this is a photograph of me

Well this day I decided to go with blogging on the poem this is a photograph of me by Margaret Atwood. There was much controversy over this poem this weak and it's still on my mind so here we are. On my blog, blogging about this poem. This poem wasn't my favourite but I still liked it. I feel that there are multiple interpretations of this here poem so I'll share two of them because I don't want to be 'inaccurate' or anything like that.

The First: This poem was written by Atwood to express her feelings of being overwhelmed and overlooked. It's easy to feel uncared about and unseen with as many people as there are in the world. Atwood just described this seen and was pretty much like oh yeah I'm there too but no one really cares. The first three stanzas consist of Atwood describing the landscape and things that aren't her then in parenthesis she adds the part about herself being in the landscape photo. She probably wasn't too happy about her life when she wrote this poem.

The Second: Not so deep. Irony really because she titled it this is a photograph of me which leads one to think that the poem will consist of Atwood describing a picture of herself and what she looks like. When you read on, you're caught off guard by the path the poem takes. It's almost as if she was saying, I want to tell you this story of when I died. Which is weird because she couldn't possibly tell a story of her own death a day later. Maybe it was her intention to just catch the readers by surprise.

For some reason I just didn't really think about this poem very deeply. It seemed like a poem to be read and caught off guard in a good way and not to be beaten to death with a hose. Not all poems have these deep meanings. I write poems, and not all of them have deep intellectual messages buried within them. They're just poems meant to be encountered and enjoyed.
Well no matter how you decide to interpret this poem, Its still a good poem.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Oh shoot, ding this blog totally reminded me that I forgot to go back in to get the practice multiple choice. Sorry Mrs. W, that was my bad. Please don't fail me or report me or get upset with me. Any of the above scenadios don't sound too pleasent.

Anyways for my (hopefully) last poetry blog I chose to blog about the poem Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. I enjoyed this poem a lot because it sounds clever withthe rhyming and what not. I didn't really understand the idea of the poem though. Some seeds are gold? I honestly can't figure this one out. So I'll just look at the structure and rhyme scheme?
It is only one stanza which makes me think that it's just supposed to be matter of fact poem like Nothing Gold Can Stay period, dont ask questions or your stupid and shouldn't be reading my poetry, I'm Robert Frost. Harsh Frost. However, that doesn' change my liking for this poem and not just be ause of it's nice abab rhyming. I just feel like it's profound and nifty.

My favorite part? The last two lines.

"So Dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay"

I just understood that part! When the sun rises, it's gold and beautiful, but it can't stay that way. The sun has to fully rise so that the day can begin and progress. Wait, the whole poem just clicked...

There will be things in life that are just so amazing and breathtaking, but they cant last. These grand things have to depart in order for other things to happen. Wow, I knew this poem was good stuff.

I am such a fan if Robert Frost's work.

this is just to say

Tonight I am blogging on the poem this is just to say by William Carlos Williams. I find it humorous that his parents named him William and one of his last manes is Williams. Ha. Unless he took his wife's name which was Williams or something. In which case.... I have nothing to say! Okay now that I have gotten down my weekly blog poetry humor, onto the real stuff. The real good stuff.

After I read this poem, I decided that I liked it because hey I like plums. Not only do oI like plums but I also like uncapitalized letters! When I realized that none of the letters were capitalized, I thought how strange. But then I thought about how when i'm sad or when I am texting someone who is mad at me, I use lower case. 

Wait, I just realized there are two capitalized letters. These capitalized letters are I and Forgive though so i'm thinking that Williams is owning up to what he did by saying yeah it was ME who ate your plums, please FORGIVE me. 

I don't think that this poem has any deep meaning. I think that this was either just a quick poem that Williams jotted down after he ate the plums and realized what he did, OR a poem that he wrote like a day or two later after he was being eaten alive by guilt for eating this other persons plums. 

In the first stanza he just begins by owning up to the fact that he ate the plums. In the second he was recognizing that his friend was probably saving them. In the last stanza, he asks for forgiveness like 'I see why you were saving those plums because they were soooo delicious, but i'm sorry I ate them and please don't hate me'. 

I like this poem a lot because it is probably the first poem that I have read where the reader was writing about something that he regretted doing in such frank terms. The poem is like a small poem that is just Williams asking for forgiveness for eating a plum. It was pretty kind too, so if someone ate my plum then wrote me an apologetic poem I would definitely forgive them.

Many Red Devils...

It is Friday and I am sitting here in Photography class waiting for my panoramic picture to finish merging and listening to Imogen Heap a wondering what to do while I am waiting. So I blog for you now: few who read my blog. Is it really necessary to use 2 computers to get my stuff done? At this place yes, yes it is. Stupid computers.

So I have decided to blog on Many red devils... by Stephen Crane for no reason other than the fact that it is fresh in my mind since I presented it 2nd hour.

I really liked this poem because SURPRISE! I could connect to it.
But first...
This poem is very true to Crane's style. He wrote with a very ironic tone and wrote poems that you really had to think about. Not about stealing plums or other such things. I think that Crane had a lot going on in his mind, but sometime's had difficulties expressing it. He lived a very normal to poor life ie. nothing really special happened for him. He died at an early age though. He was only 28 when he died of some illness I can't recall. The really cool thing that I found about Crane was that he majorly influenced Ernest Hemingway. He lived in the late 1800s and died in 1900. Right at the turn of the century. Poor guy. Basically, he was a very in depth type of person who made you think.

