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The Night Before Finals Week

I plopped onto my bed, arguing with my drooping eyelids. I squinted at the words in my heavy stats book that at eleven o'clock at night seemed to be shrinking into the glossy paper on which they were written. My fear of unpreparedness the only thing keeping my zombie of a body from slumping back against my tantalizing pillow, I began to study. Every minute spent awake seemed to pass like an hour. Finally I felt as though my mind would retain the information I had poured into it like a paper cup: not for long, but long enough. As I prepared to pass out, something sparked in me a little paranoid thought: I still needed to write my poetry blog. I pulled out my iPod as I thought to myself, "Wow... This is going to be a long week."

Poetry Blog 6

I read the poem "Vergissmeinnicht" by Keith Douglas, and thought it painted a very vivid picture and captured the true horror of war. It seems to be written from the perspective of a soldier who had been there when the man had been killed, and saw his body on his return home. The personal details in this poem made it very touching and relatable: the reader can picture themself and their loved one in the same situation, which is really a scary thought. I looked up the translation for the word written on the picture of the girl and it means "forget me not," another touching detail that leads into the second half of the poem, which is all about contrast. the third to last stanza in the poem shows how dishonored and almost pathetic the man's defeated and decaying body looks next to his gear that is perfectly intact. The next stanza is sort of a segue into the last; a gruesome detail of the soldier's current state and empathy towards his lover and the lover he once had been. The last stanza then, contrasts both the woman's lover and the brutal killer the man had been. It makes an impactful statement, showing what war can turn someone into. By the last two lines, "And death who the soldier singled/ has done the lover mortal hurt," Douglas reiterates his point that when engaged in war, the innocent lover can be murdered by the the killer created when men become soldiers. Douglas died in 1944, at the height of WWII which he could ironically have been killed in.

Pie Poem

Blueberry Pie

A pie seemed really hard to make
But we just preheated the oven and pressed "Bake."
Next, the delicate art of perfect crust:
We hoped the recipe was one we could trust.
Juicy berries with sugar and spice
Made filling that tasted tangy and nice.
We rolled out the crust and put berries inside
The stuck the pie in the oven, glowing with pride.
Golden brown and bubbling thickly,
The pie was done and had cooked quite quickly.
We started out amateurs and finished as pros
With a pie, Elise said, "as pretty as a rose."

Poetry Blog 5

I read "Acquainted with the Night," by Robert Frost, and thought that it was very eloquently written. It seems like an extended metaphor, but it's hard to decipher all the details, especially about the "luminary clock. And "...dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain." Basically I think the narrator is saying that he/she is familiar with sadness or bad times, and a lot of them, based on the details of the poem such as "I have walked out in rain--and back in rain," and "I have looked down the saddest city lane." It seems that the narrator feels like he or she is almost unnoticed in their unhappiness, or dark place so to speak, especially the line that says "But not to call me back or say good-by." On the other hand, the poem could be interpreted as simply an appreciation of the night: the narrator using details to say that they are familiar with the night, simply because they enjoy it, and the fact that at night one can go unnoticed. I also really like the ABA rhyme scheme of this poem. I like that it rhymes and has a rhythm to it, but also that it isn't in an expected pattern. I also like that it ends with an AA pattern in the last stanza: it gives a strong emphasis to the last line that is also the title of the poem, tying the ending back to the beginning.

Poetry Blog 4

This week I read "The Secret" by Denise Levertov. It initially reminded me of when teachers read something I write and get a deeper meaning out of it than I originally intended. I can never decide if what someone else gets out of my writing is something I said on purpose but subconciously, or if I shouldn't take credit for a simple coincidence. Although I am not much of a poet, I think this is the idea Levertov is trying to convey. Often when reading someone else's poetry, like what happens with my writing sometimes, I pick up on symbolism that I'm not sure is only symbolic to me, or if the author intentionally wrote it that way. I tend to overanalyze poems, so I'm really concious of this when reading poetry. I don't know who the mention of "two girls" is referring to in "The Secret," but I think Levertov is saying that they interpreted a poem she wrote in a different and possibly more insightful way than she even meant it to come across. They didn't tell her what "the secret of life" was though, so maybe the girls just enjoyed it and related it to their lives in a way Levertov hadn't thought of, and she is touched by the fact that her poetry can do that. She then says she's certain that "by now, more than a week/ later, they have forgotten/ the secret," possibly to mean they probably didn't think about the poem beyond reading it and analyzing it. (As we often do in Lit...) But she hopes they will discover it again by re-reading her poem, or even more generally, by reading more poetry. The secret could also be just relating poetry to your own life and finding joy in that, whether the author intended your interpretation or not. No matter what "the secret" is, "The Secret" is definitely an incentive to read more poetry, knowing there is a secret at all.

