But
largely, c’mon — you and I both know — real live American poetry is
absent from our public schools. The teaching of poetry languishes, and
that region of youthful neurological terrain capable of being ignited and
aria’d only by poetry is largely dark, unpopulated, and silent, like a
classroom whose door is unopened, whose shades are drawn.
This
is more than a shame, for poetry is our common treasure-house, and we need its
aliveness, its respect for the subconscious, its willingness to entertain
ambiguity; we need its plaintive truth-telling about the human condition and
its imaginative exhibitions of linguistic freedom, which confront the general
culture’s more grotesque manipulations.
We need the emotional training sessions poetry conducts us through. We need its previews of coming attractions:
heartbreak, survival, failure, endurance, understanding, more heartbreak.
The
first part of the fix is very simple: the list of poems taught in our schools
needs to be updated. We must make a new
and living catalogue accessible to teachers as well as students. The old
chestnuts — “The Road Not Taken,” “I heard a fly buzz when I died,” “Do
not go gentle into that good night” — great, worthy poems all — must
be removed and replaced by poems that are not chestnuts. This refreshing of canonical content and tone
will vitalize teachers and students everywhere, and just may revive our sense
of the currency and relevance of poetry.
Accomplish that, and we can renew the conversation, the teaching,
everything. . .
If
anthologies were structured to represent the way that most of us actually
learn, they would begin in the present and “progress” into the past. I read Lawrence Ferlinghetti before I read D.
H. Lawrence before I read Thomas Wyatt.
Once the literate appetite is whetted, it will keep turning to new
tastes. A reader who first falls in love
with Billy Collins or Mary Oliver is likely then to drift into an anthology
that includes Emily Dickinson and Thomas Hardy. . .
In
the spirit of boosterism, I have selected twenty works I believe worthy of
inclusion in this curriculum — works I believe could empower us with a common
vocabulary of stories, values, points of reference. The brief explications and
justifications I offer below for nine of these poems are not meant to foreclose
the interpretive possibilities that are part of a good poem’s life force.
Rather, I hope they will point to areas worthy of cultivation in that
mysterious inner space, the American mind.
~Tony Hoagland, Poet
Okay, Tony. I
accept your challenge. The thing is, I
don’t care for your list of poems, so I’ve chosen my own. Class, here are twenty (plus one) poems to
whet your appetites, and to entice you into the joys of poetry.
~ Jim MacArthur, Teacher
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By the way, I encourage all of you to drop by the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival this summer. (Although I must warn you, they are now charging a $15.00 dollar admission fee.* Well, considering I'll pay $50 dollars for a seat at Fenway, plus another $20 to park, plus gas and tolls -- it's still a great deal. But poetry is for everybody -- not just the elites.) Ted Kooser, United States Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, opens the Festival on June 24th. Other Poet Laureates who have read there include Robert Pinsky, Billy Collins, Philip Levine, and Natasha Trethewey. (Natasha has been here twice -- once as a young unknown and then later in her first reading as Poet Laureate.) Many of the poets in your packet are Sunken Garden alumni. There's food and drink. live music, then a poetry reading -- all in a beautiful setting on a lovely summer evening. One can hardly get more civilized that that.
* Update -- Well, they are and they aren't. If you're 18 or under (like you), it's FREE! If you're over 18 (like me) it's still $15.00. And only $12.00 if you buy your ticket online.
After reading the poem “Photograph from September 11”, the message stuck with me. It gives a glimpse into what the people who made the choice to jump must have been thinking that day. Now from living through the event (even though we were too young to remember it) I’ve seen a lot about 9/11. I remember seeing a photograph of two people holding hands falling from one of the building after it had been hit. No one knew if they were friends or just too scared to jump alone. While reading the poem it made me wonder if the author was referring to the same picture. Another thing about this poem that stuck out was the stanza ‘There’s enough time/ for hair to come loose, / for keys and coins/ to fall from pockets.’ Showing the people that jumped were aware and had time to think while they were falling, knowing these moments in the air were their last time on the Earth. That got to me and really made me think about it. And lastly, I have a question. The last stanza of the poem confused me. ‘I can do only two things for them-/ describe this flight/ and not add a last line.’ Is the author referring to not letting their memory fade? Or is there another meaning of the line?
ReplyDeleteI had the same photograph in my head as I read this poem. I still remember the first time I looked closely at the image, and I believe this poet did a good job at respectfully preserving the memory of these victims. The last stanza stuck with me too, my understanding was that the "last line" would have been the ending of the victim's lives in the moment; but also their remembrance. The flight described is more important than the victims resting place, and the poet wants to protect the remembrance of those lost.
DeleteI think the last stanza is the author's way of immortalizing them. In the photograph they are people. They look as if they still have time. In the picture they are alive. once you write the end, once you tell people, they become victims. Without the words they just keep flying.
ReplyDeleteA few poems have stood out to me thus far. The three in particular are "Introduction", "Mrs. Krikorian", and "Famous". "Introduction" by Billy Collins was a good way to start off because it set my attitude toward reading the poems to a more optimistic one than I had. Collins personified poetry as an actual object and wrote about people trying too hard to get the meaning out of poetry. Collins advised me to let the poems come to me rather than over-analyzing them. "Mrs. Krikorian" by Sharon Olds was a nice piece because it provoked thought in respecting your lineage and paying homage to the people that got you to where you are today. Olds emphasized this with some parallelism and repetition of the words "saved…", "who saved...", etc. Finally, "Famous" by Nami Shihab Nye is my favorite poem so far. I love its message regarding the relativity of fame. Nye mentions a handful of scenarios of fame, all with different sizes and scopes. They all come together to portray the message of anyone or anything having the ability to be famous. I'm still working on the second half of the poems and will point out any other favorites of mine!
ReplyDeleteThe two poems that stood out to me so far were "Introduction" and "Rain in Childhood". I liked "Introduction" by Billy Collins because of its lighter and humorous tone. I like it because I can relate to it as one of the kids that is torturing the poem and analyzing every aspect of the poem trying to find some sort of meaning when really all I have to do is read the poem with an open mind. I also liked "Rain in Childhood" by Eric Ormsby because throughout the poem phrases that Ormsby used had me flashing back to my own childhood and to the memories of the warm, cozy bus while it poured outside. The smoky smell the poet talks about is something everybody can relate to and immediately gives me nostalgic memories. I think these two poems stood out to me the most because they were both poems that I could relate to and had me thinking about some of my own experiences that I can connect to these poems.
ReplyDeleteThe poems that caught my eye and really piqued my interest were "Introduction" and "Those Winter Sundays." I enjoyed "Introduction" by Billy Collins because I am able to visualize the frustration of a teacher wanting the students to actually experience and appreciate a poem instead of simply looking at a poem and demanding the meaning without fully experiencing the poem. The teacher wants the students to look at the poem in a different way and to try to actually listen and understand the poem as opposed to torturing it for the meaning. I also interpreted that the teacher wants the students to treat the poem as something more than a flat piece of paper and that they should instead explore the poem and work their way though it like a maze until the light bulb turns on in their head. Finally the teacher wants the students to enjoy the poem. However the students want to just focus on the meaning and will do whatever they can to figure it out as fast as they can. I can relate to this because this is what I do when I see a complicated poem that I don't fully understand right away and I have learned that I should appreciate it and I shouldn't rush to discover the meaning of a poem. This poem really connected to me and sent a strong message and that is why it stood out to me. "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden was great because it was the speaker's reflection on his father and how his view of him has changed since he was a kid. The speaker and his father seem to have had a distant relationship and this might be due to the lack of affection the dad might have shown to his son. However the speaker didn't understand that his father was showing him love through his actions and not words. I got the feeling that the speaker feels regret for not appreciating what his father had done for him and not realizing how much his father loved him.
