Poetry #5

"In Just" by E.E. Cummings

in Just-

spring       when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far       and          wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

        the

                 goat-footed

balloonMan       whistles

far

and

wee


The form of this poem is what immediately caught my attention before reading it. There are not much stanzas, and even when there are, the words are spaced out. I wonder where the intent of writing poems in this form lies and if Cummins got his inspiration to craft the poem like this from other poets. Is this supposed to express the absence of space and organization of the speaker of the poem? There seemed to be a very childish and playful attitude of the poem. Cummings, overall, plays on the form of any other “typical” poem. He does not capitalize the names of the characters within the poem and also does not put spaces in between eddieandbill and bettyandisbel. I was not even able to make a distinct decision of what the foot and meters are. As far as the context goes, I was able to realize that there is a balloonman and he carries some effect on the boys. After reading this poem for the second time, I unfortunately was still not able to understand what is actually occurring, only the setting and the characters. I also did not understand where the title comes from and how it is relevant to the poem.

Poetry #6

“Rites of Passage” by Sharon Olds

As the guests arrive at my son's party
they gather in the living room--
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another 
How old are you? Six. I'm seven. So? 
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other's pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the dark cake, round and heavy as a
turret, behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
model boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son's life. 

By initially looking at the title, I thought that Olds was playing on the word and meaning of "rites." This is one of the many few poems I was actually able to conceptualize and understand what is going on. There is a party or gathering on for the speaker’s son, although I do not know what is being celebrated. It sort of creeped me out how the speaker was talking about the boys in the party, because he or she seemed to be in a state of admiration for the six and seven year old boys. I paid attention to how the author put the dialogue in italics rather than quotations. Is this supposed to affect the form and bring some kind of significance to the poem. I also did not understand the importance of why the speaker referred to the young boys by their age rather than their actual names. Some of the vocabulary Olds used like “turrets” I did not know the meaning of, and had to do further research. After reading this poem for a second time, I realized that there was a greater meaning of the poem, something dealing with levels of power because of age. Of the few literary devices I actually did notice, the ones that stuck out the most as far symbolism and significance were “freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks, chest narrow as the balsa keel of a model boat.” This further proves why I gained an uncomfortable feeling from the speaker’s tone, admirable and observant, to the subject of the poem, the boys.

Poetry Response #4

" We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

For this poem, I wanted to focus not only on TPCASTT, like the title and summary of the poem, but also on the foot and meters. “We Real Cool” is told from first person point of view, but I was still left confused as to who “we” and who the speaker actually is. The only thing that I was able to figure out was that this was a story about kids spending time together and making amazing memories. The actual material of this poem is treated symbolically. Some of the symbols I noticed were gin. Gin represents the livelihood of the young adults within the poem. It’s no doubt that since these kids are skipping school and drinking alcohol and generally doing things that most adults would frown upon makes them “cool.” I researched when this poem was written, 1959, and that’s the beauty in literature and poetry-this poem can still be considered relevant in today’s world.

As far as the foot and meters go, I looked at each separate sentence rather than each line as a meter, and I found that it is a trimeter. I had the same troubles I had with my homework on foot and meters, which was finding what part of the words are accented. After saying the lines repeatedly, I found that “We Real Cool” is written in amphibrachic.

Poetry Response #3

"To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.

When initially reading this poem, I knew that the poem was addressed to the speaker's husband told from a first person point of view. The title "To My Dear and Loving Husband" implies that the speaker's husband means a lot to her or him. I got the sense that this poem would revolve around the topics of marriage and family. In the actual poem, I found literal meaning in that the speaker and her husband, as one and a couple, are the ideal and example couple for everyone else. The speaker tells the poem in past tense for the start of the poem, and then the main shift occurred for me was when the tense changed to present. Imagery lies in the lines of "I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold" because both lines appeal to the sense of sight. Imagery is essential within this poem because it really gets the message of how much the husband means to the speaker. In addition, I also got the sense that the speaker of the poem feels as though she does not deserve her husband's love, and if ever accepted, she would have to repay him in some shape or form.

Task 1

"Since there's no help" by Michael Drayton

When initially reading this poem, I found that the speaker's tone is romantic and intimate. What interested me most about the poem was that the speaker is addressing an inanimate object, love, as if it's a breathing and moving thing. I wasn't exactly sure, right off the bat, what the meaning should be gained out of reading this poem. When reading this poem the second time around, I read the poem much slower and paid attention to each detail so I could fully analyze it.

Some of the questions that were difficult for me to answer are questions involving "shift in the poem," relationships of that multiple lines could share, and actual literary poetry terms like couplet. Although, I didn't have a problem with answering questions dealing with rhythm and vocabulary.

"Mirror" by Sylvia Plath

Immediately, I noticed Plath's use of periods at the end of her sentences because this is uncommon within the poems I have read before. I also took notice to the general attitude of the poem, which seemed to be confident, sure but also free flowing. Plath uses many metaphors. I didn't know who "she" was first. When I read "Mirror" the second time around, I paid closer attention to the words and syntax Plath used, and I felt a lot more admiration for the poem and saw it as pure art. The language she uses to compare herself to unlike things is beautiful. 

I didn't have trouble answering questions related to this poem dealing with perspective, the words as a whole, and what specific lines may suggest. I had trouble understanding poetry terms, for instance I don't know what an antecedent is and what the speaker may be implying throughout the poem. 

Othello by Shakespeare

Usually, I don't enjoy reading plays simply because I am unfamiliar with them and I don't know how about it, especially if the play is revolved around something that doesn't interest me. Considering the fact that this play was written an extremely long time ago, it was hard for me to understand the language Shakespeare used. Once again, I don't know who the speaker is addressing when he says "she." Overall, I couldn't really conceptualize what was going on in the poem due to the fact that I was unfamiliar with the vocab.