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Showing posts from March, 2022

Analysis of "Sea Rose" by H.D.

 Poem found here:   "Sea Rose" by H.D. Sea Rose .  This is the type of poem where I wonder how the genus name influences the poem.  Orphium .  A name derived from the tale of a musician/poet sent down to save his love Eurydice as long as he believed she was behind him, but he had to look back.   However, H.D. is an imagist, so I believe this poem is an ars poetica in a sense.  I think this poem is trying to go against the symbol of the sea rose just to focus on the image.  Actually, the poem is a comparison between both the image of the sea rose versus a spice-rose. Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf. There's so much negative connotation here, "harsh," "marred," "meagre," "sparse," that the tone of the poem feels like it's condemning it's subject.  The visual sight of the sea rose is nothing much.  With so much negation, the stanza leads up to a comparison or a twist in the

Analysis of "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" by Emily Dickenson

 Poem Found Here:  "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" by Emily Dickenson The version I have probably isn't the version she wrote.  I see this version out there which has the end dashes in place.  I'm going to go off the one I've read and wrote some notes about.  I just wonder who interpreted the punctuation this way since it does make a difference.  Bluntly put, the consistent usage of the semi-colon to connect couplets within the quatrains makes it so the lines are connected; however, this might not be the case with the end dashes.  It's too late for me though.  I can't unsee the way I see the poem. "The soul selects her own society, / Then shuts the door;"  Within two lines, there's an openness with the soul choosing and then the closing seems more of a protection and ownership ideal. The next two lines state the reason why, "On her divine majority / Obtrude no more."  The lines cast an ideal: devotion, loyalty, ownership of what

Analysis of "Down Jacket God" by Moon Bo Young Translated by Hedgie Choi

Poem Found Here:   "Down Jacket God" by Moon Bo Young Translated by Hedgie Choi The language is simple.  I think there's two commas in the whole poem and everything else are just simple sentences, but the subject matter is so complex.  As a prose poem, this poem leads the reader down the scenario, the set up metaphor, and how the metaphor works very cleanly that when we get the end of the poem, there's a simple clean sentence with a devastating image. "God wears a massive down jacket."  The scenario.  Although the image of god wearing a down jacket seems odd and humorous. the poem pivots to focus on the make-up of the jacket, the set-up, " Humans are the countless duck feathers trapped inside," So God is looking good in a comfortable jackets, and humans are the ones that fill in that warm support.  "the poet writes."  Placing the poet in this poet subdues the metaphor from being direct and transfers power to the poet, the observer.  God,

Analysis of "Swarm" by Jessica Traynor

 Poem Found Here:   "Swarm" by Jessica Traynor After reading the poem a couple of time, I wondered what "Swarm" means.  Of course, there's the dictionary definition ; however, even in reading the definition there's a negative connotation: swarm of locusts, swarm of meteors .  I think this poem plays with this negative connotation as the tone of the poem to form maybe empathy at the end. The poem starts out with a command: Search for them in the canopy, among meadow grasses, you won't spot them; the thousands of bees Even though the speaker asks the reader to search for something so numerous, this swarm, this thousands of bees is not able to be viewed by the reader.  There's a sort of mocking aspect of not being to see them as it seems so obvious to the speaker at how they change normal scenery to the surreal: "that unzip the air, / follow the day's weft, // that rip the silence like cloth."  Note how the descriptions of the bee comes in