ReplyDeleteThe first contemporary poem by Billy Collins successfully brings about a change in any basic mind set in order to clearly read, understand, and enjoy each poem to come. As Collins states in the fifth stanza
ReplyDelete"I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem" which from my immediate translation, meant he wanted people to do more than just read and quickly decipher poems, but also take the time to enjoy them, link memories to them, and touch onto thought provoking ideas each individual author may of been trying to get across.
I totally agree! In my opinion, one of the big reasons that poetry is sometimes unpopular with people in our age group is because we expect that we have to "beat the confession" (as Billy Collins would say) out of the poem whenever we read one. While getting this "confession" we forget to enjoy the poem all together. I believe that Billy Collins would rather people enjoy a poem and take it for what it is, even if that means missing the author's exact intent or message, rather than not enjoying it at all. I believe that Billy Collins and I think alike in a sense that art is something that can speak to an individual even when you do not fully understand it's meaning. Sometimes if you spend too much time searching for the meaning, the art (whether it be a play, song, poem, or painting) becomes less enjoyable and loses it's ability to speak and touch people who view it.
DeleteI especially loved when Billy Collins said "or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch." This is very witty. When you feel the wall for the light switch you are in contact with the wall and experience what it feels like. If you experience a poem in this way, you may casually gain a unique understanding of the poem but you will also be able to enjoy it.
I really enjoyed reading 'Why We Tell Stories' by Lisel Mueller. As you read each section it feels like the words are blooming in your mind; with each part the language becomes more familiar and straight forward. The flow of the language almost mimics evolution. The first section is deeply rooted in nature and the evolution of animals into humans;
ReplyDelete"...because our children believe
they can fly, an instinct retained
from when the bones in our arms
where shaped like zithers and broke
neatly under their feathers..."(Mueller).
I think Mueller is trying to say that we tell stories because we can't forget that once we were not doctors, lawyers, poets, or dreamers; that once we were as joined to the Earth as the plants that grow up from its soil, the birds that fly in its sky, and the fish that swim in its ocean.
In the second section focuses more on the idea that we tell stories because they give us power. They allow us to feel as if we are not the smallest beings in the world.
"...because we were always defeated
we invented impossible riddles
only we could solve,
monsters only we could kill,
women who could love no one else..."(Mueller).
And when we tell these stories and survive the stories we told become legends.
Finally, in the third section Mueller wraps all the stories together to suggest that all our stories become our lives and that we tell stories to live. We may all have similar hardships and triumphs, but they are spoken from different lips in different ways and different languages, and as we weave these stories with our own special thread they become our lives. The history of our lives is past down by, "...grandmothers looking like spiders want[ing] to enchant the children and grandfathers need[ing] to convince us what happened happened because of them..."(Mueller). Through these stories we begin telling our own. The same story told in a different way all our own.
"...we will begin our story
with one word and"(Mueller).
I took these last lines to mean that with the word 'and' we are adding our stories onto the stories of our ancestors; adding to the stories of life. These same stories that go on and on repeating themselves with the addition of 'and'.
I just read the poem "Anyways" by Suzanne Cleary. While i really loved the poem, the last line brought up questions. Throughout the poem Suzanne discusses how words have different meanings in her culture than they do for her husband particularly the word "Anyway". For her the word Anyway is plural because it needs to be big enough to encompass its meaning. For her the word expresses "...more than one reason and...that which is beyond reason..." It shows that there is more meaning to the sentence than can be adequately expressed with words. However, although she had the opportunity to end the poem with the word anyways she ended with "regardless". I am sure there is a reason but i am not sure i know what it is. Anybody have any ideas"? Thanks
ReplyDeleteI also noticed that Clearly neglected the opportunity to end the poem with the word "anyways." After thinking about it, perhaps she did this because just before the ending she wrote: "Someone who will look into our eyes/and say what could ruin everything, but say it." By saying "regardless" instead of "anyways" she is in a sense "ruining" the neat ending she could've had, but she said it. Regardless. So, having this ending emphasizes the last few lines of the poem, or gives an example of this ruinous, fearless speech.
DeleteThanks. I agree that the ending is emphasized by using the word "regardless". This might be to give the poem some finality especially because the word "anyways" would suggest there was more, a deeper meaning to the poem that still must be discovered beyond the last line.
DeleteI loved the poem "What the Living Do" by Marie Howe. This poem was written like a letter to a person who has left the writer's life.We know his name is Johnny and we know that he is dead or as good as dead to the poet (i suppose he could be in a coma or something along those lines) because the poem says that he gave up "that yearning" which i take to mean he gave up the struggle of life and gave up looking forward to things in his life. It starts out describing neglect and it seems as if the writer has lost motivation.The tone is very tired and grief-stricken, resigned to the struggles of everyday life. "For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking...". Its as if she herself is breaking, letting her life fall out because something about it is just too heavy, more than she can carry. You can feel the pain in her choice of words, "Clogged" ,"dangerous", "crusty","breaking","wobbly","slamming","cold". Then, the second to last stanza is a turning point. The tone is tinged with thanksgiving and love, the mood is more hopeful than dejected. She uses words like "Cherishing", "speechless", and "living". The image portrayed is still of the everyday, we get this feeling from her mentioning the video store which is a sight you would expect to see on just an average day, but it is more uplifted. At this point she describes her reflection and how looking at herself she remembers Johnny, the person she lost. It is as if by looking at her reflection she is looking at herself through Johnny's eyes and he obviously loved her very much so she feels that same love reflected back onto herself and is grateful to be alive.
ReplyDeleteAnother poem that stood out to me was "Kafka: Lilacs" by Robert Cording. I had one question for this poem: Why is Kafka in the title? I know that within the poem one of his books was mentioned but i wonder if he is who the poem is about? I had to look up his book Hunger Artist as i have not read it yet. It seems to be about a man who fasts for a living which makes sense in context of the poem as the main character cannot eat even watered-down yogurt.
ReplyDeleteI loved this poem for a number of reasons. First of all, I liked the transitions. I admired how smoothly the focus transferred from the flowers to the memory of the lake and then back again. He included the word "Spray" after the fantasy was over to tie the water back to the flowers. In context it is talking about the flower but it also makes me think of the water's spray. I am not sure if this was intentional but it very well could be. I also love how he never came out and said the old man is dying but it was evident through his careful use of language. He gives us a picture of stillness: "A clock
Replays the same hours and the sun
Arrives right on schedule, pausing now..."
He then talks about the dying flowers on the sill which appears to be a metaphor for himself. They are both on the brink of death but are still trying to be happy. The old man laughs, he doesn't drink or take a bunch of drugs, he remembers.
The flowers, also staying positive, "have gone on drinking with such pleasure."
We are given another image of death in the sailboat as it
"passed beyond an island
As from one realm to another."
Again the man is like the boat passing slowly into another realm.
Finally we are given a strong sense that the man is physically close but mentally far away.
"Everything is far and near at once,remote
As memory and yet present as these lilacs..."
Also, he breaths in the scent of the flowers as if he is tasting them but he doesn't have any physical contact with them.
In conclusion, this poem was attractive because it was well thought out. It flowed well and used captivating imagery to paint a picture of death rather than present the fact outright. It was also unique in its perspective. rather than dead or alive this poem seemed to rest between those two extremes in some vague middle space.
Wishes for sons by Lucille Clifton was a really interesting poem. At first I was perplexed by what she was trying to say, I thought maybe she wished her sons would go through what her daughters had to go through in order to understand them better, and in a way I still think this, but in a broader sense. I realized that Clifton's expectation in writing this poem was to induce more awareness towards what women have to go through. She wishes for any close-minded men to see that women have hardships just as they do, some of lesser importance, some of more, some of equal. Everyone has hardships and she as a likely feminist wants that fact to be known. She wants any men who say women have it "easy", to experience their personal hardships and then become less arrogant, and more understanding.
