My Mistress' Eyes

Shakespears poems are often about love and affection, and because of his style are usually "down to earth." Yes Shakespeare writes many impossible plays, but poems require inspiration. This poem is about a a man wooing a woman ,calling her by what she is, not what she is not. She is not a supernaturl goddess, she is a woman, but a gorgeous one at that. "I think my love as rare- as any she belied with false compare." (Shakespeare). His love for her is real, and supremely strong. BVut he does not need to tell her lies to prove this.

Crossing the Bar

The tone of this poem is one of acceptance, even happiness. The speaker of this poem knows that death is coming, and is accepting of this fact. They are in fact happy because it shows that time still moves on. For with every bad moment int life, and equally good one occurs. "May there be no moaning of the bar, When i put out to sea"(Tennyson). One goes out into the ocean of choices of life, but one always ends back where they strted. With their Pilot, or creator. One hope that one will always find our way back, and that one has not miscalculated or chosen wrong. And because this spreaker has come back safe, they are content with their end.

The Apparition

The pain. The onslaught of raw emotions tearing one's self apart. The heart is the most fragile part in a human's body. When it is shared with another, and then betrayed, the pain and corruption that ensues is the greatest force to be reckoned with. The mind shuts down, and the emotions take over, throwing caution to the wind. "I will not tell thee now, lest that preserve thee." (Donne). Revenge upon a harmful lover is what one would seek, because whe nthe heart is torn from their chest, nothing else reamins but a viod. One that can only be filled with an equally strong feeling.

Geting Out

High school. Relatonships. Depression. Heartache. All are common feelings to humans of our age.The pain one feels when their love is unrequited or when it is torn from them by the hands of another.The sheer weight of the heart as it sinks into one's chest, after being in te clouds. Reality sets in, and the world is again pulling one back down. Relationships are great and amazing and wonderful when they work; and when they do not, they change one's self in a way no one can imagine. "We held on tight, and let go." (Mathis) And raw emotions turn to despair.. and the love is no more.

next to of course god america i

A supremely fast poem, to state an understatement. This poem is rapidly and quickly running through famous patriotic lines at a fast pace. Because of the last line "He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water." (Cummings) we can assume that the person is a speaker, and possibly a politician. Most politicians generally do not say much, if anything, and this satirical work is proving that. Throw enough random lines together, say it quickly, and people will rejoice, all to afraid that if they speak up for not understanding that they will be mocked and ridiculed. Corruption, ignorance, and embarrassment rule the country. all it takes is a person with a strong hand and a time of peace to gain acceptance by the people. The trouble arises when an actually issue comes up, and then the politician that faked their way to the top is left high and dry. The truth is this country and the people in it need a change. The answer is knowledge and common sense.

APO 96225

This poem is an incredible example of how regular citizens can not handle the travesties of war. No words or emotions can truly, completely, and fully convey the horrors soldiers witness. This poem to me also has another location also. Right here in our own daily lives, as high schoolers. Parents, and even friends, will occasionally ask what is wrong, and because the average, typical teenager is stubborn, and bull headed, we will continuously push off the confrontation until we give in. And the questioner will not always be happy with the resulting answer. "But his mother -- reading between the lines as mothers always do." (Rottmann) We are still just kids at heart, but our minds are maturing. Even we are not always proud of what we do.

Ozymandias

First off, I hate this Pharaoh's name. That really has no literary value, I just had to say that. Secondly, this poem really speaks to everyone. Human's have quite a lot of pride and honor in their hearts, and this shows us how if we let pride lead our lives. People can be extremely tunnel visioned at times, and when this happens they lose sight of what and who is around them. This Pharaoh wanted his image to be shown to all those that walked by, and eventually, even this body deteriorated. Unfortunately, people have weak memories, and history makes everything new again with time. Our physical presence will always disintegrate quickly, and even our reputations, though they last longer than we do, disappear with time as well. "Nothing beside remains." (Shelley)

Batter my Heart

This poem screams religious themes. The speaker is Cristian, as we now from the "three person" or trinity, and they speaker is a sinner who wants to find redemption. "Take me to you, imprison me, for I... never shall be free." (Donne) This poem has some very well written symbols and verbs. The speaker is trying to be forgiven for being a human, and they want God to do so in a very physical and destructive manner, so that they can be constructed with God. This ties into the Catholic belief in baptism, and how th water creates us anew with Jesus. In the Bible, God is portrayed both as a loving, forgiving god, juxtaposed to a spiteful, wrathful God. This person wants both sides of God so that they can be closer to Him.

