Sunday, October 31, 2010
Halloween weekend
Not doing a poetry blog this weekend Mrs. White! :) Hope everyone had a good Halloween!!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
"Acquanted With the Night" Sorry it's such a sad post!
Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
-Robert Frost
I have heard that this poem could be about love. That the speaker loved someone who didn't love them back but for some reason I cross this possibility out. The parts about the city lead me off. I also understand that it could be a metaphor for suicide, which is more likely. I also get the sense of a new opportunity.
I understand that his son committed suicide and that Frost himself attempted it. Night is dark, dreary, and unknown. The matter of not knowing what is 10 feet in front of you because of the darkness is frightening. I imagine suicide is too. Day is the opposite of night, light being the opposite of dark. When Frost talks about outwalking the furthest city light he could be referring to leaving the light that once kept the darkness away. He has walked away from that light further into depression.
The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stanza is where it starts becoming more clear. I'm going to work backwards for a second. The fourth stanza I believe is referring to Big Ben as the luminary clock which people have committed suicide by jumping from. In the third stanza the speaker hears a cry and stops to listen, hoping it's calling for him,someone who cares. But the cry is not for him so he continues on his way. In the second stanza he passes a watchmen who he avoids eye contact with. He drops his eyes, unwilling to explain his suicidal thoughts and weaknesses.
The last stanza comes after the "luminary clock," a.k.a Big Ben. Big Ben is telling him that the time is neither wrong nor right. When committing suicide I can see how the time would not matter. Being at the depressed of a state, when your mind is made up, will the timing matter to the person? The speaker has been "acquainted with the night." Not the lack of sun night but the symbol of night; dark, dreary, unknown place.
If you don't look at it with a metaphor for suicide and you take it how it simply it is seen as a passage into something new. The speaker lived in London but the city was treating him right. He didn't want to face the watchmen for leaving the time, ashamed he was running away from it in the middle of the night. He heard the cry, thinking it might be someone wanting him to stay but its not, so he continues. He catches sight of Big Ben deciding that the time does not matter, he is leaving and starting anew. The night would be referring to the dreariness of London at the time (1874-1963).
This poem can be taken many way and relate to many people, just another reason why it is a classic!
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
-Robert Frost
I have heard that this poem could be about love. That the speaker loved someone who didn't love them back but for some reason I cross this possibility out. The parts about the city lead me off. I also understand that it could be a metaphor for suicide, which is more likely. I also get the sense of a new opportunity.
I understand that his son committed suicide and that Frost himself attempted it. Night is dark, dreary, and unknown. The matter of not knowing what is 10 feet in front of you because of the darkness is frightening. I imagine suicide is too. Day is the opposite of night, light being the opposite of dark. When Frost talks about outwalking the furthest city light he could be referring to leaving the light that once kept the darkness away. He has walked away from that light further into depression.
The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stanza is where it starts becoming more clear. I'm going to work backwards for a second. The fourth stanza I believe is referring to Big Ben as the luminary clock which people have committed suicide by jumping from. In the third stanza the speaker hears a cry and stops to listen, hoping it's calling for him,someone who cares. But the cry is not for him so he continues on his way. In the second stanza he passes a watchmen who he avoids eye contact with. He drops his eyes, unwilling to explain his suicidal thoughts and weaknesses.
The last stanza comes after the "luminary clock," a.k.a Big Ben. Big Ben is telling him that the time is neither wrong nor right. When committing suicide I can see how the time would not matter. Being at the depressed of a state, when your mind is made up, will the timing matter to the person? The speaker has been "acquainted with the night." Not the lack of sun night but the symbol of night; dark, dreary, unknown place.
If you don't look at it with a metaphor for suicide and you take it how it simply it is seen as a passage into something new. The speaker lived in London but the city was treating him right. He didn't want to face the watchmen for leaving the time, ashamed he was running away from it in the middle of the night. He heard the cry, thinking it might be someone wanting him to stay but its not, so he continues. He catches sight of Big Ben deciding that the time does not matter, he is leaving and starting anew. The night would be referring to the dreariness of London at the time (1874-1963).