ReplyDeleteI agree Naomi. I had the same reaction you had when I read it first. But the more I read and thought about the more I realized how disturbing it was. Being a feminist and wanting equality for women is one thing. But wishing the pain and embarrassment on them is another. Clifton actually says in the second stanza
Delete“i wish them one week early and wearing a white skirt. i wish them one week late” This to me is sad. There are things women have to go through because its life but wishing them embarrassment and fear is unsettling. She could have gotten a more positive message out there promoting equality without discussing something like this. Another thing I found interesting is that the title is “wishes for sons” which is more specific than just wishes for men. In my opinion I wouldn’t want my sons to go through all of that. As a mother you try to protect your child from pain and embarrassment. I was puzzled by this.
I don't know if she was necessarily wishing those hardships upon her sons but rather voicing her feeling of how important it is that her sons are raised to be understanding of just what their female counterparts have to go through so that rather than being bigoted and arrogant towards women they are more mutually understanding.
DeleteThis poem confused me. If I was ever a mother I would never want to wish those things upon my sons. But after reading what Naomi wrote, I read it again and she is right. It really is a poem that requires you to read it twice in order to fully understand what she is saying. I then thought, "Could there be a better way to write her wishes so that it doesn't sound like she truly means to put those hardships upon her children?" But then I thought that this was the best way. It shocks the reader into thinking that she actually means it. Any reader would be appalled upon reading it the first time that it forces them to read it again. After that second reading they get the bigger picture
DeleteI agree Jake, I think this poem is written perfectly. The fact that it is so bold is what grasps the reader. Being so bold and straightforward while speaking about women's biology unfortunately makes people uncomfortable. This is because in our male dominated society these topics are not often thought about as appropriate for conversation, this is because they are often swept under the rug and ignored even though they exist. This goes to show how harsh society is on women. They can sometimes be brought to shame for the things that naturally occur, things that nobody could stop or change. I believe that her target audience was men. If this poem made a man uncomfortable, they may have to read it through a couple more times (as you mentioned) and then maybe they would think, "wow that's got to be tough" and gain some more respect for women, maybe some respect they didn't previously have. I also agree with everybody on the thought that she is not actually wishing her sons to experience these things, nor is she wishing them to experience them in a hostile manor. I believe that she wishes that people will raise their son's to have respect and understanding for women. Maybe if certain things about each gender were more present as conversation topics, gender equality would progress greatly.
DeleteUndertaker (For Floyd Williams) by Patricia Smith was the poem that really sparked my interest. From the point of a mortician, the ignorance of grieving and disbelieving mothers are figuratively and literally put into perspective. The harsh reality of death made by bad decisions is blatantly ignored by those who lost them. The author writes,
ReplyDelete"And the smirking, mildly mustachioed player
in the crinkled snapshot
looks nothing like the plastic bag of a boy..."
is a very meaningful message. Although the body and memory are destroyed by misery and death, mothers can never let go of a child's innocence. Even in the mutilated face of reality, false security is the only thing that keeps them going. A mortician's job isn't just to prepare the body to be buried, its an art from needed by parents to hold onto their warped memory of their child.
Leah Wytas says:
ReplyDeleteMy two favorite poems from the poetry packet were “Why We Tell Stories” and “Testament.” Both of them had a positive mood that encouraged kindness and appreciation of the simple things in life. I liked how readers can discover right away from reading “Why We Tell Stories” that the whole poem was set up to answer that question. There is much repetition of the word “because” leading me to believe that the poem can be read with the title placed in front of each one. I also enjoyed the beginning because it described adults like trees who have lost their leaves and are longing to be young again. In the poem “Testament,” the title also has an important role. The definition according to this poem is about people deciding what to do with their property and their character before they die. I was pleasantly surprised that it took a common symbol, the hourglass, and showed it to readers in a different and interesting way. The hourglass usually measures the time of something important such as a life. In this poem, the hourglass shows a person’s progress being converted from selfish to selfless. The most impacting part of this poem to me was the ending. The narrator wonders what will be left to the readers. The list went from money to beautiful things found in nature. This reminds me to be happy with living simple and to enjoy nature. The narrator ends the poem by saying that there are many more good deeds that can be done after death. This means there is lots of room for more people to become selfless and hopefully they will help others to see the value in their life.
I also loved the symbolism of the hourglass used in this poem. I believe Carruth was trying to say that the hourglass does not only represent the passage or dwindling of time, but the dwindling of the ego as we experience love, hence what Leah wrote about being converted from selfish to selfless, or loving. I believe that the mass of love at the bottom of the hourglass also represents what we leave behind when we die. What we leave behind should be a legacy of love and, not material possessions. However, these legacies cannot be given because love is not a tangible object, and therefore there is very little the author believes he can leave after his death. His love remains "unspent" as his time dwindles down into the bottom of the hourglass.
DeleteMy favorite poem was "1964 (For Bert)." I found it very easy to relate to. I like the writing style of this author and how it is told as a story. The stanza that stuck out to me most was
ReplyDelete"the best day of our schooling
we learned school was meant to keep us
from seeing that sunlight created this world
school would shape our eyes
into prisms that could split the brilliance
so that everything we saw we would see through
pigments and shadows and the memory of light
would be lost from our eyes"
It shows how at a young age school can sometimes strip children of their imagination because it's forcing them to follow a set of rules and to do things a certain way. Instead of allowing each one to go about something their own way. And that although we learn a lot in school we also learn a lot being out in the world experiencing different things.
My favorite poem of the anthology is probably "Kafka: Lilacs", I recognized that the "he" in this poem was dying after the first two lines. Many poems that I have read about death are grim or apprehensive; but not this one. I liked that the dying man laughed after being unable to swallow, I felt it was genuine and says a lot about his character.
ReplyDeleteRobert Cording then describes generic events of everyday, such as time passing, but I love the structure and words he chose to create serenity.
A bird pops up more than once in this poem, "a bird's voice rises and falls," is the first observation. I see the bird's voice as a symbol of he ups and downs humans face in life. The bird finds the dying man's vase of lilacs and Cording relates the man's acknowledgement of the bird's pleasure to a memory. The stanzas following are lively, remembering a favorite occasion of the unnamed man. Another bird is said to be "reinventing its song" similarly to how the man worked on his proofs. Upon noting this I looked up "Hunger Artist" and found the connection to Kafka, who wrote a short story by the same title (it also happened to be Kafka's last known work). I did not read "Hunger Artist" but what I skimmed made me wonder who this dying man was and why Kafka is essential. Another reoccurring symbol are lilacs. The dying man is grateful for the birds and smell the flowers bring, but why lilacs?
In the man's dreamy memory, Cording make multiple references to colors while describing the lake. "Leaves [f]lashed white..." personally, white makes think of innocence, possibly a time when the man was not dying?
My favorite line is "...Wakes him, his room is trellised with blue shadows", it caused me to feel underwater where all is quiet. In the poem's entirety, I felt although I was inside the dying man's mind, a very interesting perspective well written by the poet.
My favorite poem was "Famous" by Naomi Shihab Nye. I really enjoyed this poem because of it's simplicity in delivering the message. I often feel that when poems are difficult to understand I do not gain as much from them because I spend too much time trying to analyze them for a meaning. By that point I usually don't enjoy the poem nearly as much. However, with this poem it was meaningful and not incredibly difficult. The last stanza stood out the most to me and after I read it I felt very inspired.
ReplyDelete"I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do."
This stood out to me because it had a strong message. I believe that Nye was trying to say that it is better to be remembered for being yourself and for believing in yourself, and I strongly agree with this.
