DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Then I Packed You Up the Ridge Like a Brother on My Back" by Joe Wilkins Originally read: August 12, 2013 More information about the Poet: Joe Wilkins The poem is dependent on couplets.  Furthermore, the poem is dependent on how the reader interprets the couplets.  Even from the title, the line break to create the couplet separates the simile from the known, but also nature against the personal.  The poem goes back and forth between these topics until the end. The first two couplets sets up the scene with the first couplet setting up a macro, "In the blue dark I followed the ridge / toward the pines." and then the micro, "In a bowl of sage and dry grass / soft as the throat hairs"  note with the description tries to be appeal on the visual and tactile scale, but since the simile bleeds on through to the next line with, "of something small," and the line has a tinge of something visceral, of something viewed

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Bartimeus Grown Old" by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall Originally read: August 11, 2013 More information about the Poet: Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall Here the poem is entirely dependent on understanding the allusion.   Bartimeus   refers to the blind man healed by Jesus.  And what this poem does is written in the voice of an older Bartimeus.  But also note the poem is also a dramatic monologue in which the speaker, Bartimeus, is giving a sort of confession. The first line indicates identity, "Yea, I am he that dwell beside this tomb."  And from identity comes background, "I was a child.  God smote me from the sun. / A little while, I had forgot to run / Under the rain-sweet roof of almond bloom."  The initial line of age has an child like, but profound, outlook, "God smote me from the sun.  The line has symbolic implications of "God" but also "sun" (equal divine entities, unable to fe

Original poem reprinted online here:   "How to Tell Your Mother There Will Be No Grandkids In Her Future" by Ira Sukrungruang Originally read: August 10, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Ira Sukrungruang This poem has a very strong commanding tone with the majority of lines starting out with the verb "tell."  But who is the speaker commanding?  This poem humor comes from the speaker trying to urge and plan his way into telling his mom. The first three lines come off as firm directions, "Don't enter conversations / about generations.  Use the art / of misdirection."  The humor here is the reference to a magician or a military tactician -- or both, really, when telling a mom that there will be no grandkids.  Furthermore, the speaker uses the line as a jumping off point on what other conversations could be implemented. "Tell her the rain / is falling."  Here's a reference to the current situation, not the future.  "Tell her today

Original poem reprinted online here:    "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe Originally read: Some Time Ago, More information about the Poet: Edgar Allan Poe On the very top right corner of my paper analysis, I write down the rhyme scheme and the form of the poem.  Even though Poe himself stated that the poem is in a ballad form, there are drops in rhyme schemes and meter.  But the poem isn't about the exact form -- rather, like the subject, the poem is an exercise in inexactness -- something is not right in this poem. In the first sestet the rhyme scheme is almost exact and the line that isn't is the difference of "thought" which plays with the memory talked about.  There is a set up as the speaker and the girl "Annabel Lee" in which the speaker places the subject as someone "lived with no other thought / Than to love and be loved by me".  The construction here is a bit weird because the focus is on the subject and then the subject's pur

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Experiment in Divination: Voice and Character" by Rebecca Wolff Originally read: August 8, 2013 More information about the Poet: Rebecca Wolff Here's the thing with this poem.  My investment with this poem isn't necessarily to understand this poem, I think my focus is how the techniques relate against each other for example the first two lines, "There is a curiosity that knows / I know" has a sense of dual knowledge. Meanwhile, "deathless ceiling of unknowing / I know" shows a singular knowledge.  And even though the poem has strong images and rhetoric at times, the poem is an "Experiment in Divination" where it's not about making sense, rather seeing how far one can push or withdraw. So when the poem addresses the audience (querent) in archaic terms, I feel that the poem is asking the querent to search for basics rather than search too deeply for meaning or theme -- look at this as an experimen

