Americka Knjizevnost

Poezija

Walt Whitman
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"
This poem was written in 1859 and incorporated into the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.It describes a young boy's awakening as a poet, mentored by nature and his own maturing consciousness. The poem is loose in its form, except for the sections that purport to be a transcript of the bird's call, which are musical in their repetition of words and phrases. The opening of the poem is marked by an abundance of repeated prepositions describing movement--out, over, down, up, from--which appear regularly later in the poem and which convey the sense of a struggle, in this case the poet's struggle to come to consciousness. Unlike most of Whitman's poems, "Out of the Cradle" has a fairly distinct plot line. A young boy watches a pair of birds nesting on the beach near his home, and marvels at their relationship to one another. One day the female bird fails to return. The male stays near the nest, calling for his lost mate. The male's cries touch something in the boy, and he seems to be able to translate what the bird is saying. Brought to tears by the bird's pathos, he asks nature to give him the one word "superior to all." In the rustle of the ocean at his feet, he discerns the word "death," which continues, along with the bird's song, to have a presence in his poetry.

Commentary
This is another poem that links Whitman to the Romantics. The "birth of the poet" genre was of particular importance to Wordsworth, whose massive Prelude details his artistic coming-of-age in detail. Like Wordsworth, Whitman claims to take his inspiration from nature. Where Wordsworth is inspired by a wordless feeling of awe, though, Whitman finds an opportunity to anthropomorphize, and nature gives him very specific answers to his questions about overarching concepts. Nature is a tabula rasa onto which the poet can project himself. He conquers it, inscribes it. While it may become a part of him that is always present, the fact that it does so seems to be by his permission.

The epiphany surrounding the word "death" seems appropriate, for in other poems of Whitman's we have seen death described as the ultimate tool for democracy and sympathy. Here death is shown to be the one lesson a child must learn, whether from nature or from an elder. Only the realization of death can lead to emotional and artistic maturity. Death, for one as interested as Whitman in the place of the individual in the universe, is a means for achieving perspective: while your thoughts may seem profound and unique in the moment, you are a mere speck in existence. Thus the contemplation of death allows for one to move beyond oneself, to consider the whole. Perhaps this is why the old crone disrupts the end of the poem: she symbolizes an alternative possibility, the means by which someone else may have come to the same realization as Whitman. In the end the bird, although functionally important in

Whitman's development, is insignificant in the face of the abstract sea: death, which is the concept he introduces, remains as the important factor.

Thus although "Out of the Cradle" can be described as a poem about the birth of the poet, it can also be read as a poem about the death of the self. In the end, on the larger scale, these two phenomena are one and the same.

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer

Poem Summary
Lines 1 2

"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" begins by repeating the title, something that often occurs in Whitman's poetry and gives extra weight to the first phrase, to set up the idea that the speaker is listening to an educated scientist. This phrase also stands out because of its internal rhyme, or rhyme within the same line, of "heard" with "learn'd." This is also a slant rhyme, or an inexact rhyme, since "learn'd" has an "n" sound unlike "heard," but it nevertheless emphasizes a sense of repetition. The slant rhyme even gives the first line an impression of awkwardness, since it is difficult to pronounce and uses the same long vowel sound twice in a row. The other element of the first line to notice is use of the contracted version of "learned." Whitman frequently contracts words such as this, which would always be spelled out today, partly in an attempt to capture the way people actually spoke, instead of a high prose style. In this context, the contraction places some distance between the speaker of the poem, or the voice of the narrator, and the educated astronomer to whom he is listening. The poet may be suggesting here that the speaker uses a different, perhaps a more common or lower class, style of expression from the learned scientist. Line 2 of the poem then presents the interesting image of "proofs" and "figures" of mathematical equations "ranged," or arranged, in "columns." Notice that the poem's first four lines become increasingly longer, unlike these columns, which presumably go straight up and down within the same horizontal space. If a poetic line stretches beyond the margin, the standard method of printing that line is to continue it below, after an indentation. If a poetic line is continued in this way, therefore, it does not change the fact that the line should be considered to extend further and further to the right. Thus Whitman is likely to be contrasting the visual poetic expansion in the lines with the columned mathematical expansion of the astronomer's proofs.
Lines 3 4

The third line, in which the speaker is shown materials related to astronomy and asked to manipulate mathematical equations, is full of mathematical diction, or word choice, such as "charts," "diagrams," "add," "divide," and "measure." These words make up almost the entire line, and they are likely to overwhelm the reader, as they will increasingly overwhelm the speaker. That the speaker is asked to "add, divide, and measure" the "charts and diagrams" also emphasizes the negative side of the process, as though the lecture has nothing to do with the sky but merely manipulates its own figures. This is reinforced by the fact that, through the fourth line, the poem has said nothing about astronomy. The fourth line also emphasizes that the speaker is "sitting," as opposed to standing or actively engaging with the subject, and stresses again that the lecture is occurring in the "lecture-room," away from nature. And, once again, the reader is caught up by the internal repetition of "lectured" and "lecture-room," as is the case in the internal rhyme of line 1. This technique serves to contain the line inside its own words and achieve the stuffy lecture-room atmosphere that Whitman seems intent upon conveying. The applause that the lecturer is receiving therefore does little to make the lecture seem compelling or interesting.
Lines 5 6

Line 5, which comes at the halfway point in the poem, shifts in style from the first quatrain, or unit of four lines. In fact, everything that has come previously in the poem sets up and modifies the statement "I became tired and sick," which also contains the poem's first active verb. It is partly understandable from the description of the lecture why the speaker feels this way, but the deeper reason is contained in the word "unaccountable." Slightly confusing at first because it seems out of place in the sentence, this word primarily means that it is "unaccountable," or difficult to determine, why the speaker became tired and sick. But there is a strong secondary meaning of the word of great importance to the main themes of the poem; namely, that the speaker has become tired and sick because he is an "unaccountable" person, or someone who is impossible to explain or define. The speaker then wanders off by himself in line 6, leaving the lecture room, and this line is therefore the turning point in the poem. There are a number of key elements to notice here, including the fact that the first two descriptive verbs, "rising and gliding," make it seem as though the speaker is flying out into the sky and directly interacting with space. This is an important poetic technique that combines the figurative, or metaphorical and representative, meaning, with the literal meaning, which is that the speaker walks outdoors. The second important aspect of this line is the fact that the speaker "wander'd" out of the lecture room; this is the first hint that perhaps the speaker is somewhat aimless or unstructured in comparison with the exactness of the learned astronomer. Finally, it is

important that the speaker leaves the lecture "by myself," because this suggests that, unlike the group effort of scientific analysis, the speaker will be approaching the phenomenon of astronomy alone. Like an artist, the speaker will be interpreting the stars on his own terms, as a creative individual.
Lines 7 8

In line 7, the speaker has emerged outside into the "moist night-air," and the key word in the description of the night sky is "mystical." This word could suggest a variety of spiritual ideas, from ancient pagan worship to romantic individualism, but it is very distinct from anything scientific, and it establishes a radically different atmosphere from that of the lecture room. The seventh line again uses the technique of internal repetition with "time to time," but this idiom, or phrase from common speech, is mainly a method of reinforcing the speaker's more relaxed and unstructured process of observation. By looking up every so often, whenever he desires, the speaker is approaching nature very differently from the scientific regularity of observation and analysis. It is also important to recognize that, in referring to the "mystical moist night-air," line 7 contains the first actual image of the sky itself. But even here the speaker has not quite reached the astronomical phenomena themselves, and does not do so until he looks up "in perfect silence" in line 8, again using a contracted "ed" verb, "Look'd," like "wander'd" in line 6 and "learn'd" in line 1, to emphasize his common touch. Here, in the very last word of the poem, only after the speaker has reached "perfect silence" and just before the words and descriptions of the poem end altogether, the speaker finally sees the vision of the "stars."

A noiseless Patient Spider

Type of Work and Year Written
"A Noiseless Patient Spider" is a lyric poem. Walt Whitman wrote the poem in the 1860s and published it in the 1871-1872 edition of Leaves of Grass. Leaves of Grass was a continually growing collection of his work that began with the publication of the first edition in 1855. The version of the poem on this page is from the 1881-1882 edition of Leaves of Grass. Click here to access all the editions of Leaves of Grass published before his death.

Themes
"A Noiseless Patient Spider" develops the following themes:

The quest, or exploration, for meaning and knowledge in the vastness of the universe. The courage to venture forth alone into unknown territory. The patience to build a plexus that links one stopping place to the next. The perseverance to carry on until the gossamer thread (line 8) connects to a goal.

The Poem as a Metaphor

The poem compares a spider to a human. Each creature tirelessly constructs bonds to its surroundings. A spider spins silken thread to span a void. A human builds ships, airplanes, bridges. Sometimes he crosses a void with a telescope (as Galileo did) or reaches new plateaus of knowledge with a question (as Socrates did) or a theory (as Einstein did).

Structure
The poem contains two five-line stanzas, the first consisting of one long sentence. The subject is the pronoun I (line 2), and the main verb is the compound mark'd (line 2) andmark'd (line 3). The second stanza is one long group of words requiring I marked to be carried over unstated from the first stanza in order to make the word group a complete sentence. If inserted, I marked would occur after And (line 6) or soul (line 6). The poet achieves a measure of balance between the two stanzas with the words unreeling andspeeding in the first stanza and musing, venturing, throwing, and seeking in the second stanza. He also balances isolated in the first stanza (line 1) with detached in the second stanza (line 2) and vacant vast surrounding in the first stanza (line 2) with measureless oceans of space in the second stanza (line 2).

Format: Free Verse

Whitman wrote "A Noiseless Patient Spider" in free versealso called vers libre, a French term. Free verse generally has no metrical pattern or end rhyme. However, it may contain patterns of another kind, such as repetition to impart emphasis, balance, and rhythm. For example, Whitman's poem uses mark'd twice (lines 2 and 3), filament three times (line 4), O my soul twice (lines 6 and 10), and till three times (lines 9 and 10). Free verse may also contain conventional figures of speech. Among the figures of speech in "A Noiseless Patient Spider" are the following:

Song of Myself

Summary and Form

This most famous of Whitman's works was one of the original twelve pieces in the 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass. Like most of the other poems, it too was revised extensively, reaching its final permutation in 1881. "Song of Myself" is a sprawling combination of biography, sermon, and poetic meditation. It is not nearly as heavy-handed in its pronouncements as "Starting at Paumanok"; rather, Whitman uses symbols and sly commentary to get at important issues. "Song of Myself" is composed more of vignettes than lists: Whitman uses small, precisely drawn scenes to do his work here. This poem did not take on the title "Song of Myself" until the 1881 edition. Previous to that it had been titled "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American" and, in the 1860, 1867, and 1871 editions, simply "Walt Whitman." The poem's shifting title suggests something of what Whitman was about in this piece. As Walt Whitman, the specific individual, melts away into the abstract "Myself," the poem explores the possibilities for communion between individuals. Starting from the premise that "what I assume you

shall assume" Whitman tries to prove that he both encompasses and is indistinguishable from the universe.

Commentary
Whitman's grand poem is, in its way, an American epic. Beginning in medias res--in the middle of the poet's life--it loosely follows a quest pattern. "Missing me one place search another," he tells his reader, "I stop somewhere waiting for you." In its catalogues of American life and its constant search for the boundaries of the self "Song of Myself" has much in common with classical epic. This epic sense of purpose, though, is coupled with an almost Keatsian valorization of repose and passive perception. Since for Whitman the birthplace of poetry is in the self, the best way to learn about poetry is to relax and watch the workings of one's own mind.

While "Song of Myself" is crammed with significant detail, there are three key episodes that must be examined. The first of these is found in the sixth section of the poem. A child asks the narrator "What is the grass?" and the narrator is forced to explore his own use of symbolism and his inability to break things down to essential principles. The bunches of grass in the child's hands become a symbol of the regeneration in nature. But they also signify a common material that links disparate people all over the United States together: grass, the ultimate symbol of democracy, grows everywhere. In the wake of the Civil War the grass reminds Whitman of graves: grass feeds on the bodies of the dead. Everyone must die eventually, and so the natural roots of democracy are therefore in mortality, whether due to natural causes or to the bloodshed of internecine warfare. While Whitman normally revels in this kind of symbolic indeterminacy, here it troubles him a bit. "I wish I could translate the hints," he says, suggesting that the boundary between encompassing everything and saying nothing is easily crossed.

The second episode is more optimistic. The famous "twenty-ninth bather" can be found in the eleventh section of the poem. In this section a woman watches twenty-eight young men bathing in the ocean. She fantasizes about joining them unseen, and describes their semi-nude bodies in some detail. The invisible twenty-ninth bather offers a model of being much like that of Emerson's "transparent eyeball": to truly experience the world one must be fully in it and of it, yet distinct enough from it to have some perspective, and invisible so as not to interfere with it unduly. This paradoxical set of conditions describes perfectly the poetic stance Whitman tries to assume. The lavish eroticism of this section reinforces this idea: sexual contact allows two people to become one yet not one--it offers a moment of transcendence. As the female spectator introduced in the beginning of the section fades away, and Whitman's voice takes over, the eroticism becomes homoeroticism. Again this is not so much the expression of a sexual preference as it is the longing for communion with every living being and a connection that makes use of both the body and the soul (although Whitman is certainly using the homoerotic sincerely, and in other ways too, particularly for shock value).

