My Mistress' Eyes

When I first read this poem, I thought it was extremely offending. It seemed like the speaker was trying to negatively break down his lover. I was very wrong. Towards the end of the poem, it says "and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare". The speaker is saying that he isn't going to lie, his love isn't perfect. He is accepting of her flaws. Even though she is not perfect, he still loves her. Shakespeare is satirizing all the people who worship their wives and tell them whatever they want to hear. He is being honest with his and telling her exactly how it is. He doesn't care that she isn't perfect and he accepts it. Also, he is not saying that she is ugly, she is just "as rare" as every other girl.

Getting Out

This poem seems like they are talking about trying to have a kid but they physically are not able to."Every night another refusal", every night they attempt to have a child but it never works. Then "exaughsted" they "gave up". This is uncommon in society today because when couples are not able to have kids they usually just adopt. The next step on this couple's mind is to get a divorce. This divorce is strange because it is clear that neither of them want it to happen. They hold hands as they go up to the lawyer and cried on the last day. It is unclear to the audience what this could mean but it is extremely sad. Nothing went wrong in their relationship, it just didn't work out. Another thing I noticed in the poem that emphasized the seperation of the poem is that in the first stanza there is repetition of "we". In the second and third stanza they use "I". This transition shows the reader the couple has split.

The Aparition

This poem is kind of scary. The speaker is threatening his lover that he is with. He is says that when he is "dead", out of her life, he will come back and find her to haunt her. He is reflecting on the people who say they are going to die when they end a relationship. This is creepy sort of romantic. He tells her that she is with her future lover he will come and find them in bed together. He also says that she shouldn't try to wake her future lover because he will simply role over and pretend like he is asleep. Ultimately, he is saying that her future lover will never be able to satisfy her like he can. He's saying that he is a better man that her future lover will be. This poem is hard to understand because it is about a threat about something that could happen.

Crossing the Bar

This poem contains two major metaphors for death. They both represent death. The first one is going out to sea and him crossing the sandbar. The second one is the sunset and evening star (night) representing death. I noticed that it was talking about death when it mentioned the pilot and sleep. I thought the pilot was God and that sleep was death. Also, when it said "one clear call for me," it sounded like he was being called home to heaven. The speaker is ready to die and to move on to the after life. "May there be no sadness in my farewill", he is telling his family and friends to not be sad when he moves on to better things because it is not sad, it is a happy time.

Batter my Heart 3 Person God

The first things I noticed in this poem is that Lines 2 and 4 are parallel. "break, blow, burn", and "knock, breathe, shine." These words are grouped together to describe each aspect of the Holy Trinity. I believe that break and knock are used to describe God in all his power and glory. Breathe and blow are used to describe Jesus because he became human and took his first breath. The holy spirit is described through the words burn and shine. The tongues of fire burned within the apostles. These words reflect eachother and make us think of the possibilities of their meaning. The speaker then goes on to request that God punishes him for all the wrong doing that he has done. "but am betrothed unto your enemy", in this he is saying that he belongs to satan. He loves God but wants to be punished to be made anew. It seems that the speaker is hitting rock bottom in his life. He realizes this and turns to God, asking for him to grant him forgiveness.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Oh Emily. This poem is a huge paradox. The speaker says that if you conform to society and you go along with what everyone is saying, you are insane. If you go your own way and believe your own things, then you have sense. It is talking about the opinion of the majority and uses mental illness as a metaphor for it. According to the speaker, by assenting you fail to think. You just go along with what everyone else is doing and simply skate your way through life. This paradox has truth in it because if you don't think for yourself, you will end up making decisions that you regret. So demur (?) society and it's tendencies!

Next to of Course God America I

This poem is a speech. The speaker is rushing through his speech. It could be assumed that he is either very nervous or ignorant on what he is saying. The poem is a historical smush of America. At the beginning the speaker mentions pilgrims and at the end he mentions war. There are small reference to American lyrics and things of that nature such as the star spangled banner and "tis of thee". (which we are not really sure what the name of that song is) Also, there is an oxymoron towards the end of the poem. "These heroic happy dead". These words are extremely contradictory. Another thing that I noticed is that the speaker at the very very end seems to be making fun of the speaker who gave the speech. It is saying that people who support patriotic things but don't know what it means are ridiculous. They prove their point very well.

