What the mirror said

listen,

you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!                -Lucille Clifton

Lines 1-6: There is complexion to this woman's body. Clifton is describing a girl, but not just any girl. He does not put her in any classification, she is a one of a kind.
Lines 7-11: Once again, the woman he is describing and unique. What may work or what he may know about other woman will not work on her. I find humor in these lines.
Lines 12-16: This woman is special to him and deserves the utmost attention. She didn't come from "noplace" and she won't end up there either. This entire poem can be seen as a confidence booster.
Lines 17-21: These last lines twist the entire poem. My first thought was a prostitute. If this is true, it creates the entire poem to be a plee for this woman to stop soliciting herself because she is "some damn woman." This leads me into the last three one word lines. These lines do not hold any negative connotations. By "some damn body" Clifton is expressing that her body is fantastic, it is a compliment, and that she shouldn't be abusing it like she is.

I like this poem, I didn't at first until I pulled my own understanding from it. I also really enjoy the "slang" in this poem. It adds to the meaning and the tone and also to the humor in lines 7-11. Nice upgrade from my last poem!

A Poison Tree

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

                                                -by William Blake
 
The first stanza is explaining how when Blake is angry with his friends he tells them of his anger and it is resolved but when he has frustration towards an enemy it only grows larger because he does not tell them of his anger.
 
The second stanza goes on explaining how he treats the anger for his foe. It reminds me of a plant. He waters it with tears instead of water. And he suns it with smiles instead of, well, the sun.
 
He cared for his anger so well that it grew evidence. His foe found this evidence (the apple) and knew the meaning behind it.
 
At night he went to the tree(anger) and tried to discover the meaning (apple) but it ended up killing him?
The ending confuses me terribly but the moral to this poem is to tell people when you have problems with them.
 
I didn't like this poem. The imagery was really nice but it made me think cliche.

from Howl

The entire poem is extremely long and I will only be blogging about the section Amy White has given to me!

from Howl

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness
    starving, hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking
    for an angry fix.
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
    to the stary dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyes and high sat up smoking
    in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across
     the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw
    Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs
    illuminated,
who passes through universities with radiant cool eyes
    hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-llight tragedy among the
    scholars of war,
who were expelled from academies for crazy and publishing
    obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their
    money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through
    the wall,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank Turpentine in Paradise
    Alley, death or purgatoried their torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, and alcohol
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar
    to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
yacketyakking  screaming vomiting whispering facts and
    memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of
   hospitals and jails and wars,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off
    the roof waving genitals and manuscripts
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully,
    gave up and were forced to open antique stores where
    they thought they were growing old and cried . . .

                                                -by Allen Ginsberg.

First off, a solute. I have read the entire thing and this is a great section from it. Best piece of writing I have read so far. Brutally honest and to the point. It makes you think, it scares you, it makes you cringe. Only the best pieces of writing can do that to it's readers. After reading it the first time I couldn't help but read it five more. The truth lies in this poem!

"Ginsberg, Allen (3 June 1926-6 Apr. 1997), poet, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the younger son of Louis Ginsberg, a high school English teacher and poet, and Naomi Levy Ginsberg. Ginsberg grew up with his older brother Eugene in a household shadowed by his mother's mental illness; she suffered from recurrent epileptic seizures and paranoia. An active member of the Communist Party-USA, Naomi Ginsberg took her sons to meetings of the radical left dedicated to the cause of international Communism during the Great Depression of the 1930s. "    -famouspoetsandpoems.com

He also to drugs. There is evidence that he took psychedelic stimulants that helped in vision his poetry. I am not promoting drug use or agreeing with his decision to use, but this is a fantastic poem.

Parts of Ginsberg life definitely has contributed to his rather dark poem and short writings.

I feel like if I try to analyze this poem I will ruin it. I will end up beating it with a damned stick and leave it bleeding horrible. Everyone will get something different from this poem and in no way do I want to influence those thoughts. Breath taking!

Sindhi Woman

Sindhi Woman

Barefoot through the bazaar,
and with the same undulant grace
as the cloth blown back from her face,
she glides with a stone jar
high on her head
and not a ripple in her tread.