This poem can be taken many way and relate to many people, just another reason why it is a classic!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
"A Work of Artifice" Poetry Response
A Work of Artifice
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
-Marge Piercy
a Bonsai tree
The following three lines show what it has become. A feeling of "ah" came over me when I read how small the owner had it. An eighty foot tall tree can be trained, forced to exist at only nine inches? I began to think that the rest of the poem would be about tress and how easily manipulated they are but as the poem moved on I saw a change of concentration, it moved to the manipulator.
A new favorite.
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
-Marge Piercy
a Bonsai treeDefinitions:
Artifice- clever or artful skill.
Bonsai- the art of growing trees, or woody plants shaped as trees, in containers. (Japanese)
Croon- to sing softlyTrees hold a sense of wisdom and history. I have always been drawn to them, being the reason why this poem caught my eye. The title does not give away the theme of the poem as most titles do. The definition of artifice is to have a "clever or artful skill" and can also mean skill in trickery.
The first five lines give a sense of hope. A bonsai tree is a Japanese tree meant to grow very large but are kept in small pots and containers, pruned and whittled to the owners like. What I got from the first five lines is that if something is free it can reach it's full potential. It shows the image of what could be if it wasn't controlled.
The following three lines show what it has become. A feeling of "ah" came over me when I read how small the owner had it. An eighty foot tall tree can be trained, forced to exist at only nine inches? I began to think that the rest of the poem would be about tress and how easily manipulated they are but as the poem moved on I saw a change of concentration, it moved to the manipulator.
The next eight lines concentrates on the person pruning the tree to maintain it's sad nine inches. This could be simple or I could go off a stretch. When Piercy begins to give the image of the gardener whittling and crooning to their plant, describing it as domestic and weak but small and cozy and lucky I begin to see the ignorance of humans. When in control we see things as cute and lucky to be kept under such good care when its full potential is greater! The final eight lines I begin to see a comparison between the tree and humans. "With living creatures . . ." Humans are living creatures, we are as just easily manipulated as the bonsai trees. Our feet can be bound, our brain crippled, our hair curled. The reference to hair also makes me believe that the subject has been changed to humans once again.
The last line is the only line I cannot elaborate on. I can't understand what Piercy is trying to say with "the hands you love to touch." Is it moving on to the parents pruning and whittling their children? The mother putting curlers in their child's hair and the child loving the feeling of her mothers touch? I don't know.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
"The Halo That Would Not Light" Poetry Response
The Halo That Would Not Light
When, after many years, the raptor beak
Let loose of you,
He dropped your tiny body
In the scarab-colored hollow
Of a carriage, left you like a finch
Wrapped in its nest of linens wound
With linden leaves in a child’s cardboard box.
Tonight the wind is hover-
Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back
And forth with no one in them
As certain and invisible as
Red scarves silking endlessly
From a magician’s hollow hat
And the spectacular catastrophe
Of your endless childhood
Is done.
-Lucie Brock-Broido
-Background on Lucie Brock-Broido from Wipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lucie Brock-Broido (born 22 May 1956 in Pittsburgh, PA) is the author of three collections of poetry. She has received many honors, including the Witter-Bynner prize of Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, the Harvard-Danforth Award for Distinction in Teaching, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Guggenheim fellowship. She was described as an Elliptical Poet by critic Stephen Burt.
Brock-Broido is currently Director of Poetry in the Writing Division at Columbia University in New York City.
This is a simple poem about childhood and how everyone looses it. "The raptor beak" is a reference to the childhood fairy tale of the stork carrying a baby to its' home. "scarab-colored" is a shade of yellow. So far the poem is talking about children being dropped into their yellow colored cribs by a stork. When I was a kid I found enjoyment in empty boxes! The classic image of a baby playing with the box their toy came in. I believe this was the reason for her reference to "a child's cardboard box, the finch being only a metaphor. The ind certainly blows empty swings and scarves, just as childhood will certainly end. The magicians hat being empty was a very good touch. It shows how in childhood years, a bunny would be in that hat but an adult knows it's empty, it's only a trick. " . . . your endless childhood Is done."
