DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "On this Very Street in Belgrade" by Charles Simic Originally read: April 8, 2013 More information about the Poet: Charles Simic When I was looking up the bio information for Charles Simic, the first line I read was, "Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in1938" and I stopped right there.  Is this poem more on the personal side?  Perhaps.  I'll read his bio after this analysis, but I want to see how it is between me and this poem. The first note I wrote was, "strong visual and very precious simile.  Doll = Baby, burnt rags = the actual.  What present me notes is that the like could've easily been a metaphor line without the simile.  But the simile acts more of a distancing device -- through comparison the speaker gets away from the scene, and the usage of "like" or "as" focuses on the comparison and not so much the individual image. Next note, "Time passes, not Hollywood ending.  W

Original poem reprinted online here: "342 It will be Summer -- eventually."  by Emily Dickinson Originally read: April 7, 2013 More information about the Poet: Emily Dickinson Yes, in Emily Dickinson poems the dashes sort of take over  the poem visually, and, since there is a lack of other punctuation in the poem (with the exception of the comma in the first line), there's an assumption that the dashes work as pauses.  I'm not too sure though as I keep reading this poem.  Maybe the dashes will be a discussion for another day. But they do create pauses in interesting places though -- the dashes I mean.  For example, in the first stanza where the speaker is defining summer by the way people act, first there's the dash between "Ladies" and "with parasols" as thought there's a distinction between both; however, there are "Sauntering Gentlemen" and "with canes", and "little girls" and "with Dolls."  These

Original poem reprinted online here: "Have a Good One [In the error]" by Anselm Berrigan Originally read: April 6, 2013 More information about the Poet: Anselm Berrigan After looking up this poem, I noticed that this is part of a series of poems that start with "Have A Good One."  However, I'm not going to read the poem as one in a sequence -- I should though, but I'm thinking of that line where there is places that could be expanded on into a sequences (but not overly so) and where the poem can stand alone (but not be overly unique). I think line break and white space  makes this poem.  For example, the left adjusted "In the error" sets up a definition like stance where the poem discusses what "In the error" means in contrast of having a good one. The second line "thinking of non-intervention" is an interesting way of looking at errors, as in errors intervene in a straight path, and in the context of "having a good one&quo

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Bladder" by David Keplinger Originally read: April 7, 2013 More information about the Poet: David Keplinger I find this poem allusive heavy towards Beowulf.  Or is it me trying to make the poem allusive heavy through the term "The Haunter Mere."  In any case, the poem tries to balance the "real" with the "allusive" or maybe not.  It's weird since the tone of the poem seems to shift with every sentence.  Well since this is a short poem then I should go by sentence by sentence. "He who'll lose his bladder calls it Three Days Down, or / The Haunted Mere."  So here's when I think the poem is allusive heavy due to the way the sentence is constructed.  Note how the third person perspectives adds a mythic feel to the line also the renaming of something as something else as "Three Days Down" (which it can be taken as modern vernacular) or, more importantly allusive wise, "The

Original poem reprinted online here: "April" by Algernon Charles Swinburne Originally read: April 6, 2013 More information about the Poet: Algernon Charles Swinburne This is an easy and not so easy poem to decipher.  On the surface there's an alternating rhyme scheme sort of (ababcdeded) but that "c" line changes the dynamics of the poems intent, and trajectory.  Is the "c" line a volta, not all the time, but sometimes. Also the poem has a simple subject, right, speaker loves a woman like the divine and (possibly) vice versa, or maybe not.  Yeah it gets confusing really quick for me because the tone changes on the subject (both the woman and the divine).  I've been stuck on how to analyze this poem, so I'm just going to do it one stanza at a time. In stanza one the main focus is on nature and the comparison between, "The songs of the birds begin" (which has a positive connotation), and "I sing with sighing between" -- happy

Original poem reprinted online here: "Like Any Good American" by Brynn Saito Originally read: April 5, 2013 More information about the Poet: Brynn Saito I think the message here is simple.  The title "Like Any Good American" refers to the actions of a country in the negative; however, by referring to the self "I" as a symbol of "America" then the political message of giving up to technology is buffered since the reference is to I, the plural disguised as a singular,  rather than the "American," the singular disguised as a plural.  However, the technique is interesting.  The spacing and line-breaks bring a difference to the message, but not a reversal.  For example, the spacing in between phrases like "I give it my eardrums         I give it my longing" juxtapose the actual and the emotion. But this is the huge note to this poem, that the breaks doesn't mean a break from the sentence structure.  Rather, the poem depends on

Original poem reprinted online here: "Early Elegy: Headmistress" by Claudia Emerson Originally read: April 4, 2013 More information about the Poet: Claudia Emerson The use of punctuation in this poem parallel each other, but I'm unsure how the parallels work.  The use of the colon could set off a list, and/or define something.  But yet look how the title works, "Early Elegy: Headmistress."  The colon feels like it's setting off a list, and this poem is in a sequence of poems titled "Early Elegy." Furthermore the syntactical structure of the title follows into the first line of the poem, "The word itself: prim retired, its artifact".  Indeed the colon does set off a list, however there's that usage of the ambiguous pronoun "itself" which can refer to an "Early Elegy" and/or the "Head Mistress."  And the qualities each take "prim, retired," does flow well conceptually. But the poem does confirm th