Watching her cross erect
stones, garbage, excrement, and crumbs
of glass in the Karachi slums,
I, with my stoop, reflect
they stand most straight
who learn to walk beneath a weight.

                                             - by Jon Stallworthy

Bazaar: A market in a Middle-Eastern country.
Undulant: Resembling waves in occurrence, appearance, or motion.
Excrement:Waste matter discharges from the bowels; feces.
Karachi: A major city and port in Pakistan. Capital of Sind Provenience.

Once again, a fairly simple poem with a nice message behind it. What I find interesting is that in the end he tells you exactly what the meaning of this image is. The lady gliding through the bazaar means something to the end and instead of leaving words to help the reader figure it out, he tells the reader at the end.

The resemblance he makes with her cloth and waves is lovely. I imagine the end of the cloth turning into water. Could just be me though!

The simplicity of this poem is not a bad thing at all. It is a nice, easy to read poem with a simple message that still can leave the reader thinking. The imagery is also spot on. (I'm British now)

I imagine a scruffy man sitting on his stoop. Watching the world pass before him, his attention is captured by one woman who happens to be moving like fluid through an extremely bust side street in the worst of areas. Her clothes standing out against the dull colors of garbage, excrement, and crumbs of glass. The though hits him, she has probably dealt with more problems than any of the slums loitering those streets but yet she walks the most erect. That is what it takes to make it through darker times, confidence.

the lesson of the falling leaves

the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

                                -by Lucille Clifton

When I can let go, I truly love. When I can truly love, I have faith. When I have faith, I have been graced. When I have grace, I have god with me.
It's a poem about a cycle of letting go, love, faith, grace, and god.
The leaves are tied in to create a common noun that everyone is familiar with or has experienced.
She does not capitalize anything because the entire poem is simplistic and is over a very "soft" subject. Capitalizing words would give unnecessary importance to things when she is trying to simplifie everything. She is trying to show that this is how the cycle goes for everyone. Not capitalizing God or I makes everyone equal.

The Golf Links

The Golf Links

The golf links lie so near the mill
      That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
      And see the men at play.

                            -by Sarah N. Cleghorn

Proves how little words can have huge impact. This is a small poem of social class. Industrialization and sweatshops are the first things to come to my mind. Why pay men minimum wage when children can be forced to do it for $1 an hour? Laboring children and playing men are the only topics discussed, anymore words said within this poem would of bothered it I believe. By bothered I think I mean it would of added annoyance? It would become to "wordy?" The Innocent poem with huge impact effect would be diminished, leaving a smaller impact? Any of the above, I say.

The poem has a sing song effect to it which was done purposefully. It has a touch of irony in it. It resembles a kids melody while describing men at play. It is used as another mechanism to explain how reversed the roles are of these people!

Although the poem is small there is a lot of imagery. Imagining small children working it sweat shops while watching grown men play in a large green field right in front of them, it's horrible.

"Oh No" by Robert Creeley.

Oh No

If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit

for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.
                                 
                                  -by Robert Creeley

My initial reaction is of heaven. When you get there you will be highlighted and greeted by everyone you love and you will be happy. They will all have their own chairs and will be greeted by their loved ones just the same. Knowing that Mrs. White gave us this poem I knew there must be darker undertones. ;) So I went a digging.

I thought of Hamlet and the scene where he is in the graveyard talking amongst the diggers and skulls about how everyone, rich or poor, will end up the same. While in the dirt is a lot different than in a special chair surrounded by loved ones, I believe the same message is being sent.

I also thought about a retirement home. Once someone gets far enough in life they will find it. With nothing else for the aging people to do, they sit them in a chair and surround them with smiling loved ones, all knowing what is going to happen to thee person and how their turn will be soon enough.

I do believe that darker undertones can be found but I also get the sense of peace. A statistic I came upon says that the older generations are the happiest. The don't have as much stress, worry, or pressure. So I do believe that their is supposed to be a sense of comfort.

Many Red Devils . . .

Many red devils . . .

Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page.
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart.

                       - By Stephen Crane


 First thoughts: Crane has created a poem about writing down negative things, whether those be thoughts, memories, previous actions, etc. . . It is a possibility that Crane's large collection of poetry is made up of mostly positive ones and that this is the interpretation of his first experience with negative writings. Crane could not stop writing nor could say he did not like writing with the red devils because they came from his heart and were true.

