Rotation 6, blog 1

“Embrace” Billy Collins
-made up of two stanzas
-no real rhyme scheme
-uses a good amount of punctuation in both stanzas
Visual imagery: “wrap your arms around your own body/ and from the back it looks like/ someone is embracing you”  also tactile imagery because you can feel this when you do it to yourself
-a lot of little kids do this jokingly when they are younger
“Her hands grasping your shirt/ her fingernails teasing your neck”  Tactile imagery
-very sexual, but in this sense it’s more on the light –hearted jokingly side
-all of the examples above are from the first stanza
-tone: has a jokingly, sexual connotation
-changes in the second stanza to lonely
-“You never looked so alone/ your crossed elbows and screwy grin.”
 Shows how when you do this, you look completely different from the front
-Second stanza seems ironic towards the end: “one that would hold you really tight.”  talking about how “you could be waiting for a tailor/ to fit you for a straightjacket”
-straightjackets are really tight  would hold you really tight
-the poem is called “embrace” seems ironic that the writer would bring in a straightjacket because this is something that can hold you tighter than a human being ever could
-the line, “your crossed elbows and screwy grin” makes me think of my childhood because I remember watching people do it all the time and joke about it
-realistic poem

“The Runner” Walt Whitman
-One stanza
-punctuation throughout whole stanza
-no rhyming
-a lot of visual imagery but also auditory imagery
Visual: “he is thinly clothed”
“He is lean and sinewy, with muscular legs”

Auditory imagery: “on a flat road he runs the well – train’d runner”  visual imagery as well but the sound of this man running on the flat road contributes to the auditory imagery
-after reading this poem, I don’t think of a runner on a track, I think of a messenger running somewhere
-even though in the first line it says, “well-train’d runner” the other descriptions throughout the poem don’t make him sound trained or professional
-“he is thinly clothed” makes him seem maybe poor, but he also may be thinly clothed because it is hot outside
-“he leans forward when he runs”  seems kind of weird because when you run you don’t lean forward
-at the same time puts the image of him running really fast in your mind, the more he leans forward, almost like he’s lunging
-“with lightly clothed fists”  imagery and tactile
-visual imagery because you can picture someone running like this
-tactile: when I used to run track I used to always make my hands into fists  by the end of the race I would have nail marks in my hands because I closed them too tightly but I would always run the sprinting events  maybe this person is running long distance if he hands are lightly closed fists
-Poem is mainly visual imagery, but there are other aspects of imagery hidden throughout it


“Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter” Robert Bly
-One stanza
-each line is its own sentence
-no rhyming
-no difficult words
-lines are to the point, and simple
Imagery:
“It is a cold and snowy night”  visual because you can picture this in your mind but also tactile because you can feel the cold when you walk outside, and you can feel the snow
“The only things moving are swirls of snow”  visual imagery
“Snow night”  visual imagery
“I feel its cold iron” --> can feel the coldness of the mailbox door  tactile imagery
Tone: pleasant and peaceful
“There is a privacy I love in this snowy night.”
-no one is out but him, and he loves the silence that comes with the falling of the snow
“Driving around, I will waste more time.”
-driving around in the snow makes him relaxed
-the winter usually soothes people compared to the summer
-in the summer, you are usually out doing things, and swimming, etc…
-in the winter, people tend to stay inside, sit by the fire and talk with their friends or family  “the main street is deserted”  shows how no one is out, this allows him to have this privacy with the snowy night