Having worked through some of the conditions of perception and creation, Whitman arrives, in the third key episode, at a moment where speech becomes necessary. In the twenty-fifth section he notes that "Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, / It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, / Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?" Having already established that he can have a sympathetic experience when he encounters others ("I do not ask the wounded person

how he feels, I myself become the wounded person"), he must find a way to re-transmit that experience without falsifying or diminishing it. Resisting easy answers, he later vows he "will never translate [him]self at all." Instead he takes a philosophically more rigorous stance: "What is known I strip away." Again Whitman's position is similar to that of Emerson, who says of himself, "I am the unsettler." Whitman, however, is a poet, and he must reassemble after unsettling: he must "let it out then." Having catalogued a continent and encompassed its multitudes, he finally decides: "I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, / I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." "Song of Myself" thus ends with a sound--a yawp--that could be described as either pre- or post-linguistic. Lacking any of the normal communicative properties of language, Whitman's yawp is the release of the "kosmos" within him, a sound at the borderline between saying everything and saying nothing. More than anything, the yawp is an invitation to the next Walt Whitman, to read into the yawp, to have a sympathetic experience, to absorb it as part of a new multitude.

Emily Dickinson

This is my letter to the world

Emily Dickinson was a recluse and therefore this poem fits to the situation she's buried w/in. She feels she is and outcast from society, from the world...the world has never given her a hand or helped her brave the unknown of which she missed. She relates more to nature than the modern world in which she lived in, she's more tuned to the primitiveness of the long forgotten, the only thing that can ever listen to any soul... "Her message is committed To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen, Judge tenderly of me!"

Because I could not stop for death

Characters
Narrator: She is a woman who calmly accepts death. In fact, she seems to welcome death as a suitor who she plans "marry." Death: The suitor who comes calling for the narrator to escort her to eternity. Immortality: A passenger in the carriage. Children: Boys and girls at play in a schoolyard. They symbolize early life.

Stanza Format
Each of the six stanzas has four lines. A four-line stanza is called a quatrain.

Critic's View: One of the Greatest Poems in English

Allen Tate (1899-1979)a distinguished American poet, teacher, and criticobserved that "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" is an extraordinary poem. In fact, he said, it deserves to be regarded as "one of the greatest in the English language; it is flawless to the last detailQuoted in Brown, Clarence A., and John T. Flanagan, eds. American Literature: a College Survey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, Page 436.

Analysis and Commentary

.......Because I Could Not Stop for Death reveals Emily Dickinsons calm acceptance of death. It is surprising that she presents the experience as being no more frightening than receiving a gentleman caller in this case, her fianc. .......The journey to the grave begins in Stanza 1, when Death comes calling in a carriage in which Immortality is also a passenger. As the trip continues in Stanza 2, the carriage trundles along at an easy, unhurried pace, perhaps suggesting that death has arrived in the form of a disease or debility that takes its time to kill. Then, in Stanza 3, the author appears to review the stages of her life: childhood (the recess scene), maturity (the ripe, hence, gazing grain), and the descent into death (the setting sun)as she passes to the other side. There, she experiences a chill because she is not warmly dressed. In fact, her garments are more appropriate for a wedding, representing a new beginning, than for a funeral, representing an end. .......Her description of the grave as her house indicates how comfortable she feels about death. There after centuries pass, so pleasant is her new life that time seems to stand still, feeling shorter than a Day. .......The overall theme of the poem seems to be that death is not to be feared since it is a natural part of the endless cycle of nature. Her view of death may also reflect her personality and religious beliefs. On the one hand, as a spinster, she was somewhat reclusive and introspective, tending to dwell on loneliness and death. On the other hand, as a Christian and a Bible reader, she was optimistic about her ultimate fate and appeared to see death as a friend.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant

In a simpler explanation, Dickinson is all about the use of words, and her ability to pick a simple word, and choose another resembling the same meaning. Her poetry can be interpreted easily, but her wording is what makes is so difficult. The first line "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant"- her punctuation and capitalization is still unknown, we do not necessarily know the reasoning for all of her punctuation, but we should believe that the topic of the poem is about truth, when telling the truth, it is always easier to fluff if a little, if it is harmful to someone, instead of telling it "straight" on- Dickinson says to "tell it slant", perhaps meaning that the truth is easier to handle if not all told at once. "Success in Circuit lies"- it is easier to slowly tell the truth and take

extra time or "laps" in a circuit to tell the truth, slow and steady wins the race, and by slowing circling around the truth, it will be easier to overcome. "Too bright for our inform Delight"- the truth can be too much to handle, or "too bright", depending on the harshness or happiness that comes from it, our "inform Delight" (ego) can only handle so much. "The Truth's superb surprise"- some may be suprised if told at once, and this leads into the next line "As Lightening to the Children eased"- as children, it is harder to understand teh reality of life, and the truth behind circumstances. Children tend to have a harder time understanding the truth, and it is more shocking (relating to lightning) for children when they uncover the truth behind something. But "With explanation kind"explanation for children can help ease children into understand why something is the way it is, and that the truth is not always an easy thing to handle. "The Truth must dazzle gradually"- it is easier for the truth to be gradually told, if it dazzles all at once, it can be too much to handlea gradual introduction to the truth will help people to understand the meaning behind it. "Or every man be blind"- if it the truth is told straight on, with no "slant"- the "dazzling" meaning behind it may blind or crush someone, accepting the truth completely can harm people and cause alot of pain if bluntly revealed.

Your thoughts don't have words every day Your thoughts don't have words every day They come a single time Like signal esoteric sips Of the communion Wine Which while you taste so native seems So easy so to be You cannot comprehend its price Nor its infrequency

It was not death for I stood up

You are all wrong. This poem was written in 1862. This is the same year that Reverend Wadsworth moved away with his wife to L.A. Her greatest works of poetry were written during this year, and most were written about him. (Wadsworth was the man she fell in love with). It is describing the kind of death that she experienced when he left. She knows she's not dead because she cand "stand" and the dead "lie down", she is not cold with "frost" because in chancel (a type of shawl)she feels warmth. She describes later that a part of her life or a part of her has been "shaven" away. This again

refering to Wadsworth. She is "fitted to a frame" or confined and alone. Then goes on to say that he is the "key" to her life or "breath". Compares the way she feels to a cold, still, dark night. She feels this way even though "the bells put out their tongues, for noon". In the last stanza it is refering to his trip to L.A. by ocean. "Chaotic" because she cannot stop him ("stopless"). cool- water. without change- middle of ocean... spar, ocean water... no report of land, cannot see him, does not know where he is, etc. And this in her justifies "despair". Even though she feels as if she could die, or is experiencing all of these death like feelings-- she is still living, life will continue, tomorrow will come.

Science is a fine Invention

Several of Dickinson's poems center around the theme of religion versus logic. Many of the poems in fascicle 12 deal with this dilemma; however, this poem seems to be the apex of this rather difficult subject. The main points of my explication are as follows: This poem states that religion only works in certain situations, but moments of crisis require solid evidence (as proven to a keener eye). The poetic writing style is slightly irregular, which lends to a "sing-song" effect. This effect stands in direct opposition of the serious message within the poem. The light-hearted poetic style may have been employed by Dickinson to protect her from some of the backlas the public may have thrown her way if it had been published. The poem directs the reader to believe that faith is a man-made invention, and therefore is only reliable to a certain extent. Using quotation marks around the word faith is an example of Dickinson's genius for two reasons: First, it indicates that faith is the most important aspect of the poem, and therefore deserves the reader's complete attention when searching for the overall meaning of the lyric. Secondly, the quotation marks set off faith as an abstract idea, furthering the speaker's point that faith itself is not a concrete object

As a forewarning, I knew very little about Dickinson's life and style when I composed this essay at the beginning of the course. Therefore, a few of the ideas in this essay seem flawed now, observing it in hindsight with my more recent knowledge about Emily. That being said, I left the essay in the original format. If I were to make changes, I would focus quite a bit more on Dickinson's use of Microscopes as a symbol for all that is logical.

"A Bird came down the Walk--..."

Summary
The speaker describes once seeing a bird come down the walk, unaware that it was being watched. The bird ate an angleworm, then "drank a Dew / From a convenient Grass--," then hopped sideways to let a beetle pass by. The bird's frightened, bead-like eyes glanced all around. Cautiously, the speaker offered him "a Crumb," but the bird "unrolled his feathers" and flew away--as though rowing in the water, but with a grace gentler than that with which "Oars divide the ocean" or butterflies leap "off Banks of Noon"; the bird appeared to swim without splashing.

Form
Structurally, this poem is absolutely typical of Dickinson, using iambic trimeter with occasional foursyllable lines, following a loose ABCB rhyme scheme, and rhythmically breaking up the meter with long dashes. (In this poem, the dashes serve a relatively limited function, occurring only at the end of lines, and simply indicating slightly longer pauses at line breaks.)

Commentary
Emily Dickinson's life proves that it is not necessary to travel widely or lead a life full of Romantic grandeur and extreme drama in order to write great poetry; alone in her house at Amherst, Dickinson pondered her experience as fully, and felt it as acutely, as any poet who has ever lived. In this poem, the simple experience of watching a bird hop down a path allows her to exhibit her extraordinary poetic powers of observation and description.

Dickinson keenly depicts the bird as it eats a worm, pecks at the grass, hops by a beetle, and glances around fearfully. As a natural creature frightened by the speaker into flying away, the bird becomes an

emblem for the quick, lively, ungraspable wild essence that distances nature from the human beings who desire to appropriate or tame it. But the most remarkable feature of this poem is the imagery of its final stanza, in which Dickinson provides one of the most breath-taking descriptions of flying in all of poetry. Simply by offering two quick comparisons of flight and by using aquatic motion (rowing and swimming), she evokes the delicacy and fluidity of moving through air. The image of butterflies leaping "off Banks of Noon," splashlessly swimming though the sky, is one of the most memorable in all Dickinson's writing.

There is word

EDGAR LEE MASTERS

Lucinda Matlock In Lucinda Matlock, Edgar Lee Masters was writing about the struggles with which women were confronted with in his days. While some were contented and happy with life inspite of the ups and downs of it, some were not. We were married and lived together for seventy years, Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children, Eight of whom we lost Ere I had reached the age of sixty. The discontended ones were admonished to try to get the best out of life. It takes life to love life. Edgar Lee Masters may have had one of the most unique styles of writing that has ever been used in the history of literature. He published a single collection, the "Spoon River Anthology." Each poem is a tale, written on the grave of some poor fictional soul, who, in turn, reads their own epitaph as if they were still alive, one example being miss "Lucinda Matlock." The inspiration for a collection of post-mortem accounts was said to been born of conversation Masters has on the topic of their former residences, those being Lewistown and Petersburg.

EDWIN ARLINGTON Richard cory

Another way to look at it is, no one, certainly not the narrator, truly knew the man. Although wealthy and charming and admired, the reader is given only the public view of Mr. Cory. But obviously there was something going on behind the exterior image he projected, something in stark contrast to his public persona. It's not about money not being able to buy happiness as much as it a

statement about what sad or dark secrets a man with money might still possess, secrets that could weigh on his conscience, guilt that could make life unbearable. People commit suicide to escape some sort of pain. To simply say he was unhappy, and that money can't buy happiness, is rather unimaginative. The man seemed to have everything going for him, and we think that would be great, but we have no idea what he had to do to get that money, no idea what he had to do to keep that money, no idea what kind of things he was able to do because of that money that he now regretted. Did he destroy someone to make his fortune? Cheat a friend and partner into ruin? Kill someone? Lose a love? A child? Was he impotent? Jilted? Or was he just depressed? In my opinion, this is a poem about how complex the human animal is, and how the things that make life worth living are divorced from what we universally celebrate and most aspire to, even though we assume they are largely the same.

The narrator in Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson is a low class working citizen telling the reader, in detail, about a distinguished gentleman named Richard Cory who eventually put a bullet through his head. Almost everyone, including the narrator, would stare at him with awe every time they saw him. He was imperially slim(4), always charismatic and well-dressed. He was extremely courteous and polite. He would please everyones heart with a simple Good Morning. Then the narrator soon explains that on one calm summer night he executes himself by putting a gun to his head. When I first read the poem, I thought it told the story of a young man and his riches. After about my third or fourth reading, I realized this poem is revealing that no matter how suicidal one gets, he or she should know that his or her life is not at its worse. The first two lines of the poem are Whenever Richard Cory went down town,/We people on the pavement looked at him. After only reading those two lines and not knowing what the poem was about, I thought Richard Cory must be someone very special. When finishing the first stanza, I thought to myself, Who is this man and why are they so star-strucked by him? After reading it again, I found that maybe the people on the pavement worked for a low salary and rarely saw anybody that looked, dressed, and conducted themselves in a

pleasing manner. The bystanders are probably questioning what a man with such taste and an aristocrat would be doing in that part of town. When I read the second stanza, I could hear his deep smooth voice, ...he fluttered pulses when he said,/Good Morning... The moment I read he fluttered pulses when he talked, I could see young girls giggle, older women getting warm feelings inside, and men being surprised to hear his voice even though theyve heard it before. When the poem read, he was always human when he talked, I did not quite understand. Soon afterward, I realized the author meant Richard Cory was not a conceited or arrogant man; he was a friendly man. I could imagine him being the brightest thing on the street when I comprehended he glittered when he walked. I realized that Richard Cory was more than just a rich man. ...Yes richer than a king, the third stanza states. At first reading, I thought, This man must have money growing on trees! Resulting from another reading, I came to the conclusion that maybe the narrator just couldnt picture someone having so much money and might have exaggerated to show how much wealthier Richard Cory was than most people. As the people in line 11, I can certainly relate to thinking that a particular person was everything. After finishing line 13, I did not entirely understand what was meant by the light. Did it signify daylight or symbolize a rescuer from the life they were living? The final stanza ended by telling the reader how Richard Cory went home one night and shot himself in the head. I found it kind of selfish that Richard Cory--a man who could afford to eat at a fancy restaurant everyday--killed himself while the people on the pavement went without meat for days. I would expect the people in the poem to have killed themselves before Richard Cory would even think about picking up a gun. After reading the poem for the first couple of times, I thought Richard Cory was an affluent man who killed himself because he was unloved. Then I read the poem over and recognized that many factors could have led to his death and theres no proof he wasnt loved--in fact, the poem even tells that he was greatly admired. I noticed the people in the poem would have traded lives with him in an instant. I think the overall message is saying dont give up on life; unfortunately Richard Cory and many others did.

