Week Twelve Blog

ENG 113

Instructor Risch

Week 12 Blog

Donna Stevens

April 5, 2011

Comments on “Memorandum” by Billie Bolton

This poem is more like a memo than a poem because of its technical form. The issues that she wishes to take on with her ex-boyfriend are listed in outline format. The speaker’s diction and choice of details reveal in her personality that she does not feel like she has anything in common with the people he hangs out with. She gives the impression that she is not like the “white trash airhead” or the “redneck redhead.” She seems to be rebelling against the very thing(s) that she was once attracted to. Her style is that she starts every outlined point with “Anything about” and her tone seems to be very agitated. She seems to be telling him to shut-up about mostly everything. The mood of the poem is really funny. I enjoyed her frank sarcasm.

Comments on “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman

This poem is about an athlete that died young. The author points out that he died young enough that he did not tarnish his record by getting old and living longer than his glory days. This athlete will always be remembered as young, strong and successful. The poem talks about a town that once cheered him by lifting him up over their shoulders and carrying him through the town. Now, this town morns him and it is much quieter as it remembers its famous athlete. Even though this young athlete will not see the glory of a long life, he will always be remembered as a successful athlete.

Comments on “The Battle-Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe

In the first stanza, the Lord is spoken of ridding the people of bad feelings toward each other like hatred and wrath. He has loosed his judgment on the people and his truth goes on. The second stanza talks about how people in war have prayed and read their Bibles at night seeking God’s wisdom on their lives and how they gain strength to march on. The third stanza talks about how Jesus will crush satan’s head with his heel in the last days and how God will deal with this person’s enemies and how God will use grace to deal with this person. The forth stanza is about the rapture and how God will sweep up his children. In the last stanza, the speaker talks about how each of us can receive salvation. Christ has been compared to a lily with a glory that will transfigure one’s soul and take this soul to Heaven to live with him forever.

Comments on “Thinking about Bill, Dead of AIDS” by Miller Williams

This poem speaks of the sad reality of loving someone who has AIDS. On the one hand, the speaker loved this person very much and wanted more than anything to comfort them in their time of death. However, the speaker and his associates stood at the door and looked in with a smile at times hoping to reassure the patient and not to get AIDS. The speaker speaks several times about how little they knew about AIDS. The speaker says that he kissed the patient and would have liked to have spent more time close like that but because of the fear of contracting it he held off. The problem was that he was so afraid of contracting AIDS that he probably did offend the patient. However, as he said he did not know exactly what he could do without contracting so he kept his distance.

Comments on “It is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams

This is a simple note saying that the speaker ate someone else’s breakfast. The tone of the poem is a slightly sarcastic and selfish tone. The mood is one of sarcasm. I thought the line “Forgive me/they were delicious” was especially sarcastic. The title is also sarcastic. The structure of the poem is more like a post it note. It runs on and on with no punctuation at all. The setting of the poem is probably the kitchen. The poem is in blank verse. It is written in dramatic monologue in three quatrains. I think this poem could be described as a lyric because it is a brief poem that describes personal emotions like the fact that he ate a delicious cold plum that someone else had set aside for breakfast.