Heritage

I didn't really like this poem.  The meaning was pretty straight forward and it didn't sound very nice either.  It was just one long stanza followed by another shorter stanza.  It was more a paragraph to me; it didn't have the rhythm most poems do.  Althougth the last line of the first stanza did have some good impact.  The repetition of "I cannot...I cannot..." really struck in the feeling of being trapped in his heritage.  I thought it was really interesting how much James Still seemed to hate his heritage, especially using the word heritage.  When I think of that word it seems to have a positive, proud connotation, but his words seem just the opposite.  James Still was a "mountain man"of the Appalachians and I wonder if he was ashamed of that.  But there is a way in his words that he still seems to see beauty.  "...burns its strength into the blistered rock..." "one with the new-born foal,..." "the lumbering ox drawing green beech logs to mill..."  It's almost like he just had a moment of claustrophobia.
Oh and I commented on Jacey's so far Ms White :)

It was a Dream

The 5th line says, "whirling in a gyre of rage."  I looked up gyre and it means circle basically.  So I can really see a dream like figure yelling and swirling her finger, something like a disappointing grandmother would do.  After that, this poem got really tragic...surprise. She pleaded with her self, not understanding what she did wrong.  But the feeling I got was that she really wanted an answer.  Like something was going wrong or had gone wrong and she was asking herself what to do next.  Trying to find the answer, but to no avail. The last few lines, "and screamed as long as i could her her This. This. This.," make me feel like her greater self doesn't want the lesser even asking.  Like, as long as she was looking to something different then herself as the answer, she wouldn't find it. Another thing that I noticed was how her greater self was described with "wild hair" and "wild eyes."  Not really sure why. Just something that stuck out to me.

Untitled

Well, this is the poem we talked about in class, so I may not be to original on here...but there is one thing that struck me when I reread it tonight.  The thing that I noticed was the setting.  The poem starts with the line "in the desert."  Just the fact that the setting is in the first line makes me feel that it must be pretty important.  So throughout the poem there is a feeling of bitter sadness, but also a baren lonelyness because of the setting.
The thing I'm stuck on is why the subject is eating his bitter heart.  My first thoughts are that he is accepting his state.  He is accepting that he is a bitter person.  But I don't know why he would do that because it seems like such an aweful thing.  But that seems to be the theme of these peoms, darkness.
I just feel such a lack of love but mostly a lack of emotion.

Alone

      I really liked the rythm of this poem; I enjoyed the sound of it.  But I found the content to be pretty straight forward and basic; although, straight foward is not necissarly bad.  He is writing about being different, thinking different, seeing different then all others...he was the odd one out.
     My favorite section of the poem was "And all I lov'd--I loved alone--"  I think this line perfectly sums up all his feelings of being different and alone.  His brain is obvioulsy wired differently then most others so he loves other things and sees things differently.  This line also points out the lonelyness of it all.  It's sad to love something alone.  I feel bad for him, to be so alone in what he does.
     The poem goes on to create a feeling a darkness.  "Of a demon in my view--"  It starts just a lonely boy, being inherently different then others...and it creates an evil for him.
     What I don't get is how it's a "mystery which binds" him still.  Maybe he just doesn't understand why he was treated as a such an outsider.  Or maybe why he had to be so different and dark, why he couldn't just be simple and happy with the other children.
     Maybe I would like this poem more if I could connect to it a little more.  I have my moments, but generaly, I'm not an outsider.  I'm not too dark.  And I have friends.  I'm not a super lonely person.