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.

Comment, comment, comment

So I commented on Lyndsey and Sadie's blogs. uhhuh

The Book

This Sunday, I decided to blog about this lovely poem The Book by the lovely author Miller Williams. Oh this poem. I'm not going to lie, I didn't even know about this poem until someone presented it in class. When they presented it, I thought that this was a very interesting poem. First off, why would Williams write a poem about a book made out of human skin? Creepy. Either way, it was kinda cool.

My favorite thing about this poem was that it was written in the form of a story. I mean, anyone could write a creepy poem about a human skin bound journal. It almost made me connect more to the poem because he wrote about someone stumbling upon this unique book and placing the story of his life in it, and then himself learning of the truth while holding the book. It was an interesting perspective. Almost a third third person? I don't know, but it was written interestingly.

The book consists of 7 stanzas: a singlet, two tercets, 3 couplets and one quintet? It has five lines. It doesn't really have a rhyme scheme other than the occasional ab rhyme. I think that this set up makes sense because well, it's written like a story. The story just flows very nicely.

While reading this, I can picture the book in my mind and then the man holding it in his hands while the other is telling the horrific story. I can just see the man holding the books face warp in horror as he learns about this book. This was probably one of my favorite poems.