DDCPoetry

Original Analysis found here:  Analysis of "To X" " Poem found here:  "To X" by Bill Knott The first four lines state the same thing, well, by definition.  What makes the first four lines of the poem interesting is how simply the tone changes through the repetition.  A build up of importance, or romance.  The anaphora of “Somewhere” brings a sense of searching — and what is the speaker searching throughj: “history,” “untold ages,” “the sands of time,” “the vast sea of eternity.”  It’s comic, but romantic.  It’s a speaker who is writing in fantastical hyperbole. Love creates strange writings. “There is one person / Only one.”  The repeating of the “only one” is the turn in the poem.  If this was another sappy love poem then the comparison would be more grandiose, the emotions amplified to the point of comic.  Here the attention turns to the tone of the speaker. “Who could understand me and love me / And your’re it/ So get with it.” The re...

Poem Found Here:  "Demolition Song" by Benjamin Goldberg What makes this poem is the line breaks.  There's an unsettling feel about this poem which comes from technique: the images, the line breaks, the form of the sonnet, the language -- that brings a whirlwind of emotions, nothing to be pinned down, But first, this opening line "Too often sledgehammers are the answer--" mixes what the title represents -- the image of demolition, the feel of a psalm with the focus on the answer.  What is the sledgehammer the answer to, "rotting crossbeam, plank, or stud, this ribcage, / these boarded storefronts."  The introduction of the speaker's ribcage seems off in the sequence, but not how easily the subject stays within the idea of construction and then the play of sound, "Avenues all sound / like rooftop cisterns, their absent water."  It's the sound of something absent -- when you expect to hear water you hear nothing. The next three lines of...

Poem Found Here: "Oblivion Poem" by Jessie Redmon Fauset Rhymed AABB quatrains.  For a poem so conceptual and hidden, the monosyllabic rhyme scheme (until the end) wants the reader to remember this poem, which, ironically, is against what the speaker wants.  What the speaker wants is to be "forgotten" and become one with "oblivion." A bit overblown?  Not really, another way of looking at this poem is what the speaker thinks of death and of outside forces -- to me, this is more of a character piece than a poem that has high philosophical value.   The opening lines, "I hope when I am dead that I shall lie / In some deserted grave [....]" has a very strong sentiment to amplify the need for loneliness and the, "I cannot tell you why," adds a sense of mystery that the reader wants to uncover.  However, the mystery doesn't do it for me as the next two lines reiterate this sentiment, "But I should like to sleep in some neglected spot ...

Original Analysis found here:  Analysis of "Painting Vs. Poetry" Poem found here:  "Painting Vs. Poetry" by Bill Knott [Note: I'm copying and pasting my analysis for Bill Knott from his forum onto here -- partially to promote the Billknottarchive, and partially to continue the analysis on my blog] The initial line already separates painting and poetry, “Painting is a person […]”.  The speaker adds human characteristics to the idea of painting.  Why is this important in the very beginning of a poem.  For all accounts, this poem is a compare and contrast poem where the definitions should be laid out in the beginning; furthermore, since this is a short poem (a sentence long) every type of image and comparison counts. The placement of the person, “between the light and a / canvas so that their shadow is cast on the canvas” is not as important as, “then the person signs their name.”  What is not important is the process of art?  The placement, the play of l...

Poem Found Here:   "Dancer" by Patricia Spears Jones "Memory" is the main thing in this poem.  Note that the word is used three times in the poem -- once per each stanza.  And, even though this poem starts out focusing on the dancer, the poem feels as though it wants to test the idea of memory and meaning. Well, the play happens with this line, "Between fantasy and the memory of a man's carved / Torso". With these lines note how the idea of "fantasy" has been kept in the general -- some concept that is grounded in its allusiveness.   Rather the focus is on memory -- what does memory mean.  The literal of the memory in the first stanza is, "man's carved torso" but what it represents is," stroking and celebrations."  Something sexual, something intimate, something festive -- this all fro m a single black feather. This type of sentiment bleeds over to the next stanza, "Today the sun's brightness is like that love...

Poem Found Here: "A March" by Ishion Hutchinson From there beginning of the poem there is a play of definition and how the definitions intertwine and contrast.  Well, literally in the beginning:      Lesson of the day: Syria and Styria      For Syria, read:  His conquering banner shook from Syria.       And for Styria: Look at this harp of blood, mapping. It's a play of homophones -- similar sounding words to distinguish a difference; however, note the play on the placement of the verb "read" in line 2 and "Look" in line 3 in which the former is before the reading which should take more time to process, but the latter is more of an image that is taken in "Now I am tuned" is an interesting way to introduce the "I" speaker.  There's a sense that the initial tercet was a warm up, now the real play of images and language stars here.  And within the second and third there's a play of image, "the forest shaken / on the bitume...