanza reflects on the problem of time, as the speaker "always hears/Time's winged chariot hurrying near." The speaker laments that that in death, their love is impossible, and then proceeds to use that as a reason for them to engage in love in the present. || He sets up a heavenly and spiritual scene, with "air from another life and time and place" which is supporting "A white wing beating high against the breeze." The wing represents his granddaughter (Aibhin), who was born just before he published this poem. He evokes a sense of paternity when he says that "I take my stand again [...] Back in theat field to launch our long tailed comet." Heaney creates a sense of awe from the spectators as the kite is released, similar to the sense of awe that family members or friends would feel while watching someone give birth. He ends by writing that the kite rises "until string breaks and--separate, elate--/The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall." This could either reference the physical independence of a child (cutting of the umbilical cord), or the metaphorical departure of a child (when he/she is old enough to leave his/her parents house). Heaney also uses clever wordplay with the last word, as windfall could reference a change in fortunes, or a change in the wind he described earlier in the poem. || He uses disturbing images such as "dead dogs hang[ing] from trees" to emphasize the dark nature of the event and it's impact on the city. The haiku seem to progress chronologically, with the first one talking about the initial impact, the second to sixth ones talking about events right after, and the fourth one 4 months later. The speaker certainly seems to be quite about the handling of the events, claiming that the "official death counts/exclude so-called looters shot/on sight of their skin." He also criticizes the richer class who turned away some of the poor people who attempted to find respite in their uptown neighborhood. The poem ends on a dark note, with a son returning to find "four-month-old bones wearing his/missing mother's dress." || //A good collection that takes some time to focus on a specific writer occasionally. Good connections to other works.// || The poem also ends with a rather clever pun, with the speaker exclaiming that "Until man grows bifocal-wise/He finds he can't believe his eyes." This plays on the fact that the speaker literally cannot believe what he perceives with his eyes and the common phrase "he couldn't believe his eyes." ||
 * ~  ||~ **Name of the Poem** ||~ **Poet** ||~ **Comments** ||
 * **1** || [|**After School,**]
 * **2** || [|Those Winter Sundays] || Robert Hayden || The poem describes a child's indifferent and ungrateful thought process on a Sunday morning after his father wakes up early in the "blueback cold" to warm the house for him. What particularly stood out was the sense of regret in this poem, almost as if the poet manages to portray the fact that the speaker truly does feel bad about his actions, but still uses his old self to describe his actions. Ie the speaker //physically// comes off as ungrateful, but as you dig deeper into it, you discover his true feelings of regret. ||
 * **3** || [|Theme for English B] || Langston Hughes || In this poem, the speaker struggles to define himself after presented with an English assignment where he is instructed to "//let that page come out of you—/Then, it will be true.//" The speaker struggles with conceptions of race, age and nationalistic identity. Written in 1959, this poem would have been created with the context of the severe discrimination that black people were forced to go through in the United States (Hughes is African-American). I especially liked his method of making the statement that although there is no enforced difference between people of different races, everyone maintains their own sense of individuality. Every single person has the ability to say something unique, but we shouldn't necessarily determine what someone says based on their race. ||
 * **4** || [|A blind man was riding an unheated train] || Arseny Tarkovsky || Written in 1943 by a Russian poet, this poem requires historical context; Russia was heavily committed to WWII against the Germans, and were suffering massive casualties (over 20 million members of the Soviet Union were killed). The poem attempts to reflect the absolute depths of trouble that many Russians had to go to, arguing that a blind man was better off as he wouldn't have to witness the atrocities in the world. Unfortunately, a lot of the artistic flair appears to be lost in translation. ||
 * **5** || [|The Cats Will Know] || Cesare Pavese || I thought that the context of this poem was similar to Lorca's during his writing of The House of Bernarda Alba. Written in the 1930s, the poet was under the watchful gaze of Mussolini, who was attempting to enforce is Fascist regime. The poem itself has an unknown subject to whom it's being addressed--I felt like this subject could be someone coming to bring change. This would work with the theme of springtime coming, and the cats etc. noticing the visible difference. ||
 * **6** || [|Glass] || A.R. Ammons || The audio version of the poem gave me the opportunity to hear the poem as the author meant it to be heard. I noticed the enjambment he had at the end of each stanza, using the last word in the last line of a stanza to begin the next. Also, the short lines with short stanzas of equal length (all in once sentence) reminds me of what I always imagined a sparrow's song would be. ||
 * **7** || [|The Most Perfect Hill] || Lisa Jarnot || My favorite part about this poem was the rhythm it established, which it did through the use of the word perfect. The rhythm created a sort of childish tune to the poem, using simple language and the repetition of a few words and ideas. The poem seems to be describing nature around the poet, as she compares and contrasts its 'perfectness' to that of her poem. ||
