DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Death of Santa Claus" by Charles Harper Webb Originally read: June 30, 2013 More information about the Poet: Charles Harper Webb Tercets.  I don't know why I need to start out this way.  Anyway, the poem starts out in an narrative arc of exposition, narrative, second exposition, narrative. The primary focus of the poem is how Santa Claus dies.  The first two stanzas explain the symptoms as, "chest pains for weeks / but doctor's don't make house / calls to the North Pole," and how Santa Claus addressed the symptoms, "he's let his Blue Cross lapse, / blood tests make him faint / hospital gowns always flap"  The continuation of excuses of why not to go.  Note how very real the speaker makes the character of Santa -- in the first two stanzas there's already a sense of urgency and fear in two different angles: chest pain (urgency and fear) and reasons not to go to the hospital (urgency and fear). ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "St. Joseph, Abscondus" by Robert Gibb Originally read: June 30, 2013 More information about the Poet: Robert Gibb It wasn't until I read his bio on wikipedia that I found out he's from Homestead, Pennsylvania.  That would make sense for the first stanza.  However, I wonder, did I need to know that Homestead is where he's from for this poem.  No not really.  "Homestead" is precise of a place which contrasts the religious imagery in the poem. Past me wrote that the poem's structure was in tercets (up until the end) and this plays a part in the discussion of religion and place.  In the first stanza, presents the disappearance of the saint, "He's missing from the only kind of heaven / We have left in Homestead"   -- the abscondus in the title refers to his disappearance as well.  And as if to eulogize him, the speaker takes the name of Saint Joseph, and describes him as a, "plate-headed saint / Who...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Distressful Homonyms" by Vikram Seth Originally read: June 29, 2013 More information about the Poet: Vikram Seth The poem plays with homonyms, words that share the same spelling but different meanings, at the end of each line.  The couplet form limits the homonyms to two, but the stanzas are not end-stopped. With the first three lines "Since for me you have no warmth to spare / I sense I must adopt a sane and spare / Philosophy"  the speaker sets himself up as someone going above.  here the other has "no warmth to spare" the speaker then turns to something sane -- of course philosophy. "to ease a restless state / fueled by this uncaring. / It will state"  So here the homonyms are state as in a being, and state as in to talk -- as the poem goes further and further the more prophetic. "A very meagre truth: love like the rest / Of our emotions, sometimes needs a rest."  The other is now more into focus...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Fireside" by Seamus Heaney Originally read: June 28, 2013 More information about the Poet: Seamus Heaney A very loose Elizabethan sonnet, but the subject matter also has that very loose unknown quality to it.  Ephemeral, seen without definition.  Okay So we'll go quatrain at a time:      Always there would be stories of lights      hovering among bushes or at the foot      of a meadow; maybe a goat with cold horns      pluming into the moon; a tingle of chains The first stanza is very image based; however, note the usage of the semi-colon to list how these stories occur.  In the first line there is the mention of lights and how the light reacts, "hovering among bushes," or "at the foot of a meadow," which tell location.  The goal line, "a goat with cold horns / pluming into the moon" feels like a reasoning line, but it's goes toward the absurd by the description, and "a ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Clenched Soul" by Pablo Neruda Originally read: June 27, 2013 More information about the Poet: Pablo Neruda Each stanza has a sense of turmoil.  The push and pull of a relationship that's not really stated, but compared to. With the first stanza, "We have lost even this twilight / No one saw us this evening hand in hand / while the blue night dropped on the world."  The setting of the poem starts at the loss of twilight, assuming that's the start of the day.  The speaker appropriates this moment to a "we" hand in hand.  The last image, "blue night dropped on the world" has foreboding undertone -- somewhat encompassing. "I have seen from my window / the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops."  A visual stanza in which, note, the speaker is alone.  He is looking out.  And "fiesta" here is not my first inclination of a "party."  I think the word is more inclined to t...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?" by Aimee Nezhukumatathi l Originally read: June 26, 2013 More information about the Poet: Aimee Nezhukumatathil I envision this poem as an Italian sonnet.  not because of the fourteen lines, but because in the octave there's definitely a question (played with) and there's definitely an answer (serious in taking into consideration the humor). The title isn't the question though...even though it's in the form of a question.  "Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?"  Ah, this question and the cousins of this question, "Is that poem based on a real event?" or "how much do you put of yourself in your work?" The question is how far can the personal question go in regards to literary work.  The first lines represent straight-forward actions and scenes, "If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuck / in your heel, the wetness of a finished lolli...