DDCPoetry

Poem Found Here:  "In the Dumps" by Heather Christle "Who are 'we'?" and "leave open" is how past me described the first stanza.  The poem's design and content feel like a spillage of some sort -- not so much of emotion, but of content: image, ideas, and so on, "Just because we've broken my head / doesn't mean we must glue it together."  There's a sense of humor behind the tone of the second line which is punctuated with the third line of, "There's other work to be done"  What work is more important than getting one's head back together. The descent into adjusted lines adds a sense of disjointedness -- but the poem doesn't go for an emotional disjointedness, rather a metphorical one, "and dark -- / grass freezing / There is some old light / to read by"  Note that there is a comparative metaphor of the dark grass and the implication of an old light to read by.  Dark where to stand, light that...

Poem Found Here:   "The Long Hand Wishes It Was Used" by Jackie Clark "Sometimes I wish I didn't think in words".  For me, this is a powerful opening line that holds potential emotional weight: wishing for something so mundane as words, but so complex as thought.  But instead of words, what?  The following three lines add a cumulative effect, not only how to think, but also the technique of repeating "and" to put a simple addition:      and that instead for each thought I thought I drew upon an image,      and that I was able to organize each image in a linear way that would be like sort of like reading      and that instead of trying to describe the edges around something      I could just think of the color around the edges of the image to be darker, So the cumulative effect focuses on the concept of lines -- the border of the image.  To "organize each image in a linear way that would be like sort of ...

Poem found here:  "Night Piece" by James Joyce Three sestets that build off the simple prompt of "Night."  Now, why specifically night piece?  There's definitely a feel of free from consciousness with the lines, association of the physical and the mental, Especially with the first line, "Gaunt in the gloom," where the construction sets up an ambiguous subject, at first, then the focus on above, "The pale stars their torches, / Enshrouded, wave."  Note how the construction falls apart here with the emphasis on "enshrouded," then the attached descriptor of "wave" to elicit motion -- a constant enshrouded feeling.  However, there's the connection of the image to, "Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume / Arches on soaring arches, Night's sindark nave."  I wasn't to sure on what or who sindark is, but note how the connection is to the heavens, which is an easy connection but the image become...

Poem found here:  "Belfast Tune" by Joseph Brodsky The poem is in quatrains with an alternating rhyme scheme (abab).  And there is a sense of musicality within the poem, but the content within the poem has broader implications. But, with the beginning of a tune, there's something specific, a girl:      Here's a girl from a dangerous town      She crops her dark hair short      so that less of her has to frown      when someone gets hurt. Note the how ambiguous the town is described versus the specific intent of the girl.  Also the girl is reacting to the danger -- of someone getting hurt.  And note that the specific detail of the cropped hair  not to hide but to see.      She folds her memories like a parachute.      Dropped, she collects the peat      and cooks her veggies at home: they shoot      here where they eat. The image of the parachut...

Poem found here:  "Valentine" by Tom Pickard With a short poem, techniques definitely stand out more, for example the alliteration of "s" in the first two stanzas:      simplicity      say sleep      or      shall we      shower seductive, erotic, the alliteration of "s" adds onto the choices -- sleep or shower -- in a more playful way.  And then the line, "have an apple" breaks away from that dream-like play.  Just like a famous biblical apple that comes to mind.  It's the break from the language and a move on to rhertoical questions of what happens next:      you are      as I need      water      shall I move?      do you dream? Here the speaker acknowledges the dream like state that he's in.  Here, when the speaker asks "shall I move?" the question is not where, but from what.  And then the question "...