DDCPoetry

Poem found here:  "The Hinge of Spring" by Kay Ryan This poem, comprised of two five line stanzas, plays more the idea of definition and redefinition.  For example, the title, "The Hinge of Spring" begs the reader a question "what is the hinge of spring" or rather what is the moment when we know winter has turned to spring. The first stanza plays with the idea by defining the first moments of spring, "The jackrabbit is a mild herbivore / grazing the desert floor, / quietly abridging spring."  So with these lines the focus is on the jackrabbit as a representative of "the hinge of spring."  The usage of "herbivore" brings more of a foreshadowing scientific presence to a pretty mundane scene which shifts in intensity with, "eating the color off everything / rampant- height or lower."  So we have a mixture of science and metaphor playing here.  The mythos of the jack rabbit is one who "eats the color off everything....

Poem found here:   "Sky Burial" by Ron Koertge A response through metaphor.  This poem utilizes many rhetorical techniques to support the metaphorical answer.  And, the focus is the metaphorical answer. The wind-up, and the rhetorical devices and techniques to lead up to the metaphorical answer are deceptively humane. But let's start with a question, "Q. You're Such a Disciplined Writer.  Were You Always That way?"  Note that this is a question that the speaker will answer but as a poem this is a construct the speaker creates.  This may be a personal response, but this poem concerns the construct of the "Disciplined Writer." And so the answer: The first stanza focuses on the time frame and sets up a scene for the exact moment -- that metaphorical answer, "When I was in graduate school, I worked part-time at a local / library." Then there's the mention of the regulars, "I learned to know the regulars who talked about living with p...

Poem Found Here:  "For a Poet" by Countee Cullen This poem has so many repeating lines.  The first two lines and the last lines repeat: "I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, / And laid them away in a box of gold;"  Furthermore the repetition of the same rhyme of -th and -ld words hit hard and are jarring. For a poet, there's cynicism. This poem is not the passing of the torch -- those types of gift poems where the speaker writes it like a commencement speech.  Yes, the speaker's dreams are in silk and in a box, but note the separation of the dream into a beautiful containment -- the flow of -th.       Where long will cling the lips of the moth       I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,       I hide no hate; I am not even wroth       Who found the earth's breath so keen and cold, The following two lines has a nature image of the "lips of the moth,"  but the moth doesn't serve as a beautiful...

Poem found here:   "???" by John Surowiecki The title gives away the base conceit of the poem:  ??? or something is missing.  It's not a mystery in the first stanza, the question more is "why are such things forgotten."  The poem starts out with the multiple ways of saying mussel bear ranging from the scientific to the nick name, "its byssus, its sea silk or sea flax," and then what the actual things do in multiple ways, "penetrating, securing." But the key idea is in the line after that, "It clings like what's her / name, a poetic name, but I can't recall it now."  Regardless of what's going on in the poem, the forgetting of a name -- specifically calling out the forgetting of the name, comes to the forefront to me.  Especially since the poem is titled "???."  Why?  if this poem was called something like "Mussels at the beach" then all sense of urgency is gone with thte poem.  The reader wouldn't...

Poem found on the May 5th Edition of "The Writer's Almanac" This poem makes creates two comparative metaphors in which the focus changes from premise to action, and within that change two negatives exist. The premise is first laid out in the first two lines, "During natural disasters two enemy animals / will call a truce."  Theoretically, there doesn't need to be examples except for the first which is simple enough, "so during a hurricane / an owl will share a tree with a mouse."  Here, we have the situation plus the two enemies able to coexist together. But then the poem expands, not in existence or disparity in enemies, rather the actions the "predator" does.  "during an earthquake, you might find / a mongoose wilted and shivering / beside a snake." and "The bear will sit down / in a river and ignore the passing salmon." However, the comparison that stands out the most is the last one, "just as the lion will all...