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Tang" by Bruce Cohen Originally read: June 26, 2013 More information about the Poet: Bruce Cohen Puns, puns everywhere.  The usage of the word "Tang" varies with each stanza; however, with each pun, there's always a reference to the speaker.  And to make sure the poem isn't about the puns, the speaker mentions himself in the beginning of the poem. "If I do not witness these leaves turning orange, who will? / I stir myself / I like to think."  So these lines set the mood of the poem based upon rumination.  Here the speaker is thinking of the multiple definitions of "Tang" (puns, puns everywhere).       of myself as a reincarnated Poet from the Tang Dynasty,       Dehydrated orange drink       Astronauts gulped orbiting the planet       That became a fun '60's staple. So here the speaker describes "tang" as Tang dynasty poets, and th...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Why I Am Not a Buddhist" by Charles Bernstein Originally read: June 25, 2013 More information about the Poet: Charles Bernstein In the "About the Poem" here Bernstein writes about how he's wrote these types of poem before like, "Why I Am Not a Christian" and "Why I Don't Meditate" -- and for this poem in particular the writer was "both sophistical and sincere (a favorite combination)."  Bernstein further goes into his intent for writing poems like these with: "My concern is more What is false? than What is truth? All true poetry comes from deep fear, immobility, timidity. (I love Walter Benjamin’s essay on Hölderlin’s timidity.) This is our common ground, our temporal consanguinity (blood ties). Reality is not kind. I’d tell you in an instant, if I could." Bernstein's aesthetic shows in the first line of the poem.  "Reality cons me as it spur(n)s me."  The parenthetic...

Original poem reprinted online here: "On the Death of a Colleague" by Stephen Dunn Originally read: June 24, 2013 More information about the Poet: Stephen Dunn Generic exposition.  This might come off as a bit surface in my analysis, but this is how the poem operates in the first stanza.  The title itself, "On the Death of a Colleague" opens up a eulogy tone which means there's going to be portions of nostalgia and exposition to understand the current.  For example, "She taught theater, so we gathered / in the theater."  There's no metaphor, or any poetic tricks here -- just simple statements which lead to generic remembrances, "We praised her voice, her knowledge, / how good she was / with Godot ,"  The reference to Godot (existential journey viewed and acted through the absurd) will set an undertone throughout the poem. However, we're back to the generalized descriptions of the passed, "She was fifty.  The problem in the liver...

Original poem reprinted online here: "And One For My Dame" by Anne Sexton Originally read: June 23, 2013 More information about the Poet: Anne Sexton In tercets, this poem also deals with three characters: the father, the husband and the speaker.  However, the weight of the poem falls heavily on who the father was and what he represents to the speaker. The first nine stanzas focuses on how the speaker remembers the father, "a born salesmen, / my father made all his dough / by selling wool to Dieldcrest, Woolrich, and Faribo."  Note that the focus is "born" foreshadowing a sense of birthright (good or bad) and also how specific on who he sold his product.  Also note the colloquial tone which brings more attention to how the speaker tells the story rather than the story itself. "A born talker, / he could sell one hundred wet down bales / of that white stuff.  He could clock the miles and the sales."  More reference to the father, but propped up to ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "We Come Elemental" by Tamiko Beyer Originally read: June 22, 2013 More information about the Poet: Tamiko Beyer The collective experience.  After rereading this poem again and looking at my notes, I can see why past me was looking more at the technique than the content.   The technique changes every couple of stanzas.  The images, more or less, seem to go through a consistent thread, but tone, punctuation, style changes as though to temper the described journey of the poem.  The first stanza deals with tactile imagery, as the "we" step into humid light, "It sticks to our skin / and microbes gorge / in grey water runoff pools."  The first image being so tactile transfers over the "microbes."  This stanza feels more like a cause and effect.  Humid light sticks to skin; therefore, microbes gorge on "sweat" (assuming the image of "greywater runoff pools" refers to sweat"). This sort of du...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Void and Compensation (Field Guide)" by Michael Morse Originally read: June 21, 2013 More information about the Poet: Michael Morse Two things that are going on in this poem -- the 2nd person perspective and (mostly) end stopped stanzas.  Why is this important to note before reading the poem?  For me, I think the addressing of the you controls the type of images and metaphors represented which is furthermore constricted by the 2nd person point of view.  Because it's not what the reader sees, it's what the speaker wants to show.  Kind of like a choose your own adventure book...but is it really and adventure? The first stanza plays with the idea of a "field guide" with, "Page one's a white space for thinking; even here among the evergreens / beyond the living room and the white noise."  Here, the stanza serves as a palette cleanser.  