Every letter beginning each sentence in this one stanza poem is capitalized. In my AP Literature class we discussed the importance of capitalized and un-capatalized letters. Crane wanted emphasis on every sentence and wanted that emphasis to create importance of each sentence. Every word matters just as much as the other.

Tiny, mash, muck. These three words make me think of children. It is not that they are childish but that children are especially drawn to them. I believe Crane used these words to make the poem about tiny devils more pleasant and less dark. It's neither a happy poem nor a dark. It is content, as is the author with the tiny devils in his heart.

The Explosion


On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In thesun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke
Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins
Fathers brothers nicknames laughter
Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun
Scarfed as in a heat-haze dimmed.

The dead go on before us they
Are sitting in God's house in comfort
We shall see them face to face--

plian as lettering in the chapels
It was said and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed--
Gold as on a coin or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them

One showing the eggs unbroken.

                                                 -by Philip Larkin

A Pithead: The top of a mine shaft with buildings and hoisting gear nestled around it.

Slagheap: A man made mound or heap formed with waste material (slag) as a by-product of coal minging.

                                                                      Lark Egg

 The first four stanza's initially make me think of apocalyptic events. The first line of stanza three and the slight mention of lark eggs make me think of food. Why would he be chasing rabbits after explosions? Food. "Through the tall gates standing open..." This brings an image of the golden gates of heaven. The mention of the heavenly gates once again back up my theory of an apocalyptic event. Tremors are then talked about and talk of meeting God face to face and how that meeting is as set as the lettering in the chapels.

From the first read it seems as if an apocalyptic event is taking place and fate is being discussed. I did realize that I did not know the exact definition of a hand full of words in this poem. Upon looking them up I discovered the poem is about a mine explosion and the wives waiting to see their husbands through their moleskin's. God and fate is being discussed over the minors and whether more explosions are going to occur and who is all in danger.

The significance of the lark eggs is difficult for me to understand. The last one lined stanza of the poem is dedicated to the safety of the lark eggs. If the eggs aren't broken than the safety of the men is assured? That is my best guess.

Cottonmouth Country

Cottonmouth Country

Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.
And there were other signs
That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us
By land: among the pines
An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss
Reared in the polluted air.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.

                             - Louise Gluck

Death seems to be a common theme in my assigned poems but I agree when Mrs. White says that stronger emotion comes from more serious poetry. At first I believed that this poem was talking about death and the changes that come with it. Life, as in birth, brings changes too. In the 7th line the meaning goes beyond deep. When someone is born into a negative time (like The Road) it is sometimes easier to give up right away. Trying to live through destruction is worse than dieing.

The first line mentions sea creatures and waves. I tried to make some connections and related it to the large BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Death did woo us by water and land when that occurred. I'm not sure what time this poem was written but it does fit wonderfully with this event. The last line could be of a person who helped with the clean up or maybe even was a cause of the spill itself. Feeling guilty for what is happening to all the wild life, he feels he has died a little to, leaving a skin there.

I really like the meaning I found behind this poem. I don't know if this is what Gluck was intending but it is what I got. Great poem!

My Goodbye poem

Sorry this poetry response is late!

Goodbye

Goodbye to the old life,
to the dogs barking
at the kids playing
with my little sister in the street.

To the red walls of my basement room
and the concrete floor
littered with sharpie memories.

Goodbye to the old life,
the the ground coffee
from the coffee tree
to the antique smell of
family owned shops on fourth street.

Goodbye to the old life,
welcome the new
the unknown
take in the swell of future
that will suround me soon.

Hello to the new future,
you scare me so.

Hello to the new future,
you seem like suck a foe.

Hello to the now,
I think I'm ready to go.

                                     - Toni Ruggles


I like what were doing in class with this guest writer!

The Book by Miller Williams

I'm going to try not putting up the poem for this response. I don't think I'm going to like it.

The first stanza is only one sentence long and puts emphasis on the poem itself. It adds to the horror tale feel of it all and makes the reader excited for what's to come.