When, after many years, the raptor beak
Let loose of you,
He dropped your tiny body
In the scarab-colored hollow
Of a carriage, left you like a finch
Wrapped in its nest of linens wound
With linden leaves in a child’s cardboard box.
Tonight the wind is hover-
Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back
And forth with no one in them
As certain and invisible as
Red scarves silking endlessly
From a magician’s hollow hat
And the spectacular catastrophe
Of your endless childhood
Is done.
-Lucie Brock-Broido
-Background on Lucie Brock-Broido from Wipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lucie Brock-Broido (born 22 May 1956 in Pittsburgh, PA) is the author of three collections of poetry. She has received many honors, including the Witter-Bynner prize of Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, the Harvard-Danforth Award for Distinction in Teaching, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Guggenheim fellowship. She was described as an Elliptical Poet by critic Stephen Burt.
Brock-Broido is currently Director of Poetry in the Writing Division at Columbia University in New York City.
This is a simple poem about childhood and how everyone looses it. "The raptor beak" is a reference to the childhood fairy tale of the stork carrying a baby to its' home. "scarab-colored" is a shade of yellow. So far the poem is talking about children being dropped into their yellow colored cribs by a stork. When I was a kid I found enjoyment in empty boxes! The classic image of a baby playing with the box their toy came in. I believe this was the reason for her reference to "a child's cardboard box, the finch being only a metaphor. The ind certainly blows empty swings and scarves, just as childhood will certainly end. The magicians hat being empty was a very good touch. It shows how in childhood years, a bunny would be in that hat but an adult knows it's empty, it's only a trick. " . . . your endless childhood Is done."
Sunday, October 3, 2010
"The Hollow Men"
I would first like to say that I love this poem! I had more then one Epiphany. Beautiful.
The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
(Reference to "Heart of Darkness)
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
(The hollow men have thoughts and opinions that are meaningless, stuffed with straw they gather together to converse about nothing, since what they have to say is meaningless. When wind blows through dry grass it remains unmoved, just as meaningless words can't change opinions and actions. Rats are so light weight that when the run over broken glass it does nothing to the rat or the grass.)
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
(You cannot have shape without form, shade without color, gesture without motion. Without one there can't be the other. The hollow men are incomplete.)
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
(The hollow men do not want to be remembered as something their not by the respectful dead. The were not lost or violent, just hollow, and should be seen as such.)
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
(The hollow men cannot meet the eyes of the dead because they have nothing to offer them.)
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
(Simply, the hollow men will do anything to hide from the eyes of the respectful dead. They will deliberately disguise themselves from the eyes of judgement.)
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
(This stanza is giving examples of disguises possible. When hiding in a field while the wind is blowing you must move with it. If the hollow men don't the grass around them will move and they won't, giving away their hiding.)
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
(Statement of fear. Cowering in the thought of being judged to go to heaven or hell, the final meeting.)
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
(Supplication means a prayer to God for help. They are at the land of judgment, praying, doing what they can to get to heaven.)
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
("In death's other kingdom..." is referring to hell. "At the hour..." is referring to the hour of the final judgment; heaven or hell.)
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
(The eyes, throughout the entire poem, have referred to the eyes of the respectful dead, the dead that received positive judgment and went to heaven. In hell those eyes are not present. The hollow men never had good things to say, nor do they now. So in hell they have broken jaws because speech is useless for them. Connecting to the " . . .broken stones . . ." above, the prayers coming from the broken jaws of the hollow men mean nothing therefor the stones they are praying too have no need to be sturdy, they are broken too.)
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
(In Greek mythology, when going to receive your' final judgment, you go on a boat that crosses a river. The hollow men are waiting for this boat, not speaking because they is nothing of importance to say. And they are scared.)
