Acquainted With The Night

I really liked this poem...along with every other Robert Frost poem.  Something in the first four lines caught my attention; although, I may be reading two much into it.  In two seperate lines he wrote, "I have outwalked the furthest city light" and "I have looked down the saddest city lane."  Outwalking the furthest light would be entering a darkness, while the saddest city lane is more despair.  These things were two different things with seperated ideas.  Darkness and sadness were two different things, which I thought was very interseting.  But then again, maybe he was just orlaborating on the darkness.
I also felt some condradictions in this poem.  In line 5 and 6 Frost makes it sound like he is embarrassed or ashamed.  But every other line in the poem is more understanding or just admitting.  But maybe that has something to do with the tone of the poem.  He wants to show he understands the shame built in with going so far into the darkness and seeing ultimate sadness.

The Secret

I thought this poem was incredibly accurate.  Many times when I read of poem I will get odd things out of it that the poet most likely never intended.  But then, just a while later, I will forget all about it.  I try to get something deep out of it, but that just disappears so quickly.  I liked how she introduced the topic as the girls learning "the secret" of life.  It isn't just seeing a small fact, whats learned in the poem is a huge revelation, yet "no doubt by now...they have forgotten the secret."
I thought the last few stanzas were really interesting too.  The poet loves them for finding the secret and for losing it and for finding it again.  She loves them for believing there is a secret.  She loves their hope and maybe naiveness.  But I thought that Levertov is someone who has lost faith.  I feel she doesn't see the importance in her writing or anyone other persons writing.  But it's a type of loss where her wants to see it again.  She admires the two girls for finding a deep, important meaning in life...and she wants that.

Thanksgiving Pie Poem

Pie
Thanksgiving
Turkey
Birds
Trees
Leaves
Pilgrims
Indians
Cowboys
Hats
School
Geometrey
Circles
Circumference 
3.14159265
Pi

A Work of Artifice

I think this poem is definitely about female suppression. The bonsai tree, being the woman.  Hair curlers..."domestic"...attractive pot...bound feet...
http://images.lovelovechina.com/Foot_binding.jpg
Well, that's a gross as it gets.
But what I really liked about this poem was the title.  Artifice is a clever trick or cunning.  It was very interesting that she used that as the title.  It's not just about how woman are turned into a beautiful, tiny tree, but how they are tricked into it.  Woman are made to believe foot-binding is the beautiful thing, or that hair curlers are necessary.  The "gardner" uses tricks to create this idea, saying that the woman is weak and coy, and she is lucky to have a simple life, or "pot," there for her.  That she should be happy for what she does have.
In class, people considered the gardner to be men.  I think the gardner can be more woman then men sometimes.  At least in my life time, woman tend to be the ones expecting other woman to fit into the potter.  Don't get me wrong, men also expect women to have the correct look, but it seems women create this look.  Many women expect others to be the beautiful, simple things to be looked at.  So I see it as a more universal thing, seeing woman as things that need to be controlled.

Toads

Well, I think it's pretty obvious that the "toad" is the burden of working.  The burden of working six days a week just to pay the bills.  I liked the use of the toad because they are ugly and gross, but necessary.  I thought this was a really cool poem, just the basic story of it.  A man is basically working away his life, and he wishes he could have the courage to quit. But I thought the thought process of it was interesting...how he knows he could make it after quitting, people do it all the time, but he doesn't want to give up the security of the job.  That giving up his job is what "dreams are made of."  I also thought it was interesting that some of his nerves come from not wanting to live the kind of life where he swoons his way into getting what he wants.  Philip Larkin, the author, worked as a librarian for a large portion of his early life, which makes this poem easy to see where it came from.  Personally, being a librarian doesn't sound like the most exciting job there is, so he was probably frustrated with his constant, repetitive work.  Because he ended up writing, I assume librarian was not what he wanted to do...but that being a poet may have seemed like "living off his wits."  Like, maybe writing wasn't a honorable job to him.
I was really confused on the last stanza though.  What are the two things he could lose?  "One bodies the other,"
confused there too.  But that's all.

Curiosity

This may be one of my favorite poems so far.  The idea that "curiosity killed the cat is...almost of good thing," I really liked.  "Face it. Curiosity will not cause us to die-- lack of it will." really showed this idea too.  If you're not curious and not really living life, then it's practically like you dead.   It's...if you don't live excitingly, are you even living at all.  Why not enjoy life and be curious?
Then he takes his analogy even farther as to compare cats and dogs, which I really loved.  It's just so true that dogs are very dependable, loyal, sweet but maybe even boring.  But I don't think it's necessarily so bad, ad Reid writes it as a bad thing.  I think some people can live dependable, boring lives and be really happy and truly live.  Not everyone needs to be or should be a cat.  (But the curious cat seems to be much more fun and fulfilling to me)
But still, the last few lines, great lines.