Oo ti je esej

July midnight amy Lowell fali za sada

Gertruda stain- kratke pesme, opisi stvari

ROBERT FROST Birches

Summary
When the speaker sees bent birch trees, he likes to think that they are bent because boys have been "swinging" them. He knows that they are, in fact, bent by ice storms. Yet he prefers his vision of a boy climbing a tree carefully and then swinging at the tree's crest to the ground. He used to do this himself and dreams of going back to those days. He likens birch swinging to getting "away from the earth awhile" and then coming back.

Form
This is blank verse, with numerous variations on the prevailing iambic foot.

Commentary
The title is "Birches," but the subject is birch "swinging." And the theme of poem seems to be, more generally and more deeply, this motion of swinging. The force behind it comes from contrary pulls--truth and imagination, earth and heaven, concrete and spirit, control and abandon, flight and return. We have the earth below, we have the world of the treetops and above, and we have the motion between these two poles.

The whole upward thrust of the poem is toward imagination, escape, and transcendence--and away from heavy Truth with a capital T. The downward pull is back to earth. Likely everyone understands the desire "to get away from the earth awhile." The attraction of climbing trees is likewise universal. Who would not like to climb above the fray, to leave below the difficulties or drudgery of the everyday, particularly when one is "weary of considerations, / And life is too much like a pathless wood." One way to navigate a pathless wood is to climb a tree. But this act of climbing is not necessarily so pragmatically motivated: For the boy, it is a form of play; for the man, it is a transcendent escape. In either case, climbing birches seems synonymous with imagination and the imaginative act, a push toward the ethereal, and even the contemplation of death.

But the speaker does not leave it at that. He does not want his wish half- fulfilled--does not want to be left, so to speak, out on a limb. If climbing trees is a sort of push toward transcendence, then complete transcendence means never to come back down. But this speaker is not someone who puts much stock in the promise of an afterlife. He rejects the self-delusional extreme of imagination, and he reinforces his ties to the earth. He says, "Earth's the right place for love," however imperfect, though his "face burns" and "one eye is weeping." He must escape to keep his sanity; yet he must return to keep going. He wants to push "[t]oward heaven" to the limits of earthly possibility, but to go too far is to be lost. The upward motion requires a complement, a swing in the other direction to maintain a livable balance.

And that is why the birch tree is the perfect vehicle. As a tree, it is rooted in the ground; in climbing it, one has not completely severed ties to the earth. Moreover, as the final leap back down takes skill, experience, and courage, it is not a mere retreat but a new trajectory. Thus, one's path up and down the birch is one that is "good both going and coming back." The "Truth" of the ice storm does not interfere for long; for the poet looks at bent trees and imagines another truth: nothing less than a recipe for how to live well. A poem as richly textured as "Birches" yields no shortage of interpretations. The poem is whole and lovely at the literal level, but it invites the reader to look below the surface and build his or her own understanding. The important thing for the interpreter is to attune her reading to the elements of the poem that may suggest other meanings. One such crucial element is the aforementioned swinging motion between opposites. Notice the contrast between Truth and what the speaker prefers to imagine happened to the birch trees. But also note that Truth, as the speaker relates it, is highly figurative and imaginative: Ice storms are described in terms of the "inner dome of heaven," and bent trees as girls drying their hair in the sun. This sort of truth calls into question whether the speaker believes there is, in fact, a capital-T Truth.

The language of the poem--the vocabulary and rhythms--is very conversational and, in parts, gently humorous: "But I was going to say when Truth broke in / With all her matter of fact about the ice storm." But the folksiness does not come at the cost of accuracy or power; the description of the postice storm birch trees is vivid and evocative. Nor is this poem isolated, with its demotic vocabulary, from the pillars of poetic tradition. The "pathless wood" in line 44 enters into a dialogue with the whole body of Frost's work--a dialogue that goes back to the opening lines of Dante's Inferno. And compare line 13 with these well-known lines from Shelley's elegy for Keats, "Adonais": "Life, like a dome of many colour'd glass, / Stains the white radiance of Eternity, / Until death tramples it to fragments." In "Birches," the pieces of heaven shattered and sprinkled on the ground present another comparison between the imaginative and the concrete, a description of Truth that undermines itself by invoking an overthrown, now poetic scheme of celestial construction (heavenly spheres). Shelley's stanza continues: "Die, / If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek." Frost's speaker wants to climb toward heaven but then dip back down to earth--not to reach what he seeks but to seek and then swing back into the orbit of the world.

Frost also imbues the poem with distinct sexual imagery. The idea of tree-climbing, on its own, has sexual overtones. The following lines are more overt:

One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer.
As are these more sensual:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
The whole process of birch swinging iterates that of sex, and at least one critic has noted that "Birches" is a poem about erotic fantasy, about a lonely, isolated boy who yearns to conquer these trees sexually. It is a testament to the richness of the poem that it fully supports readings as divergent as those mentioned here--and many more.

Two more items to consider: First, reread the poem and think about the possible connections between getting "away from the earth for awhile" (line 48) and death. Consider the viewpoint of the speaker and where he seems to be at in his life. Secondly, when the speaker proclaims, in line 52, "Earth's the right place for love," this is the first mention of love in the poem. Of what kind of love does he speak? There are many kinds of love, just as there are many potential objects of love. Try relating this love to the rest of the poem.

Stopping by woods

Summary
On the surface, this poem is simplicity itself. The speaker is stopping by some woods on a snowy evening. He or she takes in the lovely scene in near-silence, is tempted to stay longer, but acknowledges the pull of obligations and the considerable distance yet to be traveled before he or she can rest for the night.

Form
The poem consists of four (almost) identically constructed stanzas. Each line is iambic, with four stressed syllables:

Within the four lines of each stanza, the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme. The third line does not, but it sets up the rhymes for the next stanza. For example, in the third stanza,queer, near, and year all rhyme, but lake rhymes with shake,mistake, and flake in the following stanza.

The notable exception to this pattern comes in the final stanza, where the third line rhymes with the previous two and is repeated as the fourth line.

Do not be fooled by the simple words and the easiness of the rhymes; this is a very difficult form to achieve in English without debilitating a poem's content with forced rhymes.

Commentary
This is a poem to be marveled at and taken for granted. Like a big stone, like a body of water, like a strong economy, however it was forged it seems that, once made, it has always been there. Frost claimed that he wrote it in a single nighttime sitting; it just came to him. Perhaps one hot, sustained burst is the only way to cast such a complete object, in which form and content, shape and meaning, are alloyed inextricably. One is tempted to read it, nod quietly in recognition of its splendor and multivalent meaning, and just move on. But one must write essays. Or study guides. Like the woods it describes, the poem is lovely but entices us with dark depths--of interpretation, in this case. It stands alone and beautiful, the account of a man stopping by woods on a snowy evening, but gives us a come-hither look that begs us to load it with a full inventory of possible meanings. We protest, we make apologies, we point to the dangers of reading poetry in this way, but unlike the speaker of the poem, we cannot resist.

The last two lines are the true culprits. They make a strong claim to be the most celebrated instance of repetition in English poetry. The first "And miles to go before I sleep" stays within the boundaries of literalness set forth by the rest of the poem. We may suspect, as we have up to this point, that the poem implies more than it says outright, but we can't insist on it; the poem has gone by so fast, and seemed so straightforward. Then comes the second "And miles to go before I sleep," like a soft yet penetrating gong; it can be neither ignored nor forgotten. The sound it makes is "Ahhh." And we must read the verses again and again and offer trenchant remarks and explain the "Ahhh" in words far inferior to the poem. For the last "miles to go" now seems like life; the last "sleep" now seems like death.

The basic conflict in the poem, resolved in the last stanza, is between an attraction toward the woods and the pull of responsibility outside of the woods. What do woods represent? Something good? Something bad? Woods are sometimes a symbol for wildness, madness, the pre-rational, the looming irrational. But these woods do not seem particularly wild. They are someone's woods, someone's in particular--the owner lives in the village. But that owner is in the village on this, the darkest evening of the year--so would any sensible person be. That is where the division seems to lie, between the village (or "society," "civilization," "duty," "sensibility," "responsibility") and the woods (that which is beyond the borders of the village and all it represents). If the woods are not particularly wicked, they still possess the seed of the irrational; and they are, at night, dark--with all the varied connotations of darkness.

Part of what is irrational about the woods is their attraction. They are restful, seductive, lovely, dark, and deep--like deep sleep, like oblivion. Snow falls in downy flakes, like a blanket to lie under and be covered by. And here is where many readers hear dark undertones to this lyric. To rest too long while snow falls could be to lose one's way, to lose the path, to freeze and die. Does this poem express a death wish, considered and then discarded? Do the woods sing a siren's song? To be lulled to sleep could be truly dangerous. Is allowing oneself to be lulled akin to giving up the struggle of prudence and self-preservation? Or does the poem merely describe the temptation to sit and watch beauty while responsibilities are forgotten--to succumb to a mood for a while?

The woods sit on the edge of civilization; one way or another, they draw the speaker away from it (and its promises, its good sense). "Society" would condemn stopping here in the dark, in the snow--it is ill advised. The speaker ascribes society's reproach to the horse, which may seem, at first, a bit odd. But the horse is a domesticated part of the civilized order of things; it is the nearest thing to society's agent at this place and time. And having the horse reprove the speaker (even if only in the speaker's imagination) helps highlight several uniquely human features of the speaker's dilemma. One is the regard for beauty (often flying in the face of practical concern or the survival instinct); another is the attraction to danger, the unknown, the dark mystery; and the third--perhaps related but distinct--is the possibility of the death wish, of suicide.

Not that we must return too often to that darkest interpretation of the poem. Beauty alone is a sufficient siren; a sufficient protection against her seduction is an unwillingness to give up on society despite the responsibilities it imposes. The line "And miles to go before I sleep" need not imply burden alone; perhaps the ride home will be lovely, too. Indeed, the line could be read as referring to Frost's career as a poet, and at this time he had plenty of good poems left in him.

WALLACE STEVENS

Sunday morning

About this poem Stevens wrote, in the terse and bearish tone he reserved for such commentary, that it was "simply an expression of paganism."[2] If so, it is a refined post-Christian paganism imbued with Stevens's characteristic infusion of the natural order with transcendental qualities. It defines itself by sympathetic reaction to the Christian impulse for immortality and a transcendent realm.
[3] [4]

The poet channels these impulses into the natural order. The

immortality that matters belongs to the moment, like Susanah's beauty. Nothing valuable in human experience would survive relocation into a timeless heaven. This is a poetic expression of the philosophical thought that death gives meaning to life, but it also focuses on the sufficiency of mundane experience, as described in the poem's first few lines, to dissipate longings for an immutable

world beyond nature. The woman with whom the poet is in dialogue dreams and feels the old catastrophe of Jesus's sacrifice, and is tempted to see it as a token of "imperishable bliss", but she is eventually brought round:
She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."

The flight of casual flocks of pigeons at the conclusion of the poem takes them downward to darkness, not beyond the sky. That moment of their dive that the poet captures is immortal in the only sense that matters. Buttel reads "Sunday Morning" as subtly refuting the Attendant Spirit in Milton's Comus, a poem which asserts the heavenly over the earthly.[5] He also sees the poem as establishing Matisse as "a kindred spirit" to Stevens, in that both artists "transform a pagan joy of life into highly civilized terms."[6]

W C WILLIAMS The red wheelbarrow

The Red Wheelbarrow is a poem by and often considered the masterwork of American 20th-century writer William Carlos Williams. The 1923 poem exemplifies the Imagist-influenced philosophy of no ideas but in things. This provides another layer of meaning beneath the surface reading. The style of the poem forgoes traditional British stress patterns to create a typical American image.[1] The subject matter of The Red Wheelbarrow is what makes it the most distinctive and important. He lifts a brazier to an artistic level, exemplifying the importance of the ordinary; as he says, a poem must be real, not 'realism', but reality itself." In this way, it holds more in common with the haiku of Bash than with the verse of T. S. Eliot.

Structure
The poem has a distinct pattern, with alternating lines of two and one stressed syllables. The work seems to attempt to reach a specific combination of stresses, but purposely misses each time.

