DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Once" by Michelle Gil-Montero Originally read: September 7, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Michelle Gil-Montero Literal.  The first stanza is literal, "Once again begins / with once."  But this is not a poem about showing things as they are -- the poem is too short for that sort of statement; rather, the poem plays with the idea of "once," not the meaning, but usage which is also used one more time in this poem. Meanwhile, note how "once" continues to operate, "Then crunches underfoot / The always" not the sonic attribute attached to the once, and then, "Unseasonable yellow / Leaves / And restlessness"  here's the trick look at "Leaves" more of the pun than the image.  Here the "way" once is used in the poem -- to de-synchronize images and meaning here through images and colors that lead to nowhere, but note this -- these images and techniques are used on

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Words" by Edward Thomas Originally read: September 6, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Edward Thomas The muse of writing. Well, it's one of the  concepts that has been addressed in the construction of creative writing.  Some writer's have to be inspired by something in order to write; however, in doing so, the question is -- who is responsible for the act, the muse or the conduit?      Out of us all      That makes rhymes      Will you choose      Sometimes - For the first four lines, I felt that the call to the muse is humorous due to the rhyme scheme being so sing-songy, and also the end of the stanza with a sign of desperation: "Choose me, / You English words?"  However, the desperation is quantified by the question.  It's not in the act of choosing rather what words mean and provide. The next part is pretty long but starts out with "I know you:" and even though "you" is ambiguous, the

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Anything Can Happen" by Seamus Heaney Originally read: September 5, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Seamus Heaney The poem starts off innocuous enough with the opening line "Anything can happen."  The tone comes in as very colloquial, especially with the next line, "You know how Jupiter / Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head / Before he hurls lightning?"  And then the conversation turns to allusion.  Nothing against Roman deities, but this is now the tone of someone trying to talk to the reader on another level -- high metaphor -- but for what purpose? "Well, just now / He galloped his thunder cart and his horses / Across a clear blue sky."  From here the speaker's observations become more prevalent and it's less of a colloquial conversational tone, and more of a "please believe me" kind of begging the reader tone. And so the description continues, "It shook the earth /

Original poem reprinted online here:   "The Way" by Rae Armantrout Originally read: September 4, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Rae Armantrout Past me wrote, "connected" a lot on the page and pointed in various stanzas to show which sentiment connects to another.  How about this.  Each sentence plays with memory and how the speaker remembers things; furthermore, the line breaks creates a fracture of what is remembered and what is expected. "Card in pew pocket / announces, / "I am here." I feel this sentence plays with the idea of existence.  And in a funny way, the card itself announces it's existence, rather than what the card represents (religion, god, projected self -- take your pick) "I made only one statement / because of a bad winter."  Past me did a diagram focused on the phrase "one statement" does that mean there are more than one for different seasons.  The sentence is constructed in this way where the reason

Original poem reprinted online here:   "The Pattern" by Robert Creeley Originally read: September 3, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Robert Creeley A shift in language changes language.  Simple enough, right?  I come away from this poem with more questions than actual analysis.  This poem plays with the idea behind the meaning behind the change on a linguistic level.  "As soon as / I speak, I / speaks" Even thought the only things that shifts is the singular to plural, does the essential meaning shift? Then with the next sentence, the focus is on "it" -- the ambiguous pronoun where      wants to      be free but      impassive lies      in the direction      of its      words. and here, I believe that the "it" refers to the actual term "it."  It is free of gender, age, want, desire and is a generic noun to reference anything.  However, the speaker turns the meaning of it back around with the word "impassive."  The lang

