DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "Butterfly with Parachute" by Stephen Burt Originally read: March 29, 2013 More information about the Poet: Stephen Burt I keep going back in my head about why I chose this poem.  Yes, I look at my notes and past me wrote things like, "Description of drawing based on food, a bit child-like, young, innocent."  This type of description does go along with the context of the poem.  However, the poem doesn't hold up for me the second read through. Saccharine comes to mind after I reread this poem. Anyway, the parallel structure of the poem is heavily implied.  "Butterfly with Parachute" should go line by line with "A real one wouldn't need one,"  I point this out since the structure is parallel, then the way the poem is read has to be in that parallel structure.  "A real <parachute> wouldn't need <butterfly>."  So, from here the focus will be the butterfly and why this particular b...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Lost and Found" by Ron Padgett Originally read: March 29, 2013 More information about the Poet: Ron Padgett The poem hinges on the epigraph.  Well, not the words of the epigraph, rather how the epigraph is used in general.  What is the purpose of an epigraph in a poem?  Why quote someone else and not let the poem ride for itself?  If the epigraph is used as an allusive device, why?  What does the epigraph do to a poem? "Man has lost his gods. / if he loses his dignity, / it's all over" What an epigraph does, traditionally for me, is set up the tone and allusion to the poem.  There's two ways that this poem could go (well multiple, but these are the two that I'm looking for) either support or undercut what's being stated through tone and content.  The epigraph brings a sense of free will, that man has "lost his gods" and only has "dignity."  The epigraph is also a very advice type of epigraph. ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Black Stone on Top of a White Stone" by Cesar Vallejo Originally read: March 27, 2013 More information about the Poet: Cesar Vallejo I don't know whether to call the repetition anaphora or not.  Or for that matter, how anaphora works in general.  Maybe it's a case by case basis.  In any case, this poem repeats certain phrases like "I shall die in Paris" and "Thursday."  And, for a poem like this, does the anaphora or repetition serve any other purpose than to add to the psychology of the poem. Past me wrote, "Repetition of the day creates a desire -- this has to happen on this day."  What has to happen?  "I shall die in Paris."  In the first stanza the phrase repeats in line one and four.  And there's a sense of humor about the line when the speaker's feeling about the situation comes in, "it does not bother me" Also in the first stanza is the specific introduction of the d...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Meeting and Passing" by Robert Frost Originally read: March 26, 2013 More information about the Poet: Robert Frost Elizabethan Sonnet.  Narrative. Do we have those things out of the way?  I point these out in the beginning because what constructs the poem is usually what people look for, what people expect.  And, yes, the poem follows the expectations of a sonnet, and, actually, a narrative (there's a "conflict").  Yet, with this poem, as the title foreshadows )"Meeting and Passing" -- there's a sense of expectation that hasn't been fulfilled -- a missed opportunity. The colloquial tone in the first three lines sets up an exposition.  The "I" character  is walking along a wall.  The "I" character leaning on wall to get a better view.  And, unexpectedly (to the scene, but expected by the reader), "I first saw you." Here's the trick in this part of the poem.  The "expos...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Eve's Design" by Moira Linehan Originally read: March 25, 2013 More information about the Poet: Moira Linehan This poem is a pretty interesting narrative.  The opening starts out with the background, "Then there's the Yemeni legend of Eve [...]" which shows the location of thought.  Also, the opening line decentralizes a heavy religious context by focusing on the "legend" aspect rather than a purely reinterpretation stance or the speaker "attempts" to take her opinion or bias out of the poem and is instead writing "a tale?" But why rewrite a tale into a poem? I have some ideas, but ultimately, poetry is defined through audience discretion.  From the beginning the narrative continues with Eve knitting a pattern on the snake's back, who is unfinished in the creation phase (well, this summary is not that great, since it's word for word on the page).  I guess the poetic element comes wit...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Cahoots" by Carl Sandburg Originally read: March 24, 2013 More information about the Poet: Carl Sandburg "Noir feel"  that's the first note I put on this poem; however, I didn't realize something until now.  The noir ( hardboiled ) genre didn't become popular until the 1920s.  I've been looking everywhere on when the poem was created or published, but nothing there.  So I have to assume this -- that this poem harkens to that time frame or is a commentary about reproduction of the 1920s. Or maybe I shouldn't make that assumption, in any case, the voice of the poem fits with my ideal version of what the time frame felt like through content, voice, and tone. "Play it across the table. / What if we steal this city blind?"  For me, there's a sense of nothing to lose here, because everything is lost.  It's an optimistic viewpoint in a Dystopian society -- which is the core of the hardboiled genre,...

