Week Eleven Blog

ENG 113

Instructor Risch

Donna Stevens

Week Eleven Blog

Comments on “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes

In this poem, Langston Hughes uses the symbol of human veins to portray the roots of our society. We have veins and like rivers and roots, they run deep. As a society, we have made our homes by rivers. Likewise as a people we cannot survive without our veins which carry life throughout our bodies. His poem has a racial connotation for which he is famous for. The connotation is in the singing of the “Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans”. This reference to Lincoln gives way to a slavery image. In the opening line, “I’ve known rivers” he is saying that he has known people. He has known people of many races and many different backgrounds. Ultimately though, people are all the same because we all have physical characteristics that make us human. Veins like rivers run through society from the “Euphrates…Congo…Nile (and the)…Mississippi) and they link us together as a society. In the last line, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” means that his soul has grown deeply rooted in his place in society.

Comments on “Dusting” by Julia Alvarez

This poem is about a daughter wanting to be something more than the housewife that her mother is. In the line “My name was swallowed in the towel” she says that her mother in a sense was erased from the world by becoming a lowly housewife. In the daughter’s mind, her mother was an insignificant nobody who did menial tasks and by her very existence she exuded “loser”. The daughter tried hard to make her “mark” in the house, but the mother continuously erased her efforts. In the line “the pine grew luminous”, she compares her life with the pine. The work her mother does with the pine, makes it “luminous” but it is erasing her as a person. She does not want to become like her mother. In fact, in line 17 and 18, she says “But I refused with every mark to be like her, anononymous”.

Comments on “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe

This is a love poem. In this poem, Marlowe uses a pastoral setting to lure his potential mate to come live with him. He uses this setting because it is more relaxing than a city setting and the pastoral was more ideal at that time in history. He tells his love they will “sit upon the rocks” and he will comfort her with “a gown made of the finest wool” which I personally find offensive, and “Fair lined slippers for the cold”. He may have a chance with the slippers, but certainly not the gown nor the rock. I don’t find this poem to be particularly persuasive. I think that if he had gold for the buckles on the shoes then, maybe he could afford a more comfortable gown, better place to sit and a warmer house. I think this man really knows nothing about women. I think the equivalent of the shepherd’s argument in the twenty-first century would be: I’ll give you the best land, car, clothes, and view from your enormous mansion if you will just come live with me. I think he would appear painfully desperate in any century.

Comments on “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh

This poem is the reply to “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”. In this reply poem, Sir Walter Raleigh turns down Christopher Marlowe’s request for love theoretically of course. In this poem, Raleigh brings down to earth the lovely ideas Marlowe presented. He says that all things fade and that Marlowe’s love just was not enough. In this poem, the reality that all things fade even love is presented and explored. In Raleigh’s poem, line 5 he states “Time drives the flocks from field to fold” means that ultimately one must return to their inner truth and that youth and “folly” will not last. Ultimately, we must be true to ourselves. In Raleigh’s response, he cannot live a lie and nothing will make the person in Raleigh’s poem love the person in Marlowe’s.

Comments on “Sometimes the Words Are So Close” by Julia Alvarez

This is a beautiful poem about a woman who can only become her authentic self when she writes poetry. She expresses her true self through poetry. In the line “I once was in as many drafts as you”, she means that she tried many things to fit into society and to make friends. Ultimately, she found her true purpose in life as a poet. She inspires others to “take heart from me” if you are “yearning to be free”. By this, she means that if you too feel trapped and out of place maybe you could try expressing your thoughts and feelings with writing. She becomes simpler when she writes so that anyone can understand her thoughts as in the line “the real text a child could understand”.

Works Cited

Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston; Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Print. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”1134, Hughes, ‘Dusting”1200 Alvarez, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” 1233, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” 1339 Raleigh, “Sometimes The Words Are So Close” 1203 Alvarez

Week 10 Blog

ENG 113

Instructor Risch

Comments on Week 10 Poetry

Donna Stevens

March 23, 2011

“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost

This poem addresses the question of whether the world will end in fire or in ice. The rhyme scheme is ABAA, BCBCB. In line 7, there is an example of an enjambment when line 7 runs over into 8. This makes the reader pause and it causes the words to have more impact than if they were just simply punctuated on the same line. The connotation of the poem is that he would “favor fire” and also that “ice” would “suffice”. I think that he favors fire because of the passion and heartache he has suffered within his marriage. For example, he states “ From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.” He had a tumultuous marriage and felt his wife was as cold as a “November Guest”. I think that he favored ice because hate is such a hot emotion that ice would be the solution to cool things off and slow the progress of hate. The poem has no apparent listener, but seems that Frost is working out a personal point of view.

