DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: " The Logic of a Lesser Loved Science" by Carolyn Moore More information about the Poet: Carolyn Moore Past me wrote, "follow the use of colons and how they are used in the poem" and I could see why rereading this poem.  There's something definition based going on in this poem that ties in, lesser, loved, and science, as individual aspects or all at the same time. The title bleeds into the poem with, "can give us our bearings where we're lost. / Things vast and physical point the way."  Here is the reference more so of the logic pointing the way -- but what of the lesser loved science?  I feel there is a hinted definition with the next two lines, "Take the earth's geology of scars: / from each new shape-shift we learn caution."  So the science of "geology of scars" is furthered turned into the metaphor with the introduction of the "we" speaker.  The colon in this stanza serves a

Original poem reprinted online here: "Montparnasse" by Ernest Hemingway More information about the Poet: Ernest Hemingway Montparnasse Usually with titles like these I wonder if the poem is an homage or a commentary.  But this poem is neither.  Maybe the suicides that happen in the city.  But this poem seems of a more direct way of the juxtaposition between life and death.  Big concepts, simple execution. "There are never any suicides in the quarter among people one knows / No successful suicides."  So the opening two lines seems jarring because of the focus on suicides; however, the key phrase to look out for is "people one knows" in regards to the lack of suicide.  Here there's a distinction.  The upcoming list seems like the unknown. "A Chinese boy kills himself and is dead. / (they continue to place his mail in the letter rack at the Dome)"  I'm not too sure what the "dome" refers to, but I do note the usage of the specific

Tim Ellison is my guest blogger for today and he does a fine job analyzing "The Fascination of What's Difficult" by William Butler Yeats.   Normally I read only contemporary poetry on Tim Reads Poetry , but today I’m going to take advantage of the freedom writing for TheRetailMFAer gives me and take on one of my old favorites, W.B. Yeats’ “The Fascination of What’s Difficult”. In Helen Vendler’s great book about Yeats, Our Secret Discipline , she basically describes this poem as a frustrated sonnet. I think you’ll see what she means. Here’s “The Fascination of What’s Difficult”: The fascination of what's difficult Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent    Spontaneous joy and natural content Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt    That must, as if it had not holy blood    Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,    Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays    That have to be set up in fifty w

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Devil's Aspect" by Charlie Clark Originally read: November 20, 2014 More information about the Poet: Charlie Clark After rereading this poem, I noted a past remark I wrote, "This poem is evasive through rhetoric."  No, not exactly.  I think this poem works on how description is used to blur what's there. Throughout the poem the focus should be on this idea, "the smoke obscuring."  Because from this idea the poem expands outward, "Easy to say / the smoke obscuring is the aspect."  The speaker is undercutting the self by referring to what is observed as what can be easily stated; meanwhile, the symbol behind the smoke as an "aspect" is just statement with no force. "Not hard to follow in that in all its moving / it's so consistent."  The parallel between "aspect" and "smoke" has such a loose connection that the "it" could refer to both and still not

Original poem reprinted online here: "Elegy in the Classroom" by Anne Sexton Originally read: November 19, 2014 More information about the Poet: Anne Sexton Is this poem about Robert Lowell?  I'm not too sure.  I bring this up because it was the first thing I thought when I read this poem.  Is there any evidence in the poem?  "Gracefully insane" maybe or "find you disarranged" perhaps, nothing too concrete though. In any case, the speaker is remembering a teacher.  "In the thin classroom, where your face / was noble and your words were all things, / I find this boily creature in your place;"  The phrase that stand out is "boily creature" and I'm not sure what to make of this adjective noun combination.  Is this a negative connotation?  Is this a connotation based more on "boily" or "creature"?  But not the semi-colon there which connects the more mental state with a physical state, "find you disarranged,

Original poem reprinted online here: "Brass Spittoons" by Langston Hughes Originally read: November 18, 2014 More information about the Poet: Langston Hughes Boy as a derogatory.  The first thing past me mentioned with this poem is how many times "boy" is used in the poem.  And naive past me states "advice" list.  No.  Probably not after rereading this poem again.      Clean the spittoons, boy      Detroit,      Chicago,      Atlantic City,      Palm Beach. With the very beginning of the poem, note how the list of places are specific, but boy is general.  So there's a prophetic tone coming from the speaker addressing all these different "boys" and then calling out the actions the boys should do:      Clean the spittoons.      The steam in hotel kitchens      And the smoke in hotel lobbies.      And the slime in hotel spittoons, But the big turn comes with the admission of the speaker, "part of my life". The only does the speaker rei

Original poem reprinted online here: "Vision" by Robert Penn Warren Originally read: November 17, 2014 More information about the Poet: Robert Penn Warren Quatrains with adjusted lines.  Furthermore the rhyme scheme alternates (abab) which portends the separation between man and nature in this poem.  To me, this poem seems to be a riff on the pastoral. The poem starts off with the typical sentiment of the pastoral, "I shall build me a house where the lakspur blooms / In a narrow glade in an alder wood"  note how specific the language is here with "laksupur" and "alder" which not only indicates a certain region, but also a certain commitment to the idea based in comfort. Even so, this speaker has thought out this idea maybe a bit too much, "Where the sunset shadows make violet glooms, / And a whip-poor-will calls in eerie mood."  Note how direct thee speaker states "eerie mood" as though not to trust the images to depict such a

