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:  "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: "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:  "Q" by Michael McFee Originally read: January 24, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Michael McFee Before I start, I ran into a pretty thorough daily critique/analysis poetry blog called The Poetry Daily Critique .  The analysis of poems are far better than mine for looking at the poem through theme, technique, and mode. What do I have over this blog?  Uh, I try to do this daily -- meaning I make a lot of mistakes.  Anyway, the first blog post on The Poetry Daily Critique was for this poem .  The blogger, in the post, defines probably his/her aesthetic/lens he/she views the poems.  It's pretty good and thorough.   But from here on out I'll be focusing on what I think   Yeah, probably not as thorough.  So this poem is quiet comical as it points out the different variations of how to look at the letter "Q."  From the beginning to end, I feel this poem has a sense of whimsy, but doesn't cr...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "I Write You This on a Train Named for an Endangered Bird" by Kyle McCord Originally read: January 17, 2013 More information about the Poet: Kyle McCord After rereading this, I'm trying to figure out what the name of the endangered bird is.  The funny thing is is that the name of the bird is not important -- rather it's the loose end that's not answered in the poem. However, the whole question/answer, call/response idea doesn't come into effect until after the poem is done.  When I first read this poem, I felt this poem was only a stream-of-consciousness poem where the focus was entirely the directions the ideas were going.  For example, "like pitting your protagonist against an all-knowing, all-seeing jaguar spirit." which I past me thought was funny. Now I realize that this poem deals with duality not only  scene wise, but within the language itself.  Note how there's a separation between the first sentence...