“Birches” by Robert Frost

This is a blank verse poem. Like “Fire and Ice”, Frost does not come out and give his opinion on the afterlife. Again, he invites the reader to form his/her own opinion about life on earth and life after death. When Frost writes about “swinging”, the “both going and coming back”, I think he is talking about when he swings away from the earth, that he escapes the cares of this world for a moment. When he must return to earth, he is “weary of considerations” in other words, he is thrown back into the worries of his life. I feel that he uses a “boy” as his subject because children are vulnerable and impressionable. I feel that Frost himself felt vulnerable to the worries in his personal life. I think that in line 27 when he says “one by one he subdued his father’s trees” that he meant that one by one he conquered all his demanding father’s expectations of him until there were none left to conquer. He learned to think before he speaks and be careful with his words and actions in the line “He learned all there was to learn about not launching out too soon” or not jumping out of the swing, and giving up. If he gives up the swing, then he gives up on achieving balance in his life. Like other Frost poems, he gave a negative reference to his overpowering father and to hard lessons learned about how to carry oneself through life.

“After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost

In this poem, Frost again talks about life’s long journey and if in fact it has been a successful one or one filled with regrets. In “After Apple-Picking”, this man looks down in his apple barrel like a man would reflect upon his life. There were times in his life that were “bruised or spiked with stubble” and times that “surely went to the cider-apple heap”. This man reflects on his life of hard work and wonders if his whole life only was meant for the “cider-apple heap” or if his life would mean “thousand thousand fruit to touch”. His life and it’s achievements are up to his discernment as he really has nothing tangible to show for his life. Year after year his hard work is consumed in some way and that is why now he feels “I am done with apple-picking now”. The seasons of his life are over like they are for the apple orchard as the ground is “hoary” or frosty and winter’s “sleep” is coming. The woodchuck even knows the season has ended as he writes that the “woodchuck could say whether it’s like his Long sleep”. The subject in this poem feels death coming on just as his orchard and the woodchuck feels fall approaching.

“Success is counted sweetest” by Emily Dickenson

This poem basically describes the basic human desire to want what we do not have. It is like the generally known truth that the most generous human beings are those who do not have it to give. The reason needy people are so generous is because they know what it is to stand in need of something. In this poem, Dickenson describes how success is really not something treasured by successful people. It is only those who strive to fulfill their definition of success and never really achieve this who cherish the “nectar” of success. In the fourth line, “Requires the sorest need” reiterates the fact that in order to cherish success, one must suffer sorely. In the second quatrain, she describes soldier’s families who died and how not one is lacking of a definition of success because it came so hard earned. The “purple Host” is the purple heart and “Host” is the Heavenly Father. The words “who took the Flag today” mean that they were presented the Flag of the United States of America at the funeral. The reason Victory is capitalized is out of honor and reverence for the deceased. In the last quatrain, she tells about the dying soldier who was “defeated-dying” and “on whose forbidden ear” this is the enemy’s ear who heard his fellow soldiers “triumph burst agonized and clear”. This means that success was found on both sides of the war. The soldier died, his life was honored. His family knew what sacrifice and a successful honorable fight their loved one had put forth. The enemy who was in fact victorious felt a lesser version of success because it had not been earned with his life. He could hear his company cheer but it hardly seemed to equal the sacrifice of an honorable, successful fight.

“Water, is taught by thirst” by Emily Dickenson

This poem is a sestet. It follows a rhyme scheme of ABC/DDC. This poem tells about how circumstances in our lives teach lessons. We are taught by our experiences. The “Birds” are taught to hunt and gather their food before winter because “snow” has taught them that it will come to cover up their food if they do not prepare properly. We are taught how to love by the pain and agony of losing a loved one. The “Memorial Mold” represents memorials like the Vietnam and other war memorials. Our country is taught to love one another by the memorials that stand in honor of our veterans. Like the Memorial mold, we are taught peace from war. This poem is a study in how the contrasting emotions and situations of life work to mature us and teach us all valuable lessons. When we are in the “throe” or the most tender spot of pain our lives, we are forced to move on. This can be figuratively or physically. We can be forced to move through pain in our lives when we lose a loved one but we still have little ones in our lives we are responsible for that we must still carry on day to day for. We can be forced physically to move through pain when we must relocate to a new home because of the devastation of our former one. The “oceans passed” have taught the land how to shape itself because the water indeed holds the power over the land. Lastly, in the title, “water is taught by thirst” figuratively we only see what we need when we are brought face to face with our afflictions.

