Janita's+Poetry+Journal

**Poetry Journal**
//1. The Blue Bowl// by Jane Kenyon (this poem deals with the mere fact of the death of a cat. the poem suggests that the cat died doing something unjust such as eating a bird. "justice must always be accompanied by loss.")
 * August 15th, 2011**

//2. Complete Destruction// by William Carlos Williams (A poem about the burying of cat and exploring the contract between "icy" and "cold")

3. I Died for Beauty -- but was scarce...// by Emily Dickinson (The speaker that died for Beauty is in a tomb next to a man who died for Truth. The speaker and the man talk between their tombs and he declares that Truth and Beauty are the same.) //
 * August 16th, 2011**
 * ABCB rhyme sceme
 * rhythmic use of dash to interruept flow
 * Theme: a person's identity and feelings are erased by death

4. "Hope" is the thing with Feathers --... //by Emily Dickinson (Speaker describes 'hope' as a bird that perches in the soul.)//

//5. Lament //by Edna St. Vincent Millay//(a mother whose husband just passed away faces her both grief and the daily need of her children)//
 * August 18th, 2011**
 * last line; "I forget just why" -- indication of hopelessness and emptiness that the speaker feels now that her husband is gone
 * Theme: life must go on even when we feel like it cannot
 * poem is directed from mother to children -- "Listen, children:"
 * Repetition: "life must go on" -- emphasizes cruelty of death for the people who are still living

6. "//The Kiss//" by Sara Teasdale (about major conflict the speaker has after the speaker is kissed from by the man of her dreams)
 * August 22, 2011**
 * speaker: first person; thoughts and feelings after kiss
 * the 2nd and 4th line of the first stanza rhyme and the 2nd and 4th line in the 2nd stanza rhyme
 * simile: "But I am like a stricken bird/ That cannot reach the south."

//7. The Sun Just Touched the Morning//by Emily Dickinson
 * September 16, 2011**
 * Dickinson is writing about the sunrise, and how it makes her feel.
 * uses personification when talking about the sun, and relates it to an "ethereal", or spiritual being.

//8. There's Something Quieter Than Sleep//by Emily Dickinson
 * the "something" that is "quieter than sleep" is death
 * first stanza: describes death, saying that it "will not tell its name," meaning that it remains mysterious
 * second stanza: how people come close to death, but only "touch it" or "kiss it", meaning that they might come close to dying but somehow survive through it
 * third stanza: the sobs "scare the "quiet fairy," the quiet fairy represents who decides when a person dies, but people scare the fairy away with their sadness
 * last stanza: "Remark that Birds have fled," it is referring to how birds fly away when something bad happens, meaning death.

//__**Total Poems: 8**__//

Checked 18 September 6/15-25 KBoyce Good start...needs to continue.

//9. After Apple-Picking//by Robert Frost
 * September 24, 2011**
 * alternates between standard iambic pentameter and end-rhymes throughout the poem
 * repetition of "sleep" highlights narrator's gradual descent into dreaming
 * metaphorical meaning: seasonal changes and death
 * varying rhymes and tenses throughout poem -- not clear when narrator is dreaming or awake

//10. It// by Kindall Perez
 * September 26, 2011**
 * peom expresses fear -- fear is one's worst ascet
 * explains that fear can fun your life; you have to look it straight in the eye and realise that you are holding your ownself back

//11. Humanity I Love You//by E. E. Cummings
 * reflects cumming's connection with the war -- describes his disgust with classes in society and obviously, humanity in general
 * uses metaphors to emphasize the selfishness or humanity
 * imagery -- thoughtlessness of the over-fortunate
 * last lines; "Humanity / i hate you"

//12. Complete Destruction//by William Carlos Williams
 * September 28, 2011**
 * contrast between "cold" and "icy"
 * poem made up of two sentences
 * second sentence is split, starting the second stanza with "in the backyard

//13. Since Feeling Is First//by E.E. Cummings
 * October 17, 2011**
 * "incorrect" syntax to show speaker's feelings -- (life cannot be capured in writing)
 * importance of life
 * romantic poem -- "--the best gesture of my brain is less thanyour eyelids' flutter which says"

//14. Spring and Fall//by Robert Nisbet > "mouth ... mind" > "heart heard of, ghost guessed"; > "blight ... born"; > "Margaret ... mourn".
 * first couplet sudden and vivid
 * line 2 -- "unleaving", "wanwood" and 'leafmeal" = made up words
 * double rhymes which end in very short lines
 * cohesion and compactness -- alliteration: "Sorrow's ... same";

//15. The Blue Bowl//by Jane Kenyon
 * October 19, 2011**
 * death (burying of a cat)
 * identification of justice with death is the fact that justice must always be accompanied by loss

//16. The Lake//by Deborah Ager
 * setting: urban landscape
 * describes lake using personifications
 * contrasts between the calmness of the lake and the bustle of the cities -- highlighting the beauty of nature which is portrayed through the lake

//17. The Present//by Dana Gioia
 * October 25, 2011**
 * love = mystery --> we want to know everything so as to exercise perfect control over circumstances or spouses
 * narrators detachment is sort of creepy
 * "costly secret" -- something that speaker would rather not know

//17. Up, Up and Away//by Ario Farin -- father and daughter on a beach
 * October 26, 2011**
 * parent's imagination has not been lost --> moves us from cloudy to glassy to light

//18. Apartment 75//by Katia Kapovich -- noise, feeling, light - touch is central to being heard and being seen
 * narration: creates an internal audience distinct from the speaker
 * the internal audience is marked by how strangely close it is to an external audience – up, towards, and now face-to-face

