DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "What the Dead Know" by Robert Polito Originally read: March 13, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Robert Polito The form of the poem interests me.  The poem starts out with a lot of white space and the line center adjusted, the next line left adjusted, and the poem continues to follow this pattern.  The pattern adds a sense of duality to the poem (yes, I write this a lot), but the type of duality that follows a pattern.  The first stanza is where I had trouble at first because there's a lot of description, but they all refer to air.  Duh, right?  But the description of air is very complex because even though the focus should be air, the simile of. "Air here is like the water / Of an aquarium"  and so there comes a visual image of air as water which are conflicting images, but work because the description fits both air and water.  For example "appearing cold (and clear) as spring streams / Fed by snow and ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "feeder" by Beth Bachmann Originally read: January 8, 2013  More information about the Poet: Beth Bachmann  After re-reading this poem, I thought why did I pick it?  It's a kind of strange feeling where I didn't see what was going on (this is before reading my notes).  I think it starts with the opening line, "The mouths of the dead are always / open" in which I comment "good first line."  I actually see it as meh right now.    It's not that the sentence is bad or cliche, it's the line break that comes in heavy handed like "expect a surprise -- right now". I do think the single line "open. Quit"  has linguistic implications.  Past me wrote, "The line by itself is interesting because it seems that the dead are saying this -- then the line break completes the line."  So I like the line for different reasons now.  I don't think the dead are saying "quit"  rather b...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "My Dad, In America," by Shann Ray Originally read: January 1, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Shann Ray Now the execution is important here.  The content of the poem is not directly extreme -- father goes out to get some animals for a Cheyenne old woman who gives some sage like wisdom.  Yet this poem is based on subtext upon subtext. "The poem works as a juxtaposition of extremes: gentle.violent, air/land, blood/forgiveness, dead/new.  I question, though, how separate the images are...how intertwined the ideas are." So I reread this poem again and I see what I meant; however, I want to focus on this line, "We need to know in America there is still blood / for forgiveness."  because the line break creates this fragmented extremes. This also occurs in the first two lines "Your hand on my jaw / but gently."  However there's a difference. The jaw/gently line there is a conjunction there -- or rathe...