Week 11 poems

I enjoyed most of the poems this week. They were a little easier for me to understand than some of the others from the past weeks.

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" By Langston Hughes

The poem talks about "rivers" , but I think that the rivers really stand for African men and women that he knew or learned about and tried to relate with.  These people are from all over the world and lived differently from each other depending on the time and location they lived.  As he learns more about his ancestors over time he grows bigger and stronger like the rivers have that he mentions in the poem.

"I, Too" By Langston Hughes

This poem talks about how black people "the darker brother", use to be sent to the kitchen to eat when company "white people" came over.  When he says "I laugh, eat well, and grow strong" he means that he hopes for a change and knows that being healthy mentally and physically will help.  He knows African Americans have to fight for a change and equal rights or nothing will ever change.  He believes that when that change comes white people will be ashamed of how they treated African Americans differently.  The first and last line means that even though we have different colored skin doesn't mean we are different.  We are all Americans and deserve to be treated equally.

"Mother to Son" By Langston Hughes

I really liked this poem. It is about a mother fighting for a better life for her and her child.  She is telling her son that her life has been very hard, but she has never given up and no matter how hard he thinks life is he should never give up.  Nothing is easy and if you want something out of life you have to fight for it.  Giving up is not and option.  The only thing I didn't understand was what the word "crystal" stood for.

"Dream Variation" By Langston Hughes

What I got out of the title was that this person is dreaming for change.  He wants to be able to walk around and dance when everyone is treated equally and not discriminated against "the white day is done".  He wants white people not to be afraid of black people because of the color of their skin, "while night comes on gently Dark like me".  I think the first two lines means that he wants to be about to stand in front of someone white with power and be able to have that same kind of power.

"Dusting" By Julia Alvarez

Julia Alverez was born during a time when women stayed at home and took care of the household chores and raised the children.  The men were the bread winners, money makers.  She watched her mother clean house and cook everyday and knew that, that was not what she wanted to do.  To her, her mother had no life of her own, she was a nobody, invisible, "anonymous".  So to have the life she wanted she educated herself, "I refused with every mark to be like her".

Week 10 Posts

"Hope" is the thing with feathers By: Emily Dickinson

Hope is referred to as a bird.  It is free like a bird.  Hope perches in our soul like a bird perches on something. The hope sings songs with no words and is what makes people move forward striving for new things and trying new things.  Sometimes a "storm", something bad that is happened to us, can make us give up on hope.  In the last two lines it talks about no matter what hope will never ask anything in return from you.

"I like a look of Agony" By Emily Dickinson

This poem talks about how Agony is something that you can not fake.  It is a feeling that people feel and can't hide it.  A lot of people show fake feeling to people for many reasons, but this is one feeling that will take over you and you have no other choice but to show it. It talks about people coming close to death and the agony that come over them because they know they cant fight death forever, death will eventually win.

"Much Madness is divinest Sense" By Emily Dickinson

I really enjoyed this poem because a lot of people think this way.  This poem is about someone who is boldly honest and always tells the brutal truth.  The discerning eye is talking about everyone that looks at that person like they are crazy.  People can't believe that he or she just told the truth, it wasn't sugar coated to protect someones feelings.  The majority thinks "much sense" common sense or someone who is really smart is "madness" or crazy.  It's telling us that people who say they are crazy are not and the people who say they are not crazy are.  The last line talks about the crazy people are handle chains which I think means they kept them on a short leash and punish them.

"After a great pain, a formal feeling comes" By Emily Dickinson

This poem is about the emotional state that someone goes through while dealing with death. The second line is talking about your body just becoming numb to any emotion.  You are in a state of shock.  Then you begin questioning yourself and the events that happened.  Your body begins you move all by itself you don't realize what your doing but you function on a daily basis.  Your body is so stiff like a rock.  Then after a while you begin to get back to life and realize you got through it even though you didn't think it was possible.  The last line of the poem is a list of the grieving process.

"Fire and Ice" By Robert Frost

This poem is about how people think the world will end.  Some say it will end in fire.  I think fire means wars, Hell, and burning.  People are so angry these days about everything.  Nobody is just happy living life.  Others think it will end in Ice.  Ice to me means cold, no feelings or involvement with people, isolating ourselves from everyone and dying alone.  He states he knows enough hate that ice would work too.  Which I think means if burning in hatred wasn't going to happen then being isolated from everybody would be ok.