Oh and Mrs White, I forgot last week we had to post if it was our week off....But it was. :D

I thank you god

The first time I read over this poem quickly, I thought it was sarcastic.  The line, "...human merely being doubt unimaginable You?" was what most made me think that.  It just seemed really extreme to say that it's impossible to doubt because I can see how many would and could doubt.  Also, the fact that he doesn't capitalize "i" seems extreme, like he's saying people aren't worthy of it, but God is.  I guess the extent to which he praised god gave it a mocking tone to me.
But the more I read it, the more I believed he believed.  Also, looking at the time period, it wasn't really during a time full of doubt.  He just seemed to genuinely and truly love god.  And that's where I got disappointing in the poem.  It just turned into a gospel to me.  It was sweet and made me want to have an admiration for something like he did, but then I was over it.  It seemed like he was having a moment where everything was great and god was great, which is heartwarming, but slightly boring.
And now, Mrs White, I feel like you're turning me into a pessimist. 

Unveiling

I really liked this poem; I thought it was sweet but melancholy.  He remembers a time when his family was all together, eating together, spending time together, but now most of them are past.  I noticed this poem was written during the Great Depression which explained a lot.  A lot of people lost their families during this time and Pastan is just missing them.
I also get a sense of "survivors guilt" when I read this.  The line "I don't feel bad for them, just left out a bit as if they kept from me the kind of..."  He seems to want to be with them.  So maybe it's not so much a guilt but an envy.  These were hard times and he wishes he could be living the easy life of death.  But at the same time, he knows its not his time to die.  He has things to do before he is ready to be done.
P.S. I like these poems a lot better Mrs White

Innoculation

Even though this poem wasn't very "poemy," I really liked it.  But I watch the History Channel a lot, so maybe I just liked hearing a firsthand account.  The stanza, "Consider...survive," was really cool.  I've never though about inoculation, but it's pretty crazy.  A person is infected with a disease that is supposed to kill, but they survive and can never get sick from that again.  Kind of genius.
But then the poem became about slavery.  The slave had an inoculation and it saved him from smallpox, but then he just ended up being a slave.  His life was saved to serve another.  I was a little disappointed to hear it take this turn--it ruined the happy-coolness of inoculation.  But of course it had to be a sad poem >:(
I looked up Onesimus to see if it held any significance.  The Holy Apostle Onesimus was a slave to Philemon of Colossae.

The Halo That Would Not Light

The first four stanzas seem to be talking about the fable of a stork dropping off babies.  What struck me was the negative way it was shown.  The way he talks about the raptors beak shows this because raptor is harsh and sounds mean.  Also, he talks about the raptor dropping the tiny body, which sounds much more violent than the picture I have in my head of a stork.
At the end of the poem, he says "the spectacular catastrophe of your endless childhood is done."  I think he is talking about the loss of innocence at a certain point.  I like to think that for once, one of these poems is not about death but just a growing up.  But growing up in a negative way.  It's just about the loss of wonder and chaotic-ness of childhood.
I really like the imagery of "hunting as the leather seats of swings go back and forth with no one in them".  I could see a sad, dark, funeral-like picture of an empty swing.  This really added to the idea of a loss.

A Gray Haze Over the Rice Fields

In class we talked about how the poem had sad parts and happy parts, like the title.  "Gray haze" contrast the happiness of "Rice fields," but I'm not sure one is bad and one is good.  A gray haze can be beautiful and I feel like we can't know for sure if rice fields is a positive "memory" or a negative one.  I think "such things claim that I am looking out in search of memory, not death" is that a lot of things he thinks about seems shallow as a memory but that they are actually deeper than that.  The way he goes on to say a more memories, but these ones seem more personal backs that up for me.  But he's not remembering this things in an anticipation for death, but that he sees a change coming.  He knows, as his life has changed before, it will change again.  From "a shadow freed from the past and from the future," I get that he remembers his life, not just for the memory, but for the experience, so he knows how to handle now.  He's not anticipating the future, just being aware of now and nows changes.  He seems ready for these changes too.

Wallflowers

Yes, I'm sure everyone else has done this one, but I'm doing it too.
The first time I read through this poem, it reminded me of BeetleJuice.  Well, the line "They say if you use a word three times, it's yours" did.  BeetleJuice, BeetleJuice, BeetleJuice...and he comes for you.  So I thought it was cool that three times and this unknown word is "yours."
It also made me think of the "if a tree falls...?" question because its almost as if an unspoken word doesn't exist, but it could.  And talking about the word as if its an orphan makes me want to save unspoken words; I feel bad for them.  If her goal of this poem was to get the reader to extend their vocabulary...it's working.
But what I found a little iron was her lack of a large vocabulary throughout the poem.  While she was talking about using new or unheard words and taking them to be yours, she only used two large words and she used them as examples.  It was a little odd she wanted to create a place, a home for these unused words but she wasn't actually doing it.

