The "C" Word

I was watching Oprah yesterday, and apparently she can't say the word "creepy". So she uses the "c" word instead.

But this poem was creepy. If this poem were directed towards me, I'd get out of that relationship quick. This guy needs to chill out. If you really need to threaten your girlfriend like that so she won't leave you, then maybe you need to be single for awhile.

This woman needs to leave. First of all, he calls her a "feigned vestal", which I think means that she is pretending to be a virgin in front of her hypothetical new partner. And then he tells her that she won't be able to find anyone who will love her the way she wants. Obviously, he is a perfect boyfriend and since his "love is spent", she might as well stay with him. How romantic.

Buuut, at the end he says he won't threaten her with this unless he has to... He's trying to reassure her that he isn't a big jerk. He'd rather have her "painfully repent". That's much nicer.

you gonna miss me when I'm gone

I liked this poem, even though it was kinda sad. Women poets always seem to have easier poems.

When I was reading this, the song lyrics made me stop and think. So during the nights, the couple is miserable until the "first light"--which is day. The days are their escape from each other, but the speaker listens to this song that probably reminds her or him of her or his partner.. "you gonna miss me when I'm gone". But what the speaker thinks of is "heaving words like furniture". Ouch.. that's not fun to think about. It's like the speaker wants to want to miss her husband/...wife... but it clearly isn't going to work. Their lives were too chaotic when they were together.. all the piles of clothing and whatnot.

The couple can only be a couple when they are separate. The relationship seemed to have formed based on physical things.. it was too superficial: "our matching eyes and hair". There was never any chemistry, so that's why the thought of them being a couple makes sense, but the application won't work.

Naked Shingles of the World

The theme of this poem basically says that people can only have trust and faith in God, who is love, because earthly things are deceiving.

The speaker starts off by saying that "the sea is calm tonight". When I think of a calm sea, I am automatically relaxed (or really annoyed because we live in Indiana). But I think they even make machines that make the noise of the ocean hitting against the rocks to relax people who are trying to sleep.

But the speaker claims that these sounds are the sounds of human misery? He obviously isn't really talking about the waves. They probably stand for like heretics or bad people.

People who tempt us (or, you know, the devil) try to disguise themselves as really approachable, nice people. Like the old man in the white van with candy.

So the sea is the world-it disguises itself as something beautiful and enticing so that it can shake our faith in God.

CHARGE

The tone of this poem is sorta nostalgic, maybe? In the first two stanzas the speaker is remembering his childhood.. They were respectful to God and even to the "elder" that sat with them. And then the next two stanzas the speaker implies that "in these years" no one wants to be respectful or reverent. But he wants that all back.. This is really where I feel a sense of nostalgia. He wants to believe that the oxen knelt in the manger, because it was a belief he never doubted as a child. The word "hoping" in this sense gives me a feeling that he knows he won't find the oxen kneeling. He won't find anyone being reverent anymore. Times have changed.

On a side note, I hate when generations decide that times have changed too much. You know why you feel that way? Because time HAS changed! Didn't they notice that they got old? Nothing can ever really stay the same, so just step back and let the young people make their own memories. I'm not saying that the older generations shouldn't be allowed to remember their past, but they shouldn't blame the world's change on us.

Batter my heart.........

I can totally relate to this poem in certain ways. Life would be so much easier if God would just take away all the temptations. Buuuut, God doesn't work that way. He wants us to make a choice. :/.

But this is how we work in real life. Imprison ourselves, so we can be free.

In grade school, if we talked, the teacher isolates us from the problem and then we actually do our work. And as we get older, we (hopefully) learn to separate ourselves on our own. If I can't study while watching the Biggest Loser, I hit the record button and turn it off.

It is funny to think that we can relate to the same struggles as a person who lived in the 15/16oo's.

Darks. Lights. Whites? and Towels

This poem actually seemed simple to understand, which probably means I'm wrong. I still didn't really get the little things.

But here I go...

When the speaker said that the big towels were reserved for the beach, I was reminded of the poem "Dream Deferred". The towels have obviously been used more than for just the beach, because they are faded. So this woman (I'm assuming) and her husband (I'm assuming again) haven't made it to the beach as often (or at all) as they would have liked. They are probably just living their mundane lives, putting of all their dreams and aspirations that they had in the beginning of their relationship.

Their lives weren't depressing or anything, just not exciting. I mean, the only exciting thing I found in the poem was the "pocket surprises", which were pretty boring.

But in the end she basically says that she wouldn't trade any of it for anything. She couldn't fill the empty side of the bed with just her own clothes.

I wonder what APO 96225 means.

{Question 8}

The speaker is so matter of fact in this poem.. He speaks from an objective point of view, so he shows no opinion on anything that happens. But although he doesn't explicitly give an opinion, I sorta get this feeling of resentment too. After the Vietnam war, no one wanted to talk about it. Soldiers weren't welcomed back home. Everything was swept under the rug; everything went back to normal. But the soldiers had to deal with it.