Toads

This poem is an example of symbolism towards society. i feel this way because the main symbol has to do with money. "With its sickening poison..." (Larkin). The poison is a person's dependency on money, which eats away at us from the inside out. The toad itself symbolizes greed. We know this because in the seventh stanza it says how he has a toad-like thing in himself. many humans have this greed for money, and will do anything to do it. This person just does not have enough to make a difference, as he works so much to just barely get by.

Pink Dog

"It's Carnival!" This is a line I heard on The Simpsons in which the family travels to Brazil, and while there, they get in the middle of a huge parade that is Carnival. This allusion is for a gigantic parade that falls on Fat Tuesday in Rio, a fiestival that tries to get everyone's impulses and morally questionable descisions out of the way before the beginning of the reverant Lenten time. People sould be as crazy as possible, and get every sinnful action out of them before hand so that they can better prepare for the coming suffering. "go bobbing int the ebbing sewage, nightsout in the suburbs, where there are no lights...." (Bishop.) This line shows that even the lowly, peasents should dress up, to show God that the next day they are ready to give Him their whole attention to His suffering. It also shows how the rich try to get the poorest people to dress up as well so that they are not seen, and ruin the flamboyant festivities that will occur in the night.

Dream Deferred

Because this author writes this during the Harlem Renaisance, it is fairly safe to assume they write this over the African American movement for equal rights. But dreams are created by everyone. And just like the scenarios expressed in this poem, anything can happen. Welcome to life, humble reader. The speaker uses painful, disgusting, gruesome, and grotesque adjetives to explain how a dream can go horribly wrong. Life has many options, many choices, and many outcomes. Few are whatwe expect them to be, and most dreams fall by the waysaide. If every child who said they wanted to e a fireman fulfilled that dream, we could have a fireman in every house of America keeping watch. "Or does it explode?" (Hughes). I love this line because everyone has one passion in them, and when they truely work for that one dream, nothing can stand in their way, and out of the norm they explode to stand out.

February

I find it interesting how this poem begins with winter, and ends with spring. This shows how February is more of a transistor month: freezing to begin with, and quite warm to end. Just like nature, it seems, the speaker can not make up their mind on what to do. The whole while the syntax of this poem is short, very unformal dition, along with a little satire and humor thrown in the mix. And yet the reader gets the sense that the speaker is just about to stumble upon some great discover, some incredible epiphany, but she never does. "If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too..." (Atwood.) The speaker is tryinf to get over her feelings of disgust for love, as this is the month of Valentine's Day, but she also is trying to admit her own desires for the fateful emotion. Indescision rules this poem, just as it does our own struggle between mind and heart.

Bright Star

This poem has a magnificent comparison between a lover and a star. Stars are phenomonons of nature that have such power, such energy; to compare a giant of this nature to a mere human being is truely an example of one's passion and love. "And so live ever- or swoon to death." (Keats) This final line is a perfect ending to the poem that has so much intimacy and attention to detail. This lover would love to forever more be transfixed with his one desire, to always be with her; and if he can not do so, then he would quickly rather depart from this world with a smile on his face that he could but for a second glance upon the face of his true love.
The imagery is quite compelling, as by ourselves (as the star is first described) we rely on what we see and what we know as a reality. And yet in the second half of the poem, Keats relies more upon the feelings and touch, as when in love we rely upon our sense of touch and our emotions. Truely i find this to be a well executed poem, in that he so accuratly explains our minds when alone and when in love, without ever once directly making the comparison.

