DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "Poem" by Frank O'Hara Originally read: April 26, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Frank O'Hara I don't know if I could take this as a riff of a love poem, or as an awkward interesting love poem.  Actually, I don't know if I could take this as a love poem at all.  The drop down line isn't as angular as it could be, nor is the subject matter specific.  The poem is the line that straddles -- well -- any sort of connection and association to the poem. So here's a cute line, "if it rains hard /on our toes."  And I mean cute in the most saccharine sense.  There's the pastoral love going on -- walking, oh it's raining -- but it's on  our feet, how interesting.    But I take this as sincere, not so much as a riff.  Yes, I might be bias against the line, but the focus on how the line is read. In the second stanza, the description of the walk is a bit humorous with the focus on the we strolling li...

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: "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats Originally read: (a long time ago, but for this blog) February 18, 2013 More information about the Poet: William Butler Yeats I just listened to this poem read aloud by Colin Farrell , and then I read some of the comments for this poem -- a very dreamy, nice touching eulogy for a loved one.  And yes I can see that.  The tone of this poem is very loving (because love is repeated multiple times = love, right?) and how the speaker is so tender to the subject.  Not really. A couple of things, even though the subject is probably near death, the subject is capable of reading and/or taking down a book -- or this is the construction the speaker is addressing.  Also,  the second stanza kind of focuses the love idea to the a singular focus that disperses at the end which fits with the rhyme scheme (a b b a)  rhymes in the middle and rhymes at the end.  And, yes, the poem is in iambic...

Original poem reprinted online here: "The Tyger" by William Blake Originally read: Long time ago, but reread on Writer's Almanac on February 17, 2013 More information about the Poet: William Blake I think this is a required poem to read.  What grade level?  Who knows.  In any case, I have different outlooks on this poem from when I first read it in high school, broke, college, broke, after college, broke.  I've heard some very interesting perspective about this poem, but to be honest, the poem lends itself to interpretation through the use of rhetorical questions (not the questions themselves, how they operate) and the images (which range from nature to allusive to industrial).  So I'm going to post down some of the interpretations I've heard an how they are argued.  Note two very important background information about this poem: 1) This poem is found in "The Song of Experience" which sets up a sense of time, distance, age to the poems in the collect...