The second stanza gives of the bunker information. This made my AP class and I think of WWII and how the Jewish people's skin were sometimes used for lamp shades, book bindings, etc . . . Discusting, physically and morally.

It flows into the thirds stanza concluding that the book is in fact bound in skin.

Stanza's 4-7 are the book owners thoughts on the changed book and how they process in his mind. It is a flow and a jumble of the questions that are coming to relization non-stop. The book is changing in his hands. The 7th stanza is the most intriguing. As Corey brought to attention in class the significance in stanza 7, I couldn't help but wonder if it could mean different things to different people. "Who took it off the meat? Some other one who stayed alive by knowing how to do this?"

"I stared at the changing book and a horror grew, I stared and a horror grew, which was, which is, how beautiful it was until I knew." Last stanza. I think it is important because it finalizes how the owners emotions are about the book and the true horror he is holding in his hands. Earlier in the poem it states how the owner kept it to maybe use it as a diary. A diary is usually something you keep to yourself because you pour your soul into it. He pured his soul into someones else's skin.

I like how my thought process works when I don't have the poem to look at but I think the absence of the poem damages the readers experience and keeps them from forming there own opinion through mine rather than believing in my theories alone.

Song of the Powers

Song of the Powers

By David Mason


Mine, said the stone,
mine is the hour.
I crush the scissors,
such is my power.
Stronger than wishes,
my power, alone.

Mine, said the paper,
mine are the words
that smother the stone
with imagined birds,
reams of them, flown
from the mind of the shaper.

Mine, said the scissors,
mine all the knives
gashing through paper’s
ethereal lives;
nothing’s so proper
as tattering wishes.

As stone crushes scissors,
as paper snuffs stone
and scissors cut paper,
all end alone.
So heap up your paper
and scissor your wishes
and uproot the stone
from the top of the hill.
They all end alone
as you will, you will.

This poem has a great twist too it! At first it is humorous. The reminiscent depth into the school play ground game of rock paper scissors. The game to determine all ends! And see who must do the terrible task when their scissors get crushed by rocks.

I connect well with the second stanza in that I sketch a lot. " . . . with imagined birds, reams of them, flown from the mind of the shaper. "Rock Paper Scissors" was never a game I put much thought into. I often found myself thinking, "Rock is much heavier than paper, why doesn't paper cover rock with wind could easily blow the paper off the rock?" That bit never made much sense to me but my thoughts never merged much deeper than that.

The humor and reminiscent feel leaves abruptly with the last stanza. When "Rock Paper Scissors" has knocked out every player but one, that last standing player is alone, alone with his broken scissors, shredded papers, and demolished rocks. He heaps them up and stands alone, with only a pile of rubble and scraps to show for. The poem takes a depressing turn and leaves you frowning. The last line steals all of the happy thoughts from your mind and leaves you, alone. At the end of life you have hundreds of things to show for. Your accomplishment, memories, creations, pride. But does that all matter when your standing alone in the face of death? This is a stretch but it could very well be the meaning behind this poem. I definitely think there is a message behind it and not just a fun poem about a childhood past time.

The Day Millicent Found the World

The Day Millicent Found the World


Every morning Millicent ventured farther
into the woods. At first she stayed
near light, the edge where bushes grew, where
her way back appeared in glimpses among
dark trunks behind her. Then by farther paths
or openings where giant pines had fallen
she explored ever deeper into
the interior, till one day she stood under a great
dome among columns, the heart of the forest, and knew:
Lost. She had achieved a mysterious world
where any direction would yield only surprise.

The spirit of the forest is often referred too as The Green Man. I strongly believe in The Green Man and understand that is presence is in every leaf of every tree. He lives through the roots and travels in the forest air. When you find him he is a beautiful thing and brings peace to mind. I believe Millicent has found him and through him, herself. She finds herself being drawn in until she is lost. Notice that Stafford explains Millicent's misplacement as "achieved." Millicent being lost is a positive thing, she is surrounded by unknowing but she will learn something from every surprise.

