DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Americans" by Elizabeth Hughey Originally read: February 28, 2013 More information about the Poet: Elizabeth Hughey I think the stream of consciousness technique has it's positives and negatives.  On one hand there's the ability to think and see different connections with things that haven't been thought to connect.  I guess the pop culture equivalent would be the 6 degrees of Bacon, where any actor is connected to Kevin Bacon in one sense or another (I actually wrote that...well then).  The other side is that the connections can be looked at as superficial (see above) or so convoluted that the connections, although linked together, become overly forced and predictable conventions (talking about death of planet, then death of someone, those type of poems). Now, with this poem, I feel the speaker is playing with this idea -- toying with the positives and negatives of stream-of-consciousness -- not only on the image level, b...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Spaces We Leave Empty" by Cathy Song Originally read: February 11, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Cathy Song This poem took me a long time to analyze when I first read it.  I finally had to write down the reason why.  "Is this poem about rape?  or does it matter?  Is there something wrong with my interpretation."   This thought stems from the external scenario of the poem -- a thief enters a window and steals something with the mother looking on helplessly. I thought to myself, "why did my thoughts go there?"  There's no mention of sexual in here unless implied or interpreted by the reader.  However, after rereading I have a new interpretation on the poem -- which is also disturbing for me since I'm thinking I'm either trying to deflect my original interpretation or, perhaps, I do see something new.  In any case, I'm getting too far away from the poem. The focus in the first two stanzas...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Persimmons" by Li-Young Lee Originally Read: May 22, 2010 in the collection "Rose" (my Goodreads review here ) Originally re-read for this blog: February 9, 2013 More information about the Poet: Li-Young Lee When I first read the collection "Rose" I thought the writing was so smooth.  The way the narratives constructed themselves seamlessly from memory to present especially in poems like "The Gift" and "Rose"; furthermore, the narrative don't come off as fables, or overly-didactic, even though the narratives themselves have a fable and/or didactic nature to them. Rereading this poem in Febuary, and now, I  knew I wanted to go back to this poem because of the technique Li-Young utilizes here.  I want to know how he constructs his narratives and learn from his techniques.  I also want to know how the poem continuously borders on sentimentality -- sometimes the line is crossed, but the majority o...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Anarchy" by John McCrae Originally read: December 11, 2012 More information about the Poet: John McCrae The description in the second line got me  interested in the poem, "Where men, like wolves, slunk through the grim half-light" and I know this is a John McCrae poem (well time frame wise) is slightly behind the (like around 15 years or so) Modernist era. But I wonder how poems are looked at after a time.  For example this poem is probably a century old (maybe a little less or more).  And I'm sure that McCrae didn't want me to read the second line as a noir-ish poem where I envision the speaker walking the streets with two types of lights -- candle lit street posts and red lamps for any comer. Then running into a drunk who states in stanza 3 "'Speak not of God! In centuries that word / Hath not been uttered!  Our own king are we.'" Then I hear laughter -- maybe from the guy who said this or maybe from ...