DDCPoetry

  This poem is written with hindsight in mind, "I was a boy in a bookstore, 'a bathhouse,' I'll joke when I am / older."  I noted in the very beginning line that the reference to "a bathhouse" was to a "gay bathhouse" where men go to hook-up.  But through the comparison, the speaker is looking back trying to make light of the situation, "but then, I wasn't." The poem continues to go a little explicit along with the pun of hooking up in a bookstore, "I was in a gallery of things to be / cracked open; all their spines & mine."  And so there's this blur of allusions -- hooking up and reading so the innuendo shows a passion for both, "I tell you, I was hungry / pickpocket, plucking what language I could from books & men / who stood hard before me."   There's a sense of control, a focus on taking and taking.  "This is what it means to be / astonishing; to thieve speech and sense from the underse...

  I asked Bard what "Sissy" meant and here's the response: Sissy is a derogatory term used to describe someone who is weak or cowardly, or who acts in a stereotypically feminine way. It is often used to insult boys or men who do not conform to traditional gender roles. Sissy can be a harmful word, as it can make someone feel ashamed of who they are. It is important to be aware of the negative connotations of this word and to avoid using it. The word "sissy" comes from the word "sister," and it is thought to have originated in the late 1800s. It was originally used to describe a boy who was weak or cowardly, but it soon came to be used to describe anyone who did not conform to traditional gender roles. Sissy can be a hurtful word, as it can make someone feel ashamed of who they are. It is important to be aware of the negative connotations of this word and to avoid using it. If you hear someone using the word sissy, it is important to speak up and let th...

 Original analysis here:  https://ddcpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/02/analysis-of-elegy-by-jose-maria-hinojosa.html Another self-conscious post by me. Anyways, Looking over the poem again the rhetorical questions about failing to get to a destination: "Alone I sailed, / Where will I arrive?  "If the hot air balloon were lost, / on what land would it fall?"   "If the ship were to wreck, / it would sink in what waters?" there's a sense of place, especially with the line "what waters?" Should that matter when someone is going through a traumatic disaster?  But this is all metaphorical.  The important part is at the end "Alone I started / No one knows why. / But, I, yes I, Know!" The exclamation at the end refocuses the poem to the resolve and the purpose of the speaker, regardless of possible metaphorical disasters happen and places to be.  It's the spirit of adventure and a tongue in cheek feel to the "possible elegy." It's be...

  In my initial reading of this poem, the volta struck me hard.  The tonal structure in the poem reminds me of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience in the way how the allusions to religion hit hard -- looking at religious symbols in another, but ethical light through strong images. The poem starts out like something from the songs of innocence, "Nature's first green is gold / Her hardest hue to hold."  With each end-stopped line every line feels important.  I feel there's a sense of reverence with these lines as though to show how hard "Nature" works. "Her early leaf's a flower; / But only so an hour." I think the key word in these lines is "early." The beginning. The Songs of Innocence. The joy of creation. Something beautiful created.  The rhyme scheme is so pronounced it harkens back to hymns.  However, with a semi-colon the poem adds a temporal component -- how long can this flower last.  The Songs of Experience. ...

 Original Analysis Here: https://ddcpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/02/analysis-of-by-rae-armantrout.html And when I choose one, the meaning of the poem changes -- kind of like a choose your own adventure book. For example mother, god, nothing don't fit, so the focus is on the other two options: sheep, baby, girl, sky, fatherless, everything create a whole new experience for me.   When I reread my analysis, I feel that there was pretty good analysis of the first two parts of the poem.  But nothing about the last part of the poem -- the aftermath of making a choice.   "Some thing" the item discarded. "close to nothing" if something doesn't belong, that something could be seen as nothing, but that something still exists.  Like a memory for example.  Once that impression is there, that impression in some shape way or form stays.   "flat" with the drop down of flat, I feel this reinforces the idea of impression, a painting looks flat. "fatherless,"...

I looked up "colon usage" and found this article "A Guide to Using Colons" .  For me, I normally associate the usage of colons to set up a connection between lists and the concept before, for example, "Things I like: bread, eggs, and sleep."  But for the title of this poem, "Mouth: To Say," has more of a different feel to it -- separating what the mouth does versus words to say. "To say a word, we put it in our mouths. / It may roll between the teeth / or hum on the plate [...]" note how the adjusted lines decrease the speed of reading the poem for me as though the reader has to tread on each line slowly like a staircase.  With this in mind, the clinical way on how to say a word is offset with the line adjustments. " Love , after all, starts / on tongue against teeth and ends on lips."  For me, I'm focusing on the italicized word of "love" but my own personal background and definition of "Love" and focu...

 Analysis found here:   https://ddcpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/02/analysis-of-that-acts-is-actual-by.html I'm using ChatGPT to help me with this Re-Analysis.  I asked for Denise Levertov's bio and famous poem and this poem wasn't on the list.  This part of her bio caught my interest: Levertov's poetry is known for its strong political and social themes, as well as its focus on the natural world and spirituality. She was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and participated in numerous anti-war protests and demonstrations. In addition to her poetry, Levertov also wrote essays and edited several anthologies, including "The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes" (1997). When I reread this poem, I'm just so astonished by the techniques this poem does.  From the initial anaphora, the break in the form that leads to these lines, "can you pull me // into December?" as my attention becomes pulled into the next stanza. I don't know w...

  When I first read the title "Night Vision" I imagined what I would be able to see at night -- like a movie version of what night version could be.  Seeing in the dark.  However, the poem reiterates what happens when you see in the dark, you see the dark. "Shadows are ideas of / casts them;" The initial two lines create the conceit of the poem of examining the "shadows."  Of course "shadow" has a Jungian allusion, but I feel the poem adds more to this by not addressing the allusion, but what defines the shadow "ideas of what casts them."  The semi-colon at the end shows that the next line is comparable. "the moon is there to / match but only / on one side." The poem plays with the idea of such a huge image, the moon, being in play, but isn't because the image turns to the dark side of the moon -- again the absence of light.  What was there: ideas and the moon, are tuned deeper in a dark blank side. Again the poem then add...

Original Analysis here:  https://ddcpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/02/analysis-of-iron-gate-by-oliver-wendell.html I have a hard time analyzing long poems.  For this poem, I know I'm self-conscious about it as I wrote about it.  After re-reading this poem a couple of times trying to figure out what to write about it, I'm still a bit lost.  But what I know is the form is in quatrains with an abab cdcd type of rhyme scheme.  Most of the lines are end-stopped so I get a sense of a contained narrative with the poem. I'm unsure of the narrative.  The speaker asks where "this patriarch" is and defines this patriarch familiarly, "Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him -- / Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;" and after such physical description of this being, the speaker admits, "Yes, long, indeed, I've known him at a distance, / And now my lifted-door latch shows him here;" Then the poem goes philosophical the next couple of ...