DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "Spring Training" by Maxine Kumin Originally read: March 11, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Maxine Kumin . How long did it take me to know that this was a poem with baseball imagery, probably by the second line.  How long did it take me to realize that this is not a sonnet, just recently.   I think I wanted this to be a sonnet, I just miscalculated the stanzas (one extra) when I read it the first time.  However, this is important because there's no hard volta in the poem -- not in the couplet.  I feel the tone throughout the poem is the same -- a sense of wonder built by the imagery. In the first stanza there's imagery of baselines, peanuts, and catcher's mitt -- but look how they operate.  The Baseline imagery is followed up by slight alliteration "smoothed to suede" which brings a visual dreamlike quality to the image -- something real in a surreal sense.  Then comes the the peanuts line, "ancient smell...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Estrangement" by Paula Bohince Originally read: February 27, 2013 More information about the Poet: Paula Bohince After rereading this poem and looking at my notes, I really didn't look up a lot of things that I should've.  The first being the color of flowers or actually remember what they look like.  The second is to reconsider or consider how the word estrangement fits into the poem.  Who is the one alienated? Well me as a reader in some aspects.  At some points in the poem I felt that I should know the flowers to gain a deeper meaning into the poem ("amaryillis" "juniper" "mint" "jasmine" "oleander)) not only for the shape and smell of each individual plant, but, what makes nature poems hard to do, is what each flowers literary history.  Yes, I know that would be symbols in one aspect, but I feel that images, especially nature images, have multiple contexts when a reader reads into t...