DDCPoetry

Poem found here:   "By Force" More about the Poet:  Carl Phillips The progression of voyeurism, "Look -- they're turning: how gracefully each / moves."  The movements up close bringing a sense of intimacy, "in the surprise of woundedness--and, / where arrow meets flesh," the allusion to St. Sebastian here brings this encounter on a historical resonance, "the blood corsaging" the image is pretty and sexual at the same time. Then there's this list that creates this tempo of sexual sounds, "Revelation, jackhammers, love, four hooves / in the dirt."  This continuous pounding sound -- physically and auditory leads to a silence, "How speechless, now"  There's an abruptness in the language -- is this post coitus -- that breath, then the regret. Or rather the clarity one gets after an orgasm, when the mind is not driven by the body and the sound of the body.  Then the language of the poem becomes more like an equation, &qu

Poem found here: Reading "The Want of Peace" More about the Poet:  Wendell Berry "All goes back to the earth," is such a strong statement of resignation.  Welp, we're all dust in the wind, so what?  The "so what" is the point of the poem.  Written in first person, the speaker thoughts and experiences relate to what he/she things of "all goes back to earth" or what to do until that happens. "and so I do not desire / pride of excess or power"  pretty basic set up lines.  Also, the lines come off as grandeur but broad.  Regardless, If I don't wan't "x", usually I want "y."  y being: but the contentments made by men who have had little: the fisherman's silence receiving the river's grace, the gardener's musing on rows The statement of "men who have had little" makes this poem turn towards class.  Can't rich people be fishermen and gardeners?   Yes.  But those whose lives depend on t

Poem found here:  "Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ, 8:00 AM"  More about the Poet:  Ross Gay A situation trigger.  I'll skip ahead a bit with the lines halfway down the poem, "[...] as I answer the questions / 3, 4, 5, times, my jaw tight as a vice,"  So in this narrative poem, the speaker appears to be pulled over and is being questioned.  The approach the poem takes is from the core of a person outward -- inside the feeling of a person, literally and figuratively, to something more. The speaker mentions this rage that grows and spend a good eight lines using exact body part language on how this rage travels: hot as an army of red ants and forces the mind to quiet the body, the quakes emerge, sometimes just the knees, but, at worst, through the hips, chest, neck until, like a virus, slipping inside the lungs and pulse every ounce of strength tapped to squeeze words from my taut lips, For me, the lines speed by just like how quickly an emotion erupts.  I think it

Poem found here: "Again and Again" More about the Poet:  Rainer Maria Rilke "Again and again," the poem and the first phrase signals a repetition, but funnily enough there isn't a rhyme scheme in the poem -- maybe that'd be hitting things too hard on the nose since, as a reader, we already know the direction the poem is going, the how is what should be the draw. "[...]however we know the landscape of love / and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names, [...]"  The enjambed line  brings a contrast, "landscape of love" and "the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names" If we can assume the churchyard with sorrowing names means a graveyard makes it appear different: love and death.  But is it? After reading this poem a couple times, the idea of a graveyard is love, isn't it?  It's a place where loved ones can rest and loved ones can mourn.  Even when the speaker expands upon this landscape of love and