DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "Dinner Out" by Christopher Howell Originally read: February 19, 2013 More information about the Poet: Christopher Howell I was looking this poem up to link to it, then I ran into this youtube video of a man, Hektor Munoz, reading the poem out loud.  Now when I first read this poem, I probably read the poem in my head.  And here's the real danger of reading a poem in the head -- the automatic construction of both theme and meaning, if too strong, will override the actual words on the page.  So after listening to Hektor Munoz read "Dinner Out" out loud -- yeah, my interpretation the page is somewhat different than what is actually there.  I'll get to that point soon. I do want to point out that the stanza focuses a lot on images.  The construction of the images are nice, but a little too nice, a little too precise; meanwhile, the actual place is a not remembered.  From the first stanza, there's a feel that the speaker...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Detail of the Hayfield" by Richard Siken Originally read: February 8, 2013 More information about the Poet: Richard Siken Past me wrote this down about the last line of the poem, "The last line utilizes the duality set up in the poem," I thought about what I wrote.  What I wrote wasn't very clear.  It doesn't point to the duality in the poem.  And after reading the poem, I'm pretty sure there isn't much of a duality in the end -- rather it's the speaker trying to condense two parts into one. The poem starts off with an observer perspective, "I followed myself for a long while, deep into a field."  The lines sets up a somewhat surreal, yet objective experience.  The "I" observer acknowledges  the surrounding but the followed "I" doesn't seem to have a consciousness yet.  The next line, "Two heads full of garbage" shows a certain filter.  The "I" whose head...