 * **8** || [|Shalimar] || Mary Ruefle || The perspective established in this poem is especially striking. The poet writes that God put her "in the center of the universe," where it was "cold dark and lonely." I interpreted this perspective as being the perspective of the poet writing the poem--as if the poet was describing the perspective she has to put herself into to write a poem. This is because of the reference to the poet Jimmy Schuyler. Finally, I found the poem's title's reference was to a garden in India (although I have absolutely no idea as to what the purpose is). ||
 * **9** || The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke || David Lehman || In this poem, Lehman talks about how his father's personal life is a wreck; it's completely mismanaged, and he always makes the wrong decisions. However, his father manages to get the small things right in external parts of his life, such as being able to tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. The poem was really interesting, once again, because the perspective was from the son (or daughter) of the man being described. The tone from the speaker was surprising, as it was conflicted. Initially, it came of as disappointed, almost as if the speaker was hoping that his/her father had been different. However, the speaker also seemed to be impressed by his father's other acts of kindness and generosity. Overall, I feel like the poet's message is that we as individuals should focus on larger parts of our life that are more important (family etc.), and that we waste too much time on thinking about less significant things. ||
 * **10** || [|**Pietà**] || Kevin Young || The poem's title references this sculpture, which is one of Michelangelo's most famous sculptures. It depicts Jesus being held by the Virgin Mary after his crucifixion, and its message has significant religious and metaphysical overtones. The poem itself is about a child reminiscing about his/her father's death, and reflecting on his/her search to find the father. My favorite part of this poem is the world play; the poet uses "No dice" to mean no luck and describes heaven as "too uppity". ||
 * ||  ||   || Checked 18 September 10/15-25 KBoyce
 * **11** || [|**Blue Dementia**] || Yusef Komunyakaa || Based on the poet's biography and references within the poem, the title suggests that the poem is about the practice of blues and jazz by modern musicians. There are also several references to race; the author writes about "three dark-skinned men". I interpreted the poem as a description of a musician who discovers the wonders of jazz, and is absolutely absorbed by it. The author is describing the necessary risk ("Did this one dare/ to step on a crack in the sidewalk,/ to turn a midnight corner & never come back/ whole") that a musician must take in his process of naturalization (i.e. truly appreciating the blues).
 * **12** || [|The Children's Hour] || Li-Young Lee || The poet's biography indicates that he had to flee Indonesia during the anti-Chinese riots there, and the poem probably reflects that moment. In the poem, the speaker is talking to his siblings, telling them to hide from the men carrying guns to their house. The speaker comes off as very attached and protective--he always wants to remain with his family, even when he tells them to hide. This protective attitude indicates that the speaker is probably older than the siblings he intends to protect. The structure is also interesting, with the author using parallelism in some stanzas with the lines starting with the same words. ||
 * **13** || [|Potato Soup] || Daniel Nyikos || The poem presents and interesting and often humorous appraisal of relationships between family members, interposed with comments on modern society. In the poem, the speaker describes the process of making potato soup while his mother and aunt watch from his computer. They usually criticize his cooking, and are never satisfied with his final product. The poem contains a message reminding readers that at the end of the day, the validation of others is not important--the poet ends by reminding the readers that he turned off the computer and ate alone. ||
 * **14** || [|The Chimney Sweeper: A little black thing among the snow] || William Blake || The poem describes a child left alone in the snow, crying for his parents who have gone to church. The child claims that because he was "happy upon the heath,/And smil'd among the winter's snow" his parents left him there. The child's words are surprisingly mature, criticizing religion and his parent's prioritization of religion over him. The child claims that although he appears to be happy, he really isn't. The poem's rhyme scheme is rythmic, with the first stanza following an AABB scheme, while the other two follow a ABAB scheme. This rythm is interesting because the child claims that he has been taught to "sing the notes of woe," which is probably why the author chose that structure. ||
 * **15** || [|After Bombardment, Sonya] || Ilya Kaminsky || I interpreted this poem as a speaker talking to his dog, and reflecting on anecdotes about the animal. I thought that the most intriguing part of this poem was the structure. Each stanza is made up of 3 lines, and the ends of many lines and stanzas are often enjambed (word?). The use of this structure allows the poet to use short, disjointed phrases to communicate his message. These sentences are effective in that they convey his short anecdotes with an increased impact. ||
 * **16** || [|Dream Variations] || Langston Hughes || I interpreted Hughes' poem as talking about the difference between his dream for race relations in America, and the reality of the situation. Hughes' two stanzas are structurally similar, yet the diction contains important differences.
