DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "Undecided" by Hal Sirowitz Originally read: February 13, 2013 More information about the Poet: Hal Sirowitz   Past me wrote this about the last line of the poem, "The last line might be too sentimental, but I feel that this end is strong due to the ambiguous way to read the end: dismissive, genuine, desperation."  I reread and reread this poem and I understand what's going on -- a father telling his child (son) that they got him a gift of a shirt and, even though the parents has bought his son a shirt for the last three years, the father still cares.  Yes, this is where past me saw this poem as a bit sentimental because the "plot" of the poem is one of those after school special bonding moments, but for this poem, there's something else to it. The difference in the poem is this, "Father said."  This is a small big point.  The perspective of what is being said by the father is the product of the speake...

Original poem reprinted online here: "A Little Shiver" by Barton Sutter Originally read: January 27, 2013 More information about the Poet: Barton Sutter When reading this poem again, I thought to myself that this was something I would see in a Norman Rockwell painting -- something so light-hearted and domestic that  I have a hard time being cynical about the poem.  The poem starts out with the "bad tidings" being snow. And here's the aftermath of such an event: 1) Children abandoned their homework (then a light-hearted jab at hypotenuse). 2) Snowplow driver getting ready for work. 3) An couple resolves their "barking at each other" and decide to "go to bed" 4) Dog, in the snow, puts tail over snow. Surely, there are things missing in the poem (if I look at this as a narrative) more centered around the couple who "barked at each other"; however, I fill in the blanks with connotation.  Something as innocuous as quilts diffuses my cyni...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "His Elderly Father as a Young Man" by Leo Dangel Originally read: January 16, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Leo Dangel This poem is a narrative.  And while I thrashed narrative poems before ( see:  "Zombie Preparedness Plan" by Mary Jo Firth Gillett) for being "overly narrative" (too concerned with plot, having no sound in the lines, no purpose in the breaks and white space, etc.)  I don't write about these things in this poem.  Of course, I can go on and on thrashing how "narrative" the poem is; however, what I find interesting is that past me didn't care and focused on the plot.  Current me thinks this could be a pretty good short story, and as a poem, well, I'll guess I'll get into that. So  the poem is a confession, and that's what past me focused on in the analysis.  I wrote, "Sets up an interesting narrative -- the speaker (father) and the audience (child) is set up ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Secret of Life" by Diana Der-Hovanessian Originally read: January 9, 2013 More information about the Poet:  Diana Der-Hovanessian I write, "The anaphora in this poem brings a mysterious enlightening quality to the poem because 'the secret of life' comes from a navy yard worker -- a forced perspective."  So I disagree with my past self on one really big point -- past me forgetting the really big importance of the first line, "Once during the war" So, there's a context to this poem -- yes, there's a forced perspective filtered through the speakers (advice from the re-imaginings of a navy yard worker); however, add on top of this context a time frame -- a time of war, which means there's a sense of urgency for the advice versus "peace time" advice, or rather, in a time of war there should be a sense of urgency. However, the advice has a sense of the surreal along with humor.  "The secre...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Myth Dispelled" by Adam Possner Originally read: January 8, 2013 More information about the Poet: Adam Possner I think the poem depends on the "him/you" on being a patient...or maybe not.  For funsies, the poem could be referring to the speaker himself debating his/her scientific/spiritual self with the speaker being more cynical about the cynical at the end.  Also for funsies the speaker could use "you" as referring to the audience, but then that places the audience in the weird position: feeling superior for knowing better, feeling inferior for not knowing exactly how vaccines work and the speaker having to explain them.  However, for my reading, I'm going to be reading the poem as the speaker being personal with a patient. The tone shifts in the poem, I feel here, are more personal quality.  In " feeder " there's a sense of extremism with the shifts (through surreal images and direct rhetoric).  He...

Original poem reprinted online here:  "The Conductor" by Jacqueline Berger Originally read: January 2, 2013 More information about the Poet:   Jacqueline Berger Off the bat, we know what's at stake and what the core of the poem is about, "There's no mention, of course, in the program / that the conductor has Parkinson's,".  Usually,  I'm unsure about having something like disease or the death of someone or something tragic really in the beginning of any poem.  On one hand, the stake is clear and so, as a reader, I know where the narrative is going.  One the other hand, as a reader I'm forced to look at the character, poem, technique through the lens of tragedy which I either have to pity the character, poem, technique (forceful emotional blackmail) or interpret actions in the poem as relating to the disease (narrowed interpretations). I think "putting the tragedy up front" works better as a short poem (Emily Dickenson " I Heard a B...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Outside Fargo, North Dakota" by James Wright Originally read: December 29, 2012 (Am I missing a day? Too lazy to go back now)  More information about the Poet: James Wright So in my notes I write that this poem works on two levels -- Internal and Meta: "Internal:  The next lines "'onely / and sick for home.' the images above feel[s] like a representation of internal strife: white horses, going into the shadows, a sprawled body derailed." "Meta:  The poem turns from observational to internal -- nothing too surprising.  But the line 'I nod as I write good evening' is the only physical response of the speaker to anything -- and his physical response turns inward to the poem and the speaker." Past me, I don't think you fully describe meta that well.  So the speaker of the poem writes about the creation of a poem.  And all the symbols and images lead to how a poem is created.  And I could see it in ...

Original poem reprinted online here: "Waiting on the Corners" by Donald Hall Originally read: December 25, 2012? More information about the Poet: Donald Hal l I wrote a lot of "I like" for this poem.   Funnily enough there's a lot of grammar issues within the poem that would make English majors wince.  However, grammar is a tool to standardize communication, but in a poem, miscommunications bring a sort of insight. For example the first line: "Glass, air, ice, light, and winter cold."  Even though I wrote that "this collection of verbs [they are nouns past me -- you dolt] are mundane."  There's a sense of  two things with the first line -- immediacy (the nouns are right in front of the) and disorder (without a complete sentence there is a lack of context. As we get further down into the poem there's ambiguous pronouns "They" in line three could refer to the items above or a group of people -- the line has a sense of duality ...

This blog has been up for over two years, and I haven't updated it in a year. Why? Life happens after the MFA. I'm not writing about literary accomplishments or (the multitude) of literary failures. Rather life -- you know the things you experience in person than in a book so that you can write a book about your experiences you had in person. This is not an "I'm living my life" blog -- this blog is meant to set up something that I want to do. ------------- So after I "celebrated" my 30th birthday, I decided to read some poetry everyday for various reasons: 1) I wrote and read a little bit here and there the past couple of months leading up to my birthday -- mostly during the Summer. I didn't want to be distracted by video games while applying for jobs, and I didn't want to focus on how many employers ignored my resume -- so I turned to poetry. To be honest, I don't know why. 2) Retail places didn't hire me unfortunately, but I final...