William Carlos Williams

Today I would like to talk about William Carlos Williams' "Danse Russe". This poem is somewhat short with two stanzas and 19 lines. I found this poem to be somewhat humerouse to me. I interpreted this poem to be about a male character in his home. When all his family members go to sleep, he then releases his innerself and basically runs around naked. He goes on to admire himself in the mirror and feel on top of the world. I find this to be funny because many, many females do this when no one is around. I find this to be very literral to some extreme. I don't think that most men would dance around the house naked, but I do think that they would do somethings that they may not otherwise do infront of their family. I also find the last line to be very powerful, "the happy genius of my household". I think he has found his dominance in his home when there is no one else to dominate. He has done all the things that he might not to while they are around and feels that nothing can stop him so now he is the leader.

Mina Loy

Today I would like to talk about Mina Loy's poem, "Gertrude Stein". This poem is one stanza long with nine lines. It has personification in lines 5-7 as follows, "she crushed/ the tonnage/ of consciousness". It is known after reading the biography, that Mina Loy was friends with Gertrude Stein, but why would she name a poem after her? Through  my research I found that Gertrude  Stein was a lesbiand, actually she was infactuated with the fact of being a lesbiand. Most people say that that is all she could talk and write about. It is never stated anywhere that I could find, that Gertrude and Mina had sexual relations, but shouldn't it be questioned? Could this poem be a secret love poem to Gertrude. Clearly the poem is to Gertrude, given that that is the title, but what about the content. The poem talks about a famous scientist, Mari Curie, who discovered radium and was the first woman to win the Nobel Piece Prize. But why would Mina write a poem about a scientist and name it after Gertrude? Obviously there has to be symmbolism in this poem. The way I interpreted this is that the whole poem is a symbol. The poem goes on to explain how the scientist powered through to find "radium". I found this in the same lines I mentioned before. I feel that Mina Loy is trying to symbolize all the Gertrude Stein pushed through, possibly including her lesbianism, if that is even a word. I do however feel that Mina Loy wrote this poem as a reflection of Gertrude Stein's accomplishments and did so through symbolyism of an astonishing scientist.

Marianne Moore

Today I would like to talk about Marianne Moore's "The Fish". I would first like to start off by saying that I love the fact that she writes about animals. I am a zoology major and it is so nice to read the feelings of what another person sees in an animal or the way that person interprets the animal. The next thing I would like to talk about is the way the Marianne aranges her stanzas. She does not really care about metrical rythm or endstops, but more of what her stanzas physically look like. In this particular poem she creats her stanzas in such a way that they look diagnal. Marianne even cuts words apart, such in stanza 7, just to make all the stanzas appear in this mannar. I really enjoyed reading this poem not only because the content is something that I am so interested in, but the fact that it is a bresh of fresh air to see a poem arranged like this. To see creativity and not just the normal day to day stanza. I am sure that a lot of modernist viewed this as unproffesional or maybe even stupid but I Marianne to be one of the most interesting writers I have seen so far in this book. The similies she uses to describe things and the word choice she uses, paints such a vivid picture in my mind that I almost feel as if I am there with her. "Crabs like green lillies", "submarine toadstools", these are just some of the words that caught my attention and sent me into this setting Moore has created. I feel that Marianne Moore just may have become my new favorite poet.