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Self-Portrait In a Wire Jacket" by Monica Youn Originally read: August 8, 2013 More information about the Poet: Monica Youn The couplets read like two separate entities, yet the funny thing about this poem is that the two identities are within the same base, the same poem.  Couplets, usually, work like this, but this idea is amplified further here due to the (over)usage of prepositional phrases and line breaks to set up rhetorical statement that automatically disprove a notion. For example, "To section off / is to intensify, / to deaden.," these lines has an implicit statement going a couple ways: the implication that to not section off is to not intensify, and the way the poem will be read, intense focus on what needs to be "dead." "Some surfaces / cannot be salvaged"  I think the deadpan tone comes through with the bluntness of this statement, followed by, "Leave them" which adds a dramatic flair

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Reading Can Kill You" by Barbara Hamby Originally read: August 6, 2013 More information about the Poet: Barbara Hamby This poem mixes allusions, references, inferences, relationships, and alignment all together to talk about -- well, what could have been and what's going on now.  Why such complications?  Even if the situation appears simple from a spectator view, to be actually in the moment what do a person goes back to?  For the speaker, trying to understand goes back to literature. The majority of the poem is a narrative between two couples talking over dinner.  The first mention of literature is the third line, "The Master and Margarita"  in which the speaker announces to have read, "in different translations."  But with the focus on multiple translations, the speaker is still aware that, "his wife and my husband are stewing,"  there's a connection there which blows up to, "as if bob and I

Original poem reprinted online here: "Move to the City" by Nathaniel Bellows Originally read: August 5, 2013 More information about the Poet: Nathaniel Bellows There are two important characters that the reader needs to follow.  The first is the speaker who has more of a commanding tone in the beginning with lines starting with strong verbs, but then goes on a narrative edge.  The second is the subject of whom the speaker addresses -- the subject is a little hazy at first and then becomes clearer and clearer as the poem progresses. The title blends into the poem and all the actions are in present tense, "live life as a stranger. Disappear / into frequent invention," and here the speaker is giving commands -- not suggestions -- to actually do something.  Note the emphasis on verbs and how phrases wrap around them. This next part, I feel, the key verb of "take" twists the poem a bit:      [...] For a night, take the name      of the person who'd say yes

Original poem reprinted online here: "Old Men Pitching Horseshoes" by X.J Kennedy Originally read: August  2013 More information about the Poet: X.J Kennedy AABB rhyme scheme.  Why?  There seems to be a separation of the current and the past in the poem and each seem too separate to intertwine.  The rhyme scheme does add a sing song quality to the poem at times, but, I feel, the rhyme scheme adds a sense of "pleasant" nostalgia. In the first stanza, the current is in a narrative voice.  "Back in a yard where ringers groove a ditch , These four in shirtsleeves congregate to pitch / Dirt-burnished iron."  The description is constructed tightly, the verbs "groove" "congregate" focus on visual action; meanwhile, the "shirtsleeves" and the "Dirt- burnished iron" brings visual based on objects.  The scene is vivid and described to be alive and in the present -- setting wise at least. "With appraising eye, / One sizes

Original poem reprinted online here: "Sonnet after Wyatt" by Clive James Originally read: August 11, 2014 More information about the Poet: Clive James I think the reference in this poem points towards Sir Thomas Wyatt .  How much does the speaker refers to the poet is unknown to me since I'm not familiar with Wyatt's work.  However, the poem, an Elizabethan sonnet, focuses more on eulogy or a least the sense of someone lost. 'The final naked stalking feet have fled. / My chamber, even when the summer sun / Streams in to light my books, and is dark instead:"  Here the athropomorphizing of the action gives a distinct personal memory.  The list of adjectives "final naked stalking" have a sense of vulnerability, but note how each adjectives adds a sense of character to the feet.  So when the image shifts to the room, the focus is more metaphorical -- the room is dark. "Those shining walkers have all cut and run / Out of the shower, not wearing very

Original poem reprinted online here: "Bright Stars" by Moira Egan Originally read: August 2, 2014 More information about the Poet: Moira Egan This is a reference to Keat's famous poem "Bright Star."  The form is the same -- an Elizabethan Sonnet, but the perspective has more of a dual-sided edge than "Bright Star." The offset line, "And yet, 0 Morning Star, look what you've done" guides the reader on how to see this poem -- note the spelling of zero by the actual number -- the focus, primarily is going to be the usage of sentence structure, and the poem is going to look forward to what is done. "Of late I've be obsessing (tendencies? / you know, the Plathy and poetic ones?) The poem turns from the speaker to allusion.  Does obsessing = tendencies?  No, but in the context to these lines the focus is on the micro of tendencies -- what does one do when observing tendencies?  And what type of tendencies?  The speaker defines tendenci