I completely agree with what you are saying by having a poem be easy to understand. When I read the last stanza of this poem I was a little confused by what it means by "it never forgot what it could do". I took the line as being something we could always count on being how it is something we use all the time. But I really like your interpretation of the line and makes more sense. The writer took an object that no one thinks twice about and compares it to being yourself.
DeleteI also really like your interpretation of the last line Brea. I think that makes a lot of sense too and I'm glad you said that because it adds yet another interesting point of view to think about. :)
DeleteHannah Kirk says:
ReplyDeleteOne poem that definitely stood out to me upon reading these various poems is Those Winter Sundays, by Robert Hayden. The reason why this poem stood out so much is the relevance throughout time this has. Given certain details I would estimate that this poem was written during the childhood of the narrator, growing up many decades prior. I feel the guilt that the narrator is experiencing still relevant in today’s society. Many teenagers and youth do not always appreciate all that their parents do for them, or they simply do not see all the sacrifices our parents have made for us to be allowed to follow our dream. In this poem, the narrator talks about how he never thanked his father, he simply thought of his father’s actions as something that his father just does, not something that he does not have to do. But his father does wake up early, in the freezing cold to warm the rooms before the rest of his family wakens. Now many years past, he looks back and realizes all that his father has done, and feels guilt for never saying thank you.
“Undertaker” by Patricia Smith simply made my jaw drop and my heart stop. The first line completely sets the tone for the rest of the poem. “When a bullet enters the brain, the head explodes.” At this point it would be assumed that this poem is about a tragic event, and with that inference you’d be correct. But, as the poem continues and talks about a miracle, initially I thought that the Mother was begging a doctor to perform a miracle on her son to bring him back to life or to save him. But remembering that it is stated that the head explodes, I found it scientifically impossible to help the boy and care for him back to life. As the poem continues, it is clear that this man is not a doctor, but a coroner who works in a morgue and fixes the bodies before the funeral. I think one reason why this poem was so striking to me is that this is something that happens when people die, but it is something we tend to not think about, and the reality of it.
I really enjoyed “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye, because it was so positive and uplifting. This poem is talking about no matter what something is, or its job in the world, it is famous to another for something. Whether that is “The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds” or “the tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek” or “The boot is famous to the earth.” This poem makes you put everything into perspective, that yes, in the grand scheme of things we are little, but we have very important jobs, that have a domino effect on everything else. But, the best stanza is the last, “I want to be famous in the ay a pulley is famous or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.” I think that it is very important for everyone to learn this lesson.
Amanda Steinhilber says:
ReplyDeleteAfter going through the poem anthology, I believe the one that hit me the hardest was Testament by Hayden Carruth. Specifically the line "Yet not only our lives drift down. The stuff/ of ego with which we begin, the mass/ in the upper chamber, filters away/ as love accumulates below. " The idea that as ego decreases, love increases is a really interesting way of describing old age. And although it doesn't go for everyone, I do see Hayden's point. I believe the reason I connect so strongly with this poem is that I would love to believe that that's the way growing older works.
After finishing the second half of the poems, there are two more pieces that grabbed my attention. "Undertaker" by Patricia Smith and "Looking Back in My Eighty-First Year" by Maxine Kumin were the two that were most insightful for me. "Undertaker" was a unique poem because it had a very dark mood because death is such a serious topic. Smith puts the reader in their place right away with the line "When a bullet enters the brain, the head explodes." When I read that first line I thought to myself, "Oh wow, Patricia, okay, I see how this poem is going to be, let me go get my big boy pants on now before I finish reading." Taking the title into consideration I was able to figure out the poem was about the grief of an undertaker and the everyday job duties that are simply frightening. It also touches on the delicacy of life with references to how "cool" the victims were or the "swagger" they had prior to death. In regards to "Looking Back in My Eighty-First Year" by Maxine Kumin, the initial message seemed to be about regretting not taking enough chances and exploring life. That was partially what it was about, but I think it was more about love connecting a couple and being the fated reason for not exploring. Overall, all of the poems were interesting, I had fun with them, and there were certainly a few standouts.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the poem “Why We Tell Stories (For Linda Foster)” there was a part that made me think. The stanzas under the third reason reads,
ReplyDeleteBecause each of us tells
the same story
but tells it differently
and none of us tells it
the same way twice
I stopped to think about those lines because that is one of the reasons why we tell stories that I had never thought of before. Every experience impacts every person differently. A good way to share that reasoning is through a story. It also goes to show that people don’t know how an experience can impact someone else. Seeing how we don’t know this, it can make judging someone very easy but not needed. I personality love those lines in the poem.
After reading the first half of the poems, my absolute favorite was "At the Smithville Methodist Church" by Stephen Dunn. Seeing through the eyes of parents that don't believe in religion but are more of a science mindset it was fascinating to see the struggle between what they believe and what their daughter wants. The daughter has so much fun as Sunday school with her friends and she begins to sing the songs that she learns much to the dismay of her parents. A line that really caught my attention was
ReplyDelete"Could we say that Jesus
doesn't love you< Could I tell her the Bible
is a great book certain people use
to make you feel bad?
the parents know that they cannot interfere with what their child believes and wants. You see this witht the line
"Soon it became clear to us"you can't teach disbelief to a child,
only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story
nearly as good."
They acknowledge that they cannot be the cause of their daughter's lack of faith. They believe in evolution and science, but they know that it is not nearly the story that Jesus is. The very end line shows that they cannot bring themselves to end her happiness, "There was nothing to do but drive, ride it out, sing along in silence."
I think that I found this poem so interesting because I find myself leaning towards more an agnostic belief myself. I don't know whether God exists or not, but I believe in the power of faith and that everyone has the right to choose in what they believe. You truly cannot teach disbelief.
I very much agree with Cali here. I found "At the Smithville Methodist Church" to be a very fascinating poem. The parent in the poem viewed religion as an "ancient craft" with little credibility to it in the modern world when put up against the raw facts of science. What the parent failed to see was the incredibly strong power the stories of religion and faith has in teaching others and inspiring peace of mind and happiness, especially in the minds of little kids like the daughter. As an agnostic as well I see the strength spirituality can hold in someone's life and its potential to do great good but, contrary to the beliefs of the parent, I don't think it's impossible for some sort of spirituality to coexist with the findings of science and the theory of evolution.
DeleteI noticed in this poem Dunn referred to himself losing faith as he wrote," It had been so long since we believed, so long since we needed Jesus as our nemesis and friend that we thought he was sufficiently dead, that our children would think of him like Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson." This begs the question: what made the author lose his faith? The fact that his child idealizes Jesus like a famous historical figure shows that Dunn believes his daughter was innocent in her beliefs in that she hadn't seen the bad that religion could do. Just like in "1964" where children were innocent before they were corrupted by school, Dunn's child had yet to see the darker side of religion. The fact that Dunn described Jesus as being his "nemesis and friend" reflects how he saw both the good and bad in religion, as when he said that the Bible was a powerful book both for the strength it gives people and for its misuse.