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Water Table" by Eliza Griswold Originally read: September 3, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Eliza Griswold When I looked at the title of this poem again earlier today, the first thought was, "water boarding?"  Does this poem go in that direction?  No, well probably no.  The first stanza can imply that sort of image thought:      My earliest wish was not to exist,      to burst in the backyard      without violence,      no blood, no fleshy bits, This part could reference the speaker's mindset of violence.  However, the concepts are generalized to the point of being not as personal.  Plus the rhymes of "wish," "exist," and "bits," come in such a rapid succession that the lines feels humorous to me.  Are the lines comical?  In a sense based on structure.  Content wise the focus is on the speaker, the one focusing on the time frame of the "earliest wish," continues with, "

Original poem reprinted online here:   "The Man with My Name" by Reginald Harris Originally read: September 2, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Reginald Harris The majority of the lines start with a verb which differentiates the speaker from the alter ego.  While the alter ego (the man with my name) acts, here the speaker is thinking.  The poem works as a list as well, so the further the list goes on the more defined and, perhaps, separated the speaker is to the alter ego. But in the first stanza, there's some basic mundane description, "Lives in another town.  / Was born without / a pebble  in his shoe."  Note the distance placed in the beginning and that the specific detail of the pebble adds to the sense of imagination used to conjure the alter ego.  "Went straight home from / school.  Did not get into / fights. Never Ran."  Occasionally, a line starts with an adverb which further emphasizes the verbs.  The verbs, like I wrote, further define

Original poem reprinted online here:   "cold water" by Robert Lee Brewer Originally read: September 1, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Robert Lee Brewer Descending tercets.  I think that's the form of the poem.  What does that mean?  Well, the form indicates a further separation with each line: whether personal or content. "we spill ourselves / all over ourselves / our excess light / our forgiving natures."  Here's the thing with the first stanza.  It's not necessarily finding the meaning behind "spill ourselves" but rather what is spilled, "excess light," and "forgiving natures."  Note that the anaphora of "our" not only brings the reader in, but also addresses concrete (light) and metaphor (forgiving natures) as something "we" are spilling -- a shared decadence. "once we wandered the creek together / forecasted our futures / bright and tightly spun"  past me noted that the lines hearke

Original poem reprinted online here:   "I used to think everything was part of a larger conversation" by Weston Cutter Originally read: August 28, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Weston Cutter The line alignment and the content of the poem creates metaphors, general and personal, about disconnect.  But the poem is not only about disconnect and what's disconnected, the poem comes off also as an experiment to list as many disconnects as possible while, somewhat, staying on topic. "but maybe there's only the boats / susurrating to the buoys + shore"  The first images go with the idea of boats and shore (as connected with the plus sign) and the distance is where the speaker can tell, "you're either from a where I now, a place / which kisses some lake too much / to call anything other than great,"  note the hard allusion to "great" as in "Great Lakes" which I'm not 100% positive that the allusion goes to, but my mind

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Zvi Mendel" by Orlando Ricardo Menes Originally read: August 28, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Orlando Ricardo Menes So the very top of the page, past me wrote down, "I don't know this language" in reference to the Hebrew being used.  This statement covers multiple questions I had about the language: what does it mean?  How does the language integrate with the poem?  What does the language bring to the poem. Then rereading the poem over again, language is the least of my focus now.  I think when I looked up a couple words, I figured that the language is more of a defining characteristics in this character driven poem.  It's not about the message, but the humanization of Zvi Mendel, who I don't know the reference to. The first three lines, "Ersatz cantor, self-taught kabbalist, / retired tobacconist to Havana's Ashkenazim, / Zvi Mendel smokes one last corona,"  note that the affirmatives that

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Circuit someone, somewhere" by Jane Lewty Originally read: August 27, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Jane Lewty The key to this poem is how the repetition: alliteration or word, works within the poem.  With the first stanza the alliteration stands out, "Circuit someone, somewhere / circuit--crack--chip / someone says listen"  Note that the importance in the c and the s alliteration and how there's a mix of discordance and flow.  Flow in the concept, the content mimics the sound of circuitry; meanwhile, the discordance is forced by the syntax in which separates the individual parts. The first stanza sets up the focus for me.  Look at how the words are reused., "Nuance and pace plays, how I miss you, what a tune, it makes me say we--  / We the pale arrivals, pale sedentary."  The first repetition of we seems like more a transition for further definition; meanwhile, "pale," grammatically serves as