Original poem reprinted online here: "Necrological" by John Crowe Ransom Originally read: August 2, 2014 More information about the Poet: John Crowe Ransom The logic of the dead.  That's if I understand how compound words work.  I probably don't.  Anyway, the poem is written in quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme which would indicate an equivocalness of something. "The friar had said his pasternosters duly / And scourged his limbs, and afterwords would have slept; " The subject in focus is the friar who goes by a regular routine of prayer and "scourging" himself.  But note the semi-colon here foreshadowing a connection between routine and, "But with much riddling his head became unruly, /He arose, from the quiet monastery he crept."  Yes, there seems to be a logical narrative sequence going on here.  We have a character (friar) we have a setting "monastery" but I contend that the character and scene are the same, well in the end

Original poem reprinted online here: "This is a City of Bridges" by Jeff Dolven Originally read: August 1, 2014 More information about the Poet: Jeff Dolven What I wrote in the beginning, "quatrains xaxa rhyme [scheme]"  There's a focus on a gap.  In the first line, there's the repetition of the title, "This is a city of bridges," but the stanza changes the context and a different focus, "thought the water is mostly fled; / a city of ambitious span and empty bed."  Note that the semi-colon brings in the connection of reinterpretation of the same scene.  "Water has fled" and an "empty bed" state similar visual images, but different tones.  The first is more of the "escape of nature" and the second the "escape of people." However, the speaker doesn't go into the reinterpretations and rather focuses on the visual.  "It makes for a curious skyline:"  Note the usage of "it" in the

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Sense of Place" by Alan Soldofsky Originally read: Three years ago (?) More information about the Poet: Alan Soldofsky I remember reading earlier drafts of this poem, and now I see it as the first poem on the Poetry Flash site for the past couple of months on the left hand side -- first poem featured.  I thought, well, might as well analyze this because I do think this is the core poem in Alan Soldofky's collection, In the Buddha Factory . But first, what I remembered from a previous draft of the poem.  Back in 2010, I probably went to Alan Soldofsky's, the director of San Jose State's MFA program, office for some school related advice, probably knowing where I stand in the MFA program, or how many credits I needed to graduate.  At the time he was working on In the Buddha Factory  and the manuscript was probably in its seventh to eighth draft.  I think I got  direct and brief answers to my questions which I do not remember.

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Mutability" by Percy Bysshe Shelley Originally read: July 31, 2013 More information about the Poet: Percy Bysshe Shelley Four quatrains.  ABAB rhyme scheme.  The rhyme scheme would indicate a consistent separation and returning -- changing.  However, the first stanza, mostly dealing with natural image, brings a sense of unveiling.  The speaker states that "We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;" and note the semi-colon in which indicates a connection.  "How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver / Streaking the darkness radiantly!"  So note, the motions of the clouds represent the "we": speed, gleam, quiver.  It seems like a very marvelous time, "-- / yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost"  So the moment is lost when it's morning -- light revealing the time. So one of the key words here is "or" in the second stanza.  What does the "or" compare?  "O

Original poem reprinted online here: "Mud" by Alice Teeter Originally read: July 30, 2013 More information about the Poet: Alice Teeter "No punctuation" is the firs thing I wrote at the top.  It's not that punctuation is needed to make a poem, but it's how the poem works with the lack of punctuation.  And here, instead of a period, or a pause, there's a space between which goes nicely with the topic of "Female creator -- materials *mud *clay." The first stanza is more expository in approach.  There's no dramatic action, only the action of building someone up, "She builds a man from the mud    As far as the horizon / in all directions there is only clay     "  Note the difference between clay and mud, something malleable (mud) versus something already hardened (clay)  "cracked as if a note / deep under the earth had sounded leaving large plates / of mud separated by clefts of a deeper red"  and here the lines separate app