DeleteOne of my favorites thus far has been "Those Winter Sundays." I interpreted this poem as being a child, since grown up some, looking back on all the hard work its father put in for their family (possibly after its father's passing away). When the poet says "Sundays too my father got up early/ and put his clothes on in the blueback cold" as the opening lines I think it says a lot for the determination and hard work of the father. The most powerful part of the poem was definitely the last stanza though, where the poet says "Speaking indifferently to him,/ who has driven out the cold/ and polished my good shoes as well./ What did I know, what did I know/ of love's austere and lonely offices?" I believe this makes a powerful, universal statement on the importance of giving gratitude towards those we love and those who love us, for even though the father did not work on his day off to heat the house for the praise it was a taxing job that he did for his loved ones and that is something that's very admirable. Acknowledging deeds like that can remove the factor of austereness and loneliness from providing for those you love and the narrator clearly regrets not having done that.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite poem in this anthology was “Undertaker” by Patricia Smith. This poem used grotesque language and imagery to shock the reader and drive home the author’s point that mothers are blind to the fact that their sons were not the perfect people they thought they were. Smith is unhappy that mothers ask her to make their sons look perfect to be as they were in life, although Smith believes that the gory corpses she must “fix” are more accurate representations of the “cocky” boys they were in life. Smith’s sense of ungodliness and mistruth in her work is represented in her snarky comment, “But Jesus doesn’t work on this payroll.” Smith continued to describe her superior knowledge of the true nature of the sons when she said, “I have touched him in places no mother knows.” The last stanza seems to suggest that Smith has grown weary with her job, as she dreads receiving another phone call from a delusional mother.
ReplyDeleteI also liked the poem “Atlantis” by Mark Doty because it powerfully describes the author’s feeling of being misunderstood and hopelessness. Doty did not feel that the diagnosis (probably PTSD) was real, and felt that the doctor did not understand him as he still thought he could hear and feel his dog. How could he move on when he still experienced his dog? The author was stuck in his own Atlantis, his own dream or fantasy world. The ending of the poem particularly struck me because it seems that Doty is asking if he was trying to protect himself or his dog when he died. Or perhaps Doty is asking if by staying in the “thrall of the dream” if he is protecting the memory of his dog or protecting himself from feeling pain and recognizing reality.
The poem “The Mercy was particularly interesting to me because it shows that mercy does not come from a place, but from the kindness of others. The author’s mother did not find mercy when moving to Pennsylvania, but the “same nightmare they left at home.” However, the mother experienced mercy at the hands of a man who had given her an orange. This suggests that mercy can exist anywhere and that it wouldn’t be necessary to travel to find it because people create mercy and goodness through kind actions. In a sense, mercy is where you make it.
I really like the way "Those Winter Sundays" was written by Robert Hayden. In the first stanza, he writes "No one ever thanked him." as its own sentence while the entire rest of the stanza had been one continuous statement. I liked the way this was done as it made those 5 words stick out to me. The fact that no one thanked his father is clearly a significant issue for the author as he made it stand out. I also like the fact that the third stanza is comprised of lines that are shorter than the two previous stanzas. This reminiscing by the author has led him to feel regretful for
ReplyDelete“speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.”
These lines really help you understand the guilt he feels for not thanking his father for all his hard work.
Abigail Chromik says:
ReplyDeleteWhy We Tell Stories by Lisel Mueller:
I really liked this poem because I felt like I got a direct message from it. What I interpreted from this poem is that telling stories is a way to cope with life and express ourselves, and telling stories is something that is timeless. This really stuck out to me in the lines
“We sat by the fire in our caves,
and because we were poor, we made up a tale
about a treasure mountain
that would open only for us”.
This line relates back to the fact that we have been telling stories for a long time like when we lived in caves. Stories were even told in hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. The other part of the message that I discovered is that stories are an aid to us. They can help us be entertained, gain knowledge or help get you through hard times by giving you hope about the future. Another line that really resonated with me was
“Because the story of our life
becomes our life
Because each of us tells
the same story
but tells it differently”.
This line talks about the story of our lives and how everyone’s life story is different, unique and completely yours; it can’t be taken away from you. I really enjoyed this poem because of how relatable and easy to understand it was.
My favorite poem in the packet is Undertaker. It's slightly morbid, but sometimes I feel like reading about these things makes them less eerie. The way the author talks is very recognizable. She mentions turning the pictures people show her over, and instead talks about money. It lets the reader inside her head, and we can see even her struggle to keep her emotions away. It is very tragic. When the author describes the boy in the picture, I can imagine him so easily. Especially with all the events lately, this opens a new perspective.
ReplyDeletewishes for sons (I noticed that title isn't capitalized, along with any lines) is another one of my favorites. The fact that nothing is capitalized ties along the whole poem and makes me believe that the author wanted nothing more than to express frustration in a simple way. Her use of parallelism really expresses her anger. It's a short poem that does the trick of showing a woman who wants to share the hardships women face on men. There is an overall conniving type tone, and it is humorous.
ReplyDeleteOut of the second half of poems my favorite was probably "Undertaker". Admittedly, as a Stephen King reader, I am usually quite enthralled by the more morbid and eerie. I found it fascinating how the the narrator's occupation has hardened him so much to death, yet the reader still catches glimpses of his emotion as the narrator struggles to distance himself from the humanity of the bodies he works with. I loved the vivid imagery and interesting perspective of the poem. Additionally, I think this poem takes on an even more powerful tone in light of all of the recent shootings across the country as the author finishes "But the wide, questioning silence on the other end/ is too familiar. Another mother needing a miracle./ Another homeboy coming home."
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed reading this collection of poems because of how varied they were in both style and content. Some were formal, with a firm rhyme scheme and stanzas, some loose and familiar, flowing more naturally like a conversation. Some were happy, about childhood and summer, some sad, dealing with death, old age, and loss of innocence.
ReplyDeleteOne that stood out to me in particular was “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye. I liked the way that the lines/stanzas became longer as the poem went on, as if the author began by gently exploring an idea, and then grew more confident in it and examined it in greater detail. The repeated phrases (“The _____ is famous to the _____”) draw you into the poem and make you wonder what point the author is trying to make. Eventually the author begins applying this idea to her own life, saying that she wants to be famous in the way the “river is famous to the fish” and the “boot is famous to the earth, \ more famous than the dress shoe, \ which is famous only to floors”. I think this is a beautiful message: that everyone and everything can be considered “famous” in some specific context, so there is little point in desiring to be “famous” to everyone, everywhere. Even the people we consider famous, like celebrities and politicians, are famous only in the context of mattering to a specific group of people. On a larger scale, they are as insignificant as a fish or boot. It is only when you apply a specific context that they become “famous”. She wants to find something that she can do well and use it to make a small, lasting difference in the lives of ordinary people, like a buttonhole, “not because it did anything spectacular, \ but because it never forgot what it could do”.
I enjoyed this collection of poems a lot. They were all very insightful and grabbed the readers attention. I also enjoyed the fact that they weren't all the same subjects. Some dealt with happiness, some with sadness, some with love, some with death, some with prejudice and the list goes on and on. The varying material allowed me to connect to each of the poems and feel different emotions unlike a book of love poems where I read it expecting to feel one emotion. It required the reader to be involved and to think for themselves which is something that I very much enjoyed. One of my favorite poems was the Introduction. The author pokes fun at all of the people that try to search for a deeper meaning inside a poem. It seemed to me that he was trying to say that sometimes, people write poetry just to write something that creates an image or a feeling and that it doesn't always have a deeper meaning even though people will try to force one out of it. It served as a great introduction because it told me to prepare for the upcoming series of poems. Some were written with a deeper meaning inside, but some are just written as a beautiful piece of poetry with no ulterior motives.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the poem Main Street: Tilton, New Hampshire because its a poem about poets. Having written poetry before, I have realized that it doesn't take much for something to become inspiration that can turn into a poem. This poem describes just that. Mrs. Kenyon was struck with a bright beam of inspiration just by sitting in a car on a street corner in a small town of no consequence or significance. But, something hit her that caused her to be inspired. The little insignificant details forced images into her head that needed to be shared and written down. What she writes is a little poem filled with imagery and hope. This is one of the poems that forces the reader to become involved. From the mother and daughter laughing in the street to the woman in the cab crying, the poem displays a range of emotion that forces the reader to enter the shoes of the characters in the poem. The thing that I found the most interesting was the ending. Despite the fact that the moment in time was significant to her, Mrs. Kenyon notes that the moment passed and became insignificant like many other moments. While that is true, it brought two things to my attention. The first being that while poets see inspiration, others can see just an ordinary situation. If a normal human walked by that scene, they probably wouldn't think much about it. But to her, it was a chance to exploit the colors and images and emotions of the scene and explain it in great detail. The second thought was that any moment can be an inspiring moment. Be it a drive down the street, a trip to the store or a walk to the park, any moment can be a moment of inspiration. You just need to take a step back and admire the beauty of the situation in order to be inspired.
