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.