DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "Secret of Life" by Diana Der-Hovanessian Originally read: January 9, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Diana Der-Hovanessian I write, "The anaphora in this poem brings a mysterious enlightening quality to the poem because 'the secret of life' comes from a navy yard worker -- a forced perspective."  So I disagree with my past self on one really big point -- past me forgetting the really big importance of the first line, "Once during the war" So, there's a context to this poem -- yes, there's a forced perspective filtered through the speakers (advice from the re-imaginings of a navy yard worker); however, add on top of this context a time frame -- a time of war, which means there's a sense of urgency for the advice versus "peace time" advice, or rather, in a time of war there should be a sense of urgency. However, the advice has a sense of the surreal along with humor.  "The secre

Original poem reprinted online here: "Zombie Preparedness Plan" by Mary Jo Firth Gillett Originally read: January 8, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Mary Jo Firth Gillett So there's always been the debate about poetry vs. prose.  The only thing I could add to that discussion is that I'd rather read this poem as a flash fiction piece than a poem.  I'm writing that it's a bad thing; rather, that there's a lot of information I would want to know about the speaker and the daughter and the poem doesn't quite encapsulate that for me. And past me agrees in the most harshest of ways, "Nothing is really added with these line breaks or description, very much like an article or a story. Then I thought to myself (after rereading this) I wondered why.  Over the past two months I noted certain poetry literary techniques like line breaks creating distortion in tone or emotion, rhyme scheme tying in themes, how images and descriptions overtake any sense of

Original poem reprinted online here: "Myth Dispelled" by Adam Possner Originally read: January 8, 2013 More information about the Poet: Adam Possner I think the poem depends on the "him/you" on being a patient...or maybe not.  For funsies, the poem could be referring to the speaker himself debating his/her scientific/spiritual self with the speaker being more cynical about the cynical at the end.  Also for funsies the speaker could use "you" as referring to the audience, but then that places the audience in the weird position: feeling superior for knowing better, feeling inferior for not knowing exactly how vaccines work and the speaker having to explain them.  However, for my reading, I'm going to be reading the poem as the speaker being personal with a patient. The tone shifts in the poem, I feel here, are more personal quality.  In " feeder " there's a sense of extremism with the shifts (through surreal images and direct rhetoric).  He

Original poem reprinted online here: "feeder" by Beth Bachmann Originally read: January 8, 2013  More information about the Poet: Beth Bachmann  After re-reading this poem, I thought why did I pick it?  It's a kind of strange feeling where I didn't see what was going on (this is before reading my notes).  I think it starts with the opening line, "The mouths of the dead are always / open" in which I comment "good first line."  I actually see it as meh right now.    It's not that the sentence is bad or cliche, it's the line break that comes in heavy handed like "expect a surprise -- right now". I do think the single line "open. Quit"  has linguistic implications.  Past me wrote, "The line by itself is interesting because it seems that the dead are saying this -- then the line break completes the line."  So I like the line for different reasons now.  I don't think the dead are saying "quit"  rather b

Original poem reprinted online here: "Generic" by Rachel Hadas Originally read: January 7, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Rachel Hadas I can only take cute for so long and the first stanza is enough for me.  When I read cute in the first stanza or even in the title I'm either bracing myself for a) let me tell you the song of my life in the most tragic/rewarding/tragi-rewarding way possible b) me hating myself for not being "emotional" or "disciplined" enough to read all of the poem and quitting within the first line.  I'm not saying the cute style is bad.  It's just not for me. One of the redeeming factors of the  poem is the second stanza -- it's just a list of adjectives which has no direct noun.  Sure, the adjectives  could be talking about the book, the child, the old person, but just like the title "generic" the adjectives don't stick to one, or all, or any -- just like the dialogue in line three of the poem &qu