Original poem reprinted online here: "A Road in the Sky" by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers Originally read: March 23, 2013 More information about the Poet: Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers I lagged to write an analysis here.  I do have notes on the page, but I feel I'm missing something -- something that google cannot find.  I searched "A Road in the Sky,"  I searched "Ithaca, NY" and I was trying to find a connection, or something that can tell me more about the other in this poem the "we." I harp a lot on ambiguous pronouns and how an unknown "I" or "other" (we, us) can make or break a poem.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The poem is structured somewhat like a narrative with a sense of exposition, a sense of character development, a climax -- but an end? The poem is structured in couplets with individual lines.  So there's a sense of forced emphasis on the parts with one line. But first the exposition.  There's a descr...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Illiterate in New Mexico" by Gary Fincke Originally read: March 22, 2013 More information about the Poet: Gary Fincke A story within a narrative.  A conflicting point of view of success and failure.  I know I'm starting out pretty fragmented, but this is probably the main technique in the first stanza of this poem -- fragments of a dual narrative, and perspective trying to reconcile.  So here's the two perspective -- the son, the father.  The focus of the son is failure in calculus (the lower case of calculus versus the capitalized version -- math versus Math -- theory versus Theory). I've spent too much space on the overall when the first stanza is about something more intimate.  The father, in a way, tries to be consoling with an anecdote of his own "The story of how Janitors were hired / in Almogordo, New Mexico."  However, since the perspective of the poem is written in the first.  The "I," the stor...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Elegy" by Jaswinder Bolina Originally read: March 22, 2013 More information about the Poet: Jaswinder Bolina Past me wrote a lot about the usage of "image" in this poem, and how there's an interplay between the projected image, and the "now" image.  But first, the first line irritates me a whole lot, "In sun the sunburned skin sloughs off the sunburned shoulder."  I think it's the over alliteration and the repetition that does irritates me where, sonically, the adjectives, nouns, and verbs just mesh with eachother. Then I realized, well, maybe this is the risky entry into the poem -- that the first line of the "Elegy" is meant to be blurred and distorted through meaning and sound because the poem isn't about the "body" (a mess of sorts falling apart according to the first line), but about how someone interprets the body. So there's the second line, "Most folks believe ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Vacant Lot with Pokeweed" by Amy Clampitt Originally read: March 21, 2013 More information about the Poet: Amy Clampitt The poem is in four cinquains which has the effect of the first half focusing on one aspect, and the second half focusing on the other.  The cinquain adds a sense of progression, that there is a middle.  Yet, how the poem starts out, there is a focus on one thing -- the pokeweed. In the first stanza there's focus on description of the vacant lot with adjectives like, "low- / life beach-blond scruff of couch grass."  Sonically, the description is terse, and although not separated by periods, they are separated by punctuation like a dash here, or a comma there.  I feel the terseness shows a physical representation of the lot not only threw language but by sound as well.  At least, at this point, the picture isn't pleasant. The line that starts off the second stanza, which is the continuation of "inte...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Fiction" by Lisel Mueller Originally read: March 20, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Lisel Mueller Here's what past me wrote at the end of the poem, "maybe bibliophile, maybe relationship, I don't know about meta-narrative though."  And past me came to this conclusion through the title "Fiction."  And although there could be multiple ways to address "Fiction,"  like a definition poem, or a description of someone's life, here I felt the poem went towards tmeta-fiction, or the art of writing fiction. But the poem starts off with a direction "Going south," and along with a direction, there is a collective voice of "we."  Yes, this is the time I question who the "we" is, but here I'm shifting my decision towards the title -- "Fiction" and the concept of fiction because of the simile, "unroll like a proper nove:" And here the assumption for...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Lamb" by William Blake Originally read: March 20, 2013 More information about the Poet:  William Blake As promised long ago, this poem is a companion piece to "The Tyger" by William Blake.  Here's my "analysis" of "The Tyger" here .   Why the quotes around analysis?  Because the poem has been explicated to death by Academia, and so, what is there to add to an analysis of this poem?  Instead I listed different types of analysis and how each image, symbol, line, theme, idea, etc. is looked through from the lens of certain critiques. For, "The Tyger"  I looked at the poem through: Marxist Criticism, Structuralist Criticism, and Atheist Criticism (not really a criticism, but looking at the poem through at an objective [not scientific] lens).  So, conveniently, I should look at this poem and the connections through opposite means. Note, the notes I wrote about "The Tyger" still apply an...

