April


 * || Title || Author || Comments || Date ||
 * 101 || Bound for Hell || Marina Tsvetaeva || * The speaker seems to only be addressing women - she repeatedly addresses readers as being female, with phrases like "my ardent sisters", "my lovely sisters" and "my gentle girls"
 * The speaker outlines how women have had many of the finest pleasures in life ("And have the finest Chinese silks to wear; / and we'd strike up the songs of paradise", "Such dancers, we have played the pipes of Pan: / The World was ours, each one of us a queen")
 * I believe the poem relates back to the story of Adam and Eve - Eve ate the forbidden fruit and gave it to Adam, banishing them both from paradise. From Eve's actions all women are "bound for hell" just for being a woman, apparently. || April 9, 2012 ||
 * 102 || The Cafe Filtre || Paul Blackburn || * I really enjoyed the simplicity of this poem - it just outlines the tale of a man peacfully eating a steak dinner and making some coffee, as his cat comes up to him and begs for food
 * I liked the imagery presented in the poem as well, although it did make me quite hungry - "Slowly and with persistence / he eats away at the big steak, / gobbles up the asparagus, its / butter & salt & root taste"
 * The man in the poem seems so content with his life and it makes me happy - just eating dinner, petting his cat and drinking some coffee in peace. I want that. Ugh, school. || April 9, 2012 ||
 * 103 || 7th Game: 1960 Series || Paul Blackburn || * This poem recalls the tense feelings of people watching a baseball game in the "World" Series
 * This line really bothers me: "Handsome women, even dreamy jailbait'. Why bother making a comment on young girls like that? This poet is creepy.
 * I like how the speaker emphasizes the slow passing of time during the baseball game due to its intensity for the spectators: "blocks of afternoon, acres of afternoon, Pennsylvania Turnpikes of afternoon" || April 9, 2012 ||
 * 104 || I Don't Miss It || Tracy K. Smith || * This poem, apart from the single line that appears as its own stanza, is completely made up of couplets, little ideas presented by the speaker jumping from each stanza into the next
 * Though the speaker in the title claims that he or she doesn't "miss it", throughout the poem they are reminiscent of a period of time when they were with an unnamed lover and seems to actually miss it very much indeed
 * The last line is a little confusing to me - "knowing perfectly well what they know". Who are "they", and what exactly do they know? || April 23, 2012 ||
 * 105 || Silence || Billy Collins || * ||  ||
 * 106 || The Net || Babette Deutsch ||  ||   ||
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