DDCPoetry

 Poem Found Here:  "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens Stevens' title are great.  "The Emperor of Ice Cream" comes to mind.  I think he made the title, "The Snow Man" to be associated with joy and holiday cheer and for the poem to systematically break down those meanings into a moment of nothingness. "One must have a mind of winter" is a line that will be defined as we go further down the tercets.  The initial way to have the "mind of winter" is  to regard the frost and the boughs  Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;  And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, Note how the poem starts off with strong imagery of "frost and bough / of pine-trees with snow" and with the addition of time asks the reader to consider the whole process of winter: of how snow falls to encrust the trees and create ice on junipers.  The speaker is asking the reader to observe in which the next lines, "Of the January ...

 Poem Found Here:  "What is Not" by Arthur Solway "My twisted alibi."  I know that the poet said this is a play on words, but I think this opening line and the title of the poem is playing with the idea of meaning or rather the lack of.  What happens when there is no meaning in meaning.   "the silent who and / almighty why / or misplaced where [...]" undefined interrogative determiners (I had to look up the term again after so long of probably never remembering these terms that I supposed to read in a book) even if they have adjectives behind them.  The adjectives don't illuminate meaning but rather how the interrogative determiner is viewed -- telling, vulnerable, and placed hen defined, but concepts when not. "[...] Or what as in / what went wrong / and when] A play of language using alliteration.  At this point of the poem, it feels like I'm talking to the Riddler waiting for a meaning to answer a riddle, but the play is not the meaning, ...

 Poem Found Here:  "We Are All God's Poems" by Philip Metres What does it mean to be a poem?  What does it mean to be God's Poems?  The title itself is interesting, and there is mention that this poem comes from an anthology.  I've been rereading this poem several times and what grabs me are the images.  I don't know what they mean, but poems are like that sometimes, like people. I think the image in the first stanza builds a separation from the traditional god that brings light being far away at the moment, "all I crave is light & yet / winter / sky is busy imitating milk frozen in an upturned bow"  The image caters towards the domestic and everyday which makes the separation lost a sense of gravity -- as though every winter season or every season there will always be this separation. Is the second stanza connected to the first?  I think this tripped me out a bit since I thought the metaphor would continue, but the second stanza seems on it'...

 Poem Found Here:   "Mistletoe" by Walter de la Mare I tend to have hit or miss readings for poems.  I'm warning whoever is reading this that this will will be a "miss" reading of a poem.  Why?  The poem hits for me different if a think of the variables relating to LGBT context. I usually stick to new criticism since I gain more as a poet from looking at poems in a technique sense.  Yes, this poem does echo a sonnet style with two septets that parallel each other, but with slight differences (the "shadow" having more of an ominous ungendered presence in the second septet).   I can also point out how the slight changes bring the gothic into the poem -- being touched by the unknown like the Christmas spirit or a past memory of lament. But for this case, this reminds me of one night stands and hooking up.  Maybe that's what the poem means, but it all depends how you view the shadow. Sitting under the mistletoe (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),...

 Poem found here:   "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert A story before the "analysis."  I read this poem and I thought it'd be a good idea to share with someone who was going through a rough divorce.  At first the person I shared the poem with was grateful, but then he told me he read it again and ripped up the poem.  I apologized not knowing how deeply the poem affected him. That event happened seven years ago.   Now on to the "analysis."  The comparative metaphor in the beginning tries to reconfigure a familiar trope, "Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew."  I think most people would remember the myth of him falling when getting too close to the sun; and, the speaker doesn't shy away from that failure in the next couple of lines:  It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better.  The com...