Poetry Blog 3

After reading "It was a dream," I noticed that the untitled poem by Stephen Crane had a very similar theme. Crane sets his poem "In the desert" which I thought meant in his mind: blank, like a desert, and maybe not (pun intended) in a very good place. The creature he comes upon seemed to be his subconscious, eating what is both his heart and Crane's heart. The creature eating his heart symbolizes self destructiveness, which is what Crane may feel like he is doing to himself; he is possibly becoming cold and introverted, or in other words eating his own heart. When the narrator asks, "Is it good, friend?" it is his conscious questioning if "eating his own heart" is really a good thing to be doing. But, his subconscious continues to eat his heart and says "It is bitter--bitter," as if to mean that he is not happy with his heart, and this is why he eats it. The next lines, "But I like it/ Because it is bitter,/ And because it is my heart," provide further evidence for this. Crane is saying because his heart is bitter it is better to eat it, and he likes it because it is his own heart and not someone else's. This poem, like "It was a dream," has a feeling of regret that reminds the reader of the importance of listening to your subconscious. However, the untitled poem was much more difficult to analyze, and I am still not convinced I analyzed it correctly or deeply enough. This could have been purposeful, as it points out that the subconscious should still be listened to, whether it is easy to discern what it is saying or not.