DDCPoetry

Poem found here:  "Flying at Night" by Ted Kooser "Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations."  I was thinking about this sentence for a while.  In regards to images -- above is individuals in a distance, and beneath is a collection in the distance.  What does that mean?  Well, this poem is a comparative poem like the next two lines, "Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies / like a snowflake falling on water." For me, everything stated so far is something I cannot grasp -- literally.  Stars, constellation, galaxy -- so far off, so much imagined imagery.  Even the snowflake falling on water, which seems like something to hold on to, disappears. But then the poem goes into a very specific scene: [...] Below us, some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death, snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn back into the little system of his care. "A chill of that distant death" seems a bit sarcastic.  Something unable to grasp and just g

Poem found here:  "There is Absolutely Nothing Lonelier" by Matthew Rohrer The poem is a hyperbolic personification of loneliness.  The question is why?  Why go to his extent to explain loneliness.  To me, I found the poem entertaining and funny because of the personification. "There is absolutely nothing lonelier / than the little Mars rover / never shutting down [...]"  My initial response to the first three lines was "hyperbole" and "humor?"  The hyperbole is apparent with the loneliness applying to an inanimate object; however, it's the description, and location that defines the loneliness -- Mars and never shutting down, "digging up / rocks, so far away from Bond street / in a light rain." The short lines adds a sense of repetition -- "digging" for something that is not there.  I'm not sure what "Bond street" means, but, to me, it's a reference for being "down to earth" without being so app

Go here for Bill Knott: http://www.billknottarchive.com/ Soon, it'll be 3 years since Bill Knott's death. It's odd to think about being able to e-mail someone and get a response from them.  I'm a nobody who e-mailed him out of the blue and he responded in kind.  But I don't regret trying to connect.  In any case, I'm reminiscing. "The way the world is not" is an interesting opening line fragment.  The line implies a deficiency.  The world is not enough, but then the enjambment leads to something personal, "Astonished at you" which comes off as a an insult which the speaker doubles down on, "It doesn't blink a leaf / When we step from the house". I think the usage of "we" changes the tone of the poem from casual insult to something curious -- as the poem has a plan from the comparison. Leads me to think That beauty is natural, unremarkable And not to be spoken of Except in the course of things The comparison is in the n

Poem Found Here:  "Orison" by Betsy Sholl Orision, a prayer. I think what interests me the most about this poem is the intimacy of items.  I could be facetious and ask, "did god really have this jacket."  However, the poem lends itself to a certain vulnerability that is both ignored and acknowledged. Let me  give back to God his jacket, his locket, his thin slippers, sunglint, sleetspit, stars. Note the "s" alliteration that moves along the poem as though to get through the poem in a momentum.  The poem does build with the images from jacket to stars, but the poem makes me wonder who the "God" represents in the poem.  Does this matter though?  I think the importance is what the speaker is letting go of. And here's my cracked, my sullen, unstrung guitar, hung like a rabbit in the butcher's window Of all things that feels like has sentimental value to the speaker, it's this guitar.  It's the way the guitar is described through the p

The poem is written in four quatrains.  The poem lingers with its images -- the grey beret and the idea of autumn to create a poem of lament or celebration perhaps. I remember you as you were in the last autumn. You were the grey beret and the still heart In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on. And the leaves fell in the water of your soul. All the quatrains are end-stopped, so every quatrain feels like a scene.  Here the speaker first notices the other with "grey beret and the still heart" -- the visual que; however, note the contrasting images of the flames in the eyes and the water of the soul.  These images usually don't come together unless to compare something.  My guess the comparison refers to the external aspect versus the internal. Clasping my arms like a climbing plant the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace. Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning. Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul. Desire?  Want? Lust?  The second ha

This is a question and response poem.  Question and response is a rhetorical device that plays with anticipation,  When the question is asked, the reader naturally assumes there will be something to answer; however, the first thing that I noted with the question was how condescending it reads, "Does it make you sad to see the close / of the family romance" Maybe I'm reading the tone wrong, but with the poem called "Child" and the first question being so probing that it feels like an attack on emotions like, "oh are you sad that you didn't get an ice cream cone -- how tragic."  There's a sense of irony and sarcasm with the first two lines for me plus the content  of close of the family romance adds a tinge of bitterness which feels directed towards the child. "to know the house is grounded in the flow / and left to chance / by currents you never had control of?"  Yes, the image of the broken home as a natural disaster is a common compa

Poem found here:  "Fortress" by Chana Bloch A fortress is a heavy symbolic idea of keeping people out and in for safety reasons.  Things trying to attack -- no problem, things trying to escape -- no problem.  A fortress is there to keep things, whether you like it or not. This is why, "Silence is a strenuous language / but we have chosen it." There's a sense of tension between the "we" and if something is said then it could open a delicate situation; however, what this leads to is an undefined language where actions are taken to overblown proportions, "A shut door, a shrug, / stone upon stone." The image of a the stone reoccur again in the next stanza.  This image of something steady and solid, but silent is given context of, "The stones have a history / They were pulled from the rubble / of an earlier weekend."  Note here that "earlier weekend" pretends to be a specific time frame, but is rather due to the usage of earlie

Poem Found Here: "Watch" by Mike White This short poem has a strong narrative as well as image in it.  The premise being "Dog roped to a tree, / perfecting a circle."  It's a muted scene, but a relatable one.  I have a dog and I'm guessing the majority of people had at least seen a dog that was tied up before. The emotional pull happens in just three lines, "in the leaves, / in the snow, / in the grass."  Part of me projects sympathy towards the dog -- it seems to be neglected and left alone.  But I know this type of reading is a projection by me. What fascinates me is multiple images setting the time.  Perfect circles in the leaves, snow, and grass does signify time well (fall, winter, and spring).  And I can just imagine it.

Poem found here:  "Had She" by Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. What starts out as a hypothetical hyper-focused location poem, "Had she stayed / Had she stepped up / Into the train that carried them down" of a missed chance or opportunity turns into four lines that I don't understand. What kailāsaranashiva chandramoulīphanīndramātāmukutī zalālīkārunyasindhubhavadukhahārī thujavīnashambomajakonatārī Language in poetry is, as one can assume, the most important part in constructing poem.  So when I encountered this the first time I guess three years ago my comment was "what the hell is this -- language." Something once familiar, or rather, something that the scenario brings is that when the reader feels the most comfortable and aware -- "Home through Rangoon and Vientiane," does the language make me feel less at home -- yes.  Then why feel so distant or rather foreign. There's something metapoetic in the construction of the lines -- so precise is the l

Poem found here:  "The Fly" by William Blake From condescending to humble, the poem plays with tone as the speaker plays with the concept of "the fly."  The initial stanza, "Little fly, / Thy summer's play / My thoughtless hand / has brushed away" has a sense of play from it.  It's dismissive of the existence of the fly as a nuisance.  As the poem progresses, there's a change of thought. "Am not I / A fly like thee?"  I wonder what caused this kind of crisis.  A twist of the hand?  Something as simple as that to go introspective.  Well, this type of rash thinking plays with the adjective "thoughtless" as thought the insight is still in play. "Or art not thou / A man like me?"  So a dual simile is set up.  The question is what criteria is a man like a fly or a fly like a man: "For I dance / And drink and sing, / Till some blind hand / Shall brush my wing."  These lines focus on the physical at first -- sin