DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here:  "The Wife-Woman" by Anne Spencer Originally read: March 16, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Anne Spencer For a poem that is so focused with the idea of seven, it's kind of ironic that the form is in octaves.  I hope I am using "ironic" correctly.  In any case the use of allusion punctuates the reoccurring number of seven and I feel this poem is an exercise that pushes the idea of allusion, numbers, stream-of-consciousness in more of a riff jazz style Yes, I'm adding this in because I read that Anne Spencer was part of the Harlem Renaissance.  But the poem makes more sense to me with more context.  Such is the problem with historical context and allusion.  I do want to add though that the poem interested me enough to look up the allusions and see how they relate to one each other. The poem starts off with the allusion to "Maker of Sevens in the scheme of things / From earth to star;"  Here there's a c...

Original poem reprinted online here: "French Kissing" by Gregory Sherl Originally read: March 12, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Gregory Sherl I needed to read the "about the poem" the first time to understand that this is an allusion to Joan of Arc.  I did write down notes of what I thought about the poem the first time that focused on the idea of the "emasculated peace time."  But in my notes I didn't go further about that idea. And today, rereading the poem after a couple of months -- I still don't see the allusion to Joan of Arc,  how the poem operates with the allusion.  Actually I do in a sense, but my focus the entire time is the speaker, and there's little hiccups which makes me feel I have to know more about the history of Joan of Arc in a not interesting way. The poem starts off with a rhetorical question that does emasculate a man during peace time, "What is there left to do during a truce, but look at boys / swinging ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Garden" by Heather Winterer Originally read: February 24, 2013 More information about the Poet: Heather Winterer (Note: You have to scroll down a bit to find her), I'm a sucker for this type of poem -- an allusion to the "fall of man"  "Paradise Lost," "East of Eden," "The History of the World Part I."  My reason for liking interpretations of the "fall of man" is because there's so much potential to work with and it's interesting to see how each artist deals with the scene. The first paragraph I find somewhat hilarious due to the word choice and the phrase, "Never remembered Adam's name for the first giraffe."  "Mutability" is a funny word in a poem like this because of what's not being stated in a sense.  It would be easy to put down "evolve" here, but there's heavy connotations behind that word.  The usage of mutability brings a s...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Ash Wednesday" by Louis Untermeyer Originally read: February 13, 2013 More information about the Poet: Louis Untermeyer This poem is comprised of two Italian sonnets.  What I didn't think of when I wrote notes on this poem is how the  form operates in this poem.  Usually, Italian sonnets are divided into an octave (first stanza) then a sestet (second stanza).  In the octave, there's a question being presented; meanwhile, the sestet answers the posed question.  Now with this poem, the core of the poem is what the answer to the question or the first sestet. The poem starts off thought with the question, "Shut out the light or let it filter through" -- the tone is one of a command but a command that (falsely) gives the power of decision to the reader; however, the speaker continues on what the filtered light illumiated: "feet that grew, "twisted and false," "cupids smirk from candy clouds," "Th...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Labwork" by John A. Nieves Originally read: February 7, 2013 More information about the Poet: John A. Nieves I feel I'm missing important here, but I looked up Reactor Field and saw that the name referred to a a place at University of Missouri.  Then I looked up the author profile and John A. Nieve s went to the University of Missouri for his PhD.   Now does so deep of an allusion irritate me.  In some ways. yes and no.  I read the poem and wanted to know more about the place; however, now I doubt I'll get every reference in the poem and therefore, wildly misinterpret it, but hey, what's new. The first two stanzas include a "we" speaker that shows the speaker is in a group, or has a collective unconscious.  The attention to the "name" of Reactor field and the aside of mutant squirrels sets up a sort of humor  in this poem.  Observational looking for the absurd.  Absurd being observational.  Maybe both. T...

Original poem reprinted online here: "My Knife" by Dennis Hinrichsen Originally read: February 2, 2013 More information about the Poet: Dennis Hinrichsen "I like the slash punctuation here: 1) represents a break between thoughts 2) only punctuation in the poem 3) line break, physical representation of a slash" So I remember writing down my notes for the poem and not knowing all the aspects of King Lear. Then I thought to myself, how perfect an opportunity.  I'll mark down when I'll have to look up King Lear to understand the references or something piqued my interest.  Up until that point, I'd go off everything I remembered from class(es). However, the focus of the poem for me until that point was how the knife, named Lear, operates.  Small impotent blade that's has a lust to stay relevant.  Probably why the knife is named Lear was because of the actions that the knife does, "slice away at storms [Lear arguing with the storms]" Within first...

Original poem reprinted online here: "No Art" by Ben Lerner Originally read: December 25, 2012 When I think of "towers" my mind automatically goes to 9/11.  It might be a habit.  Or perhaps that the image is so iconic that it might take a generation to shift the connotation.  There you go -- mind block out of the way. So, oddly enough, I think the title is effective if you don't know or infer the allusion to "One Art."   It's difficult for me because "One Art" is one of my favorite poems of all time.  "I shan't have lied. It's evident  / the art of losing's not too hard to master / though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster."  I almost was able to quote this from memory...someday. Anyway, the struggle to get over loss happens in the poem "No Art" as well, but not clearly. If you read a poem through images, then this poem isn't for you or maybe it is.  The strong image is "tower" and th...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Mysteries Remain" by H.D Originally read: December 6, 2012 More information about the Poet: H.D I'm not a fan of sing-songy rhyme or allusion for that matter.  In my last post, I wondered about the use of allusion and context in a poem.  How much does a person need to know to feel the poem is effective?  What if the technique of the poem stands out more than the experience in the poem. This poem is no exception, I suppose.  The rhyme scheme is really irritating to me in the beginning: remain, same rain, "These rhymes are irritating and redundant. sing-songy." I wrote. Yet this line, "Demeter in the grass" really got to me, "This image struck me the most out [of all the choices that day] and made me choose it [this poem to look at again].  I just had this image of Demeter in the grass." So this is where allusion, at least for me, kicks in hard.  Demeter lost her daughter Persephone to the god Hades.  ...