"To His Coy Mistress"

"An age at least to every part

and the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate"  (17-20).

"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell, I really learned only one thing about poetry.  Apparently romantic poetry does not have to be "OMG, why do you hate me?"  The tone actually seemed to be rushed, but hopeful.  The speaker clearly does not want to rush into a relation with this lover, but society seems to push him.  This almost causes me to think of it as a satire, but I am not convinced on that part.  Now, I have to wonder why you chose to give us a poem from the figurative language section of the book while we are talking about tone.  Logic would state that the metaphors would relate to the overall tone in the poem, but we all know that logic is not a good strategy when dissecting a poem.  I think - thinking; also not a good strategy for me - that the metaphor is to a garden.  The speaker talks about how you have to take your time almost so that it will ripen or "grow vaster than the empires."  If you spend time on every part, and the last one at the heart, then it is kind of like you are spending time nurturing all the requirements so that the finished product will have meaning.

Note to self:  I am not good at figuring out tone.

"Hazel Tells LaVerne"

"an how i can be a princess

me a princess" (12-13)

The entire time I read "Hazel Tells LaVerne" by Katharyn Howd Machan, I was wondering why she is the only poet who thought to have a sense of humor in her writing.  For one, the setting does not include some depressing nature image, but rather a bathroom at her job.  Next, there is a frog trying to climb up a toilet seat. Lastly, the lady does not speak proper English, which is always funny.  The tone of the poem is kind of sarcastic and doubtful.  Not only does the speaker get asked to kiss a frog, but she turns it down.  Oh, and not to mention the fact that the frog in a toilet starts to talk?  Talk about situational irony.  Now for the punctuation... lack of punctuation that is.  I really have no clue behind the reasoning in this poem other than that it kind of contributes to the humor and sarcastic nature of the poem.  It almost could be seen as satirizing the working class and how they tend to lack the required work ethic to speak properly.

"Getting Out"

"Taking hands

we walked apart, until our arms stretched

between us.  We held on tight and let go" (21-23).

In Cleopatra Mathis's "Getting Out," the tone of the speaker appears to be nostalgic - that's a tone, right?  If it is not a tone, then I guess I would go with regretful.  The speaker really does not seem to feel the same now as he did when they broke up.  The imagery of a feuding couple is juxtaposed by the only tangible memory of the speaker which practically depicts them as being born for each other.  The main imagery in the passage is sound.  This imagery is even paired with a simile (that's so cool!) in line 13 when they heaved "words like furniture."  I don't know about you, but if I was being bombarded with furniture, then I would expect it to be quite painful.  The couple needed to learn to talk with each other more respectfully.  Now, they speak once a month through the mail and their words are only hurtful.  Personally, I feel like they would not even still communicate if they did not have love for each other.  They only "held on tight" because they did not want to leave, but they felt like they had to.  It's almost like that feeling when you flip a coin that it will land on one or the other, even if you are only flipping it because you were in a toss up.  Neither wanted to leave, yet both couldn't stay.

"The Apparition"

"Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat, wilt lie

A verier ghost than I" (12-3).

In "The Apparition" by John Donne, I kept thinking about how this completely negates everything I learned from Casper: The Friendly Ghost.  I felt like the tone was definitely revengeful.  Donne creates this tone by his very scary imagery of wanting to get back at an old "murderess" lover.  The diction in this poem confuses me.  Literally, it sounds like the speaker is truly a ghost, but I think that it was more metaphoric for killing the speakers sanity.  This really only makes sense logistically and does not have much text support (other than maybe line 8 and 13).  If the speaker wants revenge, then simply being a ghost would leave them incapable of any physical ability for revenge.  I think that the idea of a ghost is a metaphor for the speaker being invisible to the former lover.  In line 13, the speaker wants to make his old lover a "verier ghost."  I took this to mean that the speaker is not a ghost, but that he wants to make the cause of his broken heart a true ghost (e.g. dead).

"My Mistress' Eyes"

"I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

that music hath a far more pleasing sound" (9-10).

I really wish that I had not seen the name Shakespeare before I started to read this.