Content
The Red Wheelbarrow represents Williams' desire to raise the individual "to some approximate co-extension with the universe...to refine, to clarify, to intensify that eternal moment in which we alone live". He wanted to "escape from crude symbolism, the annihilation of strained associations, complicated ritualistic forms designed to separate work from reality". The first line of the poem is open-ended. Sandra K. Stanley wrote that it represents a "demand that the reader confront the text".[7][8] Much attention has been given to the word "glazed" in the fifth line of the poem. It is the only word in the poem that can be said to carry an aesthetic meaning.
[9]

The French literary critic and theorist Michael Riffaterre said that this word is

"the real agent of the poem's efficacy", because it transforms the wheelbarrow into an object of aesthetic contemplation.[10]

Yachts

In Williams' 1935 "The Yachts" (Selected Poems 71-72), he uses what can be perceived as another variety of tactical difficulty to create an even more intense confusion for the reader when he breaks his poem into two pieces of visual description that appear at first to be based on two entirely different views of reality. Here his subjects and use of pronouns are steady and unambiguous except on the far side of the break, but the very violence of the break and our inability to put the pieces together based on our experience of seeing in the real worldan experience encouraged by the vivid detail of the first partforce us to seek an explanation in symbolism. But here again, the poet encourages our assumption that a feeling "I" is masterminding our experience, in this case by means of a rather Blakean maneuver. In fact, the speaker refers to that controlling mind, however obliquely, throughout, but especially in the second-to-last stanza. Our problems in seeing a magnificent yacht race described in lavish and pleasurable detail in the first eight stanzas turn into a hideous scene of mass drowning in the last three are finally resolved when the speaker explains: It is a sea of faces about them in agony, in despair until the horror of the race dawns staggering the mind, the whole sea become an entanglement of watery bodies lost to the world bearing what they cannot hold

EZRA POUND

In a Station of the Metro

"In a Station of the Metro" is an Imagist poem by Ezra Pound published in 1913 in Poetry.[1] The poem attempts to describe Pound's experience upon visiting an underground metro station in Paris in 1912, and Pound suggested that the faces of the individuals in the metro were best put into a poem not with a description but with an "equation". For this reason the poem has also been desribed as a work of Vorticism due to the authors intent to treat the description as a work of graphic art. The poem contains only 14 words, and is a work of Imagism, a form of poem intended to capture a single image in words in an attempt to bring modern speech into poetry. Pound was influential in the creation of Imagist poetry until he left the movement to embrace Vorticism in 1914. Pound, though briefly, embraced Imagism stating that it was an important step away from the verbose style of Victorian literature and suggested that it "is the sort of American stuff I can show here in Paris without its being ridiculed". [3] "In a Station at the Metro" is an early work of Modernist poetry as it attempts to "break from the pentameter", encorporates the use of visual spacing as a poetic device, and contains not a single verb.

Analysis
The poem was first published in 1913 and is considered one of the leading poems of the Imagist tradition. Written in a Japanese haiku style, Pounds process of deletion from thirty lines to only fourteen words typifies Imagisms focus on economy of language, precision of imagery and experimenting with non-traditional verse forms. The poem is Pounds written equivalent for the moment of revelation and intense emotion he felt at the Metro at La Concorde, Paris. Pound explains in his artic value. The poem is essentially a set of images that have unexpected likeness and convey the rare emotion that Pound was experiencing at that time. Arguably the heart of the poem is not the first line, nor the second, but the mental process that links the two together. "In a poem of this sort," as Pound explained, "one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective

transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective." This darting takes place between the first and second lines. The pivotal semi-colon has stirred debate as to whether the first line is in fact subordinate to the second or both lines are of equal, independent importance. Pound contrasts the factual, mundane image that he actually witnessed with a metaphor from nature and thus infuses this apparition with visual beauty. There is a quick transition from the statement of the first line to the second lines vivid metaphor; this superpository technique exemplifies the Japanese haiku style. The word apparition is considered crucial as it evokes a mystical and supernatural sense of imprecision which is then reinforced by the metaphor of the second line. The plosive word Petals conjures ideas of delicate, feminine beauty which contrasts with the bleakness of the wet, black bough. What the poem signifies is questionable; many critics argue that it deliberately transcends traditional form and therefore its meaning is solely found in its technique as opposed to in its content. However when Pound had the inspiration to write this poem few of these considerations came into view. He simply wished to translate his perception of beauty in the midst of ugliness into a single, perfect image in written form.

CANTOS

he Cantos by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered to present formidable difficulties to the reader. Strong claims have been made for it as the most significant work of modernist poetry of the twentieth century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics, governance, and culture are integral to its content. The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese characters as well as quotations in European languages other than English. Recourse to scholarly commentaries is almost inevitable for a close reader. The range of allusion to historical events is very broad, and abrupt changes occur with little transition. There is also wide geographical reference; Pound added to his earlier interests in the classical Mediterranean culture and

East Asia selective topics from medieval and early modern Italy and Provence, the beginnings of the United States, England of the seventeenth century, and details from Africa he had obtained from Leo Frobenius. References without explanation abound. Pound initially believed that he possessed poetic and rhetorical techniques which would themselves generate significance, but as time passed he became more concerned with the messages he wished to convey. " I got more interested in the meaning of what I got on the page." The section he wrote at the end of World War II, a composition started while he was interned by American occupying forces in Italy, has become known as The Pisan Cantos, and is the part of the work most often considered to be selfsufficient. It was awarded the first Bollingen Prize in 1948. There were many repercussions, since this in effect honoured a poet who had been condemned as a traitor of his native country, and was also diagnosed with a serious and disabling mental illness.

The Cantos can appear on first reading to be chaotic or structureless because it lacks plot or a definite ending. R.P. Blackmur, an early critic, wrote, "The work of Ezra Pound has been for most people almost as difficult to understand as Soviet Russia The Cantos are not complex, they are complicated".[1] The issue of incoherence of the work is reflected by the equivocal note sounded in the final two more-or-less completed cantos; according to William Cookson, the final two cantos show that Pound has been unable to make his materials cohere, while they insist that the world itself still does cohere.[2] Pound and T. S. Eliot had previously approached the subject of fragmentation of human experience: while Eliot was writing, and Pound editing, The Waste Land, Pound had said that he looked upon experience as similar to a series of iron filings on a mirror.[3] Each filing is disconnected, but they are drawn into the shape of a rose by the presence of a magnet. The Cantos takes a position between the mythic unity of Eliot's poem and Joyce's flow of consciousness and attempting to work out how history (as fragment) and personality (as shattered by modern existence) can cohere in the "field" of poetry.

Pound had been discussing the possibility of writing a long poem since around 1905, but work did not begin until sometime between 1912 and 1917, when the initial versions of the first three cantos of the proposed "poem of some length"

were published in the journal Poetry. In this version, the poem began very much as a direct address by the poet, not to the reader but to the ghost of Robert Browning. Pound came to realise that this need to be a controlling narrative voice was working against the revolutionary intent of his own poetic position, and these first three ur-cantos were soon abandoned and a new starting point sought. The answer was a Latin version of Homer's Odyssey by the Renaissance scholar Andreas Divus that Pound had bought in Paris sometime between 1906 and 1910. Using the metre and syntax of his 1911 version of the Anglo-Saxon poem The Seafarer, Pound made an English version of Divus' rendering of the nekuia episode in which Odysseus and his companions sail to Hades in order to find out what their future holds. In using this passage to open the poem, Pound introduces a major theme; the excavating of the "dead" past to illuminate both present and future. He also echoes Dante's opening to The Divine Comedy in which the poet also descends into hell to interrogate the dead. The canto concludes with some fragments from the Second Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, in a Latin version by Georgius Dartona which Pound found in the Divus volume, followed by "So that:"an invitation to read on.

MARIANNE MOORE

POETRY

A poem about poetry should look like a poem, but Marianne Moore writes cadenced prose. The metre, vocabulary, and syntax of "Poetry" belong to business correspondence or academic argumentation. Pesmo o poeziji, ovo moras da citas.

T S Elliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is the 1915 poem (The first publication in Britain was also in 1915[1] ) that marked the start of T. S. Eliot's career as one of the twentieth century's most influential poets.[2] The poem, also

referred to simply as Prufrock,[3] is one of the most anthologized 20th century poems in the English language.[4] The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue, and uses the "stream of consciousness" literary technique.[5]

Interpretation
As it shows us only surface thought and images, it is considered difficult to interpret exactly what is going on in the poem. Laurence Perrine wrote, "[the poem] presents the apparently random thoughts going through a person's head within a certain time interval, in which the transitional links are psychological rather than logical".[5] This stylistic choice makes it difficult to determine exactly what is literal and what is symbolic. On the surface, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" relays the thoughts of a sexually frustrated middle-aged man who wants to say something but is afraid to do so, and ultimately does not.[5][19] The dispute, however, lies in who Prufrock is talking to, whether he is actually going anywhere, what he wants to say, and to what the various images refer. First of all, it is not evident to whom the poem is addressed. Some believe that Prufrock is talking to another person[20] or directly to the reader,[21] while others believe Prufrock's monologue is internal. Perrine writes "The 'you and I' of the first line are divided parts of Prufrock's own nature",[5] while Mutlu Konuk Blasing suggests that the "you and I" refers to the relationship between the dilemmas of the character and the author.[22] Similarly, critics dispute whether Prufrock is going somewhere during the course of the poem. In the first half of the poem, Prufrock uses various outdoor images (the sky, streets, cheap restaurants and hotels, fog), and talks about how there will be time for various things before "the taking of toast and tea", and "time to turn back and descend the stair." This has led many to believe that Prufrock is on his way to an afternoon tea, in which he is preparing to ask this "overwhelming question".[5] Others, however, believe that Prufrock is not physically going anywhere, but rather, is playing through it in his mind.[21][22] Perhaps the most significant dispute lies over what the "overwhelming question" is that Prufrock is trying to ask. Many believe that Prufrock is trying to tell a woman his romantic interest in her,[5] pointing to the various images of women's arms and clothing and the final few lines in which Prufrock laments that the mermaids will not sing to him. Others, however, believe that Prufrock is trying to

express some deeper philosophical insight or disillusionment with society, but fears rejection, pointing to statements that express a disillusionment with society such as "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" (line 51). Many believe that the poem is a criticism of Edwardian society and Prufrock's dilemma represents the inability to live a meaningful existence in the modern world.
[23]

McCoy and Harlan wrote "For many readers in the 1920s, Prufrock seemed to

epitomize the frustration and impotence of the modern individual. He seemed to represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment."[21] Finally, readers and critics are not sure what the many images refer to and what they represent. For example, "yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes" (line 15) has been interpreted as many things, from symbolism for the decline of society (in a similar manner as the Valley of Ashes in The Great Gatsby, another Modernist work),[citation needed] to a reference to the behaviour of a cat.[24] As the poem uses the stream of consciousness technique, it is often difficult to determine what is meant to be interpreted literally and what is symbolic, what is actual and what is subconscious imagery or both. In general, Eliot uses imagery which is indicative of Prufrock's character,[5] representing aging and decay. For example, "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table" (lines 2-3), the "sawdust restaurants" and "cheap hotels," the yellow fog, and the afternoon "Asleep...tired... or it malingers" (line 77), are reminiscent of languor and decay, while Prufrock's various concerns about his hair and teeth, as well as the mermaids "Combing the white hair of the waves blown back / When the wind blows the water white and black," show his concern over aging.

Gerontion
Gerontion is a poem by T. S. Eliot that was first published in 1920 and relates the opinions and impressions of a gerontic, or elderly man.[1] Eliot considered using the poem as a prefaceto The Waste Land, but decided to keep it as an independent poem. [2] Along with The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land, and other works published by Eliot in the early part of his career, Gerontion discusses themes of religion, sexuality, and other general topics of Modernist poetry.[3]

The poem
Gerontion" opens with an epigraph from Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure which states: Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both.
[6]

The poem itself is a dramatic monologue by an elderly character that critics believe to be an older version of J. Alfred Prufrock. The use of pronouns such as "us" and "I" regarding the speaker and a member of the opposite sex as well as the general discourse in lines 53-58, in the opinion of Anthony David Moody, presents the same sexual themes that face Prufrock, only this time they meet with the body of an older man.[6]
[7]

. The poem contains six stanzas of free

verse describing the relationship between the narrator and the world around him, ending with a couplet that declares, Tenants of the house Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season." which describes the monologue as the the production of the "dry brain," of the narrator in the "dry season" of his age.
[8]

Hugh Kenner suggests that these "tenants" are the

voices of The Waste Land and that Eliot is describing the method of the poem's narrative by saying that the speaker uses several different voices to express the impressions of Gerontion.[9].Kenner also suggests that the poem resembles a portion of a Jacobean play as it relates its story in fragmented form and lack of a formal plot.[10]

Themes
Many of the themes within Gerontion are present throughout Eliot's later works, especially within The Waste Land. This is especially true of the internal struggle within the poem and the narrator's "waiting for rain". Time is also altered by allowing past and present to be superimposed, and a series of places and characters connected to various cultures are introduced

Religion Sexuality

The Journey of the Magi

In the 20th century, T. S. Eliot wrote a poem entitled The Journey of the Magi. The poem was written after Eliot's conversion to Christianity and confirmation in the Church of England in 1927 and published in Ariel Poems in 1930. The poem is an account of the journey from the point of view of one of the magi. It picks up Eliot's consistent theme of alienation and a feeling of powerlessness in a world that has changed. In this regard, with a speaker who laments outliving his world, the poem recalls Arnold's Dover Beach, as well as a number of Eliot's own works. The poem is, instead of a celebration of the wonders of the journey, largely a complaint about a journey that was painful and tedious. The speaker says that a voice was always whispering in their ears as they went that "this was all folly". The magus seems generally unimpressed by the infant, and yet he realizes that the incarnation has changed everything. He asks, ". . . were we led all that way for Birth or Death?" The birth of the Christ was the death of the world of magic, astrology, and paganism. The speaker, recalling his journey in old age, says that after that birth his world had died, and he had little left to do but wait for his own end. There are at least two formal elements of the poem that are interesting. The first is that the poem maintains Eliot's long habit of using the dramatic monologue a form he inherited and adapted from Robert Browning. The speaker of the poem is in agitation and speaks to the reader directly. His revelations are accidental and born out of his emotional distress. As with other works, Eliot chooses an elderly speaker someone who is world weary, reflective, and sad (cf. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Gerontion, the Tiresias narrator of The Waste

Land, and possibly the narrator of The Hollow Men). His narrator in this poem is a witness to historical change who seeks to rise above his historical moment, a man who, despite material wealth and prestige, has lost his spiritual bearings. Secondly, the poem has a number of symbolist elements, where an entire philosophical position is summed up by the manifestation of a single image. For example, the narrator says that on the journey they saw "three trees against a low sky"; the single image of the three trees implies the historical future (the crucifixion) and the spiritual truth of the future (the skies lowered and heaven opened). These features are not "symbols" in the usual sense. They are physical features that contain what the Symbolists would see as a transhistorical truth. This is notable in that Eliot, although using symbols throughout his poetic career, did not write in a Symbolist manner as often in the middle of his career, as he had moved instead toward a more fragmentary view of human perception of truth.