Original poem reprinted online here: "I Remember the Look of My Ex-Wife Sitting Quietly in the Window on a Certain Day" by Albert Goldbarth Originally read: March 19, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Albert Goldbarth The poem kind of tricks the reader, but in a sterile, and interesting, kind of way.  The title of the poem brings in a sense of the personal -- even sentimental.  The focus of the title being about the reflection of the ex-wife in the window, but not actually the ex-wife herself by having the prepositional phrase "in."  Now, why do I bring up such a small detail.  Well, this poem is all about details and how they are arranged.  Like the first detail which is the epigraph by Sharon Waxman about how Nefertiti's looks, then the definition of the word "Nerfertiti means 'The Beautiful One Has Come"  as though to corroborate the visual with the language. And here, I assume that there's going to be a comparison between Nefertiti and...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Gods are in the Valley" by Dana Levin Originally read: March 19, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Dana Levin The conceit of this poem is the first line, "The mind sports god-extensions"  and the rest of the poem deals with the idea of "god-extensions" or finding the spiritual, looking for the spiritual, how the spiritual appears, and the basic structure of the search. And with the form of the poem the way it is, then the most left adjusted lines represent the point and the flow happens from the left adjusted line.  For example.  "It's a mountain from which [the left adjusted line] / the tributaries of spring: self, self, self, self-- [indent]"  Although just a small representation, there's an interplay of the point and how the point goes and is formed.   Like the idea of the self being describes through repetition as thought repeating creates meaning.  The poem is like going towards an answe...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Fear" and "Note Slipped under a Door" by Charles Simic Originally read: March 18, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Charles Simic So Poetry Daily does this sometimes -- put up two poems up by the same author.  I found things interesting with both.  In "Fear" it  is the way the speaker sets up the a comparison .  In "Note Slipped under a Door" it is how the speaker uses anaphora and observation to confirm multiple but "separate" images. "Fear" The first thing of note is how the metaphor works in the first stanza.  Yes, the metaphor applies to "fear" as a concept, but the undertone here is the idea of "unknowing"  how the concept transfers like how a leaf passes its "shudder" to another. So this unknowing fear fear, compared to with a natural occurrence, works as a synecdoche as the final two lines of the poem goes from leaf to tree, "All at once the w...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Amidst The Flowers A Jug of Wine" by Li Po Originally read: March 17, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Li Po Translations are hard to analyze.  Is the translator close to original text or not?  What is missed due to the transfer of language.  Regardless of bias or misinterpretation, I chose this poem because of how the images work -- they have qualities of persona, symbolism, and straight up Imagism, but they are explored and internalized to a certain degree where, I feel, the speaker, the moon, and the shadow have equal screen time, but different purposes. Yes, in most Li Po poems there's something about being drunk.  And in some ways, the introduction of wine -- something that distorts reality when drunk to much, is needed to loosen the readers own perceptions, creating the "suspension of belief" when the speaker personifies the moon and his shadow. And this is where the merge between image/symbolism come in, b...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Gifts out of Dirty Weather" by Elton Glaser Originally read: March 17, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Elton Glaser I find the first two lines of the poem quite humorous, "At the mall, three dead weeks before Christmas, / Half the women are old and half are ancient."  And since the poem is written in couplets there's an emphasis on these stanza which is also endstopped.  What is the focus here?  For me, it's the play on expectation.  First, "three dead weeks before Christmas" shows a certain change of perspective.  Working in retail for a while, three weeks before Christmas is the busiest -- shallow materialistically.  But the focus on the speaker is women who are old or ancient -- shallow physicality.  So the poem with the first two couplets set up a tone of cynicism, humor on an observant level. But then this type of cynicism and humor turns inward with next couplet with the introduction of the ...