Poetry Response 3

I read Allastair Reid's poem "Curiosity." It is based on the cliche "curiosity killed the cat," which is traditionally meant to discourage curiousity, because exploring the unknown can often come at a price. However, Reid's take on this idea is a little different. Reid sees curiosity as a good thing; he suggests that there is no reason to live if you are not curious. His whole poem is an extended metaphor using the cat to represent the curious, and the dog to represent those who do not care to know what's outside of their back yard fence. Using these metaphors, Reid says that the boredom and repetition in day to day life will kill you if you are not curious, rather than curiosity, the alternative. Being curious is worth the risk because "only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all." Reid then goes on to describe the danger and consequences of curiosity: there is always a chance that you might suffer for it, but the curious accept this as a price to pay for having lived. As he puts it, "Let them be nine lived and contradictory,/ curious enough to change, prepared to pay/ the cat price, which is to die/ and die again, each ti
e with no less pain." Reid then reinforces the idea that this daring way of living is good by saying that being curious teaches you that dying, or suffering consequences, is what you must do to truly live and love and experience the world, and that the ignorant "dogs" will die without realizing that death is the consequence for having lived, so you might as well make the most of it. I like Reid's perspective of life.

Break. :)

I'm taking my break from blogging this week. Thanks for the day off!

Poetry Response 2

I found the poem "Disillusionment at Ten O'Clock" really interesting. I liked the first image, "The houses are haunted/ By white night-gowns," because it gives the reader a picture of the scene: a dark house with people silently walking throught the houses, barely visible in their flowing ghost-like nightgowns. It sets a somber and monotoned feel for the rest of the poem. I also liked how Stevens then contrasted this idea by describing with some detail how colorful and patterened the nightgowns are not; how uniform and common they are. I didn't know what the word "ceintures" meant, so I looked it up. It means "a belt or sash for the waist" according to Dictionary.com. The fact that they are beaded made me think less of actual night-gowns as one might wear to bed, but more of priests, who wear beaded shashes around their waists. This changed my interpretation of the poem. it could either literally be describing priests, or just making a comment about society in Stevens time, and how most people were so strictly devoted to christianity, and figuratively wore it to bed as a sash around their waists, even though it told them to be plain, loyal, and just like everyone else.Either of these made more sense when I read the second half of the poem, that talks about how none of these plain night-gown wearers will have exciting or creative dreams, and how "an old sailor/ Drunk and asleep in his boots" (most likely referring to sinners) will. I think the whole poem's message is about how society stifles people and diminishes their potential--similar to what we were talking about in class with "A Work of Artifice." Initially when I read this poem the last two lines stuck out to me; they didn't seem to fit with the rest of it. After coming to the conclusion that the message of the poem was about society and religion, I decided that "Chasing tigers" probably refers to dreams and goals the sinner can "chase," but the society-smothered cannot. And I thought "In red weather" meant something about the sinner having a sort of tempestuous life, referring to the weather, and the weather being red because it is often a color associated with the command to stop (which the sinner does not), something bad or incorrect (as "chasing tigers" would be seen by society), or even the devil, which obviously would make "red weather" frowned upon as well. So although the sinner may not be accepted by society, he is still free to dream of his full potential, even though being an outcast of society might prevent his dreams to come to fruition.

Poetry Blog 1 (2nd Quarter)

Since my poem for the class is "The Snowman," I thought I would have it be my first blog. I read this poem twice and interpreted it in two ways. The first was from the snow man builder's perspective. The lines "One must have a mind of winter," "Have been cold a long time," and "...and not to think/ Of any misery in the wind" seem to describe a person who has braved the cold to build a snowman, and appreciate the cold, but nonetheless beautiful winter landscape. The other way I interpreted it, was from the point of view of the snowman himself. The quotes I thought described a person could also be seen as personifying the snowman, because he braves the cold and is not bothered by the wind, and literally has "a mind of winter," since he is made out of snow. Looking at the poem this way made the last stanza make more sense as well. "The listener" could very well be the snowman, because he is only able to observe the world around him. It also makes more sense that a snowman would be "nothing himself" and would "behol[d]/ Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." I definitely like this interpretation better. But thinking about it again, it could also be interpreted in a combination of those two ways, with the first four stanzas pertaining to the creator of the snowman, and the last stanza, the first place where it mentions "the listener" could be describing the finished snowman that has now been left by the creator to "liste[n] in the snow" to the almost nothingness of his surroundings.