Week 9 Poems

My Last Duchess" By: Robert Browning

This poem was a harder poem for me to analyze.  If I understand correctly the Duke of this city had a painting of his late young wife.  In the second line it states "Looking as if she were alive" which told me that she had pasted but in the painting she looked real.  The painting was behind a curtain and only certain people could only see it.  The young woman always smiled at everyone and her husband didn't like this because he thought that she looked at him the way she looked at everybody else.  He felt that she didn't show him enough affection.  This makes me think that he was a jealous and insecure man.  Near the end of the poem it talks about him giving commands and all smiles stopped completely. I think he had her killed.  Then he is trying to negotiate for a new bride and says he can train her.  He is a very demanding man.

"The Chimney Sweeper" By: William Blake

This poem started out sad and by the time I got to the end I felt a little happier for the little boy.  The little boys mom died when he was very young and not long after that the boys father gives him away.  The boy begins working as a chimney sweeper and one day he has to get his head shaved and he cries.  He is told not to cry over it but to think positively about not getting soot in his hair anymore.  That night he has a dream about all the boys being locked in coffins.  This angel comes and sets them free and tells Tom that not to worry about not having any parents. As long as he is good and believes in God that he will always be taken care of because God is his father.  That morning it was still dark when they woke up for work.  Even though it was cold Tom was still happy because of his dream and believed what the angel said.

"My Papa's Waltz" By: Theodore Roethke

I read this poem a couple of times.  I think that this poem is about a little girl who is dancing with her dad.  Her father has had to much to drink and is bumping into everything which makes her mother upset.  The little girl talks about holding on like death which makes me think that she is afraid to let go.  Whether it is because she is afraid of losing her step and falling or because if she does her father will get mad I don't know.  I hope some other people wrote about this poem so I can get there opinion.

"My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the Sun" By: William Shakespeare

In this poem he is comparing his mistress to different things and these things are always better.  Her skin is not white like snow but her breast are gray.  Her hair is like wire rough and stiff. He talks about how some perfume smells better than her breath. I assume this perfume doesn't smell good but her breath smells worse.  Even though he talks about her imperfections he still loves her more than anything. 

"Do not go gentle into that good night" By: Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas wrote this poem around the time his father was dying and I believe he was asking his father to fight for life not to give up. The wise men he talks about know that they are going to die but still fight against it.  The good men are people who have done good deeds and have not seen them finished so they fight to live.  The wild men are people who have lived a hard life.  Wild to me means drank, stayed out late, done things that was hard on their body and knew it at the time but didn't care.  Now that they are dying they regret it and fight for more time.  The grave men are older men who have lived life and know that its their time but still want more time with their family or for their self so they fight.  In the end people always want more time and this just reminds us not to ever give up.

Week 8 Poems

"We Real Cool"

This poem made me think of kids who dropped out of school and are just hanging out and getting into trouble. It talks about "we sing sin" so I picture these kids playing in a head banging rock band staying out late and sleeping all day. Living life like this is might lead them to an early grave. It talks about them thinning gin so that tells me that they are poor and can't afford to buy a lot of alcohol so to stretch it they add water to it. I really didn't understand why "We" is placed at the end of the line. If there is anyone who can explain it please do.

"We Old Dudes"

After reading this poem I had a picture in my head of these rich old men playing golf.  These men have retired and are spending the rest of their life on the golf course talking about politics.  When the poem states "We vote red" I assume that this means they are republicans.  I still don't understand the word "We" at the end of the line.

"Root Cellar"

I think that this is a negative view of a root cellar. Reading this I could imagine the smell of musk and manure.  I could also feel the cold, wet air that lingers in a cellar.  I could see the dark shadows that cover the whole area of the cellar. And even though this is a place no one would want to live nothing can die.

"You Fit Into Me"

As I was reading this poem the simile made me think of a couple that was very compatible with each other. A relationship that everyone dreams of having. Visually I seen how a fish hook with an eye on the end of it is smooth and it both flows together into one piece, without one the other wouldn't work.  Then after I read the following lines, the literal meanings, I cringed because I could feel the pain of a hook going into a human eye, my eye.

"A Man Said to the Universe"

I read this poem over and over.  I know I'm missing something from it and would like some help if anyone can.  I took it as a man who feels that no one sees him or understands him.  I think that he has felt this way for a long time and now feels that people owe him something, but people are trying to get him to understand nobody is obligated to make him feel better about himself except him.