MAcLEISH ARCHIBALD

ARS POETICA

MacLeish says that the poem should express its meaning implicitly rather than putting it in explicit sentences. The essence of the poem lies in the imagery it uses. For instance, he says, "grief" can be depicted by images of 'empty doorway' or 'maple leaf'. Also the essence should not fade away with the passage of time i.e. the central idea of the poem should be relevant forever. The beauty of the poem is that all what is described as 'the art of poetry' is very effectively implemented in the poem itself.

Ars poetica contains many similes and images that contribute to its essence.
it attempts to prescribe the nature of poetry, and - in a move Hofstadter would have loved - does so in the form of a poem. Furthermore, it does not seek to sidestep the possible pitfalls and inconsistencies this approach leaves it open to - rather it meets them head on, using words like 'mute', 'dumb' and 'wordless' to set up a paradox culminating in the wonderful last stanza, 'a poem should not mean / but be'. En route, the main thread is woven through with several exquisite images, speaking to the reader even as it advocates silence, progressing even as it advocates motionlessness. And yet, at the end, it does resolve itself into a seamless, integrated whole, as perfectly self-contained as the globed fruit, or the timeless, frozen stillness of a winter's night. The reader is free to pick it apart, to tease meaning from the tapestry of contradictions and images. As for the poem, it simply is.
E E CUMMINGS BUFALLO BILL`S DEFUNCT
A free verse poem on mortality by E. E. Cummings uses Buffalo Bill as an image of life and vibrancy. The poem is generally untitled, and commonly known by its first two lines: "Buffalo Bill's / defunct", however some books such as Poetry edited by J. Hunter uses the name "portrait". The poem uses expressive phrases to describe Buffalo Bill's showmanship, referring to his "watersmooth-silver / stallion", and using a staccato beat to describe his rapid shooting of a series of clay pigeons. The poem which featured this character caused great controversy. The fusion of words such as "onetwothreefourfive" interprets the impression which Buffalo Bill left on his audiences.

"my sweet old etcetera "my sweet old etcetera" is part of E.E. Cummings' "is 5" collection of poetry, which was published in 1926. This poem and most of Cummings' other poetry was known for its typographic innovation. One will definitely notice that there are only two capitalized letters in the whole piece and not one period. The only punctuation mark present is the comma, creating pauses in the speech. Basically the whole poem is a big run-on sentence. "my sweet old etcetera" was written, as well as most of Cummings' other poetry, to have visual effectiveness and content as well as literary effectiveness and content. After all Cummings

was a painter and an artist. He wanted people see the poetry, not just read it. In order to understand what the poem is all about, one might rewrite it and break it up into readable, complete sentences. One must also place appropriate syntax and punctuation where it needs to be. Of course, one has to remove all of the "etcetera"s in order to make a sentence that makes sense. I believe that this is a story in which E.E. Cummings is telling. It is about an experience he is having while at war and how it is effecting his family during this time. The language is not flowing because the typography, the lack of syntax and punctuation makes it confusing. The word "etcetera" was thrown in here and there, but why? This made it very difficult to understand to get the whole picture, because the word's various positions caused an interruption. The word "etcetera" means "a number of unspecified additional persons or things." or "unspecified additional items". I believe Cummings wanted to say more within the poem but thought he could get his poem across by inserting "etcetera" in various places. He also might have been trying to make a statement by telling the world, "you don't have to get a point across by using a lot of detail sometime, you don't even have to use complete sentences..or even sentences at all for that matter." my sweet old etcetera aunt lucy during recent war could and what is more did tell you just what everybody was fighting for, Cummings maybe talking to himself at this point, telling himself that his Aunt Lucy did warn him about the war and why they would be fighting it. A lot of boys and men go into war all excited about it not realizing what war will do psychologically and physically. They don't understand what war is all about. my sister isabel created hundreds

(and hundreds) of socks not to mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers etcetera wristers etcetera, my These lines are telling us about his sister's work in making all of these things for the hundreds and hundreds of men that are going to warm. They are all items that keep humans warm. One would have a warm feeling when reading this. If you are wondering what "wristers" are I cannot tell you what they are because I could not find the definition. They are probably things that go around the wrist to keep them warm mother hope that i would die etcetera bravely of course my father used to become hoarse talking about how it was a privilege and if only he could... By placing "etcetera" between "die" and "bravely" the reader is tricked for a second. We are led to believe that his mother really hoped that he would die. Cummings probably did this to represent the pause in life after someone close dies. In these lines we learn that his father talks a lot about the honor in dying in battle and how he wished he could die bravely. ..meanwhile my self etcetera lay quietly in the deep mud et cetera (dreaming, et cetera, of Your smile eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

While his mother, father, sister and aunt are thinking of him, he is lying somewhere in the mud, maybe in a trench. Most likely he has just started to fall asleep and is dreaming of his loved ones and drifting off to sleep. These last few lines have the best visual effect as any other lines in the whole poem. The reader visually sees the words "falling" as the words say that he dreaming. It has a greater effect on the reader than just writing a sentence that says, "He fell asleep." The whole poem could be his dream. When one dreams we sometimes skip to different scenes and sometimes we dream in fragments, even sentences are in fragments sometimes. When I am reading this poem all I can think of when he says "etcetera" is when Jerry Seinfeld says, "Yadayadayada." I am guessing that the "Your" at the end is his family, but I have no idea what he means when he says "your Etcetera". I guess he is using it to represent everything he thinks about when away from his family, allowing the reader to "fill in the blanks." Yadayadayada!

POEM 40

Moras da citas

Hart Crane My grandmothers Love Letters Analysis I can remember much forgetfulness. (from Forgetfulness) When Harold was nine, Grace (his mother) suffered a nervous breakdown and was placed in a sanatorium after a bitter quarrel that demoralized the entire family. Crane spent much of this time visiting relatives and living with his grandparents. Later in his life, signing his name as Hart, Crane created a personal association between his mother and his poetry. He would be for his grandmother, to the end of her life, an irrepressible, high-spirited boy. In his correspondence, Hart Crane speaks of the trials of writing this early poem

after the initial inspiration. He longs for the silence he feels is necessary to properly address his subject. The poem becomes a poignant example of the poets process, of the surprising turns a work might take, and of the possible inability to fully embrace certain endeavours at various points in ones life. Early in the poem, the speaker tries to chart the constellation of his grandmothers life, via love letters discovered in the corner of the roof. He strives to find the connection: There are no stars tonight /But those of memory...in the loose girdle of soft rain. Crane paints the scene. Yet already in the first two stanzas, the images suggest that the speaker feels the tug of impermanence: the old letters are brown and soft /And liable to melt as snow. Crane continues to evoke an elegiac tone with such images in the third stanza: It is all hung by an invisible white hair. In contrast to the impermanence is the rain, constant throughout the space of the poem, softly washing everything, from the surfaces, and from the memory. My Grandmothers Love letters is linking memory and present reality. Crane creates space in his memory for his grandmothers love lettersthat is, her writing. Noting that the bridge between the past and the present is all hung by an invisible white hair, Crane asks himself if his fingers are long enough to play old keys that are merely echoes. The question Crane asks himself bridges temporal gaps through remembering, reading, and interpenetrating with the past. It is the loose girdle of soft rain that helps to create the music of the poem. The piece has a generally iambic current, but it is indeed loose and soft, with an echo of meter, rather than a tight pattern. The rhymes as well are gentle and soft: these two words themselves are repeated in the poem. In Cranes music, the words enough, Elizabeth, roof and soft provide a light touch of rhyme. Such delicacy makes his exact rhymes all the more intense when they appear: the invisible white hair alongside the birch limbs webbing the air. He leads his grandmother by the hand /Through much of what she would not understand. Crane asserts that his grandmother would be less sympathetic to his love letters than he was to hers. And what sorts of hings might block maternal sympathy and understanding? And what do you make of the sound of gently pitying laughter? The world is laughing at him for even thinking for a second that she might understand. Its real sad. This is a real sad poem. The poem ends with the rain on the roof gently rhyming its laughter at the poets attempts to inhabit the past, via his grandmothers love life. The poem,

which initially tried to explore the world of those letters, now recognizes the difficulty of the poets role as translator of certain experiences. In his correspondence, after recounting his difficulties with the subject matter, Crane states that the finished poem was shorter than [he] had planned. When the speaker asks himself if his fingers are long enough to play /Old keys that are but echoes and longs for the silence to be able to hear the music, one senses not only the longing for his grandmothers experience, but a longing to feel such a love himself. The speaker seems to wonder at his own ability to love. The poem becomes a quiet harbinger of his later Voyages: Permit me voyage, love, into your hands (Voyages III). The rains gently pitying laughter suggests a realization of the distance the speaker feels, not only from the grandmothers experience, but from his own ability to inhabit the greatness of such space. In its longing, the poem, itself, feels like a love letterto his grandmother, to her life, and to his own desire to carry back the music to its source. Cranes ultimate realizationthat perhaps there is some family history to which we have no rightful claim, which we cannot understand and in which we cannot shareis heartbreaking: Forgive me for an echo of these things, And let us walk through time with equal pride. (from Recitative)

LANGSTON HUGHES Dream Boogie

THEODORE ROETHE FRAU BAUMAN

The poem conveys an impression of an elusive, darting "reality," for the three Fraus move so swiftly as to manage to be in two places at once, to be "Gone" and "still hovering]" simultaneously. The ladies, like the Old Florist, have the power to transfer their energy creatively into the life around them, and it is that power which commends them to the memory and to the apotheosizing power of the imagination. The Fraus are glimpsed through a blur of active verbal forms--creaking, reaching,

winding, straightening, tying, tucking, dipping up, sifting, sprinkling, shaking, standing, billowing, twinkling, flying, keeping, sewing, trellising, pinching, poking, and plotting. Even nouns such as Coils, loops, whorls, nurses, seed,, pipes, and others are potential verbs, reminding us that the names of greenhouse things are squirming with metaphorical action. The ladies are never still, for even when they stand astride the greenhouse pipes, their skirts billow and their bands twinkle "with wet." Their movement is always that of "picking up," and the movement of the poem, like the movement of the climbing roses, is upward from the earth toward the sun. So swiftly do the ladies scurry that the memory blurs fact into fiction, the historical ladies into the mythic. Flying "like witches," they become more and more enormous in their activity until at last they trellis the sun itself, giving support to that strange flower which is the life of our planet.
As the remembered ladies become apotheosized into mythic figures, Roethke imagines

them to take on the fecund powers of earth mothers. They straddle the phallic pipes of the greenhouse, pipes belonging to Roethke's father, until their skirts billow "out wide like tents"--as if someone might live there. They have, we are told, the power to "tease out" the seed, to undo the lifeless "keeping" of the cold. And finally, they give the poet himself a symbolic birth. Acting as midwives to themselves, they pick him up, pinch and poke him into shape, "Till I lay in their laps, laughing,/ Weak as a whiffet." The ladies, trellisers of the sun, also trellis "the son," the boy fathered by the greenhouse owner. Though the old women are, as the first word of the poem indicates, "Gone," they "still hover" in the air of the present. All of the verbs in the first stanza are, as one would expect in a remembrance, in the past tense. Nevertheless, Roethke refers to the Fraus as "These nurses of nobody else" as if they were present, as if the memory had established them in the poet's room. And, of course, he says that "Now, when I'm alone and cold in my bed,/ They still hover over me,/ These ancient leathery crones. . . ." The relationship between poet and crones is a highly dynamic one. On the one band, the hovering mothers "still" have the power to give him life. He lies like a seed, cold and in his bed, and they breathe over him the breath of life, a snuff-laden blowing that lifts him from the keeping of the cold into a life that manifests itself in poetic blossoms. On the other hand, it is the poet who "keeps" the Fraus alive, whose breath gives to the dead the power to move and be again. Their energy is entirely dependent upon his ability to intensify the language until their movement becomes tangible in the empty air, becomes an event in the viscera of the reader. The poem itself takes its cadence not from a man named Yeats, but from the German Fraus--takes it and gives it back again. As for the poet, he has, by the end of the poem which is the end of the Greenhouse Sequence, lost

himself in two places at once. He is in his bed and the time is now, yet the crones who hover above him breathe "lightly over [him] in [his] first sleep," presumably that sleep from which one wakes at birth. They are the remembered gateway to the house of glass, these witches capable of collapsing time so that the cold sleep of the adult is as one with the first sleep from which he wakened into life. They are the means by which Roethke demonstrates the dynamic reach of the "Now" in which we always live; for, through the Fraus who were, through the Fraus mythologized, and through the Fraus who remain as a felt presence, he has made a poetic representation of the living extension of the past into the ever-moving present.

