Best Blog!

This was a very hard decision for me to make because there were many blogs in the class that i enjoyed reading. But i could only pick one so i chose “Blog To Pass The Time“. This person always used poems that i either knew and enjoyed or ones i was unfamiliar with but grew to love. He/she also always had clear explanations on why that poem was chosen and a great analysis of the poem. He/She always connected the poem to an event also.

Great job!

Is Death The Only Thing That Can Set You Free?

Sympathy

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

And the river flows like a stream of glass;

When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,

And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—

I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing

Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

For he must fly back to his perch and cling

When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;

And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars

And they pulse again with a keener sting—

I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—

When he beats his bars and he would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—

I know why the caged bird sings!

This poem really jumped out at me but it confused me as well at first. It was very hard for me to pick this apart and I had to read it over several times to get a feeling for it. I think when the speaker is referring to a cage bird he is referring to a person who is either trapped emotionally or even physically. I like how he describes things as if you were looking out a window. Things just are not as good through a window as in real life. You do not experience things first hand. Throughout the poem, though there are signs of physical abuse like “till its blood is red on the cruel bars” and “and a pain still throbs in the old, old scars”. When I read this quotes the first thing that pops into my mind is jail. And often incarcerated people are referred to as jail birds. This also becomes apparent when at the end the bird dies and that is what finally sets it free, the only thing that could set it free.

Imagine when you were younger and you either got in trouble or were not allowed to go out in play. You would sit in your room, look out the window, and watch the other kids have a great time. Do you remember what that was like? Not so good, you get jealous that you are missing all this fun and exciting things.

Sometimes Things Aren’t Always As They Seem To Be

My Papa’s Waltz

By Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt

I can remember the first time I read this poem back in my tenth grade English class. At first I absolutely loved it because it reminded me of my father and how he used to dance with me in the kitchen late at night when he came home from work. Then my teacher told us to look deeper into the poem and we may not see what is really there. my teacher explained to us that this poem can be a description of child abuse. A drunken father beating his child but the child still loving him because it’s his father of course.
The clues are right there to describe it “ we romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” so there was a fight. The mother is frowning and the father’s ands are beat up as he grips his child’s wrist.. The buckle of the father’s belt is mentioned which a long time ago was a tool for hitting kids, and also the line “you beat time on my head” the father is hitting him. At first glance this poem is cute and everyone can remember those days dancing around with a loved one, but at closer look this is just another example of child abuse hidden by it’s wording but also revealed by it’s wording.

Happiness will always come back to you

Happiness

By Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

I love this poem because it really can give anyone a sense of hope that anyone can achieve happiness in even the simplest of ways. Kenyon even claims that happiness can come to things that we would not expect like boulders, and wine glasses. But she always points out the more obvious people who need happiness like a lover, a monk, or a neglected child.

This poem gives us all a sense that even if happiness is absent for a while, it will always come back in some form. I love the line “happiness saved its most extreme form for you alone.” I think this line sums up my life completely because it  seems that when I myself am at my abslolute worse, something comes to save me and i am once again happy.

Happiness is obvipously something that most people cannot live without. It’s that thing that gets you up every morning and on with your day, even if you hate your job, or your house, or anything like that you still go one with life. Not giving up is the most important part of life.

Even When Love is Gone, it Still Hurts

A Fixed Idea

By: Amy Lowell

What torture lurks within a single thought

When grown too constant; and however kind,

However welcome still, the weary mind

Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught

Remembers on unceasingly; unsought

The old delight is with us but to find

That all recurring joy is pain refined,

Become a habit, and we struggle, caught.

You lie upon my heart as on a nest,

Folded in peace, for you can never know

How crushed I am with having you at rest

Heavy upon my life. I love you so

You bind my freedom from its rightful quest.

In mercy lift your drooping wings and go.

What the speaker of this poem in going through right now i feel as if I am going through too, not only because of how she wrote it, but because i truly did lose someone. In this poem’s case it seems more like death than just a lose of someone. And i love the line “folded in peace, for you can never know how crushed I am with having you at rest” because that is completly true. Once someone is gone you will always wish that they could realize how much you love them.

I also think the speaker is saying that love can keep you captive. Like in the line “the old delight is with us but to find That all recurring joy is pain refined,”She is almost saying that love it repetitive, it becomes a habit and sometimes a person can fall out of love and not even know it because they are so used to daily routines with that person. And even when the love comes to a hault because of some even it hurts so bad even after you complained about it being routine, and it’s hard to make that hurt go away.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers; It really does fly.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—

By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—

And sore must be the storm—

That could abash the little Bird—

That kept so many warm—

I’ve heard it in the chillest land—

And on the strangest Sea—

Yet, never, in Extremity,

It asked a crumb—of Me.

I love Emily Dickinson and will forever love her. The way she writes can be so descriptive in such general way. In this poem she describes hope as a bird. my favorite line is probably “And sings the  tune without the words- And never stops—at all—” because in my heart hope never ceases to exist. The speaker talks about how they had hope in even the darkest places that helped them. For example the “strangest sea” and the “chillest land”.

I also love how the speaker talks bout how hope can be bashed or forgotten even though it has helped so many people in so many ways. I know in my case hope and faith are the two things i hold the closest to my heart even when times get rough.

“A Psalm of Life”; Don’t Dread on the Future

A Psalm of Life

 

 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

 

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

   Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

   And things are not what they seem.

 

Life is real! Life is earnest!

   And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

   Was not spoken of the soul.

 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

   Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

   Find us farther than to-day.

 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

   And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

   Funeral marches to the grave.

 

In the world’s broad field of battle,

   In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

   Be a hero in the strife!

 

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

   Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,— act in the living Present!

   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

 

Lives of great men all remind us

   We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

   Footprints on the sands of time;

 

Footprints, that perhaps another,

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

   Seeing, shall take heart again.

 

Let us, then, be up and doing,

   With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

   Learn to labor and to wait.

 

I chose this poem because the first couple of lines is what completely drags me in, “life is but an empty dream” dreaming may be my favorite thing to do on this earth I am fully aware that I can lose touch with reality at time and I think that’s what keeps me sane. I like how you can interpret it as saying the goal of life is not to die but to just go out and get things done, because this is real and its happening right now. You have to live in the moment and not dread on the future, or else you miss out on a lot of things.

i think this is a very well written poem, of course the language is a little outdated but nothing to confusing. I think his word choice is very descriptive and amazing. Longfellow has written many amazing poems and is considered one of the most amazing poets of his time.

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