 * **17** || [|**Let Us Consider**] || Russell Edson || A really interesting poem, that to me seems to be more of an exercise in absurdity than anything else. The poem asks the reader to consider a variety of people doing quirky things like "the farmer who makes his straw hat his sweetheart" or the "old woman who wore smoked cows' tongues for shoes and walked a meadow gathering cow chips in her apron."
 * **18** || [|Seen Through a Window] || David Ferry || This poem describes a dinner scene between a man and a woman as seen by a speaker looking in through a window. The structure is simple, with 3 7-line stanzas. Although it is hard to find a distinct pattern, almost every line is 11-12 syllables. A trend that I noticed and found interesting was the repetition of words--Ferry often repeats adjectives or verbs (such as 'washed,' 'bear' etc.) when describing different people or objects. This has the effect of linking together the people/objects, and creating a definite flow in the poem.
 * **19** || [|Feed Me, Also, River God] || Marianne Moore || The poem appears to be an appeal to a God by the speaker, who claims that although she isn't like a traditional devotee, the God shouldn't discriminate against her. The reference to Israelites and land being fought over by two parties led me to conclude that the poem is about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
 * **20** || [|First Snow, Kerhonkson] || Diane Di Prima || This poem depicts the first snow at Kerhonkson, New York. The speaker talks about the feeling she gets as she looks at her surroundings. The speaker talks about the "white silence" that the snow causes, and how because of it, "no one arriving brown from Mexico" or from the "sunfields of California" will arrive at her location. I interpreted these friends from Mexico and California to be the trees/plants that she sees, rather than actual people. The poet is using colors imaginatively to depict the lack of natural scenery around her. ||
 * **21** || [|**Snow**] || **Naomi Shihab Nye** || This poem describes a speaker who reminisces about an event in her past, where she slid down a hill with her brother during an intense snowstorm. I really liked a lot of stuff about this poem; firstly, the use of dialogue within the poem helped give individual personalities to the kids. I could hear their strained voices through the maddeningly loud snowstorm as they tried to communicate back and forth. In addition, I thought the use of imagery was really effective in this poem, especially the parallels with someone at home crying a "raging blizzard of sobs." ||
 * **22** || [|Outskirts] || Tomas Transtromer || I thought I would do this poet after I heard he won a Nobel Prize in literature. Unfortunately, most of his work isn't available online, and I just found two poems. This poem is about the outskirts of an unnamed town. The speaker gives a series of descriptions of what he sees. The speaker brings out a sense of a disconnect from reality by giving vague descriptions of the surroundings, such as "It's a transitional place, in stalemate, neither country nor city." These types of description make the outskirts seem as if they are having trouble dealing with their own identity. I had trouble dealing with the last reference in the poem (further info [|here]), and generally found it a pretty difficult poem to understand. ||
 * **23** || [|Blood] || Naomi Shihab Nye || Nye's poem describes a speaker's perception of what a 'true Arab' would do, based on the situation she sees around her. The speaker describes her experiences with dealing with the phrase 'a true Arab', and then tries to apply those lessons to the events she sees around her. When she sees 'A little Palestinian dangl[ing] a toy truck on the front page', the speaker becomes distressed. Her tone changes, and she becomes a lot more rhetorical, ending her poem with three questions. I particularly liked her construction of a 'true Arab' through anecdotes, as it allowed me to actually visualize (and possibly relate to) the experiences she had with her father. ||
 * **24** || [|Christmas Eve (Poem + Illustration)] || Bill Watterson || Watterson is one of my favorite cartoonists (Calvin and Hobbes), so I decided to do one of his poems. This poem evokes themes of friendship, and is written in a very simplistic, content tone. I think that this is really effective, as the speaker appears to be a small child (Calvin) reflecting on Christmas. This is further aided by Watterson's simple AABB rhyme scheme, with the poem condensed into a single stanza. The poem also rings a sense of familiarity, with the speaker describing things that appear to occur every Christmas. ||
 * **25** || [|If--] || Rudyard Kipling || This poem was organized into 4 separate stanzas with 8 lines each and followed an ABABCDCD rhyming scheme. The poem is organized such that the speaker says that if a person can do certain things, then "Yours is the Earch and everything that's in it,/And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!" The poem often contrasts the person it's being addressed to (humanity?) with his or her surroundings in the first stanza, but often surprises the reader in the second stanza (I forgot the poetic term for this). For example, Kipling writes "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/And treat those two impostors just the same." The characterization of triumph as equal to disaster, and also as an impostor, was quite interesting. ||