CAHRLES OLSON Maximus

In 1950, inspired by the example of Pound's Cantos (though Olson denied any direct relation between the two epics), Olson began writing The Maximus Poems, a project that was to remain unfinished at the time of his death. An exploration of American history in the broadest sense, Maximus is also an epic of place, Massachusetts and specifically the city ofGloucester where Olson had settled. The work is also mediated through the voice of Maximus, based partly on Maximus of Tyre, an itinerant Greek philosopher, and partly on Olson himself. The final, unfinished volume imagines an ideal Gloucester in which communal values have replaced commercial ones.

JOHN BARRYMAN DREAM SONGS

N\A

ROBERT LOWELL The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

Poem Summary

Title, Dedication, and Epigraph

Nantucket Island lies off the coast of Massachusetts. Once a whaling capital, there is now a whaling museum in the main city, Nantucket. Warren Winslow was Lowells maternal cousin who died along with his crew when his ship accidentally exploded in the Ambrose Channel of New York Harbor on January 3, 1944, during World War II. The epigraph comes from Genesis 1:26, in which God declares humanity superior to the rest of nature. This epigraph will be important, especially in respect to humanitys treatment of nature and, more specifically the whale the first-created animal and, in Islamic myth, the one holding the world on his back.
Lines 1-7

Madaket is on the east side of Nantucket. A drowned sailor an analogue for Winslow is seen hanging from the dragnet of the narrators naval vessel one stormy night.
Lines 8-12

The following lines come from the early pages of Thoreaus Cape Cod, when Thoreau sees a wrecked ship on the beach. Cape Cod is just north of Nantucket. The drowned body is compared to a drowned ship, a shipwreck.
Lines 12-16

The corpse is weighted down and buried at sea, making the Graveyard of the title applicable to both the ocean and to an actual graveyard on Nantucket. An association is made between the drowned sailor and Ahab, the whaling captain of Herman Melvilles Moby Dick (1851); they share identities as both attackers and victims. The ocean is a place where the dogfish barks its nose barks referring both to the sound a dog makes and to the verb form of the word, meaning to break. Ahabs void and forehead is ambiguous but might be a variation of heart and head. The name / blocked in yellow chalk possibly refers to the sailors name (found on his dog tags) written in block letters (capitals) upon an empty coffin to be later placed in a cenotaph in a graveyard on land. Thoreau, in Cape Cod, says he saw coffins on the beach upon which the names of the bodies were written with red chalk. Lowell might have substituted the more-common yellow chalk for his description.
Lines 17-19

The body that is pitched back into the sea from whence it came (a reference both to the place where the corpse was found and to the sea as the source of life) is a portent, or sign, to other dreadnoughts (a kind of battleship) of what happens to those with too much pride, to those with a hell-bent deity namely, military sailors and whalers.

Lines 20-24

The narrator tells the sailors that they cannot protect their ship and themselves against the stormy Atlantic, deified as a chaste (punishing), green god Poseidon or Neptune from Greek mythology with fishlike steel scales and called the earthshaker because of its ability to unleash powerful storms. Further, the sailors should not expect to be saved by the likes of Orpheus, who was considered the greatest Greek poet before Homer and who was given the lyre (Lowells lute) by Apollo. Orpheus hoped that with his lyric power he would be able to rescue his dead wife, Eurydice, from the underworld. The lutes charm worked, allowing her to leave, under the condition that Orpheus would not turn to look at her as they escaped. When he did, she was swallowed up into the inferno.
Lines 24-26

Once the body is tossed overboard, the naval vessel shoots its guns. Recoil refers both to the backward kick of the guns and a standard reaction to seeing something horrible, such as death. The salute for the dead has been repeated so many times that its sound has become hoarse.
Lines 27-39

The birds in these lines are able to sympathize with the sailors death because they have experienced the peril of stormy seas. The narrator then asks the sailor if, in the land of the dead, he can hear the Pequod, Ahabs destroyed whaling ship, breaking apart on the shores of Siasconset on Nantucket and off Madacket where fishermen fish with artificial squid bait for blue-fish.
Lines 39-44

In this stanza, the birds, Ahabs ship, and the wind itself are all described as having wings. All of nature, as well as the bones of the Quakers, keen and moan for both Winslows death and the whales.
Lines 45-49

As at the end of the first stanza, death is final. There is no redemption either for Winslow or the tortured (harrowed) ocean. Poseidon, as a blue beard (Bluebeard was a fictional personage who killed his numerous wives), is unsympathetic to the sailors. The description of Spain as Nantuckets westward haven is mysterious, since Spain is east of Nantucket.
Lines 49-57

In the twentieth century, warships carry out violence on what whalers long ago violated: nature. No lesson has been learned, and so time is contrite, blue, sad. Time also blues these dead lessons killed or forgot by people because time must continually bury them in the blue ocean.
Lines 57-62

Lowell uses metonymy when he states that time was young, since it was the sailors or humanity that was young and naive when they believed in sea monster gods often whales that Lowell goes on to equate with IS, or God, since God told Moses he was called I AM THAT I AM or simply I AM (Exodus 3:14). God, by the way, goes unnamed, because names contain or sum up, but God cannot be. The whited monster is a reference to Isaiah 23:27, where a whited sepulchre is mentioned, meaning a grave site that looks beautiful on the outside but contains bones and uncleaness on the inside. Moby Dick was considered, likewise, a beautiful monster.
Lines 62-68

It is likely that the secret cost to the death of the mariners was their salvation, since Lowell has already intimated that the sailors would not be reborn, especially since even as they were drown-ing they could not understand that what they were doing was an affront to God and nature. Lowell imagines that even when the sailors ship was destroyed and they were drowning in the sperm-whales slick (slick referring to a substance called ambergris that originates in the whales intestines and is secreted into the water), they rationalized that God must have been on their side or else they would have died long ago. Lines 65 to 68 are slightly altered from Psalm 124.
Lines 69-72

This refers to the Nantucket graveyard (death). Whaleroad is a variation of railroad, to make resonant that whales spew like trains, and in the case of Moby Dick, spewed Nantucket bones just as train engines once spewed smoke and whales spew water from their blowhole. The end is the literal end of the whaling expedition, the virtual end of whaling, the death of Moby Dick, and the death of the Pequods whalers.
Lines 73-78

Those who chased whales were fools, paying for it with their lives. They were drowning men clutching at straws, a clich meaning that they were desperate for money and adventure while living and desperate for life while drowning. Clamavimus is Latin for We have cried. Compare this to Psalm 130:1 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

Lines 78-84

The seagulls seem the most sympathetic of all of the entities in this poem. Where before birds sympathized with Winslow, now they mourn for the hurt sea, imagined as being sucked dry by the land at low tide.
Lines 85-88

Again, this is the end of the whaling journey. We are poured out like water comes from Psalm 22:14, meaning to be exhausted with reference to sweating. The question beginning Who will dance will likely be answered No one, since no one is able to bring back the dead mast-lashed master. Odysseus was tied to the mast to resist the Sirens call in The Odyssey, and Ahab was hoisted up the mast to look for Moby Dick in chapter 130 of Moby Dick. Mast-lashed indicates that these captains were victims of fatal desire.
Lines 89-93

Corruption refers to the whale body corrupted by whalers harpoons. Woods Hole is the closest point to Marthas Vineyard on the mainland of Massachusetts. Here Lowell asks the crucial question of whether the military man of World War II is similar to the whaler of yesteryear.
Lines 94-102

Jehoshaphat was said by Lowell to refer to the valley of judgment. The world, according to some prophets and scientists, will end in fire. By way of comparison, see Joel 3:12 Let the heathen be wakened and come unto the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. The other lines depict the slaughter of the whale, with it twisting and turning in agony from having its sanctuary (body) violated by harpoons. The whale, however, is not wholly depicted as a victim, since, in its violent death throes, it can become a weapon, a swingle the freely swinging part of a flail. The implication appears to be that if whales destroy ships, as Moby Dick sunk the Pequod, it is because they are treated savagely.
Lines 102-105

These lines describe the ship destroyed. The singing stars come from Job 38:7, where God describes them singing at the time of the creation of the world. Why they are singing in Lowells poem is puzzling, which just might be the point: humans, like Job, are too insignificant to understand the workings of the universe, such as why stars would sing as a ship sinks. The red flag comes from the last chapter of Moby Dick, where the Indian

sailor, Tashtego in a final human act of arrogance and foolishness tries to nail a red flag to the mast even as the ship quickly sinks.
Lines 105-106

The statement Hide, / Our steel, Jonas Messias, in Thy side is a plea for redemption from a syncretic god. Jesus was pierced in his side by centurions and crucified, then resurrected after three days; Jonah was vomited up from the belly of the whale after three days; and the whale was harpooned. The plea to hide the spear or harpoon is a plea for salvation from the very being who is crucified or killed. It appears that the plea will go unanswered without a confession of sin, something these sailors do not do. In Catholicism, one does not, without right action, get saved without confessing. These sailors are Quakers (characterized by their use of Thy), not Catholics.
Lines 106-112

Walsingham is a famous shrine in Norfolk, England. For much of this stanza, Lowell relied upon E. I. Watkinss Catholic Art and Culture, where the author describes the lane leading to Mary as well as Marys display and expression. There, Catholics walk barefoot along a lane to Mary in order to be healed. But Lowell is unhappy with this ritual as the penitents walk unthinkingly, like cows. The munching English lane is an instance of metaphor combined with metonymy: the penitents are seen as cows, who munch as they walk down the lane. Therefore, the lane is called munching.
Lines 113-116

Lowells critique continues as the lane is described as lined with the druid tree (oak). Druids were pagans, and Lowell, by not capitalizing the word, shows his disapproval. The stream refers to the peaceful waters of Shiloah or Siloam in John 9:7 and Isaiah 8:6, also referenced in the opening lines of Paradise Lost. These peaceful whirlpools are in marked contrast to the turbulent ocean of previous stanzas, and in John they are also healing, as a blind man cures his blindness by splashing the waters of Siloam on his eyes. The Sailor in this poem once came to Walsingham and sung Sion, a reference to Isaiah 51:11, where Jews return to Zion, a hill in Jerusalem, singing. The Sailor (standing for a kind of everyman) was glad here.
Lines 116-120

Mary is expressionless, even if somewhat sorrowful with her heavy eyelids. And the mention that she does not fit under the canopy indicates she belongs more to heaven than earth.
Lines 120-126

Marys expressionless face is without comeliness or charm (Non est species, neque decor) because she knows what God knows. She is not just the Mary of Jesuss birth (crib) and death (Cross), but has assumed Heaven. When people learn to do without gladness and cease seeking selfish ends such as being healed, then, with deep meditation, the world will come to Mary and understand. A type of right Catholicism might then be achieved and Gods creatures saved from humanitys war against itself and nature.
Lines 127-132

The scene shits from a place of sanctuary to a cemetery. This is a graveyard scene out of a horror film: an empty wind blowing creaky oak trees against the gravestones of empty graves (cenotaphs). In the ocean, a gaff (both a weapon to land fish and a stout pole from a ship) is tossed into a shoal bell (a bell to warn ships of shallow water). This is not a chime marking living time (untimely), but a death knell in the greased wash, an ocean covered with a slick of ambergris.
Lines 132-135

The death knell is apropos because the sea is filled with dead sailors either compared to, or accompanied by, the fallen angels mentioned in Book I of Miltons Paradise Lost, especially the Philistine sea-god, Dagon: Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man / And downward fish (lines 462-3). These sea devils are unmarried and corroding and spare of flash (some versions print spare of flesh) because they have lost the lustre and glory they possessed in heaven before their fall. Miltons reference for Dagon is I Samuel, 5, where Dagon is shown as a false god.
Lines 136-142

The Atlantic is called a mart, short for market because the ships shop the waves for sea life. In the phrase, wingd clippers, sails are likened to wings of clippers, or swift sailboats. But the Atlantic also cuts; it is a butcher shop, gutting ships in its bell-trap. After describing what the sea does, Lowell proceeds to suggest what it could do if it revenged itself upon humanity: the sea could rise up, cut the wind, and toss humanity off the ocean; the ocean gives life, but it could also take it away.
Line 143

This line references Genesis 9:8-17, where God makes a covenant with humankind and all of nonhuman nature for which the rainbow is a sign never to flood the earth again or almost destroy the whole of life. The rainbow was, by some ancients, conceived as a weapon from which lightning bolts were shot. Gods display of his bow is to be read as a sign of former hostility now abated. When Lowell writes, The Lord survives the

rainbow of His will, he likely means at least two things. First, that the Lord, despite mans wickedness, will keep his promise and not send down another flood. Thus God remains a trusted protector. Second, and closely related in meaning, the line indicates that despite humankinds attacks on nature, nature will endure and even be sympathetic to human death. In summation then, whether humanity perpetrates war on itself or on nature, ultimately both will survive, even if humanity does not learn the proper attitude as shown by Mary in section VI.