In "My Mistress' Eyes" by thou whom shall nither be named, I felt like the tone was probably condescending.  The speaker seems to not think very well of the mistress.  Even the good qualities in the mistress such as her voice are not good enough for the speaker.  I get the feeling that the speaker either does not want to have feelings for the mistress or has set their requirements in love far too high.  To me, it would be common sense that no one's eyes are as bright as the sun (Go similes!), yet this seems to be detrimental to the possibility of a relationship to this speaker.  I feel like this speaker does not want to love the mistress more than the latter of my previous options.  The speaker basically says, "You know, your eyes sparkle like the morning sun, but they are not made of rubies and marble so you are inadequate."  I feel like since this is Shakespeare, someone should have died, but I suppose the confusion in the love of these two will have to suffice for the traditional Shakespeare writings.  The last two lines go to suggest that the speaker really does have emotions for the mistress, but that the feelings are for fake reasons and not genuine care.

"Ozymandias"

"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay" (9-11).

In "Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley, I found myself trying to pronounce Ozymandias in as many ways as possible instead of actually figure out the meaning.  Despite this hardship, I did manage to possibly get something out of it.  For instance, the above line makes me chuckle because of the irony.  A once mighty king now lies in ruins.  How depressing would that be?

Anyways, I think that this entire poem is kind of mocking the material rewards of power and royalty maybe?

The first line says that the traveler was from an antique land.  I know that that adjective has an implication, but I do not know what it is!  It kind of goes along with the old-fashioned feel in the poem, but I think that there is more.

Oh, and I listened to you and looked up words I didn't know in the dictionary, but it wasn't there.  I guess Ozymandias is was a person so it makes sense.

"APO 96225"

"And the father wrote right back,

'Please don't write such depressing letters.  You're

upsetting your mother" (16-18).

Question one of "APO 96225" by Larry Rottmann confused me for the entire class today.  I think that this poem deserves a list for situational irony and dramatic irony.

Situational Irony:

1. When his mother asks him to tell them everything, he writes only about monkeys and sunsets.
2. When he tells his mother everything, his father writes back telling him not to upset his mother.

Dramatic Irony:

1. Everything is positive, but that is only because the actual situation is so negative.

Okay, so those lists are really short, but I think that they helped me find the answer.  Despite being less points, the dramatic irony weighs much more strongly on the overall poem than the situational.  Imagine that the rocks on the right are the situational and the rock on the left is dramatic.  Since the dramatic irony is in every stanza, I think it is the actual prominent form of irony.  The letters are not to show that the mother and son have a strong bond in hardship, but rather the joyous message of the letters are supposed to show just how hard the situation is.  (pun intended.)

"Batter my heart, three-personed God"

"Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me" (12-14).

"Batter my heart, three-personed God" by John Donne is an excellent example of how poets are able to write in a multitude of styles and not always confuse me.  I definitely learned that this poem can be summarized in four words.

Paradox after annoying paradox.

While the word paradox is fun to type and say, the implications in a poem like this go far beyond the realm of imagination - big words are fun!  Anyways, the first sentence introduces the idea of "battering" someone's heart in order to heal it.  This is basically the equivalent of telling someone to stab me in the head because I have a headache, but it makes sense in context.  The speaker has turned towards the Devil's influence and needs to have the evil hammered out of "him."  (Can we just make this understanding that all speakers are guys unless it is explicitly stated otherwise?)

Another paradox is in the last two lines (thank you question 3).  It is odd to think that by trapping the speaker, that God will be freeing his thoughts, but it is more symbolic of starting a new leave (is that the phrase?) without the Devil's influence on his life.

The last line of the poem is also a paradox (shocker).  Basically, without God intruding on the speaker's personal bubble - is that a nice way to put it? - the speaker will never experience His grace.

P.S. I enjoy the time in class to read the poems.

"Mr. Z"

"The obit writers, ringing crude changes on a clumsy phrase:

'One of the most distinguished members of his race," (25-6).