Original poem reprinted online here: "Handfuls" by Carl Sandburg Originally read: January 6, 2013 More information about the Poet: Carl Sandburg "I've seen the word 'dusk' so many times."  That's how I started off from my notes.    It's not that the image is overly used or the word itself is over-representing the image; it's just that time frame (morning -> night) and seasons (Summer -> Winter) have been big topics in poetry as symbols, as images, and  overall inspiration. What interested me about this poem is how Sandburg uses his images.  The first line caught me off guard, "Blossoms of babies / Blinking their stories" the lines are surreal, but, sonically the lines shift from b's to s's.   Then in the following lines there's the "babies" take on the character of "gamblers." Even now, I don't know what's going on.  Hmm, I wrote this down: "I like this comparison.  It comes from no

Original poem reprinted online here: Analysis of "Ministry Today" by Steve Davenport Originally read: January 5, 2013 More information about the Poet: Steve Davenport                                                     His Website Here After reading this again today, I created a narrative of the speaker.  Although the poem is lyric, the tone creates character.  I've been thinking about tone, and I ask myself -- is tone like accents on the page?  It's not exactly transferable, but I'm thinking of this.  There's an image that pops up with a Southern drawl, maybe of a southern Louisiana gentlemen, and then from the accent (voice) I envision a person. Now, in this poem, I really start to envision a person with the rhetorical question lines, "What's the value of time without end? / What's a mind to do without a body / to fail it?"  and with the introduction of "whiskey" in earlier, I envision a lapsed priest sitting at a bar maybe drunk,

Original poem reprinted online here: Analysis of "My Heart is Heavy" by Sara Teasdale Originally read: January 5, 2013 More information about the Poet: Sara Teasdale I'm going to do something different this time.  I've been searching for other blogs like mine.  Some are close -- putting up the poem with no analysis or putting up analysis and it's a "I like" fest.  I'm not saying my analysis is any good, but I try.  So I'm going to link to this person's blog that does some interesting analysis of poems. --- A Poem for Every Day And the blogger writes some interesting notes about the background of the poem or at least the blogger's interpretation: "It seems likely that this poem was written for Vachel Lindsay, who courted Teasdale when they were      young and wrote her many love letters, yet who did not have enough money to marry her. Sara Teasdale married a wealthy business man called Filsinger instead, but the marriage was very

Original poem reprinted online here: "Apollo's Archaic Torso" by Leo Yankevich Originally read: January 5, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Leo Yankevich Update 01/25/2014 -- Just realized the poem honors Rainer Maria Rilke's Poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo"  I'm slow.  Does this change my reading of this poem.  Yes it does.  I'll get to this someday... This Italian sonnet is awkward in an interesting sense.  There's a duality in the first part of the poem between the human body, a body sculpted, and a projected body.  I'm just going to quote the entire second stanza     still radiant, though dimmed.  If not, his bare     breast would not bind you in the silent turn     of hips and thighs, a smile not flash and burn     through groins, his genitals not ever glare. Here in this stanza the way the images are described are surreal and my mind thinks of godly portrayals of nakedness.  And the speaker, even though not apparent in this stanza

Original poem reprinted online here: "Book of Hours" by Kimberly Johnson Originally read: January 4, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Kimberly Johnson So I've been procrastinating all day for this poem.  Why?  Even though I read this poem quite a lot of times, I still have a hard time initiating a discussion about it. It should be easy, right?  I have a lot of notes on the page, I have an entry way through word play or use of difficult words.  However, I really don't want to go this route, but, since I've been hesitating (and this is supposed to only take 15 minutes not the whole day) I should. Language is a tricky subject. I don't want to write, "well this poem has difficult words in it -- it add/takes away from the poem."  If I do that the entire message, techniques, images, etc. are washed out.  I will write this though -- in any poem or writing, there has to be a draw in for the reader to read or even look into the poem.  Every poem I chose

