Getting Out

"Finally locked into blame, we paced that short hall, heaving words like furniture." - Cleopatra Mathis

I don't know why I feel so sad when I read about divorce, but it's poems like these that make me very grateful that my parents are still married.  I guess it's just that feeling inside of what would happen to me if my parents separated?  The whole situation seems terrible and I can't even imagine what it would be like to go through something like that.  Anyway, one literary technique I discovered in this poem is a simile in the quote above.  The simile helps to set the tone because it shows how the couple fought a lot and with cruel words.  The words were so heavy in that they attacked the other person almost as if in the same way as throwing a piece of furniture.  The thing I wondered about was in the last four lines when it talks of how they cried when they finally signed the divorce papers.  The poem also depicts the couple holding hands until they finally let go and went their separate ways.  Maybe the two people really did love each other.  Maybe, with time, they could have worked their problems out and hearts could have been saved from being broken. 

Dover Beach

"The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled." - Matthew Arnold

I found this poem to be very interesting especially because I feel like it could be applied to our world today.  I think the main point of the poem, though, is that there have been many challenges to the validity of religious beliefs, morals, and precepts which in turn have shaken the faith of people and their religion.  Around the time Arnold wrote this, people like Darwin and Lamarck were putting forth ieas that were very contradictory to our faith.  People began to doubt God and their religion, which was horrible sounding to Arnold, a deeply religious man.  Just as light on the Dover Beach can be gleaming one moment then disapeer the next, the light of our faith can die off in a matter of moments. The good thing, though, is that it can always come back.  We musn't forget our faith when things seem to be contradictory to God's word and His light seems to be fading away.

Hazel Tells Laverne

"so i goes ta flushm down
but sohelpmegod he starts talkin
bout a golden ball
an how i can be a princess" - Katharyn Machan

This is definitely my favorite poem out of all those we have read so far.  I just find it so darn cute!  The first thing I noticed about the poem, though, was the vernacular in which it was written.  The speaker seems more southern than anything else.  This helps to set the tone of a free-spirited, easy-going girl who freaks upon the request of a kiss from a frog.  Honestly, I think I would have reacted in the same way if I was put in the same situation.  The second thing I noticed right away from this poem is how it could be connected to the relatively new movie The Princess and the Frog.  This movie was also southern as it was set in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.  In the same way the speaker reacts to the request from the frog in the poem, the princess in the movie is hesitant to kiss the frog.  Although the princess did not flush the frog down a toilet, the connection can still be made.

Crossing The Bar

"I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar." - Alfred, Lord Tennysosn

Ok, so immediately, I noticed that this poem is an example of the use of quatrains.  I didn't have to even read it.  I just looked at the poem itself and saw it was a quatrain because it consisted of  four groups of four lines.  The reason the poem is divided into quatrains is because it creates the outline for the rhyming.  For example, in the first quatrain, "star" and "bar" rhyme and "me" and "sea" rhyme.  This sort of rhyming is consistant throughout all the quatrains of the poem.  The second thing I realized (not quite as immediately this time) was that the poem was about dying and going to heaven.  The quote above is an excellent support for this theory.  At first, one might think that the poem is about going off to sea.  I realized it was not about going out to sea when I saw the word "Pilot."  It is only capitalized because it is being used in replace of the word God.  God is who the speaker wishes to meet once he or she has "crossed the bar," or died.

My Mistress' Eyes

"If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." - William Shakespeare

I was a little caught off guard when I first read this poem.  The title made me think it was going to be some kind of sonnet about the love the speaker has for his mistress. Instead, the poem points out all the things he finds wrong with his mistress.  For example, her lips are not red, her cheeks do not remind him of roses, and some perfumes smell better than her breath.  Then, the last two lines mark a shift in tone when he says: "And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare."  Here, the speaker is saying that his mistress is as wonderful as any other woman compared.  The tone throughout most of the poem, though, is established through the use of negative diction.  For example, the speaker says in the quote above that black wires grow on her head as hair.  This negative diction establishes the tone set on the negative aspects of the mistress.

Much Madness Is Divinest Sense

"Much Sense — the starkest Madness —

’Tis the Majority" - Emily Dickinson

Wow! This was incredibly confusing when I first read it and I was pretty sure Emily Dickinson was just streaming a whole bunch of words together and calling it a poem.  After reading it over a couple more times, though, I think I figured out its meaning.  Dickinson is saying that society usually relates the minority of sociey, or those who act much different from the majority of society, with that of being insane.  But what if we are all wrong?  What if the majority of society is insane and the minority are the ones who are sane?  I had never thought about this before reading this poem and I had like a brief moment where I questioned just about everything.  I was wondering why Dickinson would have written a poem like this and I found out that during her lifetime, many people criticized her and called her insane.  I believe this poem was written in order for Dickinson to defend herself.  This fact doesn't really matter much to me, though.  My eyes were opened regardless and I think Emily really put up a good argument for why we shouldn't be so quick to judge someone.  If we are wrong, then everything we thought during our lives was false.  We shouldn't make prejudements on people especially when we are assuming that we are the normal ones.

APO 96225

"And the father wrote, 'Please don't

write such depressing letters. You're upsetting

your mother.'" - Larry Rottman

I personally enjoyed this poem the most because I could understand it completely by reading through it only once.  Plus, it was very interesting and thought-provoking.  I love it when I read a poem and immediately can relate to the implied theme and the purpose for which it was written.  Anyway, I believe the theme of this poem is that although most Americans act as if they know what is going on during war, we sort of put the entire situation on the back shelf.  We hide the thought of war from ourselves and refuse to actually embrace what war means.  We don't want to actually know how bad it can get and we just want the immediate satisfaction of men serving overseas for our country and the good of society.  It is sad to think that even the soldier knew that what was going on where he was would be upsetting for his mother to hear.  Then, when he was convinced to actually explain in detail what was happening where he was, the situation was too much for his mother to hear.  Our society is like this.  We haven't actually experienced in our lifetimes a war held on our own turf.  For this very reason we are almost oblivious to what terrible things occur during a war.