For a Lady I Know

Countee Cullen

She even thinks that up in heaven
    Her class lies late and snores,
While poor black cherubs rise at seven
    To do celestial chores.

     This poem consists of one stanza made up of four lines.  I interpreted it as an older lady, who was most likely a teacher, that believes that even in Heaven there will be servents.  I found it foolish of her to think so because in Heaven everybody is equal, therefore eliminating slavery.  Cullen grew up in the early 1900's, so perhaps this is somewhat of her opinion being reflected in the poem.

Oh No

Robert Creeley

If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit

for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.

    When I read this poem, I immediately thought of Heaven.  The first stanza talks about if you stray far enough, you will eventually get to Heaven, or wherever it may be.  Once you get there you will be able to rest.  The second stanza goes on to talk about how all your friends will be there too and how everybody is happy and is smiling.  This poem seems very happy, which is why I suspect I might of missed something in it? Plus the title doesn't really fit with the rest of the poem The rhyme scheme is ABCB in the 1st stanza and DDEE in the 2nd. 

The Golf Links

Sarah N. Cleghorn

The golf links lie so near the mill
     That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
     And see the men at play.

For such a short poem, it says a lot.  To start off with, a golf link is the oldest form of a golf course and originated in Scotland.  With that information you can assume this poem was written back in the day (written in 1915).  Lines three and four are the lines that really captured my attention.  She mentions how the children are working, but the men are just playing.  Hmmmm..... I think it should be the other way around.  The only lines that rhyme are two and four, which are both the indented lines. 

this is a photograph of me

Margaret Atwood

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch:  part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)

     I thought this poem was very interesting. It doesn't have a rhyme scheme, and it tells a story.  The first stanza doesn't me straight out tell you it's a photograph, but can easily be assumed by the description she gives...or the title.  She describes the picture to be blurry and not easy to decipher.  In the second stanza, the photograph becomes more visible, and objects can be made out.   She mentions a tree branch of either a Balsam or Spruce tree, both "Christmas" trees, which hints that the photograph was taken in the winter. The third stanza she goes on to describe more of the photograph, which also contains a lake.  The rest of the poem is in parenthesis.  The fourth stanza reveals that the picture described above was taken the day after she drowned.  The next stanza reveals that she is in the picture.  I think the reason Atwood said that she was in the center of the picture, just under the surface because it seems like if something was in the middle of the picture you would definitely notice it but it wasn't mentioned when she described the picture earlier.  She described everything but the center of the picture.  The "just under the surface" may be a reference to her emotions.  It isn't clear whether or not her death was an accident or suicidal.  This hints more to a suicide because she might have felt unnoticed or under the radar.  The next stanza I took more of a self reflection of herself.  She didn't know where exactly she was in the picture, or in life.  She wasn't sure whether or not she was large or small (important or not important).  The final stanza simply states that if you take the time to really look, below the surface you'll see her.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower,
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

  I really liked this poem by Robert Frost.  I took it simply as nothing good ever lasts.  It's an easy one to relate to because there is often a time that is so much fun or perfect and you don't want it to change, but it does anyways.  Frost used the different seasons to portray this message of nothing good ever lasts.  In the first line, he says that before nature was green, it was gold.  In the second line he goes on to tell that the gold is the hardest one to keep, as if the gold is more sacred than the green.  Line three and four talks about Spring, but how it only lasts a little bit.  In line five, I took the "leaf subsides to leaf" as the leaves falling, and it changing to winter.  Line six makes a Biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived.  The next line makes a switch from a change in seasons to a change in the time of day.  I thought it was interesting he put "dawn goes down to day".  Perhaps he preferred dawn to day, so dawn was his "golden" thing he lost to day.  I think the last line sums up the poem perfectly and really emphasizes the meaning of it. 
  The poem is an octave with a rhyme scheme of AA BB CC DD.



Garden of Eden



you fit into me

Margaret Atwood

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

This is a very short poem made up of two couplets.  There isn't a rhyme scheme.

The first two lines refer to a hook and an eye.  The hook and eye that Atwood is talking about are sewing tools.  It starts off with a happy, lovey dovey tone to it. 

The next two lines go to reveal it's not the type of hook and eye first assumed.  The happy tone quickly turns into a not so cheerful, painful tone.  Although this is a short poem, it certainly says a lot. Maybe she was inspired because somebody stabbed her in the back.....or eye.