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "The Wife-Woman" by Anne Spencer Originally read: March 16, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Anne Spencer For a poem that is so focused with the idea of seven, it's kind of ironic that the form is in octaves.  I hope I am using "ironic" correctly.  In any case the use of allusion punctuates the reoccurring number of seven and I feel this poem is an exercise that pushes the idea of allusion, numbers, stream-of-consciousness in more of a riff jazz style Yes, I'm adding this in because I read that Anne Spencer was part of the Harlem Renaissance.  But the poem makes more sense to me with more context.  Such is the problem with historical context and allusion.  I do want to add though that the poem interested me enough to look up the allusions and see how they relate to one each other. The poem starts off with the allusion to "Maker of Sevens in the scheme of things / From earth to star;"  Here there's a c...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Broken Music" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Originally read: March 15, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Dante Gabriel Rossetti This is an Italian Sonnet.  I don't know why I have to point out form in the beginning of my analysis.  I think it's one of those literary technique I want to get out of the way first before going deep into content and other techniques.  Also, form is probably the first thing to see in a poem -- not really the words on the page, but the lines and the spaces.  This one is easy to decipher because the first stanza is eight lines, and the last stanza is six lines, and a quick scan shows a rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter.  I'm expecting a volta, and with the title like "Broken Music" I'm expecting some sort of sound or music in the poem. Then why is there a question mark on the top of the page.  I remember reading this the first time and not finding the music -- not finding how things a...

Original poem reprinted online here: "In Vitebsk There Lives a Cow" by Nuala Ní Chonchúir Originally read: March 14, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Nuala Ní Chonchúir So this is an eckphrastic poem about the March Chagall painting "I and the Village."  I'm going to write down something I haven't done in a long time -- write my first impressions of the poem, what I wrote on the page: - Male figure taking care of the cow - Inside further in the painting, kind of humourous - Peace through sound and pesence And since there's three quatrains, I think I should explore each part that I previous wrote down and see if my mind has changed. "Male figure taking care of the cow" Again, there's a poem in which the first line is the title.   To keep the quatrain form, the writer did this -- also since the first line refers to the cow -- it's safe to assume that the cow will play a big role in the poem, at least the first stanza.  There's a...

Original poem reprinted online here: "What the Dead Know" by Robert Polito Originally read: March 13, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Robert Polito The form of the poem interests me.  The poem starts out with a lot of white space and the line center adjusted, the next line left adjusted, and the poem continues to follow this pattern.  The pattern adds a sense of duality to the poem (yes, I write this a lot), but the type of duality that follows a pattern.  The first stanza is where I had trouble at first because there's a lot of description, but they all refer to air.  Duh, right?  But the description of air is very complex because even though the focus should be air, the simile of. "Air here is like the water / Of an aquarium"  and so there comes a visual image of air as water which are conflicting images, but work because the description fits both air and water.  For example "appearing cold (and clear) as spring streams / Fed by snow and ...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Beautiful, The Dead End," by Allison Davis Originally read: March 12, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Allison Davis The poem starts off with the title reading into the poem which has the poem focus in two similar directions: 1) focusing on the physical aspect (and commentary) 2) focusing on what the "body" is.  I think what also differs with the usual "title then poem" deal is that when the title is the first word of the poem that the poem's actual focus is somewhere else and the first line is meant to compliment the focus. For example, the actual first line of the poem (which is in tercets) is "of your body.  So here, the focus is on the body and this is what the poem will be about; however, the main description is the main adjective -- the duality of beautiful, yet a dead end. Meanwhile, the "body" accumulates different descriptions like "last shards of summer," and then the ident...