Denise Levertov Hunger

Sprry bratori

Allen ginsberg Howl

Howl is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled Howl and Other Poems. The poem is considered to be one of the principal works of the Beat Generation along with Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959). "Howl" was originally written as a performance piece, but it was later published by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books. Although the poem was originally considered to be obscene and Ferlinghetti was arrested and charged with its publication, on October 3, 1957 Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem was not obscene, and "Howl" went on to become one of the most popular poems of the Beat Generation
[1]

The poem consists of three parts, with an additional footnote. [edit]Part

Called by Ginsberg, "a lament for the Lamb in America with instances of remarkable lamb-like youths," Part I is the best known, and communicates scenes, characters, and situations drawn from Ginsberg's personal experience as well as from the community of poets, artists, political radicals, jazz musicians, drug-addicts, and psychiatric patients whom he encountered in the late 1940s

and early 50's. These people represent what he considers "the best minds of my generation," an ironic and shocking declaration since, in what members of the Beat Generation considered the oppressively conformist and materialistic 50's, those Ginsberg called "best minds" were unrepresented outcasts, what the middle class might consider "worst minds." The shocking aspect of the poem was further enhanced by Ginsberg's frank descriptions of sexual, often homosexual, acts. Most lines in this section contain the fixed base "who." Ginsberg says in "Notes Written on Finally Recording Howl," "I depended on the word 'who' to keep the beat, a base to keep measure, return to and take off from again onto another streak of invention."[10] [edit]Part

II

Ginsberg says that Part II, in relation to Part I, "names the monster of mental consciousness that preys on the Lamb." Part II is a rant about the state of industrial civilization, characterized in the poem as "Moloch." Ginsberg was inspired to write Part II during a period of peyote-induced visionary consciousness in which he saw a hotel faade as a monstrous and horrible visage which he identified with that of Moloch. Moloch is the biblical idol in Leviticus to whom the Canaanites sacrificed children. Ginsberg intends that the characters he portrays in Part I be understood to have been sacrificed to this idol. Moloch is also the name of an industrial, demon-like figure in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a film that Ginsberg credits with influencing "Howl, Part II" in his annotations for the poem (see especially Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions). Most lines in this section contain the fixed base "Moloch." Ginsberg says of Part II, "Here the long line is used as a stanza form broken into exclamatory units punctuated by a base repetition, Moloch."[10] [edit]Part

III

Part III, in relation to Parts I, II, and IV is "a litany of affirmation of the Lamb in its glory," according to Ginsberg. It is directly addressed to Carl Solomon, whom Ginsberg met during a brief stay at a psychiatric hospital in 1949; called "Rockland" in the poem, it was actually Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute. This section is notable for its refrain, "I'm with you in Rockland," and represents something of a turning-point away from the grim tone of the "Moloch"-section. Of the structure, Ginsberg says Part III is, "pyramidal, with a graduated longer response to the fixed base."[10]

[edit]Footnote The closing section of the poem is the "Footnote," characterized by its repetitive "Holy!" mantra, an ecstatic assertion that everything is holy. It can be read as the antithesis of Part II. Ginsberg says, "I remembered the archetypal rhythm of Holy Holy Holy weeping in a bus on Kearny Street, and wrote most of it down in notebook there ... I set it as 'Footnote to Howl' because it was an extra variation of the form of Part II."[10]

A.R. AMMONS- Reflective moras sam

Frank O Hara The day lady died

The tone at the opening of the poem is giddy and excited. After all, this is a somewhat glib speaker who is readying himself for dinner at the home of someone he doesn't know, who can smart-aleckly refer to the "poets / of Ghana," who is prone to "stroll" and "casually ask" for cigarettes, and who can "practically" go "to sleep with quandariness" over the simple decision of what book to buy a friend. This is not a speaker burdened with metaphysical deliberations about the meaning of life. Even when he sees the "NEW YORK POST with her face on it," he refuses to break into discourse on the brevity of human life, "thinking," instead, in visual and sensory images. He recalls an instance when he heard Billie Holiday sing so sweetly that life itself seemed to halt in deathly pause while "everyone and I stopped breathing." Up to this point, he had offered the reader an ontological account of selfhood based largely on a narrative retelling of the way the individual fragments of his day melded into a mysteriously unified whole. But at this juncture, where anticipation and profound loss meet head on, the collision results in image, scene, a moment of experience which itself is of ultimate value. The present moment and the remembered one do not require metaphysical rumination in order to clarify them. That kind of deliberation has preceded the poem onto the page: the understanding that life is unpredictable and crass, capable of imparting immense pleasure and equally formidable pain. Although O'Hara may very well have agreed with the Heraclitean conception of a universe forever in the process of change, he would never use Heraclitus's fragments as poetic epigraphs (as Eliot

did) or allow such thinking to impose an overtly philosophical structure on his work. O'Hara has already decided on these epistemological and ontological issues before the poem began. And more importantly, they were first of all personal values, which naturally (but secondarily) gave form to artistic values.

Jonh Ashberry What is poetry- Sam

Anne Sexton Her Kind

Analysis of Anne Sexton's Poem "Her Kind" Anne Sexton was a poet and a woman, but most importantly, she was an outcast. Subjected to nervous breakdowns and admitted to a neuropsychiatry hospital, Sexton must have been all too familiar with the staring eyes and the judging minds of the public. Just being a woman in today's world often can be enough to degrade a person in the public's eye, let alone being labeled as a crazy woman. But Anne Sexton did not let society remain unchallenged in its views. She voiced a different opinion of women through poetry. In Anne Sexton's "Her Kind" the speaker of the poem embraces society's negative stereotype of modern, liberated women and transforms it into a positive image. Two voices, the voice of society and the voice of the speaker, duel about the issue of the stereotype of modern women. Like Anne Sexton, the speaker in this poem is an outcast woman. Basically, the speaker of "Her Kind" is outcast because she is powerful. Traditionally, society expects women to lead sheltered lives. Women are to be obedient, quiet, and timid. They are viewed as gentle and kind, not "dreaming evil" (Line 3). The modern, liberated woman completely shatters this tradition by courageously speaking her mind and living an independent life. She is empowered as she seeks education and a stable career instead of a domestic life. Since the modern woman does not fit the traditional label, "A woman like that is not a woman quite" (Line 6). Society would view this line of the poem as a negative slam on the modern woman and paraphrase it by saying, "She's not quite right in the head; therefore, she does not belong here in civilization." Society appears to recoil from the idea of a powerful woman. Male dominance becomes threatened, and men are faced with a loss of control. As a result, the male dominant society casts out the modern woman and tries to squash the change in power. This task may be accomplished by physically removing the liberated woman from the population or by mentally blocking her from acceptance so that she feels isolated. In fact, society has actually done both. During the crazy witch trials of the European Inquisition in the late l6th century, heretics [one who dissents from an accepted belief or doctrine] and witches were tortured and killed. Those women who were called witches may have been no more than

women who were different from society's expectations. Thus, it is entirely appropriate that the modern woman is stereotyped as a type of witch. Anne Sexton's "Her Kind" employs the persona of a witch to show that modern women are outcast in society. In the first stanza, the speaker establishes herself as a witch by saying, "I have gone out a possessed witch" (Line 1). By describing herself as 'twelve-fingered" (Line 5), the speaker emphasizes her disfigurement and label as a witch because twelve fingers are symbols of sorceresses. Yet, the reader can understand that she is not actually a witch; rather, the witch is merely the persona used to exemplify the role of women in society. The three verses in "Her Kind" do not describe three different types of women; instead, they elaborate on the persona of the witch. Two different voices deal with this persona throughout the poem's three stanzas. One voice, the voice of society, expresses the opinion that witches, or modern women, are evil. But since there is only one speaker in this poem, society's voice is present through the speaker's mimicking of public opinion as though agreeing with it. She says, "I have gone out a possessed witch," (Line 1) but she is only sarcastically repeating how society must have said, "She has gone out a possessed witch." She is the modern woman who is not the timid, obedient female; instead, she is "not a woman, quite" (Line 6), and she is "dreaming evil" (Line 3) and "out of mind" (Line 5). Plus, she is a "lonely thing" (Line 5) because she has been outcast. This idea of society casting out the modern "witch" woman is further developed in the second and third stanzas. When the speaker lives in "warm caves in the woods" (Line 8), she lives separated from society as though she is an outsider. This distancing shows how she is different from society; perhaps society pushes her away because she is different, or perhaps society sees her as different because she has segregated herself from the typical lifestyle of civilization. Either way, the voice of society chants, "A woman like that is misunderstood" (Line 13). Society must get rid of her because it cannot see her point of view. Moreover, Anne Sexton uses stunning imagery to illustrate the pain society inflicts on an outcast. The speaker compares herself to a witch who has been carted off to an insane asylum and claims "I have ridden in your cart, driver, I waved my nude arms at villages going by, I learning the last bright routes" (Lines15-17). She vividly describes pain through torture methods practiced on witches during the Inquisition. For example, she feels she has been burned at the stake because society's "flames still bite my thigh" (Line 18). The speaker's "ribs crack where your wheels wind" (Line 19) on another torture device, the wheel. The words "still" in the phrase "still bite" (Line 18) stresses that tortures have not gone out of style but have merely changed shape, and society still employs them to resist the change in power towards women. Although the physical tortures are no longer obvious in America, women's success is still lagging because of the attitude of society. The public supposes that she is "not ashamed to die" (Line 20) because everyone already thinks that she is crazy, and she cannot harm her reputation anymore anyway. She is an evil witch and ought to die out. Overall, the three stanzas can represent the negative stereotype society has placed on the modern woman. However, the poem does not end with the speaker completely agreeing with the voice of society. Since the speaker presents the poem from the first person point of view, the reader may see inside of the speaker's head to realize the impact of the poem's true meaning. For instance, the speaker's own personal voice associates her with a witch by saying, "I have been her kind' (Lines 7, 14 & 21). If the

poem were given in third person, society's voice could still be presented, but the complex dimensions of the witch persona would be lost without the second voice of the personal speaker. Since the speaker uses first person, she can examine the voice of society and then give her own views. She does this in all three verses. The second voice, the personal voice of the speaker, is revealed in the last two lines of each stanza. The phrase "A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind" (Lines 6-7) can be seen as a sigh of relief that the modern woman is refreshingly new and can finally be herself. The speaker identifies herself as a modern woman with "I" usage and admits to being a witch in society. At the same time, she tells society to accept her as a witch. When she says, "A woman like that is misunderstood" (Line 13), she cries out that society does not see how important she is and that she should not be viewed negatively. She is "misunderstood" because independence is actually a positive step for women. Finally, the speaker's personal view becomes astonishingly clear in the last stanza. She claims to be a "survivor / where your flames still bite my thigh" (Lines 17-18). In other words, she will not give up; rather, she will survive being an outcast in the public's mind and will struggle to exist in the community. "A woman like that is not ashamed to die" (Line 20), and a heretic often becomes a willing victim for her beliefs. Since the speaker has "been her kind" (Line 21), she is not afraid to die for her cause. The modern woman will not go away quietly. Her crusade, or "hitch" (Line 3), will continue "over the plain houses, light by light" (Line 4). She will not become tamed and will try to change the stereotype of modern women into a positive goal. Whereas society sees the witch as a negative image, the speaker views the witch as a positive achievement. On one hand, the speaker mimics the public's views of the modern woman by comparing her to a witch, "haunting the black air" (Line 2). She sounds afraid that she is outcast and unaccepted. The public will persecute her and hinder her representation in society. But, on the other hand, her determination as a "survivor," and the double meanings of each stanza's end show that the speaker's real view of the witch contrasts sharply with society's view. Basically, the speaker says, yes, modern women are different from what society expects. But to be different is not necessarily evil. Instead, a "witch" is a positive idea because women will finally step out into the world and make changes occur. The speaker promotes the acceptance of "witches" in society and encourages women to step out and be different. Throughout Anne Sexton's poem, the public's voice duels with the speaker's personal voice until the speaker's opinion emerges successful and determined to survive in the end. Instead of supporting that witches are evil, Anne Sexton's poem reveals that witches are wonderful. The poem's speaker welcomes the stereotype of the witch and uses dueling voices to show that the stereotype is actually a positive, strong image for the modern woman and that it does not serve the deteriorating, degrading purpose society meant for it to have. Society must accept change and stop casting out women if it is to live in peace. The public fights a losing battle; in the end, the modern woman will triumph. Only then will outcasts such as Anne Sexton be accepted for who they truly are, and the modem woman, or "witch", will be rewarded for her determination at last. Like Anne Sexton, the speaker in this poem is an outcast woman.

adrienne rich upper broadway- nemas srece, moras I ovo da citas

GARY SNYDER

Pine tree tops In the blue night frost haze, the sky glows with the moon pine tree tops bend snow-blue, fade into sky, frost, starlight. The creak of boots. Rabbit tracks, deer tracks, what do we know. Gary Snyder
Sylvia Plath Colosus

Plath explains her lack of communication with her father in this poem. However, he still is a powerful figure, hence the symbol "The Colosuss"!
Notice that she says she spent 30 years trying to dredge his throat? Sylvia was 30 years old when she wrote this poem. Her father died when she was about 10. So she didn't spend 30 years trying to get to grips with his death. This enforces my feeling that this

poem is not as much about her father, the real Otto Plath, but about the powerful male archetypical figure in her soul, her "animus", the dream father-lover-husband figure she adores but feels opressed by, because she cannot be free of it/him, and she cannot be happy because she doesn't have him. This is how I felt about this poem when I first read it - and thatwas before I had any idea about Sylvia Plath and her life. I felt it as my own because I have never lived with my father and he never meant anything to me, but I have been building an elusive dream male figure in my mind, you could even say, a father/brother/lover/godlike figure. "30 years" means that she has spent her entire life, eversince she was born, taking care of that figure. After her father dies, she has been her trying to re-build it. Another thing I have to point out: I, too, felt, that she tended to blend her father (or rather, her memory of him) and her husband, as seen in "Daddy". But she wrote Colossus before she married Hughes, so "married to shadow" had nothing to do with her marriage or his subsequent infidelity. She is married to shadow because she has been living in the shadow of this powerful male figure she has created in her mind, and she is "married" (that is, she has tied her life to) a shadow - an elusive, unreal figure, a ghost, an illusion. "Daddy" is in a way a, a sequel to The Colossus. Here she was sadly thinking about her life of memories and dreams, in "Daddy" she was full of rage after her attempt to recreate this dream (her love and marriage to Hughes) had fallen apart.