I think what the speaker really wanted to say was: "Don't ask me questions that you don't really want to know the answer to. You don't want to help us deal with anything, so shut up. Everyone is annoying, even you, Mom."

APO=Acting Pilot Officer.. the lowest rank in the Air Force.

So I'm going to take a guess and say that this guy didn't even want to be there, like Tim O'Brien. If I didn't want to go to war, but I was forced to, I would probably already be bitter.

Barbie Doll

The purpose of "Barbie Doll" is to show humanity what we have become-what society does to women.

When we were little, we didn't care about what we looked like. Little girls are naive to what society demands of us. But really, we were already playing with our "wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy". Society influences our thoughts before we even realize it. So after puberty, we don't all look like a Barbie Doll, we just have "great big nose[s] and fat legs".

We are born into thinking we aren't good enough and we die with others changing our appearances to "pretty".

It is really ironic to say "every woman a happy ending", when that ending isn't real.

Pink Dog

[Question 12]

I think the dog serves as a symbol of all the embarrassing people in the city.

I don't find the poem to be serious, but it isn't entirely lighthearted. But by using the dog as a symbol, the poem is definitely degrading.

The embarrassing people are mostly homeless people, who look like hoboes. He points out specifically women who have several children, but don't really have any means of providing for them besides her breast milk.

This person just wants to party before Lent. Throw out all the dogs, please! I need room to move. Go to "where there are no lights"; we don't want to see you.

The speaker gives the "eyesores" two options. First: leave. Second: dress up fancy.

This way everyone can "Dress up and dance at Carnival"!

That was a lot of blabbing.

Bright Star

This movie actually looks really good. It makes me feel like the poem Bright Star has a more serious tone than what I read it in.

I'm talking about theme [Question 7]. Life isn't worth it unless you are with the person you love the most. In class we said that it was sorta like, "It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all". But the speaker doesn't want to lose! If he had lost then he wanted to die. He doesn't want to live at all if he can't be with his love. "And so live forever-or else swoon to death". ( a little dramatic)

He just wants to lie with his lover forever and ever.

I'm not a crazy Twilight fan, but this reminds me of it, unfortunately. Bella loves Edward so much that she wants to turn into a vampire to be with him. They will both be immortal, so nothing can separate them. Vampires and stars are pretty much the same thing, right?

I taste a a liquor never brewed

[Number eleven]

Emily Dickinson uses an Extended Metaphor in this poem. She (or the Speaker) compares being drunk to Nature.

When I first read this Poem, I really didn't understand Anything! I think I am still reading to see the entire Picture, and I'm not trying to find the Details first.

Anyways, back to the poem. In the first Stanza, the speaker isn't Drunk yet. The Liquor here is actually Mugs of natural Pearls. I think.

In Stanza two, the Speaker is Drunk on Air; She is indulging Herself on the Dew, You know, the little Droplets of Water on the Grass in the Morning. Things are getting Crazy!

In Stanza three, the Speaker talks about Bees, Butterflies, and Foxglove's (which is a kind of Flower). The Bees and Butterflies both eat or use Pollen. Even though the Pollen is gone, "[the speaker] shall but drink the more!". She/He isn't Drunk enough.

Angels (Seraphs) and Saints run to see the "Drunkard" at the "Window"... I don't know how that has to do with Nature.

DEAR EMILY, --

I-- HOPE --THAT WASN'T-- ANNOYING!

MARY.

P.S.--

February. Bumholes.

So this is pretty nasty.

But I'm answering [Question 8]

The tone of this poem is definitely bitter resentment. The speaker is so blunt about everything. Most people try to use euphemisms when they talk. For example, if the speaker could have said "neutered" versus saying "snip off a few testicles".

My uncle Steve reminds me off this person. After his divorce, he just hates love and anything that has to do with it. Especially during February, where all the love in the world seems to blow up in our faces.

I'm not really old enough to get depressed about the love in the air, but I would imagine that at age 50, it is pretty annoying. I'd probably want to just eat food, probably chocolate.

At the end, the tone becomes a little less resentful and a little more "optimistic" about the coming months. "Make it be spring."

Dream Deferred

[Question 6]

So the purpose of this poem was to encourage other African Americans to move forward with gaining equality, which is the dream in the poem.

The dream can shrivel. It loses all it's good stuff. (Like a grape that turns into a raisin) No one wants to deal with nasty raisins. Once the dream shrivels, no one wants to deal with it.

Or it festers like a sore.. which is just nasty to think about. When you don't do anything about your goals, they are constantly on your mind, until you go crazy.

It could also stink like rotten meat. If African Americans had just let themselves be treated like dirt forever, the problem would have grown into an even worse problem, and there would be no way to fix it. You can't make rotten meat pink again (Unless you are the Piemaker).

They couldn't just keep making excuses to put off solving the problem. Everything can seem "sweeter" when we deny that anything is wrong.

The dream will never leave your conscience if you don't do anything about it.

Langston Hughes warned his fellow African Americans that if they don't do something about the way they were being treated, it will turn violent.

