Tuesday, October 20, 2009

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

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Rotation 5, blog 2

Rotation 5, blog 2

“Desert Place” Robert Frost
-each stanza has four lines
-end rhymes: “fast, past” “snow, last” “theirs, lairs”
-a lot of punctuation
-has a pretty good beat when read aloud  rhyming helps with this
-slant rhyme: “count, unawares”
-each first word of each line is capitalized
-the word “lonely” is repeated a good number of times
-word that may need to be looked up: benighted
Visual imagery: “and the ground almost covered smooth in snow”
-makes you think of a wide open field covered
“But a few weeds and stubble showing last”  makes this field see more realistic
-shows how there are still some grass or weeds sticking out the snow
Tone: peaceful but lonely at the same time
-“with no expression, nothing to express”
-talks about how the snow is so white that there isn’t any feeling left
-everything is quite and hidden now  but the next line changes this tone:
“They cannot scare me with their empty spaces”
-shows how he doesn’t let this vast open field and the animals hiding away scare him
-has his own places that are closer to home that can scare him, compared to this open field
-didn’t notice any metaphors but the diction choice makes this poem kind of hard to understand
-not exactly straightforward the whole time

“When you are old” William Butler Yeats
-made up of three stanzas
-each stanza has four lines and the 2 and 3 lines rhyme while the 1 and 4 lines rhyme
-this rhyming pattern occurs in each stanza
-visual imagery: “when you are old and grey and full of sleep”
“and slowly read, and dream of the soft look”
-in the third stanza the word “loved” is repeated multiple times
-tone: starts out as realistic (old people sitting by a fire) then trails back in time to when the person was younger and talks about lost love  tone changes to a sadder note
“and nodding by this fire, take down this book”  from the beginning of the poem
“but one man loved the pilgrims soul in you,/ And loved the sorrow of your changing face.”  in the second stanza – incorporates a man into the poem and how he loved this girl and the things about her
-makes his love sound like it’s in the past
“Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled/ And paced upon the mountains overhead”  shows that the love this man had for her is gone
-makes it seem like he left her  change in the tone to a sadder note
-the last line really stood out to me: “and hid his face amid a crowd of stars”  makes me think that he tried to hid from this woman, maybe he didn’t want her to find him
*or this could also mean that he died and is now up in heaven
-this is why his love is gone, because he dead so this woman feels that his love is in the past
-the stars = tend to represent heaven
-when read, it feels more like a prose or a story
-has a good beat to make it seem like a poem, but the punctuation also makes it seem more like prose

“Rites of Passage” Sharon Olds
-made up of one stanza
-good amount of punctuation used
-Seems more like prose than an actual poem  the beginning of a new sentence starts on the same line as the end of a previous sentence
-no rhyme scheme
-opens with a little boys birthday party but then compares these young boys to older men  “short men, men in first grade/ with smooth jaws and chins.” These descriptions make the young boys sound older
-words that may need to be looked up: turret, balsa, keel
Metaphor: “the dark cake, round and heavy as a/ turret, behind them on the table.”
“they clear their throats/ like Generals, they relax and get down to”
Visual imagery: “My son,/ freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks”
-gives off a sweet image of her young boy, and makes all the other boys seem “bad”
Auditory imagery: “They clear their/ throats a lot, a room of small bankers”
-the clearing of the throat is auditory
Tone: very light hearted and funny
-makes these young boys seem older and is comparing them to bankers, and talks about them fighting one another cause some are “older” (seven years old compared to six years old)
-shows how even when you are this young, the older you are still gives you the right to be have power over someone younger
-weird how this trait shows up in young kids
-not too surprising that it’s showing up in young boys though
-a real light hearted poem, but at the same time has parts that shine through real messages to the reader

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Blog 5, rotation 1

Rotation 5, blog 1

“Unholy Sonnet: Hands Folded” Mark Jarman
-all one stanza
-whole poem is two sentences
-lines aren’t too long, but need the next line to make sense
-comparing hands to a church
-the last two lines are a couplet
-last two words: “withstand and hand”
-no exact rhyme scheme, some end words rhyme but it seems to be by chance “skin, within” and “light, tight”
-tactile imagery: “if that will ease your grip and let them go”
-metaphor: “the nails like welders’ masks”
-weird to compare hands to something not living (a church)
-doesn’t have any words that would need to be looked up
-has a little beat, but nothing too strong
-feels a little more like prose when read aloud
-tone: dark
-talks about trapped people: “among them you can hear their half- choked cries”
-talks about people trying to get out of something  not very happy
-“but stuck now they are willing to confess”  makes you feel like once these people have been greatly punished then they will tell everything they know
-seems realistic to me  until someone is greatly punished then there is a greater chance that they will tell whatever information they know

“Drinking alone by Moonlight” Yueh Hsia Tu Cho
-not a good beat when read aloud
-a lot of punctuation usage
-made up of one stanza  pretty long
-personification: calls the moon a her
-“yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave”
-tone: seems peaceful at first, but then towards the end seems lonely
-“a cup of wine, under the flowering trees”  makes you feel peaceful, makes you think of the people sitting on the bayou in the evening
-“I drink alone, for no friend is near”  could be seen as lonely, but I feel that this line is leaning more towards the fact that he likes to be alone
-everyone needs some alone time  this could be his
-towards end of the poem: “now we are drunk, each goes his way.”  makes you feel like he is lonely now because he feels that once he’s drunk he has no friends
-sense that maybe the wine makes him depressed
-visual imagery: “for he, with my shadow, will make three men”
-only one word that I had to look up: inanimate  lifeless  contributes to the loneliness tone at the end of the poem

“One Art” Elizabeth Bishop
-the words disaster and master is repeated
-the last two lines of the poem: a couplet using these two words as the ending rhyme words
-made up of six stanzas
-each stanza has three lines except for the last one  the last word in the first line rhymes with the last word in the third line in each stanza: “fluster, master” “faster, disaster”, “vaster, disaster”
-poem starts out with talking about losing little things, like a key
-each stanza builds up to larger objects lost, things such as a city and then even a continent
-the last stanza talks about losing someone  bigger than anything
-people are what affect you the most, not material items
-tone seems a little sarcastic at the end: “Even losing you…it’s evident/ the art of losing’s not too hard to master.”
-has a good rhythm when read aloud  I think the rhyming helps with this beat
-words that may need to be looked up: intent, fluster, realms, shan’t (older than every other word in the poem)
-the poem has a light feeling the whole way through even though it’s talking about a serious topic: losing things
-poem makes a point though  everything will be lost one day “so many things seem filled with the intent/ to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
-the lines are pretty simple, and straightforward
-no metaphors
-the line “the art of losing isn’t hard to master” is repeated a couple of times
 I think this helps the poem because it’s used as the poem builds up on losing bigger and bigger things/places