Original poem reprinted online here:   "The Face That Launch'd a Thousand Ships" by Christopher Marlowe Originally read: August 26, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Christopher Marlowe The poem is not secretive about the allusion, Helen.  Not from the title, but also the mention of her name constantly within the title.  So why have an appositive in the title rather than the name?  This is where the speaker admits that he's looking at the concept rather than the actual person.  The actual person is the ruse, he power behind beauty is all that matters, "Was this face that launch'd a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of Illium?" The speaker continues with the talk of beauty, but how it would affect the speaker, "Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss / Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!"  Kind of succubus, but note the over-the-top nature the action is which is parallel to the idea of a face launching a thousan

Original poem reprinted online here:   "The Cherry Trees" by Edward Thomas Originally read: August 25, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Edward Thomas So this article analyzing this poem  from the blog Move Him Into the Sun  analyzes this poem not only on the technique level, but also in relation to World War One and England giving a historical context to the poem. As always the big question is if this poem can stand on it's own without historic context and coax the reader to look deeper.  To me, yes and no. I think the overpowering technique here is implication through images.  "The cherry trees bend over and are shedding." The poem starts out with pure description, yet this is set up that the speaker will refer to and imply with a deeper meaning. "On the old road where all that passed are dead."  Yes, the line is a bit of a turn and a bit harsh; however, since the strongest technique is images the meaning behind them further develops due to rum

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Vaudeville" by Barbara Crooker Originally read: August 24, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Barbara Crooker The poem is image-centric.  Furthermore, the poem is also placed at a particular time of year as well to condense the image which, of course, turns into a metaphor which is somewhat given away by the title.  So here's the nature turning vaudeville imagery:      Late October, and the sky is that clear blue scrim      we only see when the leaves go presto change, garnet      and gold, and asters and chrysanthemums, the last      flowers, take their bow on center stage. Yes, a bit cheesy, but notice how the speaker introduces the change to vaudeville through as an object, and then further more the line "take their bow on center stage," which refer to "aster and chrysanthemums."  It is the action that are vaudeville and the speaker is forcing the image upon image. Yet another example, "The birds / a

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Talking in Bed" by Philip Larkin Originally read: August 23, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Philip Larkin The poem opens up with a conceit, "Talking in bed ought to be easiest.".  Past me noted that the word "ought" is the key word here.  The conceit here is to understand what the problem is with "talking in bed" and also figuring out the subtext of such difficulties, "Lying together there goes back so far, / An emblem of two people being honest."  And here there is a sense of snark in the lines especially the question of earnestness of "tow people being honest." "Yet more and more times passes silently / Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest / Builds and disperses clouds about the sky."  I think the key with this stanza is the train of thought.  Instead of explaining the difficulties, the poem actually shows it.  As the time passes, the change happens with a shift

Bill Knott would probably be mad at me for writing a blog about him.  I also believe that he would revel in the fact that someone is writing about him and leave in the comments section something like this, "You are a dumbass nobody writing about another dumbass nobody who is an exile in the po-biz.  Write when you are somebody." Being somebody will probably never happen, so please excuse me for the following piece. As an undergraduate I asked my mentor, Alan Soldofsky, who I write like.  I studied haiku and the short form for years and I felt at that time I pushed as far as I could.  Bill Knott is who he said, and, from his memory, Alan quoted these two poems to me: Goodbye If you are still alive when you read this, close your eyes.  I am under their lids, growing black. Death Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest They will place my hands like this. It will look as though I am flying into myself. These poems resonate because the images are so succinct, but also the con