In "Mr. Z," by M. Carl Holman, not only did I have "Mr. Jones" by the Counting Crows stuck in my head, but I also managed to catch on to some of the things talked about in the questions.  For example, the first line gives a clear idea that Mr. Z was African American.  From here on out, the poem became a satire, and the speaker juxtaposes being proud of Mr. Z for breaking the race barrier and mocking him for his awkwardness.  To be honest, I am not really sure why the speaker does not name Mr. Z, but I almost feel like it might be because the speaker just does not know it, but that seems like a far-fetched reasoning, so we should act like I never said it.

Let me go back to the point I made earlier about the contrast of pride and awkwardness.  The pride comes from Mr. Z's ability to fit in (3-6), while the awkwardness comes from him choosing raceless views and going to places that accept "exotic skin."  Assuming that I read this correctly, Mr. Z is Jewish, but non-traditionally married a lady who left the Jewish faith.

Okay, so I have yet to address the quote from above.  Question number five asks about the irony in the obituaries - when or if I die, can you make sure that no one makes a joke in my obituary for me?  The irony is actually kind of amusing for me - which is quite disturbing - but the obit writers basically are saying that his race, African Americans, have remained useless wastes of space and congratulations on doing something productive even if you had to avoid anywhere that might not find you worthy.

P.S.  I love this song, which caused me to directly enjoy the poem.

"next to of course god america i"

"next to of course god america i

love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh" (1-2).

In "next to of course god america i" by e.e. cummings, I really had to wonder if I prefer this style with no punctuation versus Emily Dickinson's idea of capitalizing every noun.  Judging by the quotation marks and last line, I conclude that this entire poem was originally spoken.  I believe that this poem has verbal irony.  When I read it, I kept getting caught up on all of the clauses that could either end the thought or start a new one, but when I read it out loud, my natural inclination told me when to place the commas or break up the flow of the poem.

The speaker creates an overall excitement and love of America in the first line when he - Let's act like it's a guy - blatantly compares his love for America being second only to God.

List of what he loves -

1. God
2. America

This love starts out as merely a list of cliches, but as the speaker goes on, there is a clear shift (Thank you to question number 3).  This shift from "thy" to "your" (line 7) shows that the love is eternal.  While the men who drafted the Constitution would have said "thy," we today still have liberty.  After this realization, the speaker tells of why patriotism survived.  The speaker ends with a rhetorical question to power in the idea that liberty will never die.  I believe this poem is in such an odd style of no punctuation merely because it was spoken and has multiple interpretations when read or heard (ambiguity) and because it was spoken in a hurry - as though something bad had just happened.

P.S.  I hope that you enjoy my new look on the blog.  I think the joke I found spelled alliteration wrong!  I will change it either every quarter or every unit based on how lazy I am... Let's just assume it will be quarterly.

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

"If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two" (25-26).

In "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne, I can honestly say that I have no clue what it is about.  I really thought that I understood the meaning, but the questions at the end completely negate everything that I thought the poem meant.  The one thing I can say with almost 25 percent certainty is that the speaker is not about to die, but rather go on a journey.  The simile I posted above is the only one that I can find, but there are apparently another two I am missing a long with a metaphor?  It was also what leads me to believe that the speaker is about to go on a journey, since you would not really need a compass when you die.

I also understand that there was an earthquake which killed many and left the rest stranded to leave the town behind?  This might be the source of the contrast between the journey and the dying, but I honestly have no clue.

Another small observation that I made that probably means nothing at all is that the speaker said "Care less" and not "careless" in line 20.

Refer to the picture below for the expressions I made while studying this poem.

"I taste a liquor never brewed"

"Inebriate of Air- am I-

And Debauchee of Dew-

Reeling- thro endless summer days-

From inns of Molten Blue" (5-9).

In "I taste a liquor never brewed" by Emily Dickinson, the speaker seems to contrast the rural definition of drunkenness with the more common urban definition through an extended metaphor.  If you asked anyone on the streets of down town Indianapolis, then they would say that drunkenness is directly related to how much alcohol one consumes, yet the speaker in the poem is talking about being drunk off air in the above excerpt.  The speaker goes on to show that not only human's suffer from a summertime intoxication, but even the "bees and butterflies" (symbols for the different types of people) become addicted by summer.  I do not actually understand the first stanza, but I think that it is an allusion (?) to Germany's stereotype of being big on drinking beer.  Maybe it is hyperbolizing the amount of beer that Germany manufactures in an effort to show the magnitude and ease with which summer than cause an intoxication effect on the victim?

