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.