Joy Harjo

Well I finally made it, the last blog. Today I would like to write about Joy Harjo's "Mourning Song". This format is very different to what I am used to and what we have been reading in the past. This poem was one stanza long with 13 single spaced lines. I felt as though I was reading a paragraph instead of a poem. As I had guessed, the title gave away the poem. It is clear to me that this is about a person who no longer wants to mourn death, but to create a song about it instead, "Make a song for death, a song with yellow teeth and bad breath. For lonliness, / the house guest who eats everything and refuses to leave." (lines 9-11). If you have read any of my blogs, you will know that I generally like to pull a few quotes from the poems we read and share them. Within Joy Harjo's "Mourning Song", I found one inparticular quote that I loved and I still am not sure why. The quote reads as follows, "If we cry more tears we will ruin the land with salt," (lines 8-9). I guess the reason I like this quote so much is it took me back down memory lane when I was a child and would lick my tears. It made me remember just how salty they were and the fact that Harjo related that to death and ruining the land was very creative in my eyes. I don't really have much to say beside thank you for an amazing semester and increasing my ability to understand and analyze poems. I can truly say this course was a valuable learning experience and has increased my knowledge not only of poetry but what is inside the poetry.

Richard Wilbur

Normaly I like to start my post by saying, "Today I would like to write my post about...", but for once I am ahead of schedule. I would like to start today by saying, for tomorrows post, I would like to talk about Richard Wilbur's "Playboy". When I began reading the poems that were assigned to us, I came across this title and was imediatly judgmental. Being a girl, I can say that I have somewhat of a grude agains Playboy, weather it be jealousy or morality. I figured I better read the poem seems how it was assigned to us so I went on and scaned the pages. I read the poem once and became interested. The second time I read the poem, I imagined the setting, a boy sitting atop a ladder at work intrigued in a Playboy magazine, rarely taking his eyes off it. I was shocked because instead of being disgusted by this, I almost found it humerous in the sence that this setting is so modern and real life. I can imagine a handfull of people I know doing this. I was shocked to have a favorite quote out of this poem, one that was actually about the women's body. The lines read as follows, "Nothing escapes him of her body's grace/ Or of her floodlit skin, so sleek and warm/ And yet so strangely like a uniform,/ But what now grips his fancy is her face," (lines 21-24). The first thing I liked about this quote was the way the author describes the women's skin as a uniform, it paints the picture of just how inshape and beautiful this woman is. The part I liked the most about this quote was that it went from looking at her body, typical, to being lost in her face. I believe that the face is a woman's most beautiful asset. I guess the lesson is learned here, don't judge a poem by its title. Well done Richard Wilbur.

Ted Huges

Today I would like to talk about Ted Huges "The Horses". As you already know I picked this poem because it had to do with animals. And if you don't know by now that I am a zoology major, clearly you haven't been going to class. But that's not the only reason I picked this poem. The detail in this porm is amazing, the vivid picture it paints is something much different from that of Elizebeth Bishops who I wrote about last week. Sure she had wonderful detail about the fish and so one, but Huges puts you in that setting and make you feel chills as he breathes into the cold air. One of my favorite quotes from this porm is as follows, "There, still they stood,/But now steaming and glistening under the flow of the light," ( lines 27-28). Not only have I been around horses my entire life but I know just how masculint and powerful these creatures are. I feel that Ted Huges does a very good job of painting that picture of these horses you would see hanging on a wall. Feeling not only his breath but there's as well.

Philip Larkin

Today I would like to write about Philip Larkin's "High Windows". This is a rather short poem with six stanzas with a total of twenty lines. When I first read this poem, I had to read it again because I was unclear what the author was trying to get across. I often find myself getting lost in words such as cus words or crude words. It is almost as if these words distract me and I sit there trying to figure out why the author chose those words, instead of trying to find out what the poem is really meaning. As I read this poem the second time, I went under the impression that this was a man looking in on another persons life. This character was seeing the kids and happiness and stereo typing that this was paradise. This is what caught my attention the most. As I am only eighteen, I still think to myself how bad I want to just start a family and be a part of this so called paradise, but why rush it? Another one of Larkin's like was as follows, "...I wonder if/ Anyone looked at me, fourty years back,/ And though, That'll be the life;" (lines 9-11). This line stood out to me for the simple fact that it made me think the same thing. Does anyone look at me and find themselves picturing "paradise" with me? This poem almost made me feel like my biological time clock was clicking. It made me realize how much I do not want to end up like this character, looking into anothers life an wishing I had theirs. Now, I may be completely off on this interpretaion of the poem, but like they say, everyone interprets poems differently. I also read "Sad Steps" and would reccomend any of you who read my blogs to read that poem as well.