Poetry Response 7

When first reading the poem "1943" by Donald Hall, I didn't really understand it. However, when we went over it in class it made a lot more sense. Sometimes I forget to consider a poem's title when reading or analyzing it. It's an easy and sometimes very confusing mistake that I think I made when first reading this poem. When I finally remembered that probably the title had some sort of significance in the poem, the first two stanzas made perfect sense. I got a little confused when the poem started talking about milk, but when it was mentioned in class that milk can be a symbol of sustenance or youth, the image became a bit clearer. It seems like Hall is making a statement about how in WWII troops fought hard so Americans could continue to enjoy a high standard of living where we take things like milk and cream for granted. The milk reference could also tie back to the first stanza, where he's talking about high school, to illustrate the loss of childhood when young men went off to war, and their longing to return to a simpler time in their lives. Figuring this out explained all but one line of the poem to me, and made it much more impactful. The line that still didn't make sense was the very last: "--with frostbitten feet as white as milk." Someone in class mentioned that frostbite isn't white at all, but when I think about it, the simile can still make sense because feet would turn white before frostbite can have its full effect, because the blood will leave the feet in order to keep more important body parts warm. It could be possible that the color of their feet in the cold reminded Hall of the "frozen cream [that] lifted the cardboard lids of glass bottles." This makes for a gruesome, yet meaningful and fitting image of what soldiers in WWII had to go through. This poem overall has a dark feeling, but it really makes you think.

Poetry Response 6

I hadn't read "Little Apocalypse" until we read it in class, but our discussion made me curious about it. I went home and re-read it a few times, and realized what I think it means. To me this poem sort of illustrates the "stop to smell the roses" idea, in the sense that it wants to get across that there are whole worlds of organisms that we pay no attention to, simply because they are small; and how things we would find non-threatening can be like an apolcalypse to them. This makes sense to me because of the way Charles Wright describes seemingly peaceful things, such as a robin or a butterfly as vicious and unsettling, and a thunderstorm as "a drop of fire and a drop of fire," as maybe they would appear to insects. I don't think Wright is describing the apocalypse of the whole world, but is using classic apocalyptic imagery to describe harmless organisms and an average thunderstorm. He does this in order to point out how these daily happenings can be apocalyptic for the "basements of the world" that we often do not think about, because we never see that world from that perspective.

High School Analogy: High School is Like a Tree

In the spring, a tree starts out as a seed, planted in freshman year. Here, the seed grows into a little plant, stretching up towards the sky, although it is still a far reach.

In the summer, the tree continues to grow into sophomore year. The tree has now developed its first few branches, finding the shape it will have for the rest of its life. Although the tree is still small, it has begun to look more like a tree, leaving its fragile plant-state behind.

When fall comes the tree is a junior, much taller and with thick bark. The days begin to shorten, and the tedious hours of nighttime coax the leaves from its branches.

Soon, fall is over and flecks of white begin to sprinkle the tree's grey and textured bark. The tree is now a senior--fully mature and closer to the sky than ever. The tree continues to live on, but in peaceful hibernation it awaits the arrival of spring: freshman year of college when the tree will once again grow leaves and thrive in the warmth of the sun.

Poetry Response 5

I read "A Chinese Bowl," by Katha Pollitt, which I think is another nostalgic poem about a memory from the poet's childhood. You can tell that what sparks this reminiscence is coming across the Chinese bowl that used to sit on the desk of the narrator's father. Then, she describes a scene from her childhood in which the bowl sits on the desk, and her father at it. She describes her father's typewriter and a play that she is writing, sitting on the floor in her father's office as he works. She describes the room with much detail, to make the reader feel like he or she has also been in this room many times before. Then suddenly, the author switches gears from simply describing a scene, to thinking about tragedies from her past. She says "Light spills cleanly down/ on the Danish-modern couch/ and metal cabinet/ which hides no folder labelled/ 'Blacklist' or 'Party business'/ or 'Drink' or 'Mother's Death.'" By this, she seems to be illustrating how she felt that her father's office was a safe place, away from all the worries she and her father had. She then seems to say that she misses this feeling of peace. It's as if she wishes that she still had that safe place to go when her worries get to her; that she hadn't taken that small detail of her childhood for granted while she had it.
I can relate to her a little in this. I think everyone has a memory from childhood of being with their parents in a certain setting and feeling like nothing could ever harm them. I know for me personally, as I've started to grow up, I've at times felt like I was too on my own for my own comfort, and wanted to feel like I had no worries, and like my parents would always be there to solve my problems. It's just a part of growing up, and Katha Pollitt really illustrates this in "The Chinese Bowl."