The last stanza goes back to the city definition of intoxication, but with a twist.  In this scene, even the seraphs and saints are eager to learn where the town drunkard got tipsy.  When the "tippler" is leaning against the sun, I think that represents a street light, but I really cannot figure that last line out.

I am started to understand Dickinson's style of poetry.  All three of poems of hers that we have read have had a literal meaning that is very obvious and a deeper meaning that takes a little more digging, but is usually easy to figure out based on her very helpful titles.

"The Joy of Cooking"

For the first time in my life, I feel fairly confident on a poem's meaning!

"Although beef heart serves six

my brother's heart barely feeds two" (15-16).

In "The Joy of Cooking" by Elaine Magarrell, the speaker juxtaposes the sister's tongue with the brother's heart.  Through what I believe would be metonomy (Google Chrome thinks that I meant to say Deuteronomy, but I definitely meant metonomy...), the speaker is relating the preparing of the tongue with simply having a heart.  The tongue represents speech, while the heart represents love.  The sister's tongue has been "scrubbed and skinned" (2) because of its constant use.  Meanwhile, the brother's heart is "firm and rather dry" (10) because he does not use his heart.  While the speaker has clear favorite combinations when speaking about the tongue, the speaker merely finds a stuffing for the heart lack luster.  The speaker then goes on to lines 15-16 where the speaker compares the heart of cow with that of a brother.  Of all the major players on the food chain, humans have some of the smallest hearts (somewhat because of our natural size, but this suggests deeper meanings since the speaker does not relate how a cow's tongue is longer than a human's tongue).  It almost implies that should humans use their hearts as much as we do our tongues, then the heart would be able to mature to the stage that the tongue does and maybe become a delicacy.

Lastly, the tone seems to satirical.  The speaker definitely seems to be mocking how people think that words speak so much louder than they will let their actions show.

"Dream Deferred"

"Or does it explode?" (11).

"Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes is very interesting in that Hughes uses six separate comparisons in an effort of expressing the emotions of an African American trying to fit into American society.  I chose the line above because it starkly contrasts the other five comparisons.  What brought me to notice it first was definitely the italics and separation from the other comparisons.  It brought my eye to it when I first scanned the poem and forced me to accept that all of the other comparisons were leading up to a greater message.  The first five similes were each individual ways of showing that the dreams postponement could be easily overlooked by the speaker since the speaker obviously felt that they were a small obstacle.  This is juxtaposed by the magnitude of an exploding dream.  The final, and lone, metaphor drove home the fact that while the five previous consequences of a longing dream may not seem as serious, the elevating risk-factors clearly end in a lost cause.  Dreams are being compared to bombs because they are something that you can see smoking, but there is no tangible danger until it actually explodes, just like the lingering effects of reaching for an unobtainable dream.

"Pink Dog"

"Ash Wednesday'll come but Carnival is here.

What sambas can you dance?  What will you wear?" (32-3).

"Pink Dog" by Elizabeth Bishop seems to be an extended metaphor which compares the fear that a pink dog strikes into people with the foolish nature of a beggar.  While both of the images in comparison are negative, I feel like this poem is much like "London" in that Bishop is shining them in a new light.  The pink dog has "a case of scabies, but looks intelligent" (8-9).  To me, this line implies that the pink dog is only naked because of an outside force brought upon by some indirect life choices, much like a beggar.  Dogs would never choose to have scabies much like how a beggar would never choose to have to beg.

The quote I chose above mocks society in a sort of way.  The society (Germany calls their Fat Tuesday celebration Karneval, so maybe a German society?) is creating a false sense of perfection in the society with the celebrations.  This correlates with the message that Bishop is achieving because she seems to parallel on the message of Jesus that those with misfortune on earth will have happiness later in eternal life.  Bishop juxtaposes her early negative imagery of the pink dog ("Naked," "passersby draw back and stare," "of course they're mortally afraid") with a new light of hope for the dog that it might look grim now, but in time, the dog will be glorified.