 * **26** || [|Burning the Old Year] || Naomi Shihab Nye || Nye's poem talks about the process of burning different articles, and describes what it means to her. Her poem seems to give a sense of refreshment, almost as if burning the papers release her from something that was holding her back. She enforces this by using surprisingly pleasant diction to describe the process of burning, writing that the ashes "sizzle like moth wings,/marry the air." I thought that the structure of them poems was particularly interesting, as the lines seemed to drift off (get smaller), reminding me of the smoke that would have drifted off after something was burned. ||
 * **27** || [|Boy and Egg] || Naomi Shihab Nye || The first thing I noticed about this poem was how the speaker separated the boy from his surroundings. The boy wants to spend time in the barn, rather than with his friends who are playing outside. In fact, the boy is portrayed of being fearful of their games "ready to gcry if the ball brushed him." The poet portrays the boy as having a connection with the egg, writing that he was "rivited to the secret of the birds [...] not ready to give it over." ||
 * **28** || [|**One Boy Told Me (YouTube Video)**] || Naomi Shihab Nye || The video introduces the poem as a series of phrases said by her son. The poem expressed a really, for the lack of a better word, //cute// portrayal of the poet's son. As the poem is just a series of questions, he comes off as extremely inquisitive. His mind seems to be filled with wonder, and he doesn't constrain himself by social rules like adults do. My favorite line from the poem was "Just think: no one has seen the inside of this peanut before!" The line expresses his curiosity, and supports Nye's statement that 'we're all poets when we're young. We can't start being poets, we can only stop.' ||
 * **29** || Letters My Prez Is Not Sending
 * **30** || [|Famous] || Naomi Shihab Nye || I really liked this poem, because it puts things in perspective, bringing ordinary objects or experiences to life, and explains their importance in the world. Nye writes that "The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek" in addition to many other anecdotes that call generally generic objects 'famous'. The poem attempts to remind readers that everything has some sort of purpose, and deserves to be recognized. It then ends with the speaker claiming that she wants to be famous in the same way--not recognized by other people, but useful in it's own way. I really liked the poem because it challenged the conventional perception of fame, and reminded me that in the end, it's not about how many people you affect, but how you affect a few people. ||
 * **31** || [|The Man Whose Voice Has Been Taken From His Throat] || Naomi Shihab Nye || I found the poem a little confusing, but liked the use of imagery to bring out senses other than sound. As the title indicates, a man's voice has been taken from his throat; Nye then subsequently proceeds to describe how that man attempts to communicate. The poem gives rise to a sense of confusion, emphasized by the "question mark of Mexico/stand[ing] on its head/like an answer" as a response to "on which side of the conversation/did anyone begin?". ||
 * **32** || **Luing**
 * **33** || [|A Story] || Philip Levine || This poem describes a house and a family, and proceeds to make a social commentary about family and (maybe) about suburbs. The poem itself reminded me of the opening to //The Bluest Eye// with it's repetitive, chanting rhythm. The speaker comes off as angry, asking a lot of questions, and using a lot of negative language to describe the house ("half to death" "unsoiled, stale, and waiting to be worn out" "fat black pipe" "smells and collusions"). The speaker seems angry at the irony that the children are small enough (physically) to fit into small cupboards, but large enough (age, maturity wise) to have their own room. The family described seems dysfunctional, but the generic terms in which it's described seems to lend itself to the belief that Levine is making a general social commentary.
 * **34** || [|**The Children's Hour**] || Henry Wadsworth Longfellow || One of my earlier poems was of the same name, and that poem might be an allusion to Wadsworth's poem.
 * **35** || [|Gitanjali 35] || Rabindranath Tagore || As a poet, I found Tagore a lot easier to relate to because of our shared cultural backgrounds. This poem is a part of Tagore's collection, entitled "Gitanjali." It talks about the will to freedom (India was occupied by the British at the time this poem was written), and creates a utopian world into which the speaker hopes his country travels. The structure of the poem (repeating "where...") helps give the poem direction, as the speaker can stipulate several descriptions of the world he wishes to see around him, and where he wishes his country goes. ||
 * **36** || [|Crossing 16] || Rabindranath Tagore || This poem is about a speaker who feel regret for his actions, when he got angry at someone who approached him. The lines themselves don't seem to have too much of rhythm, which appears to be characteristic of poems by Tagore. The importance seems to lie more in what is being said, rather than how it's being said. The repetitive structure with the last line being different is also really similar to the poem analyzed above, and is effective at creating a scene, and then ending with a line that leaves an impact on the reader based on the tension that was created by the preceding lines. ||
 * **37** || [|Strange Fruit] || Abel Meerpol || (This poem was famously adapted into a song by Billie Holiday).