ReplyDeleteAlex Boyer says:
ReplyDeleteA poem I particularly enjoyed was Mrs. Kirkorian. I think it was interesting how a simple act of kindness can change someone’s life for the better. The author has a blemished past, referring to herself as “a known criminal”. But upon entering 6th grade a teacher, Mrs. Kirkorian, gives her a library pass allowing her to spend her free time reading in the library instead of being tempted to do illicit things. Using the dictionary as an example, the author shows how they grew up and matured during that year. She says she “was emptied of Lucifer”, that the teacher had saved her. It shows how everyone has the capability to change; sometimes they need only the right opportunity.
I thought the introduction to poetry by Billy Collins was a great selection for changing children’s minds about poetry, and reading in general. So many people dread reading as a chore, or something they only do if assigned. But there is so many written works, there is bound to be something that interests you. With poetry in particular, it is written to get an emotion or a thought on the reader’s mind. But skimming over a poem won’t conjure up any emotions. The poem ends with the lines: “They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.” If a reader begins reading with an open mind, even if they are assigned to do so, they will find it easier to collect their thoughts into an opinion, or answer questions. I thought this was a good choice to start out the summer reading, as it changed my attitude and approach on the whole project.
Michaela Davies says:
ReplyDelete1. I noticed several of the poems described school as either saving or suppressing. I liked the contrast between the idea of school because I could relate to it seeing as I myself sometimes debate whether or not school is restraining as described in ‘Rain In Childhood’ or a safety as described in ‘1964’ and ‘Mrs. Krikorian’. The first stanza of Rain in Childhood already makes it sound prison-like “This was the feeling that the dark rain gave on school days when the windows of the bus dimmed with all our breath and we pressed close in jostling slickers, knowing the pleasure of being a body with other bodies, we children a flotilla of little ducks, paddling together on the wet ride to the schoolhouse door.” The first line reminded me of a bus full of convicts being driven to prison for the first time. “She saved me.” This is how the first line in ‘Mrs. Krikorian’, so I could already tell that his school and his teacher saved the character.
2. I really liked the poem ‘Those Winter Sundays’. To me the message of this poem is that sometimes love doesn’t come in hugs and kisses and outright affection but sometimes the best love is the hardest for the one that’s giving it. In this poem the father was so dedicated to making money and working hard for his family. Even on Sundays, which I see as a religious day of rest and even in the harshest of winter when no one wanted to do labor, the father still worked to support his family. The line “no ones ever thanked him” is powerful to me because it shows how the Robert Hayden is reflecting back on how much his father did for him and how little the children appreciated it until now.
3. I found ‘Undertaker’ to be a disturbing yet interesting poem. The first line off the bat caught my attention, “When a bullet enters the brain, the head explodes”. While reading this poem I found the undertaker to hate his job and almost resent those young men who died because now he is the one who is left with the helpless mothers weeping over their bodies. The intense sensory detail makes this poem almost hard to read. “I work alone until the dim insistence of morning, bent over my grisly puzzle pieces, gluing, sticking, creating a chin with a brushstroke. I plop glass eyes into rigid sockets, then care eyelids from a forearm, an inner thigh”. These gruesome stanzas really made me cringe thinking about the unappreciated undertakers in the real world that actually have to do this horrible job that no human would want to do.
Michaela, in response to your third poem I was deeply intrigued by "Undertaker" as well. It's interesting you assume the undertaker is a man, I interpreted them as a she! (Before I looked up what an undertaker is, I figured the person was a funeral makeup artist) I understand your reaction of cringing while reading some stanzas, I was captivated by the poet's bleak tone. The undertaker was so adjusted to his/her work (s)he lost all empathy. Finally, I agree with your thoughts about undertakers being unappreciated, personally I cannot imagine bearing this career.
DeleteOne of my favorite poems in this packet was, "Hymn to a Broken Marriage", in this poem, the man is writing a note to his ex-wife. The note that he wrote isn't a hate note or a "I still love you" note, its more of a friendship note. When reading it it's apparent that he still feels for his ex-wife but its not love, its love as a friend he feels, he had such a great time with her that he would marry her over and over again. He does not regret the marriage for an instant instead he cherishes it
ReplyDeleteThe Poem, "photo from September 11" almost seems to describe itself. This poem speaks to me very strongly inside as most poems about death tend to do. I think its because its about something real and not just another theme or good-hearted message. This poem, from the view of the photographer who's taking the picture, is a kindness, though they do not reference it in the poem. To me, this poem is saying that with this picture they can live a little longer, they can still be remembered. they can still be wholesome, " There's enough time for hair to come loose, for keys and coins to fall from pockets." the poet is saying that within this photograph there is a realm of opportunity, of places to be explored, and he doesn't want to take that away from them.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Living Do really agreed with me. I love how the person in the poem has a deep appreciation for life, even when the going gets tough. Every simple thing is beautiful to this person, and it seems as if they are wise enough to move beyond the stubbornness of most humans. The poem moves fast just as life, and I too find myself appreciating every little thing. These are my favorite moments and I'm glad the poem captures that feeling.
ReplyDeleteDelaney Cronin says:
ReplyDeleteI think that “Mrs. Krikorian” is a very complex poem that not only tells the story of a young girl that accredits her teacher for her change in character during the 6th grade but also brings in references to “God,” “Lucifer,” and also an instance in which Turks invaded Armenia. Since she was saved by the teacher and the teacher was saved by being snuck into America and saved from Armenia, the young girl also accredits being saved to those that helped her teacher to be brought to salvation.
Looking Back in My Eighty-First Year is one of those poems that is entertaining while scaring me. It is filled with late life regrets. It has the typical decision of life as one chooses between following their dreams and being with a lover. It scares me because the woman seems to look back on life negatively because of these regrets. I hope the same won't happen to me. Life is filled with choices, and they determine our future. Her 'I should haves' suggest that her life could have been tremendously better.
ReplyDeleteNatalie Wyse has this to say:
ReplyDeleteI really like the poem "Anyways (for David)" because it captures the intersection of two loves. It begins by describing the importance of the term "anyways" for the author. It has cultural significance because she shared the term with her family and others with similar heritage. It means a lot to her especially because of the ways it has been used by her family, to denote doing things like swimming and remaining in a relationship despite potential reasons not to. She says it implies the many reasons to do these things despite those to the contrary. She also mentions that the term can help hope, stories, happiness, and efforts going. She then says that home is where you say things regardless of the fact that they could ruin everything. I find it unclear whether she wants to say that she suspects David is being disrespectful (regardless vs. anyways) or is it is a sign of her forgiveness of him and recognition that there are so many more reasons to love him.
I found myself questioning often the themes of these poems, such as "Undertaker" by Patricia Smith. She describes the feeling of having to "perform miracles" for women who had lost their sons to violence by making the corpses look presentable. Yet I found it unclear whether she wanted to highlight the injustice in the world that led to the deaths, or describe the apathy she was forced into, leading conversation towards money rather than death.
Another poem that struck me as confusing was "Thanksgiving." It seemed as if the speaker wanted to point out the racism and ignorance that his wife's father partook in. Yet I noted that the poem's speaker used considerably juvenile language, and wondered if anyone else noticed that and had any ideas about its reasoning. One thought I had was that "Daddy" may have had some sort of mentally debilitating condition, and the speaker wanted to communicate on his level.