Goodbye, Hello

Goodbye to the house I grew up in,
the log house on top of a hill,
Goodbye to my room, bathroom, and kitchen,
To my neighbors, Betty, David, Debbie, and Bill.
Goodbye to my yard of trees galore,
to the oak where my tire swing once swung.
Goodbye to my key which unlocked the front door,
to the shower in which I always sung.
Goodbye to this and more,
but Hello to so much more.

Questions We Have About Guys

Why do you have to lie?
Why are you so immature?
Why can't you just say what you're thinking?
Why do you always have such a big ego?
Why do you think you know everything?
How did you get so cute?
Why are you so irresistible?
Why do you love me?
Are you the one?

Much madness is divinest sense

Emily Dickinson

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye,
Much sense, the starkest madness,
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevail:
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, you're straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain.

     This poem definitely makes you think some, starting with the first line.  The first line contains some irony.  She mentions "much madness", which I immediately think of a crazy person or something like that.  Then she goes on to say that it's divinest sense.  That's where the irony comes in.  You typically don't think of crazy or mad people as making much sense.  The first line also contains a lot of alliteration.  (The m's in much madness, the S's at the end of madness, is, divinest, sense.) The second line mentions a discerning eye.  I took discerning as meaning wise.  The rest of the poem I took as saying madness is sanity.  I think madness in this poem is a very ambiguous term, and different meanings of the word can change how the reader perceives the poem.

Sort of a Song

William Carlos Williams

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait
sleepless.

---through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

     This poem is broken into 2 sestets.  There is no rhyme scheme. 
  The first stanza talks about the snake, and relates it to the poem.  It is basically saying that the snake is very patient and waits for it's prey.
     In the second stanza, it talks about the saxifrage.  This is very similar to the snake, it that it takes patience to split the rock (it's prey).  I also saw a relationship between poems and songs.  I feel as if Williams was trying to get his audience to appreciate poetry.

It was a dream

Lucille Clifton

in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could I have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This

    When I first read this poem, the first thing that came to my mind was the structure of the poem.  In the title only the first word was capitalized, like it was just a sentence.  The first word in the poem isn't capitalized at all.  The first six lines is one sentence and the only punctuation was a period at the end of the sentence.  The following line contains just one uncapitalized word with a comma after it.  Throughout the poem, she doesn't capitalize any of the "I"s, except in line nine.  The last line she definitely used capitalization and punctuation. 
     I took this poem as Clifton having a confrontation with herself.  The title helps put the poem together.  If you read the title as part of the beginning, it fits and makes the poem seem a little less crazy.  When she says, " my greater self rose" I took it as more of her conscience or "good" side that was talking to her.  She was scolding herself for her life she lived.  I thought it was interesting how in line four she said, "with her extra finger."  After doing some research on her I found that in her family she has a genetic disease that makes people in her family have an extra finger.  She told herself that her future outlook wasn't good.  She tried to plead with herself, but it ended up making her even more furious.  I think the last line of the poem is her answer to the question in lines eight and nine.  This dream might have been an epiphany of how her life was going, or a wake up call. 

Polydactyly

The Hat Lady

Linda Paston

In a childhood of hats---
my uncles in homburgs and derbies,
Fred Astaire in high black silk,
the yarmulke my grandfather wore
like the palm of a hand
cradling the back of his head---
only my father went hatless,
even in winter.

And in the spring,
when a turban of leaves appeared
on every tree, the Hat Lady came
with a fan of pins in her mouth
and pins in every sleeves,
the Hat Lady came---
that Saint Sebastian of pins,
to measure my mother's head.

I remember a hat of dove-gray felt
that settled like a bird
on the nest of my mother's hair.
I remember a pillbox that tilted
over one eye--pure Myrna Loy,
and a navy straw with cherries caught
at the brim that seemed real enough
for a child to want to pick.

Last year when the chemicals
took my mother's hair, she wrapped
a towel around her head.  And the Hat Lady came,
a bracelet of needles on each arm,
and led her to a place
where my father and grandfather waited,
head to bare head, and Death


winked at her and tipped his cap.

Homburg







Derbie





Fred Astaire





yarmulke

     The first stanza makes references to all the above pictures.  These are all associated with her childhood.  It informs you that her family is Jewish because her Grandfather wore a yarmulke.  I thought it was interesting that her father didn't wear a hat.  



turban



Saint Sebastian



     The second stanza goes on to talk about the Hat Lady.  In line ten, Pastan uses the word turban, a type of hat often used in the Sikh religion, to describe the leaves.  Line fifteen makes an allusion to Saint Sebastian, which was a Christian saint and matyr.  She talks about how the Hat Lady to fit her mother for a hat. 