 * **38** || [|Playthings] || Rabindranath
 * **39** || [|The Last Bargain] || Rabindranath
 * **40** || [|The Day I saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott's //Collected Poems//] || Yusef Komunyakaa || The poem has a really simple structure, 9 stanzas of 4 lines each. The depth of the poem lies in the language itself, which generally consists of the speaker making references to Walcott's poems, and attempting to place himself inside the mind of the President as he reads the poems. Without knowing which poems the speaker is referencing, it's extremely difficult to determine the intent of the speaker, but it appears that the first 2 lines of each stanza present a problem that the president generally faces, while the next 2 present a reference to a poem that could help him solve that problem. ||
 * **41** || [|Facing It] || Yusef Komunyakaa || This emotionally charged poem is about a speaker at the Vietnam Veteran's memorial, trying to deal with the apparent pain that he feels. There is definitely a sense of vulnerability with the speaker being unable to control his actions (I said I woudln't/dammit: No tears). The sentences are short and hurried, and are about a variety of topics, which makes me think that these are a collection of thoughts from the speaker over the period of a few seconds. The other people and objects in the poem only seem to provide temporary relief, with the names "shimmer[ing] on the woman's blouse," but when she walks away "the names stay on the wall." ||
 * **42** || [|Perfect Woman] || William Wordsworth || Wordsworth's romanticism comes through in this poem, where the speaker describes the qualities of the 'perfect woman' (perhaps his wife?). The poem shows a transition, with the speaker initially seeing the perfect woman as supernatural ("phantom of delight" "apparition" "To haunt, to startle, and waylay"). By the second stanza, however, he seems to see more humanly qualities in her (after he sees her "upon nearer view), describing her womanly nature. By the third stanza, he has gotten even closer, describing her breath and pulse, and even her reason and intellect. ||
 * **43** || [|To His Coy Mistress] || Andrew Marvell || This poem is delivered romantically to a woman by a speaker who attempts to convince her to love him. He follows a simple AABB rhyme scheme, separated into three stanzas. In the first one, he describes what they could to together, making several references to "the Flood" and the "conversion of the Jews." This stanza emphasizes how eternal his love is, talking about how "An hundred years should go to praise" her beauty.
 * **44** || [|A Kite for Aibhin] || Seamus Heaney || This [|article] helped me understand the allegory to parenthood created by Heaney in the poem. Heaney compares the flying of a kite to parenthood, making several comparisons between the two actions.
 * **45** || [|You Can't Survive on Salt Water] || Kalamu ya Sallam || This collection of seven haiku (apparently plural is haiku?) for New Orleans (interestingly called "old orleans" in the poem) depicts the tragic scenes that the speaker probably saw everywhere after the disaster.
 * **46** ||  ||   || //21 November 45/42-70//
 * **47** || Bifocal Trouble || Edgar Guest || A neat little poem (for those who click on the title to go to the source, futilitycloset.com is an amazing website!) with a very simple structure. There are 5 6-line stanzas that follow an AABBCC rhyme scheme and have 8 syllables per line. The poem's speaker is a man who recently received bifocals and is having trouble navigating his city. The speaker seems like a rather naive old man as he mutters rhyming instructions in order to remember how to use the bifocals. The innocence or 'cuteness' of the man is further emphasized by the poetic structure described above as the speaker gets a lyrical feeling to his account.
 * **48** || The Chair of Death || Walter Dittman || A rather grisly poem written by a death row inmate that were to serve as his last words. The poem is short and concise, allowing it to have a definite impact on the reader. Although the author does not make use of several significant literary devices, he uses diction to evoke feelings of guilt in the reader. He clearly delineates the 'bad guys' and him by using the chair as a symbol for those working against him. He says the chair is "grimly waiting patiently for me", and deplores it for not having "a whit or bit of mercy [...] for man or beast". He ends the poem with an allusion to his God, using him/it/whateveryoucallGod as a vessel to allow the reader to feel guilty about his execution. ||

The content of the poem varies, with the speaker starting off broadly by contexually defining what she believes man to be ("an antenna for the sun"). The speaker than proceeds to begin introspection whereby she examines changes within her personality. Oddly enough, she then compares the inside of his mouth to the moon, and spends the rest of the poem analyzing how the two relate. || My interpretation of this poem was that it described the situation faced by people during the storm, and that the absurdity of the poetry represented the troubles faced by those trying to recuperate after a storm hit their town. It seems as if the confusion/ridiculousness of the poem coincides with a similar situation that would occur in reality when a storm hits. || The poem is a ringing endorsement of the beauty of the garden the speaker walks through as he describes the place through personification and intense imagery (same old thing I guess, but he does it well). The first stanza has a lot of movement involved, which sets a tone and pace for the poem. The speaker talks about clouds “racing over the sky” and the larch that “sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by” to emphasize this point. The movement