Week Nine Blog

ENG 113

Instructor Risch

Donna Stevens

March 16, 2011

Comments on “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning

My initial impression was that it would have been very depressing to have lived back in Victorian times when men ruled the world. Basically, the poem was about his last duchess, as he is in the market for a new one. He is giving a tour of his mansion to a person who will set him up with his new young wife. The duke gives a list of his last duchess’ imperfections as he says she was a flirt and did not appreciate his “nine hundred years old name”. He alludes to the fact that he “gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together” and therefore may have killed her. The irony is in line 45, “There she stands as if alive”. She is very much dead, but still stands in the house among the other trophies he displays. The Duke’s attitude toward women in general is just provocation for his own demise in my opinion. I think that it was because of men like him who use big words and have small opinions of others that we no longer talk or act this way anymore. The poem used rhyming pentameter lines with a dramatic monologue. Browning used enjambment or lines having no end punctuation which goes over into the next line.

Comments on “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake

My initial impression of this poem was that it was a very sad account of child labor. The boy was sold for his labor as a chimney sweep. The poem explains a dream that Tom had. This dream was about dying and going to Heaven. Basically, Tom dreamed that he and his friends died, left everything behind, were washed in a “river” this could symbolize salvation and shone in the “sun”. The sun could symbolize God. Line 16 talks about the boys being “naked and white”, this could symbolize their purity and simplicity in the eyes of God. In line 19, “the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy” this could symbolize the fact that by being a good person one could get into Heaven because the Angel said he could have “God for his father and never want joy”. Tom’s new found happiness was a knowledge in his heart that he has a Heavenly father. His Heavenly Father loves him and will welcome him to Heaven because he is doing his work down here, believes in the Father, and is “washed in the river” of salvation. The irony of the poem is that even though these boys are locked in child slavery, they are free in the eyes of their Heavenly Father.

Comments on “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke

This is a very sad poem about child abuse. The poem is written in four line stanzas called quatrains. The speaker is the child and his tone is that of a scarred child. The audience is the father, as noted in the last line, “still clinging to your shirt”. They rhythm of the lines are 6 syllables then 7. Roethke’s rhyme scheme was that every other line rhymed. An example of a simile is in line 3, “But I hung on like death”. The metaphor used in the title of the “waltz” was simply the act of being beaten every night like it was a dance routine. The poet used end-stopped lines as he ended every second line with a semi-colon and every last line with a period. The theme of this poem is that it is a narrative of a child giving account of the nightly routine of child abuse. He gives a gut wrenching account of how much he loved his father through the abuse in lines 3 “the waltzing was not easy” and the last line, “still clinging to your shirt”. He loved his father just like every son does. Roethke used the title “My Papa’s Waltz” instead of “My Father’s Waltz” because he loved this man dearly. This man was not just his father, but he was his Papa.

Comments on “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas

Thomas varied the meanings of the poem’s two refrains: “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” by inferring that his father was to fight and even rage against death which was being portrayed as good. He was urging his father not to go gentle as in give up easily into the night or darkness of death. The contrast of day and night were metaphors for life and death. The good night was death and the dying of the light was his father’s actual death. Thomas’ tone was one of begging his father not to give into death and this establishes the overall theme. The men who are “wise” (line 4), are the smart, good men who know it is time to die. Even though Thomas knows his father is smart, he does not want his father to do as the wise men have done and choose darkness (death). In line 7, the words “good night” refer to the fact that Heaven is good, but he does not want to lose his father to death. In line 10m Thomas speaks of other men who were wild and took chances that ended their lives tragically. In line 13, Thomas speaks of “grave men” these are old men who are nearest to the grave. He brings up all kinds of men and how they have gone “gentle” into death. He begs his father to be different from all those men and refuse even “rage” against death. This poem is an example of a villanelle. It has 19 lines, 5 tercets (three line stanzas), and one quatrain (a four line stanza). This form helps to drive the theme of please dad don’t just die home to the reader.

Comments on “Lonely Hearts” by Wendy Cope

Finally, a light-hearted poem this week! This poem is a villanelle because it has 19 lines, 5 tercets and one quatrain. The repeating line or refrain is “Do you live in North London? Is it you?” this line is the theme. The poem is about a man who is placing a personal ad. The listener is the person who would eventually read the personal ad. Several speakers’ voices in the poem are unified by tone because the words they speak rhyme with the next speaker. The second line in each tercet rhymes. The connotation of the words gives the poem a simple straight-forward tone. This man describes himself as a “successful, straight… executive in search of something new”.