Original poem reprinted online here: "In the Ear of Our Lord" by Brendan Constantine Originally read: January 4, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Brendan Constantine I had a different experience of the poem just right now.  And it's a like a "duh, I'm so stupid moment" for me.  Yeah, sure there's stuff I write about the content of the poem, you can take a look at the pic and find what I think of meaning; however, today is the first time I really sat down and read the poem out loud -- slowly. I, somewhat knowing my hymns and verses, and knowing some biblical verses, didn't pick up the way the poem sounds like a mash of various parts of the bible.  Now I don't know everything of the bible, but I know some things. The lines, "In the beginning was the whir / I thought you said & the whir / was good"  When I read it out loud today I saw that the lines are a riff of the first lines of Genesis (or whatever translation of Genesis --

Original poem reprinted online here: "Flowers" by Linda Pastan Originally read: January 4, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Linda Pastan I write this at the end of the poem: "I'm glad that the poem was only titled 'Flowers -- anything added would probably bring too much sentimentality or, I, at least, would've thought of this poem as cliche on first glance." And well it can be seen as the cliche "write an observation about nature then relate it to the personal" poem -- which has been done even before from Romanticism to the Tang Dynasty Poets to the Neoromantics to poets like Mary Oliver, Gary Snyder, Maxine Kumin etc.  Nature and poetry.  Hand in hand. The poem does so little in terms of technique which is good because the focus directly shifts after a few lines of description/observation.  There's one rhetorical question, one similes, and one offbeat adjective/noun combination that catch my eye in this poem (yes there's one m

Original poem reprinted online here: Analysis of "In the Park" by Gwen Harwood Originally read: January 3, 2013 More information about the Poet: Gwen Harwood So I warn my students about this when creating a sonnet -- "don't rhyme -ing words -- it's too easy."  Why?  Because my teachers warned me about doing such a thing.  On one hand rhyming verbs ending in --ing is too open (basically anything works); however, on the other hand the usage verb vs gerund would  be intersting (one focusing on action vs the other appropriating the noun with action).  However, this poem doesn't do that.  The -ing here, I won't say it's easy, but brings in a certain sense of the mundane that is a theme in the poem. On the first read, I only talk about form, "I'm not sure about the monosyllabic rhyme scheme.  A part of me thinks it's too simple, but simplicity, for the first part of the poem details the woman's life -- simply matter of fact." I to

Original poem reprinted online here:  "O Anchor" by Matthew Nienow Originally read: January 2, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Matthew Nienow So I did something that I usually don't do.  I don't bookmark the poems I read for this blog.  I read six poetry websites with daily poems, print the poems I like (or dislike extremely), then move on.  So when I googled "O Anchor" by Matthew Nienow to link to the original poem I found his website .  On his website this is the description of him I found interesting: Matthew lives in Port Townsend, WA with his wife, Elie, and their two sons, River and Pike. When he is not writing, he works on boats and other things made of wood.  This guy knows his boats and waterways.  Or at least has a passion for boating, and water.  So I'm going to start off with a little tangent: is writing a job or the hobby?  How much of those two aspects of a person's life intertwine?  I don't know the answer to these, I'

Original poem reprinted online here:  "The Conductor" by Jacqueline Berger Originally read: January 2, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Jacqueline Berger Off the bat, we know what's at stake and what the core of the poem is about, "There's no mention, of course, in the program / that the conductor has Parkinson's,".  Usually,  I'm unsure about having something like disease or the death of someone or something tragic really in the beginning of any poem.  On one hand, the stake is clear and so, as a reader, I know where the narrative is going.  One the other hand, as a reader I'm forced to look at the character, poem, technique through the lens of tragedy which I either have to pity the character, poem, technique (forceful emotional blackmail) or interpret actions in the poem as relating to the disease (narrowed interpretations). I think "putting the tragedy up front" works better as a short poem (Emily Dickenson " I Heard a B