And now not only the giant trees were strange
but the ground at her feet had a velvet nearness;
intricate lines on bark wove messages all
around her. Long strokes of golden sunlight
shifted over her feet and hands. She felt
caught up and breathing in a great powerful embrace.
A birdcall wandered forth at leisurely intervals
from an opening on her right: “Come away, Come away.”
Never before had she let herself realize
that she was part of the world and that it would follow
Wherever she went. She was part of its breath.

The Green Man is winding messages into the bark for her, embracing her through the air and in the breath her lounges intake! He communicates through the birds, encouraging her to not be wary of the unknowing and to continue exploring, discovering herself through what she sees. Millicent finds herself as part of the forests breath. Like me, she has found a significant connection with the forest and it's spirit.

Aunt Dolbee called her back that time, a high
voice tapering faintly among the farthest trees,
Milli-cent! Milli-cent! And that time she returned,
but slowly, her dress fluttering along pressing
back branches, her feet stirring up the dark smell
of moss, and her face floating forward, a stranger’s
face now, with a new depth in it, into the light.

The Green Man has changed Millicent. She is called back by reality, by the "real world" but with a new gleam in her eyes. She has matured and gained knowledge from her expirience of unknowing.

                                               -William Stafford
 
 
 
William Stafford is brilliant! I'm glad I have come across this poem, it is easily in my favorites! As I have said before, I believe in the spirit of the forest strongly and it is a wonderful thing! It is described and depicted very well through Stafford's words. Very good poem!

Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

                  -Edgar Allen Poe

As most know, Poe is known for his dark side and some what morbid humor. I don't blame him with the family history he has. Many of his family members have died of Tuberculosis, married his cousin who died of consumption. He wrote these words, "Deep in earth my love is lying and I must weep alone." The death of his wife devastated him and he was left in a prolonged melancholy state, which shows through many of his writings.

I believe Poe's morbid humor is sensed slightly in this piece. Lines 1-17 are describing his loneliness in the world and how he differs from everyone else. The imagery that his words give a chipper feel. Lines 11-16 specifically. The "fountain" and "red mountain" and "sun" and "autumn tint of gold." He sets up the world around him beautifully but shows himself in the opposite. I catch ironic humor, slightly sullen.

The last three lines of the poem create a synecdoche. After describing the beautiful surroundings he explains that they pass him by. "(When the rest of Heaven was blue)" When thinking about death, and feeling so minuscule when looking at the large sky, every ones heaven was blue but when Poe looks up, thinking of heaven, all he can summon is a demon in his view. This emphasizes the difference he senses between him and the rest of the world.

The poem flows well with the rhythm pattern and because it is one large stanza. Chopping it up into multiple would create rough brakes and damage the imagery, I believe.

It was a dream . . .

It was a dream

in which my greater self

rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,

i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This.

                   -Lucille Clifton

This is what I love about free verse poems, or better yet, this is what I love about what can be done with free verse poems! Looking at the word choices and the punctuation, it is purely simple. With such few words Clifton has been able to debauch my mind and go into deep thinking on what this poem means to me personally.

The simplicity of the poem allows me to control what my imagination makes of it while still have an influence. A women laying in bed in visions herself rising above her, surrounded with rage, the rage twisting her hair violently. I imagine her hair a goddess color, such as silver. And her skin being lightly silver too. Aspects of her are inhuman, her glowing eyes and extra flanges. With an extra finger the evil, goddess like version of her, screams at her of her wrongs and what her life has come too. The setting is a dirty apartment room, in a low end town. As the mirage of herself screams at her, "This. This. This." She is referring to where she is in life and where she could be. This can be different for everyone of course, but this is what I see.

The meaning will, no doubt, be different for everyone. I think of what I could of done, not for myself, but for a family member. I also think of this as a sign, it could be a dream that represents the future, it could be a warning of what is to come if Lucille does not change her ways. In this way, I think of college. Freshman year of college is a make it or break it point, I have large decisions to make that will affect my future greatly!

I also enjoy how the title of the poem flows into the body of the poem. Unique.

"This. This. This." The strongest line in the entire poem. It's a good concluding line that leaves the readers with things to think about. It sets in one of those "awwww" moments, where the reader may receive a few chills or an odd feeling in the chest, which is fantastic.

This is one of my favored poems.

Untitled by Stephen Crane

Untitled

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, beastial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter
And because it is my heart."