Original poem reprinted online here: "Ha Ha Unicorns" by Eileen G'Sell Originally read: July 28, 2013 More information about the Poet: Eileen G'Sell The beginning of this poem uses a weird sort of logic, I don't know my philosophy very to label what type of logic though, "To marry is to compromise; I hate compromise.  I hate compromise and I love unicorns."  I rarely use the term symbol in my analyses these days.  Why?  I think it's how the term operates.   Symbol  -- something that represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity.  It's easy to say one thing is a symbol of another thin (i.e. the flag represents a country, this apple symbolizes death) but I tend to wonder how these symbols are formed, and I think I spend too much time extrapolating how techniques are used (or at least that's how I want to spend my time with this). Anyway, this poem plays with the idea of symbol.   If marriage symbolizes compromise, and speaker hates compro

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Victor Dog" by James Merrill Originally read: July 28, 2013 More information about the Poet: James Merrill Quatrains.  ABBA rhyme scheme.  The poem has ten stanzas.  The general gist of the poem is how a dog is trained to listen to music (note how to "feel" music) but this is not the main function of the poem.  Rather the poem goes through distinctive musical styles in which the speaker is able to play in the poem due to the persona taking more of the "judgmental role." The play starts with the first line, " Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez ," the play of just naming musicians through alliteration, but who is listening here, "The little white dog on the Victor label / Listens long and hard as he is able.  It's all in a days work, whatever plays."  The actions of the dog builds him up to a metaphor.  What type of metaphor?  The one that takes responsibility for the following play.  This is how th

Original poem reprinted online here: "Paradoxes and Oxymorons" by John Ashbery Originally read: July 27, 2013 (I printed the poem out again 11/4) More information about the Poet: John Ashbery This is a poem that the Poetry Foundation has an extensive guide and analysis on  to not only understand the poem, but to teach the poem to any age level.  For me, I read the poem and I thought it was a very good poem talking about learning about poetry.  Not necessarily an Ars Poetica, but this is a poem, I feel, a lot of students, young or old, can relate to. The first stanza is very straight forward, "The poem is concerned with language on a very plain level. / Look at it talking to you.  You look out a window."  The speaker sets up a relationship between the reader and the poem -- something amiss, "Or pretend to fidget. / You have it but you don't have it.  / You miss it, it misses you.  You miss each other."  Confidence.  Perhaps.  It's the ability to try

Original poem reprinted online here: "It was a hard thing to undo this knot" by Gerard Manley Hopkins Originally read: July 26, 2013 More information about the Poet: Gerard Manley Hopkins Rhymed couplets.  Ballade?  This was my first assumption on the form.  However, now, I don't think this poem is a ballade (based on the definition of the ballade .  Basically, I'm reading this poem from a couplet perspective and looking at the connection from couplet to couplet. "It was a hard thing to undo this knot. / The rainbow shines, but only in the thought"  First thin I wrote was "what knot?"  And then I kind of figured that knot could be another way of stating "quandary" or "curiousity".  However,  the "rainbow" line is kind of weird.  The two images don't really tie in together.  Even so, there are are two parties in play -- the I who has to undo the knot and the you which is further delved into the next couplet. "O

Original poem reprinted online here: "Steel" by Kwame Dawes Originally read: July 26, 2013 More information about the Poet: Kwame Dawes The prophetic, Whitman-esque, voice appears in this poem, but in a more grim context.  But the beginning of the poem feels expansive when discussing items and place. The initial image is of, "A truckload of fresh watermelons,"  which is innocuous enough and then the movement comes in, "cutting through so many states: Arkansas, West Virginia, Maryland, into the smoke-heavy Pennsylvania cities;"  the places listed are so specific as though the poem addresses them, but note the semi-colon at the end of the expanse. "from red dirt like a land soaked / in blood to the dark loam of this new / land"  high metaphor here.  In these lands it's the interpretation rather of the place, but note the simile used for comparison noting what it looks like instead of is.  And it is in the comparison that the speaker pinpoints a