No I am not Depressed

Sad to say, but honestly I loved reading Dickinson's poem. The poem was incredibly enjoyable for me, from the dark depressing confusion to the panicked ending that suddenly stops. A little background of me is that in grade school I was famous for my dark, deep, blood spattered writing. This deep, multi layered poetry is what i crave, and what truly engages me. Hence how i came up with the crazy, yet logical, birth metaphor theory. As a child, I grew up in fourth grade. So ever since i was ten years of age, I have been aware of tragedy and despair around me. Dickinson's poetry really speaks to me because hers is not always dark because she herself is depressed, but because she is just showing us what is truly in front of our faces. "Sense is breaking through..." (Dickinson). This line shows how when someone hits maturity, they are usually thrown off balance, and they need to adjust, just as I did at a young age.

Those Winter Sundays

This poem is negative and depressing. "early.... blueblack cold... no one ever thanked him." ( Hayden) This poem introduces a father who works exceptionally hard to keep his family alive, and is not thanked. The cold, wintry adjectives cause the reader to feel sympathy for the suffering man.

The second paragraph, however, makes the reader feel bad for the child, and not the father. "Chronic angers?" Could this be representing abuse or addiction? this would explain why the father is not readily thanked, but as interpreters we can not assume this.

The Widow's Lament

Despite the flowers, this poem is very depressing. The juxtaposition of misery and beauty is supremely executed. confusion only sets in during the last three lines. "I feel i would like to go there/and fall into the flowers there/ and sink into the marsh near there." (Williams) the falling appears to signify her hope of change, and yet the sinking action shows that she knows no change will occur. The flowers, all through this work, seem to describe the good in her life. She just can not accept the good and she is unable to overcome the negative aspects.

Allusion

In the poem "Spring" by Gerard Hopkins, Eden is referenced as the original paradise. This allusion helps to go along with the theme that the innocence will disappear and become spoiled. Spring in this poem is a symbol for a new, untainted beginning. The adjectives at the beginning of the poem support how life can be so wonderful before sin and human nature destroy it. "Have, get, before it is cloy." (Hopkins) We as readers are showed that we must enjoy life before it is ruined, ironically, by ourselves more often than not.

Funeral For My Brain

This tone is exactly like all of Dickenson's poem's tones: dark and deathly depressing. But something, personally, felt almost... off. Could this poem possibly be about birth?? All of the capitalized words could be symbols that would suggest so. Symbols like "Sense breaking... Mind going numb... Reason, broke." (Dickenson) can easily support this out of the box theory. The baby's known world (the womb) is being taken from it, and just as we would react when sanity is taken from us, the baby, or "strange Race" is stressing out and panicking. The "Drum" could symbolize the mother's heartbeat as she is experiencing labor. The poem does not need to be depressing. It just shows a monumental change.

Perrine Poetry

I can only somewhat agree with his theory of "correct" poetry. I feel that as long as the reader has a theory of what the poem pertains to, and they can defend their stance, then they are correct. I agree that if they have no basis to refer to, then yes the interpretations are wrong. But even if a so called "better" answer is out there, if support is given, how can something be considered wrong that is so ambiguous to begin with? What really struck me was the first quote in the third paragraph. " ' If it suits you that way, than that is all right with me' " (T.S. Elliot, Perrine). This quote to me really hit a chord because it shows how even the author believes that if someone feels one way about an ambiguous poem, they are in the right. Everyone comes fro ma different background and history, therefore, everyone is going to read a poem in different ways.

The poem really did not change many of my interpretations, as the intro states that any supported interpretation can be correct. However, later he states that the more correct interpretation is the one that relies the least on assumptions. this to me has conflicting aspects. For one, I agree that the more one refers to what is there is more correct. However, who is to say the author did not mean something else? For example the poem The Night March. Perrine tells us that the poem is about stars. Which, personally, I can buy as correct. But still, I can read it as soldiers as well. The silence, the shining adjectives, these could refer to ghosts soldiers just as well as stars. Yes the reader has to assume a thing or two, but to me it makes just as much sense. And in essence, that is in a way what reading is all about. Reading is about entertaining the reader, while also engaging them in some way. In poetry it keeps them guessing, while in other works they teach a lesson or set an example. All is still considered literature.