                                by Stephen Crane

Paradigm shift, the use of few words to warp the readers views tremendously. Crane uses this in many of his poem's including "Untitled." Particularly in the lines 5, 8, 9, and 10 of this poem which happens to be taken out of a larger collection of poems and short stories called, "The Black Riders."

Self-truth is a large part of this poem by crane, self-truth and nature.

In Crane's conversation with the beastly man, it is shown the truth of the man's own heart of which he is eating upon. His heart is "bitter" but he enjoys it because it is his heart and he is learning of himself through it's taste, it's bitter taste.

I find nature in the first three lines. The man is naked, squatting on the ground, and beast like. All three descriptions of how nature intended humans to be. Naked and dependant upon mother earth. Beast like and initial survival instincts. I know Crane sets this poem within a dessert but I can't help imagining the man in a dense forest at a thick trunk of a tree, trying to hide within it until Crane speaks to him then turns, looking over his shoulder to speak, only his back, head, and hands, holding the half eaten heart, visible.

The poem being Untitled has great importance.  Crane likes to make his readers think. This is why he did not title the poem, to allow the reader to warp the meaning of the poem to their liking. When a poem is titled it is automatically tied into the poem and thought to have importance to the meaning. Crane didn't want to contaminate the meaning for the readers, I believe. This poem means different things to every single person.

Hamlet

Act 1.
-Hamlet's father appears as a ghost in front of Marcellus, Barnardo, and Horatio.
-The three tell Hamlet of the sighting.
-Soliloquy of Hamlet speaking his mind on his father's death.
- Wishes suicide upon himself
-Ophelia has a thing with Hamlet.
- Ophelia's brother warned her of Hamlet but it is believed after a letter is red to Ophelia from Hamlet of his love.
- Hamlet's Uncle murdered the King and it is Hamlet's job to take revenge.

Reading Myself, First poem of new semester!

Reading Myself

Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just,

struck matches that brought my blood to a boil;
I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire-
somehow never wrote something to go back to.

From the title the reader can assume that this poem is about Lowell looking back on his life. He is proud of his accomplishment. The way I interpret the "striking matches" bit is personal. As soon as I read this line I thought of grinding my 86a stimulus wheels across the pavement on my loaded longboard. There is nothing better to get my blood boiling than that. Lowell did things that he enjoyed to a great extent. "The river" is his blood streak and he became an expert in the techniques it took to make his blood boil. Just as I know the right amount of pressure to add to my left foot to slide out. The last line is a favorite of mine. After winter I go back to longboarding and have to somewhat re-learn all of my techniques, and I think to myself, "if only I had written them down."

Can I suppose I am finished with wax flowers
and have earned my grass on the minor slopes of Parnassus....

Waxed flowers are flowers that are coated in a wax to preserve its color and living look. I can only assume Lowell is implying that his is finished bringing to attention his better times in life and making them stand out to the Gods and Goddesses of the Greek mountain Parnassus and is hoping for a positive judgment.

No honeycomb is built without a bee
adding circle to circle, cell to cell,
the wax and honey of a mausoleum-
this round dome proves its maker is alive,
the corpse of the insect lives embalmed in honey,
prays that its perishable work live long

Mother Earth gives to us until finally we must give back. I somewhat believe more in being buried than cremation for this reason. Once someone has passed away and taken all they can from the earth, they are buried within it, giving back for all they have taken. Every bee must work, every human must as well. The corpse of the bee is eventually embalmed with home where it's corpse continues to give to the honeycomb.


enough for the sweet-toogh bear to desecrate-
this open book...my open coffin.

The honeycomb, that the worker bees gave their entire life to, will be eaten or used by other animals/humans, eventually. The way I can connect this to humans is that every door we open for ourselves, every accomplishment we make, creates a new possibility for the generation behind us. The advances humans make now will effect, and hopefully improve, the lives that come after we pass. I hope.
                                  By Robert Lowell

                                                    The holy Mountain Parnassus in Greece

        -Waxed flowers that preserve the color and the living look of a flower. I especially like this picture because of the glass cases they are in, showing off the beauty to viewers as Lowell's accomplishments are shown off to the Gods of Parnassus.