WORDS

At first one is taken back by the extreme difference between the title: Words and the first line of the work: Axes. But at times words can be like axes, if they are used cruelly. One might assume that Sylvia was being troubled by something who had said something cruel to her. She even goes as far to compare words with Quartering in the last line of the first stanza. The rings of the tree may be compared to how words effect us over and over again. One might be hurt by words but the initial sting may last for quite some time. The mirror that is trying to re-establish itself seems, in one sense, to represent the effect harsh words have in breaking us up-into pieces. Lastly, "the indefatigable hoof-taps"...what an incredible word choice!

Ariel

Thispoem,writtenonPlath's30thbirthday,isaboutawomanbreakingfreefromthe psychologicalfettersthathadboundherfromchildhoodthe"shouldsandoughts"ofa woman'sroleinthattime.NowinOctober1963,Plathisemergingfromthetraumaof herfailedmarriage,rediscoveringandredefiningherselfinapsychicrebirth. ArielwastheblithespiritwhoyearnedforreleaseinShakespeare'sTheTempest.Ariel wasalsothenameofthehorseshesometimesrodeonDartmoorneartheDevonvillage wheresheandTedHugheshadboughtanoldchurchrectorytheyearbefore.In addition,"Ariel,"asPlathherselfwroteonatypescriptdraftofthepoem,alsomeans "Lion[ess]ofGod"inHebrew.Itistobehernewidentity,asanagentofapocalypseand revelationwhensheisunleashed. "Stasisindarkness"isthebeginningpoint:nolightormotiononthemooruntil"the substancelessblue"skyofthepredawnbeginstheapparentmotion,the"pour"ofthe emerging"tor,"acraggyhill,crownedinthisdreamlikevisionwithasacrificialaltar, asifitweretheAltarofGodandshethelioness,urgingherselfforwardandalready transformed,fusedasonewithAriel,themalehorsewiththefemalerider,andalso joinedina"pivotofheelsandknees"insexualconsummation.The"furrow"ofearth underneaththehorseandrider"splitsandpasses"(readytobeseeded),likened("sister to")thearcofthehorse'sneck.Thereissexualexcitementinthewomanbecomelioness asshesurgesforward. Nowthetoneandfocusshift.Black('Niggereye")berries"castdark/Hooks":literally theblackberrybusheshavesharpthorns,asinanearlierpoem("Blackberrying"),but boththereandhereinthispoemthe"hooks"standforallthefettersthathavegrasped andevenentrappedthespeakerforsomanyyears.The"Blacksweetbloodmouthfuls" oftemptationsprofferedbyothers(herdominatingmother'sexpectationsandpraiseof success,forexample)arenow"Shadows,"leftbehindinthatpredawndarkness.Now, "Somethingelse/Haulsmethroughair,"andthatistheforcespiritofAriel! "WhiteGodiva"sheisnow,adisguisedformofthemythicWhiteGoddessofLoveand Death,andatypeofGodiva,whointhelegenddefiesherhusband.Inhernewidentity, shesays,"Iunpeel/Deadhands,deadstringencies"thathavedominatedher(Plath wrote"sheddingdeadmen"inanearlierdraft)."AndnowI/Foamtowheat"she declares,literallytheimageofahorse'smouthfeeding,butalsothesexualfoamofa woman's"mouth"(thesourceoflife,emergingfromthedarkness).Thisvisionbecomes also"aglitterofseas,"fromwhosefoamtheGoddess(Venus)wasborn.

Whatelse?"Thechild'scry/meltsinthewall."Sheisreleasedforatimefromthe motheringrole,andsheistransformed,nowbecomeanarrow,launchingforthintothe sky,immediatelyrenamedmetaphoricallyas"Thedewthatflies/Suicidal."Buthold onthere,youPlathsuicidefans!Itisthedewthatissuicidal,notthewomanwhy? Becausethedewevaporatesintotheheatofthesunasthemorningprogresses.The arrow/dewis"atonewiththedrive/Intothered//Eye,thecauldronofmorning." ThatisthecauldronofrebirthandreilluminationdescribedbyRobertGravesinThe WhiteGoddess(p.88). Finally,then,we'relookingatatranscendence,amysticalunionwiththeOversoul, whatT.S.Eliotcalled"thestillpointoftheturningworld,"beyondtimeandspace.We seemtobewitnessingaritualdeathofthepersonalselfthroughabsorptionintothe universalspiritoftheGoddess.QuiteafewofSylviaPlath'slaterpoemsshowthis anagogicinterestalmostayearning,youmightsay,forunion("fusion,"youmightcall it)withtheultimatespiritualdimensionofExistence. Whatthatdimensioncontainscannotbetoldbecausetherearenowords,only intimations.Thechallengeforthepoetwhoseeksthatspiritualdimensionistomove herpoeticvisionandheraudience,throughwords,toapointbeyondwords.For example,themostwrenchinglytragicmomentinShakespeare'sKingLearcomeswhen LearappearsonstagewiththedeadCordeliainhisarms.Foramoment,thereareno words,onlythechilldownthespine. OneofSylviaPlath'slastpoemsbeforeherdeathshecalled"Words"Here'showitends: YearslaterI Encounterthemontheroad Wordsdryandriderless, Theindefatigablehooftaps. While Fromthebottomofthepool,fixedstars Governalife.

Poppies in October

poppies are a well known symbol of Rememberance day. the setting can be interpreted in many ways: it can be a woman

tending to a patient, or a woman fighting for her life. might be a regular woman and a day unseen by herself. i get the strong feminine impression reading this poem, upon mention of skirts, forests and cornflowers (nature=Mother Nature=female) and a love gift, usually given to women. her hair red, can also be compared to the poppies. is it a coicidence that the month chosen is prior to the one which poppies reign? "By a sky, palely and flamily Igniting its carbon monoxides," this section hold a key to the setting presented in the poem. and maybe the emotion conjured in the reader. pollution, obvious pollution created by the overusage of automobiles. Carbon monoxide: toxic (one of the leading causes of lung cancer) and distasteful can be dangerous to all who inhale too much of it, or little bits too often. it is a negative thing, which leads to concluding that this piece has a negative feeling. emotions such as distress and sadness are important to the sylvia plath poem. most of her poems are based on these 2 easy-torelate emotions, and loosly on the pleasure it can motivate you to seek and enjoy when you have it. the most frequent color in here is red. poppies are red, her hair is red, love is associated with red and so is a heart. reds of lighter tones are usually connected with lust, anger and rage, and those deeper reds with love, passion and heat. poppies are of a lighter red: they might represent the anger in the poem, the blood if there is any in the ambulance, etc. when she speaks of god, and crying in nature, we can say it is His creation, that she is crying out for his creation; bountiful, pleasant and beautiful. she is asking almost for permission to speak and be in the company of beauty.

if we can relate to her knowledge on any level, it would be on the lowest. PROVERI OVE INFORMACIJE

Leroy jones A poem for neutrals- O ovome nema nicega

CHARLES SIMIC PRODIGY //// Watermelons

it makes an offhand comment about life. We try, and when we're in a buddha-state, we succeed, in taking from life the sweetness while spitting out the bitter.

MY WEARYNESS OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

Louise Gluck All hallows

WILLIAM EMPSON VILLANELLE It is the pain, it is the pain endures. Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through. Poise of my hands reminded me of yours. What later purge from this deep toxin cures? What kindness now could the old salve renew? It is the pain, it is the pain endures. The infection slept (custom or changes inures) And when pain's secondary phase was due Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.

How safe I felt, whom memory assures, Rich that your grace safely by heart I knew. It is the pain, it is the pain endures. My stare drank deep beauty that still allures. My heart pumps yet the poison draught of you. Poise of my hands reminded me of yours. You are still kind whom the same shape immures. Kind and beyond adieu. We miss our cue. It is the pain, it is the pain endures. Poise of my hands reminded me of yours.

Empson's blend of emotion and intellect is very reminiscent of John Donne, and like Donne, his poems, though dense and impenetrable at first, reward the reader willing to explore their intricacies. Today's poem is as metaphysical as they come: the central conceit [1] is reinforced and given depth by the precise use of terminology [2], yet not so much as to detract from the essentially human feeling that gives rise to it. The choice of form is equally inspired - the strict constraints of the villanelle, like Donne's convoluted syntax, work to harness the flood of emotion that would otherwise sweep the poet away.

DYLAN THOMAS THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer.

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. The force that drives the water through the rocks Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams Turns mine to wax. And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks. The hand that whirls the water in the pool Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind Hauls my shroud sail. And I am dumb to tell the hanging man How of my clay is made the hangman's lime. The lips of time leech to the fountain head; Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood Shall calm her sores. And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind How time has ticked a heaven round the stars. And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-force-that-through-the-green-fuse-drives-theflower-poem-6
The poem The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower, by Dylan Thomas, has to be read attentively at least twice to begin to grasp its meaning. In the poem Thomas handles all of the literary elements with dexterity, which is why there are so many possible interpretations. But the general theme of the cycle of life is evident through his skillful use of imagery, symbolism, and connotation. In the first line of the first stanza Thomas introduces The Force, the omnipotent element that is everpresent in the poem. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. (1-5) The green fuse represents the stem of the flower, but through connotation fuse is thought of as something explosive, contrary to a gentle flower. The word green implies youth, exuberance, and growth

as he describes his age. In the second and third lines the force that produced life in the flower and himself is described as the same force that destroys life. The fourth line shatters the beautiful image of a rose, a symbol of healthiness and vigor, when it is described as crooked, inviting negative connotations. Just as the rose is feeble, he is also weakened and the seasons of his life change from springtime liveliness to wintry fever. The image of a frail, hunched over old man comes to mind. The second stanza resembles the first stanza in set-up and message. The force that drives the water through the rocks Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams Turns mine to wax. And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks. (6-10) Once again the force is brought up. The force here extends the flow of the stream as it drives it along, similar to the first stanza in which the force extended the growth of the flower. Red blood is homogenous to green age from the first stanza they both represent life and vivacity. In lines seven and eight the force becomes destructive again as in the first stanza.The force that pushed life along becomes the very force that takes away life as it dries the stream and turns the speakers blood to wax, which represents the speakers stiff corpse after embalming. As in the first stanza he is unable to communicate his feelings. An attempt to explain the situation to his body would be futile, since it is already lifeless. In the third stanza the force is replaced by the hand, and like the force in the previous two stanzas it has the power to control and alter nature. The hand that whirls the water in the pool Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind Hauls my shroud sail. And I am dumb to tell the hanging man How of my clay is made the hangmans lime. The hand agitates the normally calm waters of the pool and the generally motionless quicksand, and it is so powerful that it also controls the wind. The third line of this stanza is a double entendre. The speaker can be referring to a ship where the shroud is one of the ropes that support a ships mast; in this case the hands power is demonstrated as it controls the ships course. Another interpretation of the third line is similar to the third lines in the previous stanzas in which he states his demise; in this case the shroud would be the sheet used to wrap a dead body for burial. In the fourth and fifth lines the speaker find it senseless to communicate his feelings with the hanging man since they both share the same fate. The speakers body, his clay, will be in the hangmans pit, which is doused in lime to nullify the smell of rotting corpses. While the first three stanzas illustrated the abilities of the force, the fourth stanza identifies the force as being time. The lips of time leech to the fountain head; Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood Shall calm her sores. And I am dumb to tell a weathers wind How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

The denotation of fountainhead is an original source, therefore, where life begins, time leeches the fountain head just as age exhausts life. The line can also interpret as the lips of time symbolizing the genitals of a female and the fountain head as the phallus of a man. The latter interpretation ties in well with the rest of the poem because of its significance in the cycle of life; the speaker is playing his role in reproduction. The next line also leads on to sexual connotations but leans more towards the reoccurring theme of death where fallen blood represents a dead person. The speaker brings another life into being through reproduction in line one and in lines two and three he explains that the burden on society will be offset by his death, fallen blood. Time is referred to as her and the burden on society is represented by sores. He is incapable of explaining to the wind how time works because the wind already knows the nature of time. The weathers wind has been to the heavens and the stars and has seen all possible weathers.

The Hand That Signed The Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death. The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, The finger joints are cramped with chalk; A goose's quill has put an end to murder That put an end to talk. The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, And famine grew, and locusts came; Great is the hand that holds dominion over Man by a scribbled name. The five kings count the dead but do not soften The crusted wound nor pat the brow; A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; Hands have no tears to flow.

The disgust Thomas feels for this individual, this hand that rules, that 'holds dominion over man by a scribbled name' is clearly evident throughout. But what interests me is that Thomas also seems to be criticizing God in his final two lines: 'A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; Hands have no tears to flow.' These lines convey two messages to me. Not only is he comparing the power of this individual to that of God, additionally, the lines seem to betray an anger towards God who does not show pity on the common man.

We give so much power to just one person in the modern way of governing power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (18341902) These people that we trust with all the power of our country, modern leaders have the absolute power that can be likened to a sovereign rule, with a flick of a pen they can start a war, take all our money, and do away with each other without a thought or flicker remorse.