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Man" by Michael Bazzett Originally read: August 22, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Michael Bazzett It's not until you get to the middle when the tone solidifies itself.  Yet in the first half of the poem, there is a focus on the character of "Man" as the title bleeds into the poem. What does the bleed indicate? The focus of the first line is the verb "burrow."  So the character is burrowing (in the literal, and probably the metaphorical sense), "Burrows into his cave / lined with warm earth / dug from the pine hillside."  Weirdly enough, I started counting syllables at this moment. The lines are set up kind of haiku-esque with the attention to nature and such.  And then I discovered that the lines are either five or six syllables long.  I don't know what this means, but it could be a reference to Tang Dynasty poem structures of only fix syllable lines.  Probably not, but that's what I t

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Farm Scene" by Ernest G Moll Originally read: August 21, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Ernest G Moll Five quatrains with an abba rhyme scheme.  So the poem has the form of an arc with the two intro, a mid, and two end.  But the poem itself isn't a narrative, rather a meditation comparing the life of the speaker and the life of a bull.  The idea of the domestic in nature. So the first stanza is exposition, "They come each morning to the gate / are miles and wander off to feed;"  Note the usage of the semi-colon here in which connects these lines with, "six cows, a calf and in the lead / a brindled bull, old, fat sedate."  Not that pleasant on the description of the bull, but he's mentioned on every stanza of the poem. The second stanza is setting the cycle, "And every evening they are back / loaf along the quarter-mile"  Note here that the verbs are especially important to add on to the sce

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost Originally read: August 21, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Robert Frost The main thing to think of when entering this poem is that the construction is based on setting an argument, and then realizing that this isn't a good argument.  Parody.  Note that this poem isn't a good argument, and, in doing so, critiques the argument. "Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice"  probably the main focus of attack -- yes, the key phrase is world ending in fire or ice.  But note the usage of "Some" not focusing on who, rather the argument itself.   "From what I've tasted of desire / I hold with those who favor fire."  Also note that there's the implication of connection.  Desire -- end with fire (also rhyme scheme).  The lines, to me, conjure a humorous effect through the simplicity and the rhyme.      But if it had to perish twice,       I think I kno

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Drift" by Gregory Lawless Originally read: August 20, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Gregory Lawless The distance in the poem is played with here.  Part of the "fun" is not only seeing how distant the speaker is with the subject "my father" but also how removed the actual father is as an entity, but more so a archaeological find.      In the desert      they found fossils      of my father      as a young man The first five lines show a surreal perspective of the father as a young man.  "Fossils" is the stand out noun in the piece; however, don't underestimate "they" in the piece.  Who are "they" and what is their intentions.      his Converse sneakers      dripping with tar, stacks      of old beer cans      an all of his hair. The list of items found aren't pleasant images, but they are implied images.  The tar on the sneakers could be from tobacco, or it could be from

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Icarian" by Amy McCann Originally read: August 20, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Amy McCann I think this poem is pretty gutsy in using the allusion to Icarus, especially considering there's been so many poems, stories, and writing based on Icarus.  Now the question, usually, is how this poet puts spin on the image of a boy, man-made wings burning, drowning. Well, in this poem, not by much, the first lines, "Gulls puncture the blue between / kites, translucent, cross-boned" addresses the scene and for the rest of the three couplets, the scene is continued to be explored visually with "cellophane animals leashed" and "Some unusual flyers: octopus, brontosaur".  Here the focus on the uplifting visual and the "man taking Polaroids" deals with the idea of focus of image without a mention of "Icarus." However, there is a prominence of th I speaker.  The next couple of stanzas dea