Myrna Loy



     Stanza four makes a reference to Myrna Loy, an American actress.  I didn't find if she was religious or not, but I found out that she had multiple failed marriges and an abortion, which rules out a lot of religions.  This stanza goes into detail of the hats her mother wore that were made by the Hat Lady.  

    The last stanza reveals that her mother is dying of cancer.  She talks about Death, and mentions him tipping his cap.  Even Death wears a hat.  Throughout the poem, different religions are tied in through types of hats, and I think Death at the end brings all of them together.  

     The poem is made up of four octaves.  There isn't a rhyme scheme or meter to the poem.     

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of the poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

they begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.


     Billy Collins is a well established American poet.  He was born on March 22, 1941 in New York.  When he was young, his mother would make him recite verses on a number of different subjects.  Through this, he learned to love words.  He is a distinguished professor at Lehman College, which is evident that he teaches in the poem. 
     The structure of the poem is free verse.  There's no structured rhyme scheme, lines in each stanza, or fixed meter. 
     In the first five stanzas, Collins is trying to get his audience to experience the poem.  He wants them to use different senses to find the poem's meaning.  He also wants his audience to relate the author to the poem. 
     The last two stanzas tell what they do instead.  His audience dissects the poem, and tries to find the one "right" meaning to the poem.  This is where ambiguity comes into play.  I think our class might need a reminder of our "Word of the Year."

simple straightforward ambiguity

Cottonmouth Country

Louise Gluck

Hatteras, NC

Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.

And there were other signs

That death wooed us, by water, wooed us
By land: among the pines
An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss
Reared in the polluted air.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there. 

     In the first line, she makes a reference to Hatteras.  Hatteras is located on the coast of North Carolina.  Cape Hatteras is often referred to as "Graveyard of the Atlantic" because so many ships have gotten lost there.  I also thought that the first line contained some irony when it said, "Fish bones walked the waves", because fish are more the swimming type, not walking.  This line, as well as two through six, refers to death.  Another sign of death she gave was the cottonmouth, which is a deadly snake.  Line seven is saying that life can be worse than death, and also brings change.  In the last line, Gluck states that she also left a skin there.  I took this as she lost somebody close to her, but instead of blaming death for it, she blames life for giving her that person to begin with.  

The Book

Miller Williams

I held it in my hands while he told me the story.

He had found it in a fallen bunker,
a book for notes with the pages blank.
He took it to keep for a sketchbook and diary.

He learned years later, when he showed the book
to an old bookbinder, who paled, and stepped back
a long step and told him what he held,
what he had laid the days of his life in.
It's bound, the binder said, in human skin.

I stood turning it over in my hands,
turning it in my head. Human skin.

What child did this skin fit? What man, what

woman?

Dragged still full of its flesh from what dream?

Who took it off the meat? Some other one

who stayed alive by knowing how to do this?

I stared at the changing book and a horror grew,

I stared and a horror grew, which was, which is,

how beautiful it was until I knew.

     The structure of the poem is as if a story is being told.  In lines one through four, he starts out by explaining how they got the book.  Although he never specifies who "he" is, I automatically assumed it was his grandfather because they are best known for telling stories.  In the third stanza, he goes on to tell the disturbing truth about the book.  I found the structure of the next three stanzas was interesting.  They are all different thoughts of his about the book.  When I read this, it helped me see the thought process he was going through.  These stanzas also show the innocence of him, as if he was a child when this happened.  The last stanza was a loss of innocence for him.  He realized that something so great could turn out to be something horrible.  I also took from the last stanza that knowledge isn't always enlightening, and can be destructive to ourselves.

Untitled

Stephan Crane

In the desert
I saw the creature, naked, bestial,
Who squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said:  "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.

     My first reaction to this poem was it is very different and weird, but I like it.  In lines one through five, Crane creates a disturbing image of a beastly creature eating it's own heart.  I pictures a demonic caveman type ceature.  Then in lines six through ten he describes the conversation he had with the creature.  This made me think of "Heart of Darkness".  Humans are often drawn to dark and terrible things, and even though this may sound horrible to some, it is our nature.  In line six, he asks, "Is it good, friend?" I wasn't quite sure why he added the friend in there.  Perhaps something to discuss in class...