When I read this poem I envisioned Crane sitting at his desk with the intention of writing something; a poem or story. As he sat there I could see his frustration as he wrote then scribbled out his thoughts.

I know that I usually have a lot on my mind and sometimes it's hard for me to express what i'm trying to say. It's almost like an internal battle. Do I say this or is that bad? Should I say that or does it not make sense.

I also understand the use of only one stanza because this makes it more focused since he is talking about only one subject. His thoughts.

Good work Mr. Crane, you made me think.

Mid-Term Break

Sunday, Sunday, not so fun day Sunday. This Sunday, I am blogging about the poem Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney. At first I picked this poem because it seemed as though it would be about college and I just want to be in college already. Not a good enough reason, but a start. As I read, i'd skip lines and not really process which is when I got really confused. So, I read back through the poem and thought. Deep thought. This poem is not about college at all. Wait. Kind of. Yes, life.

First I analyzed the literal part of this poem. This fellow was a college student and while he was away, his 4 year-old brother was hit by a car and died. Heaney came back for the funeral and wake. The part that struck me was not that this was a tragic event, but that Heaney wrote about it with such a calmness. If my sibling died, I would not be that calm. As I thought about that, it lead me to a deeper analysis of the poem.

I related to this poem. Which freaks me out. (Not totally though. I love my siblings and even though I can't wait to move away, I wouldn't be this calm if one of them were to die) In order to understand this poem on a deeper level, I thought of it in terms of myself. Let me explain my train of thought:

As graduation nears, I have found myself consumed with thoughts of college and what I will do when I leave home. It's almost as if I haven't even been home at all anymore, though I have been. I am always somewhere else in my mind. I have felt myself becoming distant and removed from my house, family, school, even this town. Since these are the last few months that i will be able to see my family whenever I want and feel that closeness, I should probably be taking advantage of them. I can't make myself do so, even though I will probably regret it later. All I want is to leave all of this behind and discover, learn, become an independent. What does this have to do with a poem where college is mentioned only in the first tercet?

It explains the removed feeling of the poem. Heaney was away at college and from the line
 "I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. paler now..."
It would seem that he did not frequently visit home and was not very close with his family. Removed. Moving away and getting older. Becoming an independent. Does that to you apparently. So what?

So, Hearney was probably sad about his brothers passing, but he still viewed the event almost from the outside looking in and hardened. It all seems summed up in the last powerful line standing alone. If I was in that position writing this poem, that poem to me would mean:

My brother was four years old when he died, and I am sad about that. I didn't know him very well though. I was busy trying to live this independent life. I was too detached from all of this to pay much attention to him. I could dwell on how sad this is, but if I think about it I will be overwhelmed with guilt for never caring to get close to him or be there as a sibling should be. Grown and in college or not. So, I think about his death as a matter of fact.

Inversnaid

So this depressing Sunday I decided to blog on the great poem Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I just decided to blog on this poem because it was the first poem I came across when I picked up that darn poetry packet. This poem was intriguing to me because it tells a story that I could sort of imagine. This is not really my favorite poem but oh well, I gotta blog on something.

Okay, let's analyze this piece of poetry. 4 stanzas. 4 quatrians. Why? Because, that's why. It has a standard abab rhyme that is occasionally slanted, but hey no one is perfect or Dr. Seuss. I think that each stanza actually describes a different part of the setting of the story.

One cool thing about this poem was that it was very descriptive and colorful ironically because when I think of the old south I think of everything being dark and light shades of brown. Description is always good though because it helps me understand the poem.

BTW- Inversnaid is not a word, incase you were wondering.

When I read this poem, I saw a man like in the old west intimidating everyone because he is scry. I could be completely off but hey, this is how I analyzed this poem.

Of Mere Being

Well, it is time to blog once again and this time I have decided to blog on Of Mere Being by Wallace Stevens. I ran across this poem and had to read it a few times to even begin to understand. I really liked the fact that the meaning of this poem doesn't hit you in the face. You have to really think to analyze this poem.

*Quick side note: this poem is made up of four stanzas made up of tercets. To me the structure is significant because with each stanza, Stevens realizes more about this bird. Each tercet shows his thoughts progressing into more of an understanding.

After about the fourth or so time reading this poem, I realized that it was talking about a bird.
Just kidding.

No, I think that this poem talks about this majestic and strange bird that Stevens is seeing. As stevens is watching this bird, he is at first frustrated by it's foreignness. As humans, we have to really think about things that are out of the ordinary before we can even think about liking them.

What is this bird?
Is it bad?
Good?
How can I relate this bird to my life?...

In the end of the poem, Stevens realizes that he doesn't have to understand this bird. The bird exists and he just needs to appreciate it for what it is. I took this poem as Stevens commenting on today's world. So many people just have to really think about and understand every little thing in their busy lives. Sometimes, things in life don't make sense, and we just need to realize that they are there. They are what they are.