The repetition of white should prepare the reader for images to pop up. And ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Hedgehog" by Paul Muldoon Originally read: June 20, 2013 More information about the Poet: Paul Muldoon "Why start out with a snail? comparative metaphor and how to read the poem -- absurd but somewhat reasoned images."  That's the first comment past me put on this poem.  Well, I'm pretty sure from the first stanza no one could guess where this poem ends up, but it makes sense when a reader goes back to the beginning and reads the poem again.  But the comparative metaphor, the absurd, the images -- those are important aspects in this poem. "Why start out with a snail?"  Yes, this comment is about the first stanza.  The image of the snail is compared to a hovercraft -- and although the images are surreal, the important line here is, "Rubber cushion of itself, / Sharing its secret"  The last line is the change of tempo from image to rhetoric / however, the cushion of itself blends in two concepts -- the ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The last poem in the world" by Benny Anderson Originally read: June 20, 2013 More information about the Poet: Benny Anderson  This poem is a translation from Danish. I do wonder, a usual, what's lost in translation, but when I reread this poem the poem is about loss, but not necessarily the loss in a emotional drudgery sort of way, but more of a c'est la vie humorous type of approach to loss. The opening lines, "If this were the last poem in the world / I would make it as long as possible / infinitely long" are very straight forward.  Note, that at this point the poem is not post-apocalyptic, rather describes itself as the "last poem in the world" as though either a) poetry ceases to exist due to eradication or b) poetry ceases to exist do to apathy.  Also note that the focus isn't content -- rather length -- the humor of this situation is punctuated with the drop down adjusted line "infinitely long...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Pittsburgh" by James Allen Hall Originally read: June 18, 2013 More information about the Poet: James Allen Hall A singular stanza, I find that the power of this poem is how the speaker is trying to vent out a certain kind of hatred, but keeps in another kind of hatred.  I ask myself if the angry tone ever gets over the top, and, yeah it does.  However, the fluctuation of the level of anger and the naming of landmarks bring dimension to the speaker as a character. "I burn your Highland Park. I acid your Carnegie / car dealerships.  Your Squirrel Hill, sheer terror / in winter.  But most of all, I hate your Liberty Avenue,"    Short declarative sentences with these verbs "burn" "acid" "hate."  Simple visceral statement, but note that this is in the present tense as though the speaker is either seeing the landmarks now or is thinking about it.  Also note this is a good example of  "in media reas....

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Masks of Love" by Alden Nowlan Originally read: June 18, 2013 More information about the Poet: Alden Nowlan I didn't highlight anything for this poem.  I just put notes on the side for each stanza.  Why?  Past me was more interested in the flow of the poem.  And me, currently, has to agree.  The poem is not about flashy techniques -- rather, the poem has two quatrains that serve as an exposition, and then a question. Exposition:      I come in from a walk      With you      And they ask me      If it is raining. Pretty straight forward and simple enough.  There's the speaker and the other walking in from somewhere, and "they" ask if there is rain.  Three parties in this part: the speaker, the "you", and the "they."  No big tonal points, and no big technique points. Question:      I didn't notice      Bu...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Conversation" by Ai Ogawa Originally read: June 17, 2013 More information about the Poet: Ai Ogawa "and you realize how that image / is simply the extension of another image."  Past me circled these lines and wrote "core."    These lines occur in the middle of the poem, and the question being why announce your technique in the middle of a poem?  Well, if the subject matter is too strong, too much for a reader, the little respite brings reflection. The poem opens up with present day action, "We smile at each other / and I lean back against  the wicker couch, / How does it feel to be dead? I say"  The scene starts off innocuous, but then start of the conversation brings another question of "who is dead." But instead of who, it's more about the action of the dead:      You touch my knees with your blue fingers      And when you open your mouth,      a ball of...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Swiss Family Robinson" by Ron Padgett Originally read: June 17, 2013 More information about the Poet: Ron Padgett The confusion of language.  In the first half of the poem focuses how language can dissuade a reader from reading; furthermore, the focus of language is described as simple as possible. The speaker admits he "never quite understood / the Swiss Family Robinson were."  Note the construction of the sentence with the verb last which usually defies syntactical convention (Subject -> Verb -> Object).  And by writing syntactically like this, the speaker foreshadows his own misunderstanding.      The inversion of their name      confused me at an early age,      just as the name Mary baker Eddy      sounded as though she started out      as a woman and turned into      a guy named Eddy. There's humor he...