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Brute Dictation" by Jules Gibbs Originally read: August 19, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Jules Gibbs The interesting thing with this poem, in the beginning, is that the entire first sentence of the poem centers around a concept, "To outsmart the world you've got to / outsmart the metaphor,".  This sort of directness in statement is indirect in meaning. "dismantle / the songs of childhood, say goodbye / to the only life you ever really had--"  This sense of goodbye is unspecific, but has a somewhat nostalgic, and somewhat cliche resonance behind them?  Why?  The sayings are probably referring to growing up -- easy, right?  But which is referring to growing up as something the world sees or something to be turned into a metaphor?  Is it the saying or the act? "the moment before the brute / dictation, before the grass drills / that could kill a men,"  Note the number of prepositional phrases her

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Part of Eve's Discussion" by Marie Howe Originally read: August 18, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Marie Howe The poem works on the slippery nature of definitions.  The number of "it" and "you" spread around the poem try to blur the each noun and define more of the confusion.  What's Eve's Discussion?  Clarification through obscuring. "It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, / and flies"  It holds the most power in these lines, but note the intent focuses on the feeling and experience -- the intent from the bird "deciding not to eat from your hand and flies" shows more about the "you" than the bird.  There's the interpretation of actions according to the you based on "decide."  The following descriptions are more on the image side, "just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still / and stop because a storm is

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Mortgaging of Self Is Done" by Aimée Sands Originally read: August 17, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Aimée Sands Automatically, the poem sets up a metaphor of the self as a mortgage through negation.  But also the poem sets up any discussion about a house as a parallel metaphor for the self.  This is why I find the couplets particularly effective to highlight the similarities and the separation. "And the floors dreaming in wide, / drowned light.  The drifting and bobbling,"  Note the heavy emphasis on verbs here.  Here the action is more personified: dream, drift, bobbling -- but also note how the verbs are set in stasis through the personification.  What's moving.  Nothing, it's action inaction. "nodding you off in another direction, / broken sideways, sideways / broken"  The inverse lines reinforces the dream-like surreal syntax, but furthermore in the context to the poem, the repetition of brok

Original poem reprinted online here:  "an endnote and love song:" by Erin Moure Originally read: August 16, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Erin Moure Part of the fun of the poem is trying to figure out what's going on.  So for the longest time I didn't look at the note attached to this poem until today.  I find myself way off in interpretation versus than intention of the poet.  But that's the way it goes. When I first read the title, I thought this would be more of an experiment based on songs which was an end note.  So for the numerical list, I thought they were more like drafts of tracks.  Like for example, the title of the album would be "Sauna 89" and the artists would be " В. Шекспір".  I don't know who that person is, but that doesn't matter -- it's looking upon a foreign work trying to state things in English. For example, "1. And you were to leave me for my faults" is a typical love poem type of introduct

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Four Poems" by Yosa Buson  Originally read: August 15, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Yosa Buson Buson is considered on of the three master of Haiku with Basho, and Issa; however, I think Buson hasn't received as much attention as either.  Don't get me wrong they all have huge influence in poetry, but what separates each from each other. In my intro to poetry class years (too many) ago, the professor just stated that Issa had a sense of humor, Basho focused on the journey, and Buson focused on the art aspect. With these four poems, that is not the case for Buson.  If anything, Buson shows more of a journey of the self through nature with these four haiku.      To be the first one there      he wades the shallows secretly      under the summer moon Here's more of an observation in which the implicitness is within waiting.  Disregard the "he," the action holds a secret.      Evening breeze caresses      scra

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Tas in March" by Edwin Brock Originally read: August 15, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Edwin Brock So the first stanza states what the poem will talk about.  However, note that the first stanza is a sestet versus the rest of the poem written in tercets.  What the first sestet does is set up the conflict -- the introduction of the speaker and the introduction of the actual "subject." "White on dark water, so stark / I leave my binoculars behind / and watch with bare red eyes." Here the speaker is introduced, but the focus here is on his vision.  Without the binoculars, there isn't necessarily a focus onto a specific thing, but there's an expansive outlier to this image, "two swans, taut with sexuality, / stretching their necks / alternately side by side."  The interpretation is already there at the beginning -- sexuality and note how close and intimate the image is together.  But since the