Comments on Week Eight Poetry Readings March 2, 2011

ENG 113

Instructor Risch

Donna Stevens

March 2, 2011

Comments on “ We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks

The speech of the pool players in this poem helps to characterize the players as young, school age kids whose living will lead to an early death. The effect of the pronouns coming at the ends of the lines is that it adds a rhythm to the poem and an emphasis on the young boy’s pride in their position in life. If the pronouns came at the beginnings of the lines, the poem would sound too mundane and possibly the reader would lose the importance the author wants to place on the boy’s sense of thumbing their nose up at the world. The author’s attitude toward the players is one that brings forth the boys arrogance. The change in tone in the last line comes when the boy’s mortality is revealed. The pool hall’s name is related to the rest of the poem and its theme because “Seven at the Golden Shovel” means that seven boys are digging their early grave.

Comments on “Acquainted With the Night” by Robert Frost

In this poem, the poet Robert Frost speaks of a homeless person. This person has been “acquainted with the night”. On the second line, “I have walked out in rain-and back in rain” tells of the fact that he has no home to go to, but he is left to wander around back and forth. The term “acquainted” is a much lesser term than exactly what it must be like to be without a roof over one’s head. As the poem reads “I have” over and over, I think that is exactly how a homeless person who has not had much conversation with another person in a long time would speak. This person is giving an account of their life. They have essentially lived alone out in public. In the tenth line, “not to call me back or say good-by” tells of this person’s loneliness. The darkness in the poem could also be a literary symbol for a condition such as depression and the streets could represent decisions in the person’s past.

Comments on “Root Cellar” by Theodore Roethke

My first response to this poem was that I really admired the fact that the life inside those plants refused to give up and die just because they were in a root cellar. The poem inspired me and reminded me that life goes on underground, and inside plants; that is why spring is so beautiful. I should try to remember that when I feel like I am buried under a load of care and worry. Life is going on inside me and it would not kill me to sprout a little once in a while. I thought this rendition of a root cellar was amazingly positive and I hate root cellars. My sense of smell, taste, touch and sense of claustrophobia came alive as I read this poem. The author left out gardener’s gloves and gardening tools because the poem is about the life inside the impossible to love root cellar. The word congress is used because the plants represented a body or a group. The plants held the key to life outside the cellar and they persevered even though they were stuck in a situation without light. The single line (9), “Nothing would give up life” represented the theme.

Comments on “Mountain Bride” by Robert Morgan

My first impression of this poem is that this poor couple had a bad run of luck and that this would have been a really gruesome made for TV movie. The speaker is third person omniscient because it begins with “They say”. The speaker’s tone toward the subject is much like a newspaper reporter as the speaker just gives the facts. This poem is an example of open form poetry. The poem’s setting is in the damp woods in early spring maybe in the 1800’s because the man built this “cabin with a stick”. I guess that was the first stick built house! I don’t see any symbolism in this poem, but I do see more of a sense of report and storytelling. The poem’s title relates to the overall meaning of the story because she indeed was a just a bride to the mountain and not to this man anymore.

Comments on “Rearview Mirror” by Robert Morgan

I really liked the figurative language in this poem. The poem’s setting is on the inside windshield of an automobile. I would describe the diction in the poem as beautifully descriptive and figurative. The poem is delivered from the rearview mirror’s point of view. In the first line, “This little pool in the air” is a nice image of the mirror. My favorite line of the poem is when the author describes it as “This eye where the past flies ahead”. An example of personification in this poem is in line 9 as “our way weeps away to the horizon”. I loved the mirror’s perspective of “radiant in reverse”. The mirror seems happy to do its job in this poem. I think I will smile at my rearview mirror from now on.