DDCPoetry

Poem found here:  "Stranger by Night" by Edward Hirsch There's a lot going on in the title.  When I researched this poem, I this is also the title of collection coming out in February 11, 2020.  I've learned to queue up posts, so I'm writing this post on January 13, 2020 and this should come out in March 29, 2020. In any case, there's a lot going on in the title because the poem plays with the idea of "stranger" and "night" throughout.  However, note the form of the poem: short lines and a bit long, but could be read.  This idea plays itself out in the first couple of lines, "After I lost / my peripheral vision / I stated getting side swiped by pedestrians cutting / in front of me [...]" The form of the poem plays with this lack of peripheral vision, something narrow can only be seen.  The form mimics this experience and too the reader, like the speaker, can only see what in from of them.  The "night" being played with i...

Poem Found Here:   "Early Sunday Morning" by Edward Hirsch Old man lament in five quatrains.  The interesting thing in this poem is that the poem admits what type of poem this is within the first stanza:      I used to mock my father and his chums      for getting up early on Sunday morning      and drinking coffee at a local spot      but now I'm one of those chumps. The first stanza is not only tongue in cheek content wise, but also structure wise with the rhyme and inversion of "chums" (friends) and "chumps" (fools, but the speaker is by himself).  The question then is what the speaker does with this self-awareness -- be cynical about the structure and the idea, be genuine as though to confess some parts of the self. "No one cares about my old humiliations / but they go on dragging through my sleep"  There's a mix, yes there's humor about no once caring about "old humiliations" -- but the idea is pre...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Amour Honestus" by Edward Hirsch Originally read: October 15, 2013 More information about the Poet: Edward Hirsch So the title and the feel of the poem seems French -- with talk of love and what not.  And if I didn't look up the title, I would've translated it as "honest love" which does go along with the poem as well. But I'm wrong. "Amour"  does mean love in latin and this word translates throughout multiple languages.  However, "Honestus" doesn't mean honest rather honor.  Honest being more defined by truth, and honor more of defined by a virtuous character.  Yes, this does change my interpretation the poem, but I don't know how much. Why, the refrain of "hell of it" in the end of the second line of each couplet shifts the emotions in the poem quickly like the first couplet, "The nights were long and cold and bittersweet, / And he made a song for the hell of it."  ...