indicated in the first stanza also coincides with the change in season being observed by the speaker, as Spring approaches. Personification plays a huge role in the poem, with the speaker describing the woods as “alive” with the “murmur and sound of Spring”. He romanticizes the place by claiming that the plane to the pine tree is “whispering some tale of love” and that it “rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green”. || The poem is written in the third person and describes what I presume to be a ventriloquist's dummy at night. I interpreted the poem quite darkly, maybe because I associate dummies with horror. The first stanza seemed quite ominous with the dummy "sleeping" in the tinder box, which seemed to remind me of a casket in which a person would be buried. The personification is continued with the use of verbs such as "dreaming" which give disturbing human qualities to the dummy. I thought the perspective in the third stanza was really interesting. The speaker described the dummy's bed to be at a crevice with "pure pitch' (as in pitch dark) below. The exaggerated nature of the environment and the comparison to a crevice help bring an interesting perspective into the poem as we begin to see the situation through the eyes of the dummy. || tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt || Robert Bly || Robert Bly's short poem is simply written; it has 3 4-line stanzas with an irregular numbers of syllables in each line. The poem's content seems to indicate that the speaker is advocating a non-interventionist lifestyle. It's interesting how the poem is allegedly talking about 'things' but later refers to 'us' in the poem, which could mean that the speaker is actually talking about the interaction between people. || One of the defining aspects of the poem is the parallel structure used by the speaker, with most sentences beginning with "When I had no, I _". The reason I loved the poem was because of the author's ability to make me legitimately contemplate the possibility of existence without things that we generally take for granted. His use of enjambment was especially impressive, specifically in the third stanza: (the copy and paste feature for stanzas is neat!) code When I had no father I made Care my father. When I had No mother I embraced order. code The enjambment allows the reader to finish the thought on their own, almost filling in the words. I was surprised by his choice of 'Care' as a replacement for his father, as the absence of a parent usually leads to children looking for more dangerous/violent avenues for mentors. || Davies then uses a large amount of natural imagery to describe the world being lost when we refuse to remain idle, even just for a moment. The speaker answers the question at the end, arguing that it is a "poor life" if we fail to appreciate the environment around us. || I really liked the way the author created a mood of deep history when describing Egypt. He writes about "old hushed Egypt" and describes the "eternal stands" etc. This diction creates a sense of timelessness when describing Egypt. || The poem itself establishes themes of masculinity and paternal expectations, with the speaker unable to decide who is happier-the boy, because of the skills he has learned, or the father, because of his pride in his son. || The poem seems to describe the process of waking up. It uses a lot of natural imagery, presumable because the speaker is looking outside when he describes what he sees. The lines that are repeated ("I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow" and "I learn by going where I have to go") give the poem a soothing mood. The speaker interestingly decides to change one of the lines to "And, lovely, learn by going where to go". One interpretation of this could be that he is telling someone to live like he does, a seemingly peaceful life. || In any case, the speaker laments the madness of love because of how fickle it can be. The speaker says that when she shuts her eyes, "all the world drops dead" but when she opens them "all is born again". A possible interpretation of this is that the speaker's lover appears and disappears within the blink of an eye, and that his love is never consistent. The other repeating line is "(I think I made you up inside my head)". The parentheses add the effect of being an afterthought to whatever is described before. || One thing I noticed was how the pace of the poem increased as the speaker talked about the act of losing more and more important things. The first line in stanza 3 uses "losing further, losing faster" to emphasize the increasing intensity of the poem. || The structure of the poem allows for a narrative style poem as it is written simply with 4 lines per stanzas with an irregular rhyme scheme. The rhyme is often imperfect which is important as it doesn't take away from the seriousness of the poem. The light in the poem seems to be a symbol of the heavenly light that people see when they die. It also seems to be a symbol for mercy, and the speaker laments that there is "No light, no light in the blue Polish eye". || There was an interesting use of enjambment in line 4 where he says "It is always the same thing: nothing". This leaves the readers wondering whether the nothing refers to what is growing or what needs to be done, as both are possible. Another interpretation of this (as I guess could be made of any farming poem?) is that this is about pregnancy. I felt that this was a plausible interpretation as the speaker says "I have sown my seed on soil/guaranteed by poverty to fail". This could refer to the inability of the couple to have a child. This is further reinforced to references to children ('and hold it like a child') and possible wordplay with the world 'labor'. || But the second stanza presents a problem, as the gates of heaven seem to be closed. The speaker asks a rhetorical questions which emphasizes his feeling of discontentment. This method is continued, and the speaker becomes even more despondent as the poem goes on, ending with another question "How sharp with bitter joy might be/Love's lingering, last, longed-for-breath/Shut in upon eternity?". ||