Elizabeth Bishop

Today I would like to talk about Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish". As many of you know by now, I am a zoology major so I am very intrigued by poems about animals. This poem cauth my attention almost imediatly with the various adjectives she choses to describe the fish. The first line reads as follows, "I caught a temeddous fish/ and held him beside the boat. half out of water, with my hook/fast in the corner of his mouth." (lines 1-4). These opening lines give you a vivid picture of the setting this person is in. Obviously the character is fishing but this author's descriptions only get better through out the poem. Another line that I really enjoyed was as follows, "...Here and there/his brown skin hung in strips like ancient walpaper," (lines 9-11). It is here we start envisioning the fish, When I read this line I picture old brown, wrinkly wall paper draped across his body. I also really liked the line about the fish's gills, "While his gills ere breathing in/the terrible oxygen--the frightening gills,/ fresh and crisp with blood," (lines 22-25). My absolute favorite piece of this entire poem, is when the author describes the fish's beard, or so we think. "if you could call it a lip/ grim, wet, and weaponlike,/ hung five old pieces of fish-line,/ or four and a wire leade....Like medals with their ribbons/ frayed and wavering,/ a five-haired beard of wisdom/trailing from his aching jaw". This shows not only how many times this fish had gotten away but his will to live. The poem goes on to explain the feelings the character felt and how the person goes on to let the fish go to live and keep growing his beard.

Dylan Thomas

Today I would like to talk about Dylan Thomas' "Twenty-four Years". After reading just a few of Dylan Thomas' poems, it is clear that he has an obession with death. In the biography that you read before the poems, it states how he enjoyed writing about this darkness with crude and twisted words. His goal was to take an image and undress it, then lay it out for the reader. The moment I read this poem I felt sadness and darkness. I most certainly got the vibe of death and wanted to take it a little further. I did a little more research on this poem and found out that the title was the meaning of his twenty-fourth birthday. It is said that he often did poems to celebrate his birthday but, this was the first one. My question is, why is Dylan Thomas feeling such sadness in a celebratory time. The opening line leads me to think that his life was not so great, "Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes." (line 1). It is obvious that as he thinks of the past years up until that point, something is bringing him grief and saddness. There is one line that really stood out to me painting a very grusome and frightening image, "By the light of the meat-eating sun." (line 5). This almost shocked me because when I think of the sun, I think of warm summer days with happiness and laughter. When I read this line by Dylan Thomas, I get this image in my head, almost of a cartoon devil sun. This was probably his goal since he was so intrigued with death. Another line that created a cartoonist image in my head was as follows, "With my red veins full of money," (line 7). The second I got done reading this line, all I imagined was money bills soaring through these red hot veins. The last line brought me to somewhat of a conclustion of what this poem was really about, "I advance for as long as forever is." (line 9). This line gives me the idea that this poem was possibly about him outliving death after twenty-four years. He advanced on to forever. Now this could also mean that he advanced on to heaven making this a fictional poem because as we know he lived past the age of twenty-four, but beings that he followed the Christian ways, it is possible that he was talking about advancing to heaven. As usual I hope this poem is discussed in class so that I can get a better understanding of just what Dylan Thomas was feeling on his birthday.

Howl, Ginsberg

As you know, today we had to read "Howl" by Allen Gisberg. I would like to start by saying I hope I wasnt the only one who was a little confused while reading this poem. I am glad that we are talking about it in class but a little worried for the quiz. If it wasn't for the subscripts at the bottom I am not sure that I would know much of anything about this poem but here it goes. I understand that through much of the poem he is talking about being in an instatute for the mentally insane. I believe it sort of explains how he got there through the pictures on the window and such. I think the thing that confused me was that Ginsberg would jump from one person to another. Although I thought this was creative that he would refer to other authors I found it a little confusing in the story line. I understand that he put hints in there such as the Rocky Mountains and so fourth but I am still very lost. I also wonder why he puts such obsene things in this poem. I am not offended by them but curious as to why they are in there. Through my previous readings, I understand that he is homosexual, but in this poem he makes anal sex seem like a punishment. I hope that through next class period I will be able to understand this poem much better because the way I see it now I am completely lost. "Howl", you have officially baffled me.