1943

Well, first off, Ed Monohan and Dominick Esposito are fictional.  But I think it's interesting that Dom lost and then he died quickly in war.  It definitely shows how they were prepared for war, and Dom was less prepared.  Then, I like how it talk about milk being delivered.  I think it shows the crazy drastic change from high school to war.  One day your having milk delivered to your door, the next your bleeding "to death in the surf."  And that comes back to the beginning, the boys were prepared for this.  They were taught in a way just for war.  Taught to play with guns and to enjoy fighting.  And yet, and the last line shows, there was nothing any one could do about it.  This poem could easily be preachy or some sort of call to duty.  But with that one line: "what could we do?" it becomes just a sad fact.  Donald Hall simply wants to talk about the sad reality of war...that boys are trained for it, but not seeing the sudden brutality and no one knows what to do about it.

Lost Brother

I liked this poem...but it seemed very basic and simple.  Stanley Moss reads as another tree mourning the loss of  a tree, or his "Lost Brother."  It was sweet and made me think about the sadness of cutting down trees.  The last half of the poem showed what sorts of things trees see and what conditions they live through.  Four thousand eight hundred sixty-years is a long time to just cut down.  It even talked about their mother (who I assume is Mother Earth) and how she wanted the trees to live long.  Humans are letting her down and saddening her by cutting down the forests.  But that was all. It was, to me, a simple, somewhat sweet, melancholy poem speaking out against deforestation.

Beginning Again

I really enjoyed the caus of this poem.  It was odd and had this wonderful rhythm to it.  What first struck me in the poem was the contradiction of the title...Beginning Again.  A beginning is once, to begin again is theoretically not possible.  Then, in reading I noticed a second contradiction in the second and third sentence: "...in a small badly lit room with no mirror.  A room whose floor ceiling and walls are all mirrors..."  I think it is referring to trying to see ones self, but not being able to see clearly what's happening.  Especially after the first part, which seemed to refer to trying to fix a mental illness or maybe a simple personality flaw.  Another thing I noticed was a reference to a poem by Li Po.  I looked up the short poem, which starts with: The birds have vanished into the sky,
and now the cloud drains away.
So the second half obviously refers to starting anew.  I think the whole poem is about wanting to change something about yourself, about wanting to fix something...but not knowing how or if.

Heart of Darkness

I'm pretty confused by this book.  Because nearly the whole thing was written as one long monologue it was written very randomly.  Thoughts seemed to come from nowhere and leave quickly; it was very much a train of thought.  I'm just amazed at how he built up Kurtz.  He started off being a figure others looked up too.  Then, he became an amazing man that the narrator loved too.  But he was also a mysterious, crazy man; one who didn't want to leave a land of savages. Then, he just dies.  After that, we found out he was in love...or she was in love with him.  Who knows.  Kurtz was an odd, impressive man.  So was the story...odd, but impressive and somehow mesmerizing as you tried to figure out the mental state of these men.

The Great Gatsby

Honestly, I didn't like this book that much.  It seemed a little to "soap opera" for my taste, and I didn't like the characters.  I thought Gatsby was way to focused on getting lots of money to impress an old girlfriend.  I thought Nick was unemotional and had no drive to do anything.  He would just go wander around parties, work, and hang out with a girl he didn't even really like.  And Mr. B. was just a jealous, cheating man.  He wanted his mistress and his wife.  Although, the end was pretty interesting. Tom's wife ends up killing Tom's mistress when she doesn't even know her. Pretty crazy, and made the book a little less boring.  But besides disliking the characters, I felt bad for them.  It seemed none of them could be themselves.  They were always trying to prove something.  Like Gatsby, dealing in illegal things, just to get enough money to try to impress Daisy.  After reading this book, I'm glad I didn't live in the 20's.

Kite Runner

The Kite Runner was the first book I read this summer, and I have to say I liked it.  The beginning seemed long and boring...I was afraid the whole book would be like that.  But it did get interesting, sad, but interesting.  At first I really did not like the main character; I thought he was a coward and a bit pathetic.  But somehow as the book went on I started to understand him, and hate him a little less. I was just impressed with how far he went for redemption and how badly he wanted to fix, in some way, what he had done...or not done.  I think some things are forgivable, especially at a young age.  And this book really showed an emotional side to trying to find redemption for a mistake.