Original poem reprinted online here: "In the Storm of Roses" by Ingeborg Bachmann Originally read: June 14, 2013 More information about the Poet: Ingeborg Bachmann The poem is more of a deconstruction of the image into pieces of metaphor.  Each part of the rose creates each part of the storm. But first, the introduction of the speaker and the other, "Wherever we turn in the storm of roses" -- unison.  The group mentality is here, but note this is a group sharing a metaphorical catastrophe together. "the night is lit up by thorns," see how these images don't necessarily match.  How does the thorns light up the night?  The shift in visual images could bring a sense of the surreal to the poem; however, my interpretation is that the  night is lit is not a visual image, rather a physical one.  The thorns enliven the night -- the pain swirling. "and the thunder / of leaves,"  Here's a sonic metaphor.  The sound of lives swirling fast is the equ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Last Meeting" by Gwen Harwood Originally read: June 14, 2013 More information about the Poet: Gwen Harwood The first thing past me noted was the rhyme scheme in which only the second and fourth line rhyme.  A separation is formed based on cohesiveness and non-cohesiveness through the rhyme scheme which, I feel, is addressed in the first stanza. The first stanza has strong visual imagery, "Shadows grazing eastward melt/ from their vast sun-driven flocks"  but note how the beginning image and the last image constrast each other "Shadow" and "sun-driven"; furthermore, the shadows are "melting" "from" the sun driven flocks.  The next line  indicate cohesiveness through the images, "into consubstantial dusk." The visual images continue as to create an atmosphere, "A snow wind flosses the bleak rocks, / strips from the gums their rags of bark, / and spins the coil of winter tight...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Tar" by Douglas Kearney Originally read: June 14, 2013 More information about the Poet: Douglas Kearney When I reread this poem, I noticed something that past me wrote about for the end, "black implication? Too broad, misguided impact."  And I wonder why.  I think this is the challenge of the poem, how far does can on take a metaphor until the metaphor is an actual representation of the subject. For example, the opening line that includes the title, "[Tar] by the roadside, rude and odd and who / is it?"  The personification of Tar happens right away, but the attributes of "rude and odd" doesn't necessarily humanize the tar, but the idea of humanization happens with, "who is it?" And at this point, the "Tar" has to be taken as a term for a person.  I think this makes sense.  Instead of playing with the signifier and signified, or punning around, the poem is more direct, "won't ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Complaint of Achilles' Heel" by Charles Jensen Originally read: June 13, 2013 More information about the Poet: Charles Jensen After reading this poem a couple of times, past me wrote this note pointing to the "Achilles' Heel" in the title, "Is this the perspective?"  Well, it is.   The speaker plays with the perspective and language in order to give a different interpretation of Achilles. The tone of the speaker is playful in the beginning, "Everyone's so quick to blame my / tenderness."  And the language splits a bit between the physical and the emotional automatically.  Mixed with the playful tone, it seems the speaker doesn't take the scenario seriously. Yet, the simile of the next line, "My wound opening like a mouth / to kiss an arrow's steel beak" is oddly direct.  The perspective is further personified with the line attempting to make the speaker into a separate entity fro...

Original poem reprinted online here: "A child said, What is the grass?" by Walt Whitman Originally read: June 11, 2013 More information about the Poet: Walt Whitman Rhetorical questions at the beginning of poems make me wonder some times technique wise.  After the question, does the speaker try to answer it, or does the speaker try to further explain the question with the following lines?  The poem does both.  There's an expansion of the scope of the question and the answer which is interplayed with each stanza in which . The first stanza sets up the question from the perspective from a child, "A child said, What is grass" to the speaker who "I do not know what it it is anymore than he."  But then there's the expansion of what it could be, "I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven."  Note that the repeating of this phrase "Or I guess" continues on for the next three stanzas.  To me, the rep...