Original poem reprinted online here: "A Last Moth of August" by Nance Van Winckel Originally read: April 3, 2013 More information about the Poet: Nance Van Winckel The tone of the poem in the first stanza is a bit overwhelming.  I think I'm getting a little far ahead of myself.  The first three lines describe the moth with the ability to change "the night's mood," and then the speaker makes this declaration, "Change its course, too. Maestro."  So there's a sense of humor here, but mockingly.  Immediately, my mind went to two different tones after reading the first three lines -- a cynical spider in the web tone, or a drunken absurd tone.  In either case, I feel the tone is a self-reflexive.  Well, it's kind of obvious with this line, "do you never tire, as I do,".  And so the moth is more of a projection that "trash-talks" or "sassing" in some way.  However I do want to address these lines, "this rolled-up

Original poem reprinted online here: "Full Moon" by Tu Fu Originally read: April 2, 2013 More information about the Poet: Tu Fu Tang Chinese Poets.  I don't know how many times I've heard that they were a big influence in someone's poetic work.  And, from my reading of Li Po, Tu Fu, Po Chu II, and Wang Wei -- the focus for me is how the image is implemented in the poem.  There's a visual concrete presence that moves in the majority of the poems of Tang Chinese Poets.  So, with this poem, I think the translation does a real disservice to the poem by using "it."  However, what "it" does for the translation adds another layer of miscommunication that adds a certain depth to the poem. There are only two quatrains here.  The first focuses on the location of the full moon which is above human constructs (a tower) passing over.  The first "it" in this poem occurs in the third line with "It scatters restless gold across the waves&quo

Original poem reprinted online here: "Briefcases" by Stephen Dunn Originally read: April 2, 2013 More information about the Poet: Stephen Dunn With a line like, "I kept it like love / until I couldn't be kept anymore."  A part of me thought I would discard this poem as overly sentimental (which I do too often) and then move to a different type of poem.  However, in this instance, and for that day, I decided to print this poem out and look more into how the devices work in this poem. There are puns, sentimentality, playing with white space, consistent quatrains, a slight sense of the absurd, narrative elements, role reversals brought about through similes, and I think that's it.  Why do I list all these techniques out now?  Well, this is the major and interesting thing about the poem -- the poem is unapologetic on the sentiment.  This is how the speaker is feeling, and more importantly, the absurdity it takes to keep this feeling. What am I writing?   Is this

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Comet" by Emma Törzs Originally read: April 1, 2013 More information about the Poet: Emma Törzs The beginning of the poem has the classic case of being too personal and cute.  The adjective/noun combinations of "deep lonely," "beautiful freeze," and "staring eyes" have the tendency of leading the reader to the single direction of sentiment.  Well, where else would this lead to?  But this in itself is the trap of the poem -- how much of the sentiment intertwines with the allusion or vice versa. Of course the image of the comet does set up more of a symbolic reading for me -- the stars, the moon, the great beyond -- this is where my mind unfortunately goes and the eventual turn here is to the personal -- to either life or death.  And the poem doesn't disappoint on this level. First, how the poem deals with life, "Say I am the aftertaste / of all my parents' grief, a childhood spent in the downw

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Mower Against Gardens" by Andrew Marvell Originally read: March 31, 2013 More information about the Poet: Andrew Marvell It's poets like this where I feel that I wouldn't do an analysis justice to the poem since this poem has many allusions (biblical garden, and others) and works within a form -- couplets within a single stanza.  For a while, I was thinking of looking up scholarly articles about the poem to validate my thoughts.  But, this blog is not so much about analysis, but rather experience of the poem -- I should keep this thought in mind and not be so hesitant about trying to figure out this poem. In any case, I've been relooking and rereading this poem on and off during my "break" and I came to the conclusion that this poem appropriates the idea of "Adam's Garden" to "Manifest Destiny" through the sexualization or the emasculation of "the other."  However, the "othe

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Old Hauler" by Ryan Dennis Originally read: March 30, 2013 More information about the Poet: Ryan Dennis A third person perspective, but not necessarily narrative.  The focus is the speaker's description and knowledge of "the old hauler."  The real question when I read this poem was where were the hiccups in the poem, places where there's an emotional turn of phrase or idea but then there's the return back to the more objective descriptive tone. In the first stanza, there's more of a play of sounds than a set-up of definition, "intentions among suggestions / [...] it's a lesson in resignation."  Note how the "-tion" sounds is a risky move here in the poem.  If the rhyme (or over use of internal and end-stopped rhyme) can possibly turn off the reader due to a sing song quality that pertains to generalities of the person.  Also the last line automatically pinpoints "the old hauler&qu