 * ~ **49** || Mental Mommy || Liam Rector || The poem is written in 6 stanzas, with the first 5 stanzas containing 3 lines each and the last one just one line long. The language used is elementary, indicating that the poet is attempting to mimic the voice of a childish speaker. The poem describes the childhood of an individual who was told that his mother had to go to a mental hospital because of a nervous breakdown, but later actually finds out that she had been doing time in federal prison. The fragmented style helps explain the confusion felt by the child, in addition to working on the motif of mental breakdown. The poem ends with a particularly significant "I was on my one", playing on the words 'on' 'one' and 'own'. The poem contributes to portraying the innocence of the child in the proceedings, and how the events have ironically affected him mentally. ||
 * ~ 50 || Another Rehearsal for Monday || Joseph Massey || This short 1-stanza non-rhyming poem seemed to represent some sort of artist analyzing the scenery outside. It appeared as if the artist was painting and then describing the environment beyond the hand he was painting with. The poem has an air of mystery, with none of the senses really active. Because of the mist that is 'too thick to see', ideas 'extinguished', and the fact that it is all a blur helps reinforce the dreamlike state of the poem. ||
 * ~ **51** || The Moon in Your Breath || Amy King || This poem was extremely difficult to decipher because its subject matter was mostly metaphorical, and usually did not mention anything concrete. It is composed of 3 stanzas of varying length, and does not appear to follow any specific rhyme scheme/syllable pattern.
 * ~ **52** || Economy || Sandra Beasley || This poem analyzes the relationship between the presumably declining economy and the speaker's relationship with her partner. The motif of degradation and decline is emphasized by diction such as "surrendered" and "we dare not turn up". It emphasizes the fearful position that a declining economy places families in as they try to adjust to the economic situation. The poem ends with a dramatic pause, claiming that the man "is trying to save/all there is left to save". By placing the last part on the second line, it allows the reader to interpret this as talking about saving the actual relationship, and how economic problems are creating doubt within the speaker's mind about the stability of her current relationship. ||
 * ~ **53** || Thinking of Work || James Shea || The poem is written rather simply, and it appears to describes attempts to ‘fix’ the earth after a storm. The poem, taken literally (certainly not my best idea with poetry), seems absurd as the speaker claims that the “sun [had to be] put up” and that there were “clouds to put out,/blue to install”. The absurdity continues in the final lines when the speaker says that “Something flew out of/the window and then/the window flew out of the window”.
 * ~ **54** || Magdalen Walks || Oscar Wilde || Research gave me some insight into the title, informing me that Wilde interned at Magdalen College in England during his education. The poem is quite traditional in its structure, with 5 4-line stanzas.
 * ~ 55 || One of the Dummies at Night || Gibson Fay-LeBlanc || Structure: 6 3-line stanzas.
 * ~ 56 || The Song of Despair || Pablo Neruda, translated by W.S. Merwin || The poem seemed to compare sorrow/despair to an ocean, often repeating "in you everything sunk!". The format of the poem emphasizes the feeling of sinking as you read the poem. It's also interesting how the ocean is personified, often using adjectives like "stunned" etc. to describe the feelings of the ocean. I thought the rhythm established was especially effective in the poem, as Neruda used repetition in the middle to create a beat that slowly petered out near the end of the poem. ||
 * ~ 57 || Poem for Japan || Matthew Zapruder || The poems structure of using short phrases for each line with simple language (certain exceptions) makes me think the speaker is juvenile. This also helps convey a sense of innocence. The content of the poem appears to refer to the nuclear leak in Japan, as the speakers ponders the implications of the leak internationally. ||
 * ~ 58 || What Things Want
 * ~ 59 || **Samurai Song** || Robert Pinsky || Absolutely loved this poem, one of my favorites.
 * ~ 60 || Leisure || William Henry Davies || The poem, originally written in 1911, laments the lack of attention that we as humans give to our natural world or to the environment around us. The speaker begins with a question (two of the poets most famous lines) "What is this life if, full of care,/We have no time to stand and stare". The first thing I noticed about the structure of this stanza was how Davies chose to separate the lines, allowing the reader to begin pondering answers to the hypothetical question, and then stating his disappointment in the current state of affairs.
 * ~ 61 || A Thought of the Nile || Leigh Hunt || Finally, a poem that's pretty direct in it's motive and meaning. The speaker describes the Nile, one of the largest rivers in the world (situated in Egypt). The author makes several allusions to Egyptian history, referencing "Sesostris" and "The laughing queen" (presumably Cleopatra). The rhyme scheme is also interesting, with the first stanza following a ABBAABBA rhyme scheme, but the second following a AABABB rhyme scheme. I wasn't sure if the rhyme scheme had a specific purpose.