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Ornament" by Dore Kiesselbach Originally read: January 1, 2013 More information about the Poet: Dore Kiesselbach So I wrote this at the end of the poem, "The end is meh -- the over usage of '-ed' sounds.  The intro of a non-linear image -- it's a part that highlights 'I'm an epiphany pay attention to me' when the narration felt strong."  When reading this poem over again, I stumbled over the last three words "varnished / feathers shined."  It's a part where I had to slow down and reread the part, and maybe that's what the last three words supposed to do; however, I found the narration in the poem more intriguing and the last lines just jumbled. Fore example, I wrote about repetition, "I really like the repetition like this 'marks beside / marks' 1) It'd be too kitchy if the line ended there. 2) Since it keeps going the idea is strong but contrasts/confirms the sentiment

Original poem reprinted online here:  "My Dad, In America," by Shann Ray Originally read: January 1, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Shann Ray Now the execution is important here.  The content of the poem is not directly extreme -- father goes out to get some animals for a Cheyenne old woman who gives some sage like wisdom.  Yet this poem is based on subtext upon subtext. "The poem works as a juxtaposition of extremes: gentle.violent, air/land, blood/forgiveness, dead/new.  I question, though, how separate the images are...how intertwined the ideas are." So I reread this poem again and I see what I meant; however, I want to focus on this line, "We need to know in America there is still blood / for forgiveness."  because the line break creates this fragmented extremes. This also occurs in the first two lines "Your hand on my jaw / but gently."  However there's a difference. The jaw/gently line there is a conjunction there -- or rathe

Original poem reprinted online here:  "To The New Year" by W.S. Merwin Originally read: January 1, 2013 More information about the Poet: W.S. Merwin So here's what I wrote on my notes: "'that do not stir' is important here because the simile is not on the leaves but the ambiguous 'you' that is the representation of sunlight."  So old me, I agree that 3/4 of the first stanza describes the "you" but I'm not so sure that the "you" is the representation of sunlight. "You" gives off "the first sunlight,"  what else gives off sunlight?  The sun (well it's in the wording sun-light)?  What am I trying to get to?  Okay.  So I think previously I wrote that "you" in a story refers to the speaker, or an audience.    There's more possible ways (I think I concluded), and here's one.  The "you" in the poem is a construct of the speaker.  The speaker first states the you then starts to d

Original poem reprinted online here:  "I'll Catch You Up" by Todd Davis Originally read: December 31, 2012 More information about the Poet:  Todd Davis Now for this poem I wrote down this in the middle: "The speed of the generalizations offsets the images for me -- it's the ability to grasp images more readily than intangibles." The poem itself lays out it's hand in the middle of the poem "your being / dead, me alive;"  The speaker is alive and the other person is dead -- so what's at stake will be further explained in the poem; yet, what is before the stake is the backdrop -- or rather the state of mind of the speaker. The weird part about the beginning of the poem -- very image-centric, very much symbolic ("bits of night / into daylight") is that the poem goes back to the aesthetic of the beginning at the end of the poem with one condition.  Prepositions. Now the crisis of styles (image to list based) adds to the speakers well u

Original poem reprinted online here: "Designated Driver" by Daniela Olszewska Originally read: December 30, 2012 More information about the Poet: Daniela Olszewska What makes this poem is the opening line for me.  I didn't catch this in my first reading or in my notes, but the shift from "you are" to "yr".  Yes, I know that "yr" is shorthand for "your" in this poem.  But it's more like a double take line on how to receive the sound and sight of words.  For example, if I only heard this poem, then I wouldn't know the difference, but since I'm reading the poem, I can see there's a difference visually. I also wrote down this: "yr = yer (in the head) yr = year (abb.) yr = your ('what it means')" At the time, I was trying to figure out other ways to look at the way "yr" is used because the style is so similar to the Black Mountain School and Robert Creeley (like the poem, " I Know a Man

Original poem reprinted online here: "Snow" by Frederick Seidel Originally read: December 28, 2012 (I was too lazy to go back) More information about the Poet: Frederick Seidel So I know I'm overcomplicating this poem; however, there's a good reason why I keep doing so.  So I'm just going to write what I wrote on the page. "By all word logic -- this poem is bad with the overusage of 'it,' but the 'it' goes along with the irreverance of the poem and also the simplicity." "I feel this poem mocks nature poems by being so deliberate, and like a flow chart" "Snow 1) falls 2) stays 3) goes 4) melts 5) disappears    _    v We'll be like that" "Other poets (including myself) would go on a long spree to get to the same conclusion" "Step up your game -- either go simple for obvious meanings or don't fool yourself by going complex and wondering why people don't get 'it.' I feel this poem is sayi