Also, are the rhetorical questions there for a purpose or just decoration?

"To Autumn (Murphy?)"

"Where are the songs of spring?  Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too..."

This is the only type of personified
pumpkin that I enjoy to see in my life.

This poem by John Keats completely baffles me.  It is divided into three stanzas which seem to go chronologically by time of day and the time of Autumn.  The first stanza seems to represent the longing for summer as Autumn quickly sneaked in, while also representing early morning.  This is kind of contradicted though since it talked so much about the harvest, which is more in the middle of Autumn if I remember correctly, but I suppose most crops are harvested at different times of the season.  The next stanza proceeds on to what I would consider a more stereotypical Autumn with an old time store selling cider to people passing by the store.  It feels midday in the setting descriptions given by Keats.  This stanza also had the strongest imagery when it described the multitude of aspects of the store.  One of the questions asked what was being personified, but I cannot figure out what this image is.  I think that it might be either apples or a pumpkin, but I have narrowed it down to where it is probably something mentioned in the first stanza.  Gourds are the last items in that stanza, so I will deduce that the gourds are being personified?  The last stanza I believe is supposed to show the speaker's anxiety towards spring and life beginning to flourish, but that is probably not correct since they still have to endure winter as well.  This stanza also seemed to continue our chronological pattern by being more set in the evening (You know, that awkward time when it is not dark enough to start a bonfire, but too dark to play cards on merely daylight.  After I typed that all out, I realized that most people call that dusk.)

"Those Winter Sundays"

"Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze.  No one ever thanked him."

In this poem, Robert Hayden indirectly characterizes the father by his work ethic.  I noticed that the entire poem seemed to reminisce on the hard work of an unappreciated father.  Hayden really stressed how the people around the father reacted, along with some of the work he does (like chopping wood to keep the home warm) to portray the father as a respected member of the father.  The speaker in the story definitely seems regretful of not showing his/her father the love he/she the respect he deserved.

The overall mood of the poem is that of childhood regret.  The main regret seems to come in the form of the speaker's regret in not telling his/her father how much he/she respected all of the hard work put in by the father.  The title of the poem definitely expresses either a very negative or meaningful weekly tradition, but is clearly very memorable none-the-less.  While the speaker seems to fondly remember the Sunday mornings, the speaker definitely has some unique feelings attached with the memories.

I really hope that this poem did not have a deeper meaning or highly metaphoric meaning, because I absolutely did not find one.

"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain"

"And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down -

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing - then -"

The imagery in this poem is highly linked to the sense of hearing.  While I read this, the TV was on and my dad came in to talk to my dog- yes, my family is very odd- yet while I was reading this, I still was able to really hear the sounds of "Mourners" (2), "a Drum" (6), "creak" (9), "and Silence" (15).  I do not actually think that I have ever read a poem where sound was the major feature of it, but it was quite an experience to imagine the scene through the sounds in my head.  Dickinson was very smart to use the sense of sound for this poem since it really describes the inner workings of this person's mind instead of the traditional poem that is depicting some wonderful scene from nature.

I picked the above selection of lines because they featured an anaphora through the repetition of the word "and."  This really set the stage for the dramatic effect in this poem.  I felt like this entire poem was leading up to the inevitable suicide of the person being described (though it will be very embarrassing if that is wrong).  This person was throwing themselves their own funeral, because they felt like no one would come.  He or she imagined it- silent- no one was there to say their goodbyes.

The last two stanzas feature a large juxtaposition of good versus evil.  In the fourth stanza, I believe that Dickinson is describing the chaos in heaven as the angels try to frantically to speak the person into not going through with the suicide, but the Devil won over the diseased mind.  The last stanza depicts the snapping out of reality and killing themselves.  The last stanza seems to display the idea that people who commit suicide go to Hell by having had the person "dropped down, and down" (18) as if they are in Dante's world and slowly falling to the level of Judas.  They finished knowing what it was like to live in a world of real pain when they reached Hell, which led to the closure of the poem.