 * ~ 62 || Do not go gentle into that good night || Dylan Thomas || The poem is composed as a 'vilanelle', which is composed of 5 3-line stanzas (tercets) and one quatrain. The poem includes a lot of repetition, with the lines "do not go gentle into that good night' and 'Rage, rage against the dying of the light' repeated quite often. This repetition gives the poem an almost-lullaby quality, as if someone is singing the poem to someone else. This would work with the message of the poem, in which a speaker attempts to remind a subject about the importance to fight for their life. ||
 * ~ 63 || A Boy and His Dad || Edgar Guest || The structure is really simple, with 8 lines per stanza and written in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme of AABBCCDD contributes to a sort of light-hearted song as it creates a simple and rhythmic beat.
 * ~ 64 || The Waking || Theodore Roethke || This poem is also a vilanelle, which I analyzed in #62 (I think the next few poems might be vilanelles).
 * ~ 65 || Mad Girl's Love Song || Sylvia Plath || The poem is written as a vilanelle. The more of these that I read, I seem to feel that the structure is better suited for describing abstract concepts rather than narratives.
 * ~ 66 || One Art || Elizabeth Bishop || This poem (vilanelle) appears to deal with loss. The speaker repeats the line "the art of losing isn't hard to master. The poet makes the choice to not follow the traditional structure of repeating another line, but instead chooses to end a variety of lines with the word 'disaster'.
 * ~ 67 || "More Light! More Light!" || Anthony Hecht || The poem "More Light! More Light!" describes two different executions and the horrors faced by those being executed.
 * ~ 68 || The Farmer || W.D. Ehrhart || The speaker in this poem is a farmer who claims that he is always working on his farm, but to no avail.
 * ~ 69 || At the Three Fountains || Arthur Symons || The poem "At the Three Fountains" appears to be about a speaker describing his arrival at heaven. The first stanza establishes the utopian scene that allegedly exists up there. The stanza is pleasant and rhythmic, supported by the easy and direct rhyme between the first and third line.
 * ~ 70 || I shall not Care || Sara Teasdale || * April as a month is personified: "Shakes out her rain-drenched hair"
 * Strict structure, last line in each stanza is 4 syllables, gives the poet an opportunity to emphasize and isolate the words in that line.
 * Natural imagery used as metaphors: "as leafy tees are peaceful" ||
 * ~ 71 || ! || Wendy Videlock || * Humor shown through evaluation of dinosaurs' sexuality
 * Surprisingly sexual wordplay with "mammoth bringing up the rear"
 * One singly rhyme throughout--ironic as poem is about making choices that differentiate you from others. ||
 * ~ 72 || In the Museum of Lost Objects || Rebecca Lindenberg || * The speaker in this poem seems to be using the loss he sees in the museum to reflect the loss he feels in his personal life
 * He creates a depressing and melancholy mood through repetition of 'empty' etc.
 * Creates a sense of wonder and fantasy about the missing objects, "the spill/of jewels buried by a pirate who died/before disclosing their whereabouts." ||
 * ~ 73 || A Life || Edith Sodergran || * Translated poem so some meaning, rhyme and rhythm might have been lost.
 * The poem is extremely confusing, it seems as if the poet is making a series of random comments about nature.
 * However, most of his observations seem to link to the passage of time.
 * A possible interpretation therefore could be that he examines how his grief develops over time.
 * He compares the extent of his grief to the problems the world could be facing soon. ||
 * ~ 74 || The Magi || William Butler Yeats || * The magi were the wise men from the east who brought gifts for infant Jesus.
 * The poem has one short stanza, and a ABAB rhyme scheme, although the rhymes are always imperfect.
 * The structure allows the poet to make a comment without the poem being melodious. This allows him to maintain the serious mood he attempts to evoke in the poem.
 * Uses parallel structure to bring emphasis to the description of the men: "With all their [...] And all their [...] And all their. ||
 * ~ 75 || The Thinning || Rae Armantrout || * Very difficult to understand without context, but the poet seems to be accusing someone in the first part of manipulating her. Later, she criticizes a woman who continuously takes off her clothes (?).
 * Each line is very short, the tone is abrupt, tired and harsh.
 * Emphasis is on certain words because of how short each line is, i.e. naked ||
 * ~ 76 || Dream Land || Christina Rossetti || * The structure is quite interesting, the poem is composed of 4 stanzas of 8 lines each.
 * It follows a AAABCCCB rhyme scheme, one that I've never seen before.
 * The lines are written in iambic tetrameter
 * The poem seems to be about death and how someone is removed from the earth.
 * The earth is described as desolate and is contrasted with the bliss present in heaven. ||