I was confused at the "daddy" in the poem Thanksgiving as well! Now that you mention it, I do think he has some sort of condition. I was confused as to why the speaker said "Does that cannon go boom?" I thought it was just drawing attention to himself, but perhaps it is for communication.
DeleteAhmelia Clark says:
ReplyDeleteOne of the poems I read and thought was very interesting was 'Wishes for Sons'. I did not take the poem serious, I thought it was very funny. The saddle touch of sarcasm gives it, it's humor and I found it very true in some aspects. The periods at the end of every complete thought show confidence and authority and personally I loved how stern it was yet it wasn't too heavy where I was overtaken by the words.
Another poem I enjoyed was 'Hymn to a Broken Marriage' it was hopeful. It was romantic and a mini love story by the man saying he will never give up on his spouse. The repetition in the poem gives the man a huge sense of perseverance. The love he has for his spouse is different from many other poems in the packet and hence why it is my favorite.
I enjoyed Famous as well. I am drawn to the authors want for self-assuredness and her want to belong. I think that's what everyone struggles with at some point in their life. It's such a unique approach to that struggle. She uses everyday objects to express their importance, and that suggests she is even 'lower' feeling than them. It is sad and provides imagery to get a point across not otherwise thought about.
ReplyDeleteMain Street: Tilton, New Hampshire felt a lot like What the Living Do to me. While not as emotional as the latter, it was a snapshot of everyday life and just succumbing to the experiences we will think of in old age. It is a realization that life is going on, and provides the details. It felt like a small, hometown atmosphere much like Tolland. I feel like anyone in Tolland can relate to this poem if they place themselves in a similar situation.
My favorite poem from the second half was "Anyways" by Suzanne Cleary. I found that the line between the grammatical sense of the word Anyways and how it would be considered incorrect, but then I also thought about what it meant to the narrator. The word anyways symbolized hope. I think the line that captured this the best was
ReplyDelete"It was anyways, plural, because the word must be large enough to hold all of our reasons"
the fact that her husband corrected her and made her self conscience about the way she was using the word made me sad. Where she came from she said "out faith is weak" but i think that anyways gave them a faith that there was always another option. The way the poem finished definitely struck another cord with me>
"and say what could ruin everything, but say it,
regardless"
She used regardless instead of Anyways, i think that she believed that he would never really understand her meaning of the word, and he is forcing her to change the way she speaks to him. It is the way she knows to say that word, and even though it is not factually correct, the meaning runs so much deeper.
I really enjoyed 1964. Not only was it written beautifully, but the story it told was both cute and touching at the same time. The first half of the poem starts off sad, with the diagnosed pneumonia, but quickly becomes more laid back and fun with its telling of the fun exploits he and his female companion undergo. It ended with a message that we can all learn from, that the world is a dark place and school is a place to learn how to survive in the unforgiving world.
ReplyDeleteI must say, my favorite poem of all the poems in the packet was not one of the twenty. My favorite was the introductory poem, because it so perfectly wraps up how most teenagers view poetry. Unfortunately, poetry is often dreaded and it is becoming a lost art. It breaks my heart that so many talented poets are resented for their work. I love the way Billy Collins put it in the second to last stanza:
ReplyDelete"But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it."
It so perfectly sums up that way kids look at poetry. They simply want to figure out the summary of the meaning so that they can write down the correct answer and move along.
Lauren Szestowicki Says:
ReplyDeleteThe poem that stuck out to me the most was “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. In this poem the speaker describes his father on winter Sundays. His father would get up super early every Sunday morning to light fires in the fire place to warm their home, even despite the fact that he is totally worn out form his hard work weeks. Yet no one ever thanks his father for starting the fires and warming their home. The speaker said that he’d get out of his bed once the house was warm and when his father called for him. He said that he was a bit scared of his father and the house was filled with “chronic angers” rather than happiness day in and day out. But once the speaker had hauled himself out of bed, he’d talk to his dad, but not with any kind of enthusiasm or affection, and despite the fact that his dad had lit all the fires in his house he even polished his kid’s shoes. The speaker implies that he didn’t understand that his father’s behavior was an expression of fatherly love but now he does. This poem hit me the most because it recollected to the relation of my father and I. The secret fear that I have of him, the moments of rage throughout the house, and the awkwardness and misunderstanding of the things he does. My father may not do the same things as the one in the poem, but the things that he does do that at times may seem outlandish, he does it out of fatherly love and nothing else.
My favorite poem was "Undertaker" by Patricia Smith. It was extremely moving. Patricia smith uses dark and gruesome imagery such as the very first line, "When a bullet enters the brain, the head explodes." That line alone was enough to capture me and ensure that I would be reading until the very last line. Though I love poetry that is mysterious and makes you think in order to get the picture, there is just something so refreshing about poetry that is blunt and straight forward. It is truly magical. Throughout the poem Patricia Smith held up this dark tone and grim imagery. The subject matter of this poem created an uneasy feeling in my stomach, but because the scene that takes place in the poem is so clearly drawn out it makes the ugly sensation enjoyable somehow. This may be because you want to know what happens next, similar to how one is terrified while watching a horror movie but for some reason can't take their eyes away from the screen.
ReplyDeleteI loved the passage that came when the author was viewing the picture of what the boy looked like before he was a clump of flesh in a bag. She went on to elaborate upon the cocky and invincible vibes that this boy carried in the picture. This was something that I found very understandable. As a teenager, I can honestly admit that this is a familiar vibe. Us teenagers often forget that life is fragile, as we speed on the highway, experiment with drugs and alcohol, and commit many other acts carelessly completely ignoring the possible consequences of these actions.
How a body is prepared for a funeral is something that I seldom think about. I never even thought to appreciate the work that morticians do. I also never thought about the hardships that any family has to go through while working with the mortician to restore their loved one. Whether this "hardship" may be emotional or financial. There is definitely a lack of appreciation for morticians I believe the this is due to the fact that death is a scary subject matter to discuss or think about.
The very last line sparked something in my mind. "Another homeboy coming home." I researched the meaning of homeboy to make sure that my thoughts were correct and to make sure that I was not being blindly ignorant. The definition of the word homeboy that I got was, "a young acquaintance from one's own town or neighborhood, or from the same social background.
(especially among urban black people) a member of a peer group or gang." Then I allowed my self to believe that it was safe to stand by my immediate thoughts about this last line and of this poem. Though the poem focuses heavily on the mortician's elaborate work as they craft the bag of flesh back into a loved one, I also believe that the poem speaks strongly about the pressures society puts on black males to be tough. This is a stereotype that many people are pressured to hold up. Gangs are most heavily present in cities. Gang violence is another topic that is not often talked about. Especially since society is (unfortunately) dominated by Whites rather than an equal mixture of whites and non-whites, and gang violence has a heavier impact on non-white citizens than the majority of white citizens. This is sadly why it is not in the forefront of "big societal issues".
Overall I thought this poem to be extremely well written. I love the way it played out a beautifully painful scene that is not often thought about but happens everyday. It's amazing how something so simple like the conversation between a mortician and a victim's family member can hold so much weight and meaning when it is drawn out into a poem. I would love to know more about Patricia Smith and Floyd Williams as the poem was written for him.
I really liked the "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins. In the poem, he's implying that in order to find out what a poem means, you shouldn't try to "torture a confession out of it" or try to treat it apart, you should enjoy it and let the meaning show or present itself to you. You will find and understand the meaning better if you just realize it.