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
(They only hope the hollow men have is of seeing the eyes of the respectful dead, when seeing those they know they have passed judgment.)
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
(Judgment is bitter-sweet.)
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
(Everything is laid out on the table. The hollow men's lives are looked at in depth. If there ideas were bad or good and whether they were put to action or not. The shadow of judgment falls between every aspect of their lives.)
For Thine is the Kingdom (Lord prayer.)
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
(Once again, were there concepts positive or negative and were they created or not, where the hollow men's responses to certain emotion worthy of a heavenly after life?)
Life is very long (The judgment is taking a long time, the hollow men are getting anxious.)
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
(Re-stating, For thine is the Kingdom, Life is very long, and For Thine is the Kingdom.)
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
(The last stanza give such strong imagery. I imagine a bunch of cowardly spineless men, whimpering underneath a hooded judge. Their life strewn out before their eyes. They can see just as well as the eyes and the judge that their life is not worthy of heaven and with one last whimper they are sent to hell.)
The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
(Reference to "Heart of Darkness)
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
(The hollow men have thoughts and opinions that are meaningless, stuffed with straw they gather together to converse about nothing, since what they have to say is meaningless. When wind blows through dry grass it remains unmoved, just as meaningless words can't change opinions and actions. Rats are so light weight that when the run over broken glass it does nothing to the rat or the grass.)
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
(You cannot have shape without form, shade without color, gesture without motion. Without one there can't be the other. The hollow men are incomplete.)
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
(The hollow men do not want to be remembered as something their not by the respectful dead. The were not lost or violent, just hollow, and should be seen as such.)
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
(The hollow men cannot meet the eyes of the dead because they have nothing to offer them.)
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
(Simply, the hollow men will do anything to hide from the eyes of the respectful dead. They will deliberately disguise themselves from the eyes of judgement.)
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
(This stanza is giving examples of disguises possible. When hiding in a field while the wind is blowing you must move with it. If the hollow men don't the grass around them will move and they won't, giving away their hiding.)
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
(Statement of fear. Cowering in the thought of being judged to go to heaven or hell, the final meeting.)
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
(Supplication means a prayer to God for help. They are at the land of judgment, praying, doing what they can to get to heaven.)
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
("In death's other kingdom..." is referring to hell. "At the hour..." is referring to the hour of the final judgment; heaven or hell.)
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
(The eyes, throughout the entire poem, have referred to the eyes of the respectful dead, the dead that received positive judgment and went to heaven. In hell those eyes are not present. The hollow men never had good things to say, nor do they now. So in hell they have broken jaws because speech is useless for them. Connecting to the " . . .broken stones . . ." above, the prayers coming from the broken jaws of the hollow men mean nothing therefor the stones they are praying too have no need to be sturdy, they are broken too.)
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
(In Greek mythology, when going to receive your' final judgment, you go on a boat that crosses a river. The hollow men are waiting for this boat, not speaking because they is nothing of importance to say. And they are scared.)
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
(They only hope the hollow men have is of seeing the eyes of the respectful dead, when seeing those they know they have passed judgment.)
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
(Judgment is bitter-sweet.)
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
(Everything is laid out on the table. The hollow men's lives are looked at in depth. If there ideas were bad or good and whether they were put to action or not. The shadow of judgment falls between every aspect of their lives.)
For Thine is the Kingdom (Lord prayer.)
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
(Once again, were there concepts positive or negative and were they created or not, where the hollow men's responses to certain emotion worthy of a heavenly after life?)
Life is very long (The judgment is taking a long time, the hollow men are getting anxious.)
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
(Re-stating, For thine is the Kingdom, Life is very long, and For Thine is the Kingdom.)
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
(The last stanza give such strong imagery. I imagine a bunch of cowardly spineless men, whimpering underneath a hooded judge. Their life strewn out before their eyes. They can see just as well as the eyes and the judge that their life is not worthy of heaven and with one last whimper they are sent to hell.)
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