Original poem reprinted online here: "Outside Fargo, North Dakota" by James Wright Originally read: December 29, 2012 (Am I missing a day? Too lazy to go back now)  More information about the Poet: James Wright So in my notes I write that this poem works on two levels -- Internal and Meta: "Internal:  The next lines "'onely / and sick for home.' the images above feel[s] like a representation of internal strife: white horses, going into the shadows, a sprawled body derailed." "Meta:  The poem turns from observational to internal -- nothing too surprising.  But the line 'I nod as I write good evening' is the only physical response of the speaker to anything -- and his physical response turns inward to the poem and the speaker." Past me, I don't think you fully describe meta that well.  So the speaker of the poem writes about the creation of a poem.  And all the symbols and images lead to how a poem is created.  And I could see it in

Original poem reprinted online here: "A Prisoner of Things" by Alan Michael Parker Originally read: December 27, 2012 More information about the Poet: Alan Michael Parker The one thing I didn't write down in my notes was " anthropomorphism ." It's where things are given human attributes.  So the "things" here are given dialogue. The interesting thing about the poem is how the anthropomorphized  items have a "goal" and the speaker seems to be laying about. For example, the opening lines, "If only this novel were trashier: / if only the hour were true"  I think to believe the colon is used as a syntactical deductive (I don't know what colons are used for off the top of my head except the obvious) where there's a logical consequence.  If the novel was trashier then the hour would be true.  There's this waiting (maybe procrastination period). So the speaker projects goals onto things.  And with every goal there's so

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Poplar" by Richard Aldington Originally read: December 26, 2012 More information about the Poet: Richard Aldington Weirdly enough, after reading this again, the first thing that pops up in my head is the use of exact color.  "White" is mentioned four times in the poem referring to "stream" "wind" "lining" "mist" "road" and the image just stays as "description" well perhaps. "between the white stream and the road" "I know that the white wind loves you," "The white lining of your green petticoat" "the white mist curling and hesitating / like a bashful lover around your knees." "And go walking down the white road" So I've been trying to figure out if there just description or if they add another element (that's not my interpretation to the color) to it.  And all I can think of is "white lining" is the

Original poem reprinted online here: "No Art" by Ben Lerner Originally read: December 25, 2012 When I think of "towers" my mind automatically goes to 9/11.  It might be a habit.  Or perhaps that the image is so iconic that it might take a generation to shift the connotation.  There you go -- mind block out of the way. So, oddly enough, I think the title is effective if you don't know or infer the allusion to "One Art."   It's difficult for me because "One Art" is one of my favorite poems of all time.  "I shan't have lied. It's evident  / the art of losing's not too hard to master / though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster."  I almost was able to quote this from memory...someday. Anyway, the struggle to get over loss happens in the poem "No Art" as well, but not clearly. If you read a poem through images, then this poem isn't for you or maybe it is.  The strong image is "tower" and th

Original poem reprinted online here: "Waiting on the Corners" by Donald Hall Originally read: December 25, 2012? More information about the Poet: Donald Hal l I wrote a lot of "I like" for this poem.   Funnily enough there's a lot of grammar issues within the poem that would make English majors wince.  However, grammar is a tool to standardize communication, but in a poem, miscommunications bring a sort of insight. For example the first line: "Glass, air, ice, light, and winter cold."  Even though I wrote that "this collection of verbs [they are nouns past me -- you dolt] are mundane."  There's a sense of  two things with the first line -- immediacy (the nouns are right in front of the) and disorder (without a complete sentence there is a lack of context. As we get further down into the poem there's ambiguous pronouns "They" in line three could refer to the items above or a group of people -- the line has a sense of duality