ReplyDeleteAnother poem that really struck me was "At the Smithville Methodist Church" by Stephen Dunn. The parents in this poem (like so many) wanted to inspire their daughter to be wonderful. They didn't have a wonderful, magical experience to share with her though. So, they sent her to a camp to be creative, but then she ended up finding inspiration through Jesus. However, her parents weren't sure how to feel or what to do because He didn't inspire them anymore. They either just lost sight of Him because maybe He failed them when they needed something, or they just didn't believe in him anymore. They were happy their daughter was inspired, but they dunt know what to do, to tell her they don't think He exists and kill her belief, or not to, but then they decide that they can't teach her to not believe in something.
ReplyDelete"Hymn to a Broken Marriage" by Paul Durcan was wonderful. He spoke from the bottom of his heart. He loves her so much and he clearly want the one who wanted the marriage to end. He was willing to work and try again, but she wasn't. He admires her characteristics and wants her to find happiness with someone else. He thinks their love was an addiction, which is unhealthy, and he wants her to have a healthy relationship with someone who has good qualities as a lover, brother (more as the companion quality of a brother, and also for her siblings), and a father to children. He didn't want her to find happiness with someone with just one or two of those qualities, but with disrobe who is overflowing with a mix of all three. He thinks she is the finest woman and wants to make sure she knows that any man would be lucky to be with her, as he tells her this throughout the letter and when he says "A sane man could not espouse a more intimate friends than you."
ReplyDeleteFor the most part I really enjoyed these poems. They are certainly not like a lot of the poems I have read in school in the past. I found that I could relate to them better and was able to understand them more completely. One of my favorite poems was "Mrs. Krikorian" I really liked the message behind it. It showed how a teacher saved a boy and how someone must have saved the teacher and someone must have saved the person who saved the teacher, and so on. I thought this was a really interesting concept. It reminded me how a single event can lead to so much and even the smallest things you do can have an affect on people.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite parts was,
"that hour's work that took ten minutes
and then the devil glanced into the room
and found me empty, a house standing open"
I thought that this was a really good way to describe that the kid got into mischief when he finished his work.
I had a little bit of trouble understanding the end, when it talked about his soul being jammed behind a stove and into a crack. I think that the poet was saying that if Mrs. Krikorian had not saved the kid. He would have been just another soul, forgotten about and left to suffer.
The poem that jumped out at me was "Mrs. Krikorian". I liked this poem because it was a narrative and it didn't revolve around the beauty of nature. Poetry so often indulges in nature, such as "Rain in Childhood", but I love when a story is told. This poem told story and it was still poetic. The words don't rhyme, but the story flows in a creative way. This poem was intriguing because it was so complex. Many historical references were made and I was beginning to lose where the poem was going until the end. This poem takes the audience through a boys 6th grade and through the metaphors and allusions we understand how he feels.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the message of "Famous" by Naomi Shihab Nye was powerful. It was all about putting things in perspective. How everything is "famous" to something else, like the river is famous to the fish, and the boot is famous to the earth. This struck me because it was a reminder that someone will always being looking up to you or will remember you for something you do. Therefore it is important that you try your best at everything.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite stanza was
"I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back."
This is an extremely important message. You don't necessarily need to do something spectacular to be remembered or get attention. You could make someone's day with something as small as a smile. I can think of people from my past that I didn't even know, that did something that causes me to still remember them. I think that is really cool.
I found the structure of "Anyways" by Suzanne Cleary to be challenging at first. The first time i read it, I automatically paused after every line, which made it difficult to understand. It sounded disjointed in my head. However, once the second time I read it, if flowed much better in my head, and I was able to enjoy it. I did find the poem to be amusing, because now that I think about it, I have heard people say "anyway" and "anyways." I do like the poets explanation that "anyways" is better because it encompasses all the reasons someone would do something "anyways." This poem stood out to me because of its structure and I am curious to see what other people think about why it was arranged that way.
ReplyDeleteMonica Dave says:
ReplyDeleteThere are two poems that I can call favorites. The first is “Those Winter Sundays,” which is not a very delightful poem. The first stanza speaks of underappreciation, and I can relate to the guilt of not being thankful enough. Sometimes I find myself being cruel to people I have no intention of hurting, and that is why this poem is one I noted. Also, I like “Hymn to a Broken Marriage” for different reasons. I admire the undying love and sweet manor of the poem. It is quite a shame that the marriage is broken after 15 years. The heart of the poet is admirable as he pours his regrets onto the page. I fear he is in denial, thinking his ex-wife simply cannot handle romantic love. But I can be certain that he wanted Nessa to be happy, whether she was married to him or not.
Jenny Lindquist says:
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the anthology of new contemporary poems the one that stick out the most to me was Undertaker by Patricia Smith. What caught my attention with Undertaker the was the raw, realistic and graphic description of what undertakers see and what goes through their minds and so fourth. Not only was the first line of the poem an attention grabber but the appeal to pathos was what made this peom so captivating to me. It broke my heart to read about the mothers that the undertaker had encountered time and time again, "[...]begging, fix my boy, fix my boy". What also made this poem fascinating to me was the aspect about how one person can be perceived in so many ways. The undertaker gets to see many of those. The grieving mother is stereotypically always going to think of her son as the perfect child, whilst the undertaker sees him for his flaws, good and bad. Along with this idea of different people having different perceptions of one person I was also very moved by the contrast between heart breaking loss and dispair and hope. The second page of this peom explains the cruelty of God in taking a life but toward the end it also brings up the sense of the mother still finding purpose and her son "coming home" in which I perceived as going into heaven.
Abigail Chromik says:
ReplyDeleteFamous by Nami Shihab Nye
This was one of my favorite poems. The message that the author displayed through this piece was a good one. It gives the same message in different ways, that everything is relative. Something that is important, or in the case of the poem, famous, to you may not be important to someone else. This also goes the opposite way, that something that is important to something or someone else may not be important to you. I also think it is sending a message that everything has a place in this world. This is present throughout the whole poem, but especially in these lines:
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and is not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
The first stanza illustrates the part about how everything has importance in its own way and has its own place. The second stanza illustrates the part about how everything is relative and not everyone views everything with the same worth. This poem can relate to everyone and its message is universal, which is why I liked it so much.
I really enjoyed introduction to poetry and the way in which it prefaced the following collection with some thoughts. I agree with the idea that poetry shouldn't be over analyzed, and taken for more than they are. It is best to go with the flow when reading poems.
ReplyDeleteA poem that spoke to me was Rain in Childhood. This poem illustrated the shift of childhood into adulthood, which is a lot of what we experience now as Seniors going into college. It is necessary to come to terms with this fact, much as the author did. Without this realization, this transition can't be completed easily.
ReplyDeleteThe final poem that really peaked my interest was Undertaker. This poem went through the monotony and jaded life of a funeral home worker. It shocked me how hardened she was, but then you are taken through the experiences with her hearing the same things from mothers every day, and having to separate herself from those in there. Then you truly understand.
ReplyDeleteAlly Margelony says:
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy poetry so I was excited to begin reading these poems. I found “At the Smithville Methodist Church” to be particularly interesting. I’m personally very interested in religion even though I don’t study a particular one. This poem made me wonder what I might do when I have kids and one of them starts to practice a religion that I don’t agree with. You can’t tell your child that they can’t have faith in something if they do. This could be relevant to something other than religion as well. What if your child grows up to believe in anything that you don’t? You can’t force beliefs onto your children. I feel like the parents did the best they could in that situation. I know there are plenty of parents who do force their children to believe in the same things they do, but that’s not the way you should go about things. Children need to have the freedom to form their own opinions about life and therefore their own beliefs.
I also particularly enjoyed the poem “Why We Tell Stories.” I found the open ending to be very powerful. It showed how because they tell their stories and people hear them, anything in life is possible. Telling their stories gives them a way to experience parts of life that aren’t possible for them to actually experience. Telling stories makes the experiences limitless. You can be anyone you want to be and do anything you want to do when you are telling a story and I find that to be incredible.