SPRING. the season, not the jump.

-Question 7-

The theme in a single sentence: All beginnings start off beautiful, but, given time, everything will eventually be ruined.

Everyone thinks of new life when describing spring. So the author begins with this image-eggs, blooms, lambs- all things beginning life. Everything makes the reader feel... peachy. And then immediately we see the downfall. He uses the Garden of Eden as an example, which was beautiful and perfect in the beginning. It couldn't last; "have, get, before it cloy".

The author ends with a short prayer. He wants to save the children, who are now innocent and naive, but sin will ruin them without divine intervention.

This poem that seemed so joyous in the beginning really turned out to be a bummer. Spring is going to end too, with summer.

The Widow's Lament in Springtime.

{Number 12}

The white flowers in this poem represent the memories the widow has of her late husband.

"...but the grief in my heart is stronger than they for though they were my joy formerly, today I noticed then and turned away forgetting". She can't face her memories, because the joy they once brought her can never be brought back. So when she sees the white flowers, she feels sorrow. On the other hand, her son sees these flowers and wants her to remember, so she can move on. He tells her he sees the white flowers in the meadow, implying that he wants her to start that journey of recovering. He knows that she won't be over quickly, but it is within sight. But the widow doesn't even think twice about what her son wants. She wants those memories back, but she knows she can't. All she wants at this point is to "sink into the marsh next to [those flowers]". I think she just wants to die.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.

Number 11 will be addressed in this poem.

Figurative language: extended metaphor.

So, Emily, or Dickinson, uses the process of a funeral to describe a mental breakdown throughout the entire poem.

I read the first stanza as the beginning of the funeral, maybe even the showing. Everyone is walking back and forth. So in the mental breakdown this can serve as the speaker coming in and out of reality. When the people moved "to", she was capable and real, but when they moved "fro", everyone was gone. She was in her on world.

And then then everyone stopped. They didn't come "to" anymore. (Because the funeral started).

She's in this strange world, waiting to leave completely. And then she begins that journey on the way out of the funeral. "I heard them lift a box". Then silence came, probably in the hearse at this point. She is isolated and is about to leave this world.

"I dropped down, and down..." Now she is in the ground. She is gone. Her mental breakdown is complete; she is insane.

Those Winter Sundays

I'm discussing the tone of this poem.

I think it is pretty obvious.. cold, distant, and dark. His father got up in the "blueblack cold". Blueblack isn't even a real word, so you know the speaker uses it to make us feel the intensity of the coldness. The word reminds me of bruises and evil things. So we are feeling really cold, then we instantly feel distance from his father: "No one ever thanked him." It was quick and short, but I felt it.

Even the warmth mentioned in this poem feels cold. "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call..." Physically, the room was warm, but I'm still feeling cold. It is kind of like a selfish warm, and as I read it, I wanted him to hug someone, particularly his dad.

Cold cold cold cold cold.

The Convergence of Twain. Bold Move.

I think the speaker of this poem isn't directly talking to any person in particular. Maybe he is making a statement to this world: human vanity will lead to downfall. "The mirrors [were] meant to glass the opulent...The sea-worm crawls-grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent" (III). The mirrors are from the boat, so the vain passengers look at themselves to capture all the lavish jewels and whatnot. Then the worms are the bystanders.. the normal people. I think the speaker describes them as "grotesque" and "slimed" to be sarcastic? He is mocking the views of the passengers. They are indifferent because they could care less about what happens to these greedy people! According to this speaker, the iceberg is just a punishment.

So when I say "Bold Move.", I mean- how crazy of this author to be so blunt about this tragic accident! When people come up with theories about 9/11, people get offended! It was just too soon.

This was answering question six.. the purpose of the poem.

"The Nature of..." Post

I agree with Perrine's approach to determing "correct" interpretations of poetry. Obviously anything can't really be the right meaning. The author wants us to read it in the way he wrote it, but would rather us interpret the poem in our own way if we don't understand it at first. There aren'texact correct interpretations in poetry, but by using context clues, we can make better meanings. His two criteria actually do make sense to me. Poems stress me out. I never know when I am reading it right. Knowing that there CAN be more than one interpretation puts me at ease, even though I know my interpreations don't usually make any sense. In this class studying poetry will be hard for me. I take everything to literally. If I pay attention to how my meaning relates to the details of the poem and isn't too "far-fetched", then at least I know I am on the right track.

It is easy to read a poem literally and not get any meaning from it, but Perrine takes that to the next twelve levels. The problem of symbols is actually knowing that there are symbols being used. We all understand what a symbol is, but can we find them? "A literary symbol means something more than what it is". This concept confuses me. How can I interpret the poem using context clues if I don't understand the clues? Because I take everything for what it is, it is hard for me to even understand a poem that doesn't use symbols. Now there are two levels of depth I have to dig through. Interpreting symbols is just like interpreting a poem, but if I don't get the poem near the correct interpretation, then I will be way off when I try to figure out the meaning of symbols.