Wallace Stevens

Today I have chosen to talk about Wallace Stevens's "The Emperor of Ice-Cream". This is a rather short poem of just two stanzas both of wich are octaves. There is use of anaphora with the word "Let" in lines 4 and 7 in the first stanza and again in line 15 of the second stanza. Stevens also used rhym in lines 7 and 8 with the words seem and cream and again in  lines 14 and fifteen with the words beam and cream. I could sit here and practice analyzing this whole time but I would also like to talk about my interpretation of this poem. I take this so called "emperor of ice-cream" to soemwhat be of a disgrace. In lines 12 and 13 it talks about how "cold and dumb" the girl would be to let her feet protrude. To me this sound very sexual. This girl would be looked down upon if she slept with this whore of a man. The poem sort of glorifies this person with all the vivide pictures Stevens paints with the descriptions of the boys carrying flowers and the women in dresses. This man is glorified but not by this narrartor, instead this narrarotor is being  very sarcastice at the beginning. Insulting this character by saying bring all these great things it means nothing. I do however wonder if the narrartor has some sort of connection to the woman in the poem and maybe there could be a sense of jealousy. I am hoping that we discuss this poem in class so that I can get a better understanding for what this truely is about and if I am even close in my interpretation. 

Wasteland part 2!

Well it turns out that I was somewhat on the right track about this poem. When considering fragmentations and after listening to the poem in class, it is clear that there was different characters speaking in this poem. It is also clear that this poem is very much so about death. We talked in class about possiblities along the lines of death and I personally think that this poem is indeed talking about society after the war. War is a very devistating and disasterful event. Of course there was death in large numbers and devistation everywhere. I think that Eliot was trying to take one perspective or one story but use the different charecters to express different feeling. My favorite part of this poem is all the anologies to the bible and Jesus Christ. It shows that in even the worst of times, even in war, there is hope through faith and the lord. I think Eliot does a wonderful job at making a reader envision these biblical references and also giving the sence of a happy ending. I can see why this poem made it so famous. Obviously war topics generally make it in the spot light but Eliot took it into the modernist view and was bold enough to bring faith and hope into the picture. After the class discussion of this poem I have begun to understand this poem much more and hope that tomorrows class period will make me even more familiar.

The Waste Land (part 1)

As many of you can probably can agree, reading "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot, was no easy task. This poem is fourteen pages long in our text book and has a lot of words that you must read the meanings of. Although this poem was so long, I found that as I got started it became easier and easier to read. I began getting lost in the words of Eliot. In the beginning I was a little confused, each stanza was so different. I felt that it was seperate pieces from different stories in each one. As I read on I kept learning more and more about these four different stories. Although I was still confused each story was becoming a little more clear but no less overwhelming. I found this very difficult to understand as to what Eliot was trying to accomplish. I hope that after today's class I will be more comfortable with what this poem really means. As of now I feel that this poem is four different poems in one trying to get a meaning across that I am yet to understand. I would like to talk about my favorite part thus far in my understanding. I like the part of the poem where it talks about the tarot cards and that the charecters cards was not part of the deck. I find this to be creepy but so mysterious at the same time. What did Eliot mean by this? Is the charecter a ghost? Or is the ghost really in story/stanza four of this poem. I have yet so much to learn about "The Waste Land".

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

As we well know, our assignment was to read the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and write our blog entry about it. We started discussing this poem in class, so I would like to start where we left off. The way I enterpreted this poem was that this charecter was going to somewhere of what I think was a high end mistriss joint. He was ashamed by his bald head and did not think that he would even have a chance with these women talking of Michael Angelo. He also was a little ashamed of what he was doing as he did not want anyone to know. As I read on, the poem kept reassuring me that this is where the charecter was going. He kept questioning himself doIdare?" (line 38). He reminded us again of the flaws within himself and what these women would say. He realizes that it is not right for a man of his age to be going to somewhere like this, "Do I dare/Disturb the universe?" (lines45&46). He then goes on to explain that he has done this before in his younger years, he has already encountered this and questions "So how should I presume?"(line54). The character than refers to himself as to what I think is the cat that we mentioned in class, "I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the florrs fo silent seas." (lines 73&74). He is disgusted in himself. The poem then goes on asking if it would be worth it all and relating the character to Prince Hamelet and realizing that he is not supposed to be living a life like that, he is a simple attendant. The poem is ended by reality slapping the character in the face and realizing that he should not be out doing rebelious things such as seeing these women but instead walking on the sandy beach in clean white trousers just as any retiered senior would want.