APO 96225

This poem is really sad to me. It reminds of "The Things They Carried" because it talks about the mindset of a soldier and how they cannot connect with the outside world. The soldier is writing to his family back at home and they are asking for details. They think that they can handle the truth and the reality of war but they are very wrong. They push him farther and farther asking for the truth and when he finally gives it to them they reject it. "you're scaring your mother". When they first ask him what is going on he replys that it rains sometimes and simple things like that. He is giving a huge understatement and they know this. They keep asking for more details and when they recieve they can't handle it.
Also i think the rain is symbolism. It could be raining bullets, blood, or just war in general. He gives it to his parents in a simple way and tries not to scare them because he predicts how they will react.

A Taste of Liquor never Brewed

Yay Emily Dickinson and her capitalized nouns. Throws me off everytime.
This poem talked a lot about liquor in nature. The "molten blue" sounded like a bar to me. I also thought it could have been a symbol for the sky though. This poem talks a lot about someone being corrupted and a force (alcohol) driving it. I learned that debauchee meant to ply with drink. Emily compares the alcohol with something very valuable, a pearl. The liquor that she refers to is a metaphor of the beauty of nature. She really appreciates nature and sees great value in it. The imagery and metaphor of liquor as nature acheives the powerful tone of this poem. It shows the joyfulness of her appreciation of nature. This really does not seem like the type of poem that Emily would write. She hates joy.

Pink Dog

I thought that this poem was a social commentary. The pink dog was a symbol for beggars or poor people. I thought that maybe he was also talking about prostitutes because he makes small hints that could be interpreted that way. "Street corners". They were kind of saying that if they do all of these bad things to beggars, what will they do to you? They treat the "dog" as a social outcast. It is clear how it is not wanted. It is also ironic how they are making fun of superficiality. They are making fun of people who are shallow but this whole poem, they are being shallow. This was ironic and I didn't really understand the point of it.

Bright Star

The speaker is talking about how much he likes the beautiful star. He wants to be like it. He likes how it is steadfast and stays in the same spot. He wants to be like that with his love. He wants to stay in the same spot with her forever. He goes on to say that the only thing he doesn't like is that the star is alone. He clearly doesn't want to be alone forever; he wants to be with his love. The speaker personifies the star as "natures hermit", in that it lives forever in the same spot. My favorite part is that he wants it forever of he will swoon to death. Swoon means to faint at the peak of exhileration. This is confusing because he is saying he wants to die of happiness? I understand what he means, though. He wants it forever or he doesn't want it at all. That is how bad he wants to be with his love forever.

Dream Deferred

Deferred means to give up or just push it away. This poem, to me, is about the speakers goals that were not accomplished. The dream starts out huge, but then after time, it gets smaller and smaller. It becomes less of a dream. The image of the "festering sore" portrays how sometimes dreams go unfinished for so long and start to become an annoyance. The bother you and it gets worse. This image is rather discusting but gets the speakers point accross about how if you don't accomplish a dream soon, it will become bothersome.
The symbol of the rotten meat is describing how people don't complete dreams soon enough and they "go bad". The dreamers are past their prime and so the dream is not even a reality anymore. The ending sentense about the dreams exploding describes how sometimes the dream explodes in a VIOLENT way and effects many surrounding people.

February

This poem was extremely gruesome. The images described were extremely vivid...in a bad way. The speaker is reflecting on the cat's life. The cat is indiffernet to the speaker. It just lazily does whatever it wants. Each good image was followed by a disturbing image. It seemed like the speaker would comment on the cat in a positive way and then just immediately after would provide the audience with something discusting the cat was doing. The theme of the poem is that sex and territory will finish us off in the end. When this theme is presented, there is a shift from the description of the cat to humans. My favorite line was "he shoots, he scores", this is a reference to hockey but it is also a reference to sez and territory. The images in this poem were good descriptions of this month because it is a month of despair and shows how the speaker was having a hard time with the annoying cat. There is a shift towards the end when the speaker talks to the cat (apostrophe) and gives it a call to action. It is not only talking to the cat, but giving a message to the audience about the importance of optomism.