Original poem reprinted online here: "Unlikely Materials" by Dean Young Originally read: December 24, 2012 More information about the Poet: Dean Young "I like the stream of consciousness; yet, pure academic poem -- cheeky allusions to x (Orpheus), y (Buddha), Z (teaching), tie together a sense of amusement -- do a hard the[n] soft pivot (or w/e order) in the poem, then boom, Threepenny.  Is it a good thing?  I guess, in truth, nothing in this poems surprises me except for the 'friendly arm' simile." I know I did a Dean Young before with "Zero Hour," and I probably like his style, but  geez, past me, that's a pretty harsh critique, but rereading the poem and looking back -- it's a fun poem.  The jumps from one idea to another is quite good -- peaches -> branch -> student.  It doesn't make logical connection but there is a connection. The images and similes are well rendered, "powerful as a baby rattlesnake,"  and "On

Original poem reprinted online here: "Brief reflection on killing the Christmas carp" by Miroslav Holub Originally read: December 24, 2012 More information about the Poet: Miroslav Holub    I think the humor in this poem happens halfway through the poem.  Oh, crap, I just realized something after rereading this poem.  These lines, "I am just wondering if the carp is the right creature. / A far better creature surely would be one." Now for my previous analysis I wrote this, "The moral law within me is cute, especially from the perspective of the dying fish."  The perspective is not of they dying fish (which, within it's own right has some symbolic resonance) rather it is discussing, "A far better creature surely would be one."    So the carp is something that "the poor" looks forward to for Christmas.  Yet, the speaker thinks there must surely be a better, let's say, sacrifice.  For instance, would say something nice before being

Original poem reprinted online here: "It Happens Like This" by James Tate Originally read: December 23, 2012 More information about the Poet: James Tate I chose this poem because I thought it was funny.  All over the place on the page you'll see things like "This is funny," or "I like this."  Then we get to the part with the police officer. "This from the Police Officer -- I wonder if this...nevermind, good s***  that the police officer -- the one looking for laws and symbols -- cries when he finds a made up important goat." After reading this poem a couple more times, I'm torn in a sense.  There's a part of me that wants to see the sociological and psychological implications of revering a symbol of some creation.  However, if I continue to think this way then writing this blog is kind of like I'm revering someone's poem and falling for the same trap. Also, I haven't thought if I pity the police officer or I relate to him.

Original poem reprinted online here: "Deadbeat's Recipe for Lamb" by Jay Baron Nicorvo Originally read: December 22, 2012 More information about the Poet: Jay Baron Nicorvo "This poem works by subtext -- what's the subtext -- I don't know, a formulaic idea of a deadbeat deconstructed through a recipe." So after reading this again, the shifts in tone on the first read is still surprising to me.  I think it's the whole end-stopped line where I'm forced to stop and think of every image in its own personal context.  The first half of the poem has violent action (imagery): "cleave limb from limb. / Hack as if at air. / Always cut to the quick."  This is just a sample.  There's is violence, but there's a subtext of anger -- uncontrolled unknowing anger then the shift. "soft as seaglass from the sea's forge, / strain in weak like", or "Hear the letting-go of cartilage."  Still somewhat violent, but the language

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Love Cook" by Ron Padgett Originally read: December 21, 2012 More information about the Poet: Ron Padgett It's hard to read a cheeky love  poem and come back to the poem and find something differnt.  Of course, as usual, I do put my misinterpretation spin on it, but this poem plays with expectation in a sense and, depending on taste, the poem doesn't cross the line from cheeky to creepy (which love poems do sometimes). The title set's off the fun.  "The Love Cook" is a little corny, but since the adjective noun combination isn't used too much, I found it interesting to learn more.  I think for poems that the title is a strong noun (added with an adjective sometimes) the poem sets up a definition -- who is this _______, what is this ______. So I want to know more about this love cook.  The first two lines are disarming, then we get to the line, "in fact / the rest of your clothes" now if the poem wen