Original poem reprinted online here: "November Night" by Adelaide Crapsey Originally read: November 15, 2014 More information about the Poet: Adelaide Crapsey This poem is the epitome of the cinquain  since the progenitor of the cinquain is Adelaide Crapsey.  The form is sort of like the tanka which is based in syllabics this poem is 2, 4, 6, 8, 2. The question is how does the form inform the poem or vice versa. Well the usage of imagery is apparent in the first line with the command of "Listen" which forces the reader to hear the following lines. "With faint dry sound / like steps of passing ghosts"  With simile with these lines, it's important to decide which has the most weight: the "faint" or "the ghosts."  Why?  A short poem is dependent on attention and when the attention is split between a simile, then the lost focus weakens the impact of the images in the poem.  If the focus is "faint" then, I feel, this poem won&#

Original poem reprinted online here: "Peace" by Ted Berrigan Originally read: November 15, 2014 More information about the Poet: Ted Berrigan So I looked at this poem all wrong, or rather, the marks on the page indicate a very close reading of the poem and I missed one big part -- the visual of the poem.  The poem is titled, "Peace" but I didn't note the "chaotic" order of the poem.  Rather I looked at the "form" and stated how the descending lines goes towards the "core."  And even though this might be a good insight in the poem, the initial presence of the poem is not the first line rather appearance. What I mean is this.  A conceit has been made already with the title of "peace" and the first representation of this peace is misaligned lines.  I think this is the draw -- trying to figure out within the lines how the content relates to peace. And when I start reading the poem there's a good bit of structure here.  Fir

Original poem reprinted online here: "We are High Performers" by Victoria Chang Originally read: July 5, 2014 More information about the Poet: Victoria Chang This poem plays with the idea of puns with "high" and "performers."  And since is a definition poem, is the idea to have all the shifts in definition accumulate to a clearer understanding, or is this just a play on what words could possibly mean from different perspectives. I think this poem does both and the adjusted lines for each quatrain adds to this sense of play that accumulates.  "We are high performers not normal but high performers / we perform things make papers smell like perfume".  The shift in senses from a mental definition to a olfactory smell depicts a change that deals with the mind and the physical which is then further defined by this list: "we are  highly creative unusually industrious / exceptionally conscientious diligent intelligent ".  This is definitely a l

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Violet Swords" by Stephen Sturgeon Originally read: July 5, 2014 More information about the Poet: Stephen Sturgeon Here's the story.  I took a nap and now I can't go to sleep.  I go to /r/poetry and I see this thread asking for help interpreting a poem.  A lot of the times I ignore these posts, but then I click on the link because I'm bored. Someone needs help interpreting the poem "Violet Swords" which appears in the June 2014 edition of Poetry .  I was just going to write a single sentence, and then, welp, entire analysis. I don't want the analysis to go to waste, so I'm posting my analysis here: I think everything hinges on contrasts. But first the form. The poem is written in alternating ababcdcd rhyme scheme which feigns a sort of connection; furthermore, the poem has very loose syllabics ranging from 9 to 11, but the twenty line poem is constantly in this range. Why? Well I think the form shows an atte

Original poem reprinted online here: "Rocket" by Todd Boss Originally read: November 13, 2013 More information about the Poet: Todd Boss This poem is like a mathematical equation.  I think the equation would be a + -b - c - c - c - c - c = d - e + f.  Well maybe not like that since math is not my strong point, but structure wise there's a lot of play with the idea of negation. The first stanza is the action the "you" has done:      Despite that you      wrote your name      and number       on its fuselage      in magic marker and by starting off with "despite" there's a sense of work negated.  But the poem goes write into the rocket with the name on it.  The rocket isn't used as a metaphor at this point, rather a catalyst to review actions taken previously what it equals to which is built up by negation. The first negation is with "neither" and this applies to:      your quite       hours at the kitchen      table assembling it      

Original poem reprinted online here: "Loitering Outside a Leather Bar" by Julianne Buchsbaum Originally read: November 12, 2013 More information about the Poet: Julianne Buchsbaum The scene versus the individual.  I'm not talking about setting when I mention the "scene,"  I feel this poem depicts the mood, the area, the type of situation one would find in "her strap down / her ecstasy in an alleyway."  This sort of seedy underground scene without over-dramatizing. But first the poem starts with an observational verb, "Saw Melancholia's gaunt face / and gown"  Yes, Melancholia is a pun and foreshadow of melancholy, but note how this line sets up an away from what is "real."  I know I stated that this poem depicts the mood and situation really well, and it's because of the name.  Academically read, this poem has allusions.  But, unless you've been there, people are named Melancholia.  I'm just stating that, to me, that

Original poem reprinted online here: "Song on The End of the World" by Czeslaw Milosz  Originally read: November 12, 2013 More information about the Poet: Czeslaw Milosz  So this poem is more of a cause and effect type of poem.  The cause and the effect is not about "the end of the world" though.  This poem plays with perceptions. There's no set stanza structure or order which is important in this poem because there's nothing to predict through the structure like the first two lines, "On the day the world ends, / A bee circles a clover,"  and then starts the list of the ordinary, but not mundane: A fisherman mends a glimmering net Happy porpoises jump in the sea,  By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be Note with this list, the focus is to the sea and then the land.  This focus also brings in the actions of people and the actions of animals -- either they are unaware, or don't care.  Act

Original poem reprinted online here:   "Amazing Grace" by John Newton Originally read: November 11, 2013 More information about the Poet: John Newton When this poem came up, I wanted to think about it a little bit.  I've always known this poem as a song with pretty high religious significance.  I wasn't wrong about that, but the extent of the significance goes pretty far. The poem is written in quatrains with an alternating rhyme scheme (abab) so the disparity is the idea of "amazing grace"  this sort of divine redemption, and the reality of the self:      Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound!)      That sav'd a wretch like me!       I once was lost, but now am found.      Was blind, but now I see. First this grace has changed the present situation.  Lost to found.  Blind and see.  Miraculous intervention through the divine.  But note how lowly the speaker puts himself as a "wretch" which is never expounded upon, just named.      'Twas grace