Poetry Response 4

Because it intrigued me in class, I read "The Halo That Would Not Light." I had read through this poem before class, but had a tough time making sense of it. It seemed like Brock-Broido had just thrown a bunch of random, unconnected images together and called it a poem. However, when we read it again in class and someone mentioned the "raptor" referring to a stork, and the "tiny body" referring to a baby, it made me think that maybe the poet was describing a childhood, but a very dark and depressing one. The word "raptor" seems like a scary and negative image of a stork, and the fact that the poem says "left you like a finch" sounds like the baby was born into a sad and lonely existence. Also the poem seems to be chronological, because it starts out talking about the "tiny body" of a baby, then proceeds to mention a child. And the last line, rather than death, sounded more like whoever experienced this awful childhood was escaping. The line  "Is done" sounds more relieving and freeing than morbid to me for some reason. Before I knew this poem was actually about Lucie Brock-Broido's childhood friend who died of cancer, I assumed it was about a child who had been abused or neglected. What lead me to think this was the descriptions of various places, such as "In the scarab-colored hollow," "With linden leaves in a child's cardboard box" and "Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back/ And forth with no one in them." All of these lines sound lonely and dark, as if the love and happiness were missing from this person's childhood. Along with that, no parents or people at all are mentioned, which further supports the poem's feeling of emptiness and neglect. However, when I was told that it was actually about a child who died of cancer, the saddness of this person's childhood still made sense, just in a different context. However, the last few lines took on a new meaning entirely.

Poetry Response 3

This week I read "In Blaclwater Woods" by Mary Oliver. This poem seems like it's overall message can be interpreted many ways, however Oliver's imagery is very straightforward, which makes the poem easy to follow and fun to decode. The first four stanzas plant a very vivid picture in my mind of a gorgeous and serene woods, which makes me want to continue to read the poem. It's as if Oliver is describing a place where she can forget her troubles and the saddness of the world for a while. The second half of the poem lost me the first time I read it, but upon reading the poem a few more times I thought she was saying that coming to Blackwater Woods makes her realize that everything in life is trivial, except three things: "to love what is mortal;/ to hold it/ against your bones/ knowing your own life depends on it;/ and, when the time comes to let it go,/ to let it go." By this, I think she means that we must appreciate everything mortal because it only lasts for a short time, and know that every living thing depends on every other living thing--we must not destroy this cycle. And also, along with life there is inevitable death that we must accept. It's as if coming back to Blackwater Woods reminds Mary Oliver of these things because it is so placid and peaceful that she can forget things that are unimportant in the long run: appointments, errands, etc. Also when she talks about "the black river of loss/ whose other side/ is salvation" it made me think of the river Styx in Greek mythology, that seperates life from the afterlife. This allusion made me think she was talking about life and death, and how all life must be appreciated because it is always only temporary.

Poetry Response 2

I read the poem "Blackberries for Amelia" by Richard Wilbur. I thought this poem was very endearing. It's like it's reminding the reader to enjoy the present moment, because someday it won't be the same: "As the far stars, of which we are now told/That ever faster do they bolt away/And that a night may come in which, some say,/We shall have only blackness to behold." And I love how he illustrates this with details of the flowers and thickets in June, and how they turn into berries in August. Then, he says it's important to enjoy small moments in life like this because as we age, we can't be sure that we'll be around to see long term change, but we can be sure that we'll be there to see the next few months and seasons, and so that's what we should focus on, not the distant future.
I also like that the title is so significant to the poem that you have to read the poem to understand the title, and read the title to understand the poem. It takes until the climax of the poem at the end to realize that Amelia must be the grandchild with whom Richard Wilbur is fond of picking blackberries. The essential message of this poem is to enjoy the time you're given with those you love, and enjoy life as it happens because you may not be around to see the materialization of the future. I think that's an important message because it's something we forget sometimes in our present world.

Poetry Response 1

I read the poem I'll be presenting to the class, "Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle." This poem has beautiful imagery and gave me a vivid picture of the scene John Updike wanted to create. I really like that it compares the sun coming through the stained glass to the sound of the violins and their songs. It seems like he's describing the music almost like a religious experience, saying that the violins were sort of a recreation of the stained glass in the chapel. Or he may have been comparing the music of the violins to the lead between the stained glass pieces, as if to say that music is a heavenly experience that "hold[s] the glowing fantasy together." Then, the imagery shifts and Updike describes the whole scene as being "cased in thin but solid sheets of lead," as if to say that the experience was immortalized as a religious experience that he will remember for a long time, especially since he writes this in past tense, seeming to look back at a beloved memory. The only part of the imagery that really doesn't make sense to me is where he says "the glow became a milk." I understand that he means to say that the "glow" of the music was fading, but I don't know why he chose to use the word "milk" to describe that. Overall I really like this poem though, I think it gives a great visualization of how it feels and sounds to listen to beautiful music.

Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness was my least favorite of the three books. It was a slow read for me, and much of it took rereading and analyzing to understand the full context. I think it holds an important message, but maybe one that was more relevant during the peak of imperialism.

For Heart of Darkness I used the "text to world"/"creating trails" style of annotating because the concept was hard to grasp, and when I would read back through the chapter and annotate, "creating trails" helped me see the progress of the story and the message it was trying to get across. But I also used the "reading to writing"/"learning to write" style because I loved the subtle humor and sarcasm Conrad used to incorporate comedic breaks into a serious subject, and i would love to be able to do the same.

I also loved Conrad's use of symbolism in the title, referring not only to the Congolese jungle, but also to the deark heart of the Company and the way imperialism treated natives when claiming to be "civilizing" them. Heart of Darkness seemed to almost be hypocritical in the way that it chastised racism and imperialism, but also seemed to treat the natives and non-whites more like objects or livestock than humans, by referring to them as "machinery" or "savages," and assuming that their mental capacity was that of an immoral child's.

It was fascinating to read about imperialism through writing from a time when it was thought to be just. However, it was less interesting to me than the other two books we read because it had much less application to my life and the currect society we live in.

The Kite Runner

I had read The Kite Runner about two years ago, and the first time was definitely different than the second, although enjoyable both times.

For annotating this book, I used a lot of the "reading to writing"/"learning to write" style, because I love how detailed and descriptive Hosseini's writing is and I'd love to learn to do the same. He brings images to life for me, which is important with a setting and culture with which I'm somewhat unfamiliar. I also used the "text to self"/"establishing territory" style, because although the culture in which Hosseini's story takes place is very different from the world I live in, I found that there are similarities in people everywhere, and my emotional response to this book was very intense.

My emotional response to this book makes it stand out as one of the best and most touching stories I've ever read. Moreso the first time, but with each time I read this book I found myself so enveloped in the story that I felt the emotions of the characters almost like they were my own. I credit this mostly to Hosseini's writing style and effective story-telling, but also partly to the fact that I am aware how of life like the book is, which I think was done intentionally by Hosseini , so I suppose he deserves credit for that as well. Everything from the anger I felt towards the Taliban, to the shock and horror I experienced when Sohrab was found bleeding to death in the bath tub, and the joy and relief when I found out he survived, was so realistic. It made me cry a lot at how unfair the world can be, but also made me want to make a difference in the world. It made me want to change the lives of people like Hassan and his son so those unfair things can happen less often. For which I think again, Hosseini deserves credit. He is able through his writing to pass along such strong messages just by telling what first seems to be just the story of a simple man's life.

This book was amazing and I would seriously consider reading it a third time.

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby was the first book I read this summer. Although I enjoyed it, it felt tedious at times, especially when annotating. To be honest, I haven't (yet) come to enjoy annotating, because I feel like it directs my attention away from the story and serves more as a distraction than anything, so I would prefer jotting down some reactions at the end of a chapter, or reading the chapter and going back through it to annotate. However, I realize that annotating will come in handy in college and that I should learn to like it.

Regardless of my feelings toward this process, for The Great Gatsby I mostly experimented with the "text to world"/"creating trails" style of annotation, because there were many social issues in this book that I felt not only painted a picture of society in the 1920's, but that are also relevant to modern day. The language was a bit hard to understand at times, so I felt that I often needed this type of annotation as well to analyze certain sentences or paragraphs that didn't at first make sense. My other reason for preferring this type was that the deeper themes in the book were hard to pick up on because the story seemed shallow at first glance--which is maybe why I found parts of it to be tedious. But I believe one of the big messages is that Gatsby is a metaphor for the classic Alger-style American dream, and how this idea is not always desirable, necessary for happiness, or even achievable. I also occasionally used the "text to self"/"establishing territory" style of annotating in this book, because there were many emotional and social situations that directly relate to my life, and if I read this book again I might be able to pick up even more connections. Sometimes I even used the "reading to writing"/"learning to write" style, because I found Fitzgerald's choice of vocabulary to be archaic and fascinating, and I would love to add some of his techniques to my writing style.

I found The Great Gatsby to be interesting overall, with a message that I hadn't thought about before and an exciting setting that I hadn't had the opportunity to learn much about.