Winter Sundays

The theme of this poem was difficult to understand. The first time I read it, I thought it was about a father who is violent towards his family and causes upset in his household. It seems that this is not what the poem is about, though. "Polished my good shoes" and he "had driven out the cold". These things are hints that the father does good things. The first chapter is full of harsh adjectives describing the father and his work. Cold, cracked hands, fires, blueblack. These adjectives show the roughness of the father. The second stanza describes the tone of the household. It is hard to understand because some of the adjectives conflict. "when the rooms were warm, he'd call" and "facing the chronic angers of that house." The warmness of the house seems peaceful but then it goes on to talk about chronic angers. I think maybe the father causes both happiness and anger withing the house. This poem was hard for me to figure out.

Convergence of Twain

This poem describes some of the characteristics of the Titanic, a ship that sunk in 1912. It focuses less on the tragedy and more on the vanity and the extravegance of the boat. The ship was the pinnacle of the technology at the time. It was almost idolized by the rest of the world. It seemed that nothing could go wrong with this perfect boat. Just like materialism and the thirst for extravegance, the boat went down to the bottom of the sea. People should focus on their inner beauty rather than their outer beauty. The fish only notied the gloriousness of the boat and questioned why it was down there. This is relevant because it adds to the theme of vanity. The extravegance of something doesn't matter in the end. It was the downfall of the Titanc and it can be the downfall of people.

Spring

This poem has a more of a positive tone. It also is religious. I think it is talking about Easter when it talks about Easter, lambs, and "innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy". These parts compare because they all hae to do with new life. Eden= Spring. The garden of Eden was beautiful and full of life and spring is also full of life. The image of the "glassy peartree" is really cool. That just seems so pure and calm to me. The allusions to The Garden of Eden and to Christ help the reader understand what comparison is being made. Spring is being compared to the pureness of Christ. It is being described as the blossoming time of year. "The racing lambs too have fair their fling", the image of racing lambs also contributes to the purity of spring. There is also a lot of alliteration included in this poem. "When weeds, in wheels,..." and also "long, and lovely, and lush." This helps to make the poem flow better.

I Felt a Funeral in My Brain

This poem has a lot of imagery, especially sounds. She says that she is "but an Ear". It is unclear to what this poem is about but I have my own theory. I think it is dealing with a person suffering with drug adiction. She is stuck in her head and everyone else is functioning around her. It is clear that she is not dead, though. At the end, she seems to die when she stops mid thought. In my mind, she dies from a drug overdose at the end. Thank goodness that falls into the cone of meaning, or at least I think it does. The tone of this poem is set right off the bat with the Title. "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain". This sounds like a scary movie to me. Then it goes on to talk about mourners and that sense was breaking through. The tone of death gets the speakers point accross of some type of inner struggle. I can't help but to think it is Emily Dickinson speaking out about her depression. It is hard to think about it as from the point of a different speaker when I know how weird she is. It also was contradictory when it started to talk about Heaven's bells when the whole poem seems like it is about hell.

The Widow's Lament in Springtime

This is my favorite poem because it is not hard to understand. It is clear that it is about a widow who is in grief. She is remembering her husband through her son and realizing how much she misses him. "Today my son told me that in the meadows, at the edge of the heavy woods in the distance, he saw trees of white flowers. I feel that I would like to go there and fall and fall into these flowers and sink into the marsh near them." There is a lot of symbolism towards the end of the poem. The son tells her that because she wants her to move on. I think that the trees of white flowers represent her husband. The distance between the son and the trees represent how far he is from his father. The widdow then goes on to talk about how she would like to go and sink into those flowers. She wants to her husband and sink into the place where he will always be. Also it is a juxtaposition when the widdow says "fall into the flowers" but also says "sink into a marsh". The falling into flowers sounds pleasant and peaceful but sinking into a marsh seems erie. She is saying that joining to join her husband would be both good and bad.

The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry

"According to his theory the poem is like an ink blot in a Rorschach personality test. There are no correct or incorrect readings: there are only readings which differ more or less widely from a statistical norm." This pretty much sums up his opinion on interpretation of poetry. It doesn't have a correct interpretation but it does at the same time. He is saying that there is no real wrong answer but there definitely is a right one. I liked when he said "a writer should not be his own interpreter...the poet is eager to be understood". The poet does not want to have to go back to his audience and explain what he really meant. The ambiguity of poetry is what makes it so colorful.
"If a poem, then, does have a determinable meaning- if, in the interpretation of poetry, we can't say that 'anything goes'." When I read this, it seemed to me that he was arguing the point that we cannot make up any interpretation of a poem that we want. There are limits when interpretating poetry. Sure, there is room for error, but not very much.