//19. For Once, Then, Something//by Robert Frost
 * October 31, 2011**
 * religious imagery; kneeling, experiencing light, and then using that light to see into a reflective darkness <-- gives the poem a serious tone
 * I found this poem hard to understand as I could not connect the dots to figure out what Frost is trying to express through this poem

//20. Design//by Robert Frost
 * contrast between -- “light” and “dark,” “good” and “bad,” and “life” and “death"
 * the poem expresses life as an experience that is controlled and designed by a cruel being
 * First three lines -- Frost tells readers a story about finding a white spider sitting on a white flower, in spider's arm there is a dead moth
 * final six lines -- series of questions about this situation -- speaker wants to know whether the flower, the spider, & moth have been united in this circle of life and death
 * “Design” means to create or draw up, to plan toward a specific purpose -- speaker situation was purposely created

//21. The Change of the Light Brigade//by Alfred Tennyson Cannons to the right of them, Cannon to the left of them, Cannon in front of them. (17-20)
 * November 2, 2011**
 * imagery and figurative language creates an exhilarating tone
 * Tennyson uses strong imagery and metaphors to describe the dangers that the Brigade faced
 * rhyme scheme and repetition of words emphasises certain lines and develops tone
 * third person point of view

//22. The Importance of Elsewhere//by Philip Larkin
 * speaker feels lonely and strange in a place that is not his/her home, "lived in Ireland since it was not home".
 * the speaker feels like an outsider who does not fit in -- "Strangeness made sense" because he expected to feel this lonely because he is not in the comfort of his own home and is not used to being away from home
 * second stanza -- speaker talks about Ireland and how he could come to be comfortable there
 * uses imagery to describe atmosphere -- "draughty streets"
 * speaker makes the place feel depressing
 * speaker contrasts "their" Ireland and "my" England

//23. Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave//by Thomas Hardy -- poem is about death
 * speaker is disappointed -- no love or hate outlasts death
 * structure of poem develops into an unsettling ending -- downward spiral

//24. The Sun Rising//by John Donne
 * November 28, 2011**
 * poet addresses the sun as person (personification) --> rebukes sun because it has akened him and his lover from their sleep and wants to know why lovers should obey time
 * calls sun a "saucy pedantic wretch"
 * speaker believes that time does not exist between lovers
 * the speaker challenges the sun of his its strength -- (his lover's eyes are so beautiful and bright that it can blind the sun / sun is only half as happy as they are)
 * speaker turns sun's refusal to leave into generosity by shining at them.... it has centered itself upon the room of his love and so they are the sun (center of the universe)

//25. Monlogue For an Onion//by Suji Kwock Kim
 * onion metaphor -- onion represents the speaker and the person she addresses that is her lover
 * onion metaphor used to convey message to lover
 * the speaker's lover is obsessed with finding what is hidden beneath her 'skins' -- the speaker is annoyed with the searching which sets the tone of the poem -- uses the onion metaphor to show how annoyed she is
 * Onion has many layers (skins) -- outer layer is the same as every layer and there is no core (onion represents herself)
 * speaker -- "I am pure onion -- pure onion of outside and in."

5 Dec 2011 25/45-75

//26. The Soup//by Gary Soto
 * December 6, 2011**
 * line one -- 2:10 looks like a bible verse (probably has bible reference)
 * first stanza -- Molina is drawing what he thinks is soup; something that might satisfy him but it is just colours and textures (symbolic)
 * drawings of the meal are symbolic of an event

27. //Memory of Sun// by Anna Akhmatova
 * December 15, 2011**
 * poet writes about the coming of winter
 * repetition --> "Memory of sun seeps deep from the heart."

28. //The Mortal One// by Sharon Olds
 * vivid descriptions gives a cold (negative) tone
 * message that we are mortal, death is inevitable

29. //Her Kind// by Anne Sexton
 * speaker if an outcast because she is powerful
 * speaker of the time embraces society's negative stereotype of modern, liberated women and transforms it into a positive image

30. //To His Coy Mistress// by Andrew Marvell
 * speaker encourages his love to seize the day convincing his love into physical intimacy

31. //Nude Descending a Staircase// by X.J. Kennedy
 * narrative poem with a rhyme scheme of abcb in each of the three stanzas
 * anticipating tone --> leaving the reader wondering what the woman will do

32. //The Wild Swans at Coole// by William Yeat
 * contains philosophical issues, for the writer speaks about life in his poem and about the fact that everything will happen again, even thought without our presence
 * the swans are “wild”, just like the author used to be
 * rhyme scheme of abcbdd
 * sad and "nostalgic" mood

33. //Hearing That His Friend Was Coming Back from the War// by Wang Chien
 * poet describes a contemporary war which was more intense than those in the old days and the hopelessness for soldiers to come back from the war
 * speaker uses words such as 'indolent', 'hopelessly', 'young' which all show the inexperience and weakness of his friends on the battlefield

34. //The Ball Poem// by John Berriman
 * the poem is about losing something that you love and learning to grow up --> a boy for the first time is learning what it is like to experience grief from losing a beloved possession (his ball)
 * boy's ball personifies speaker's young days and happy innocence - in this world, people will take balls just as they will take away our innocence and force us to grow up
 * poet uses imagery when describing how the ball personifies the spirit of the boy's childish innocence

35. //Ethics// by Linda Pastan
 * speaker recalls a moral dilemma that her teacher would ask every fall, which has been haunting her for a long time
 * theme: ethics and moral values can only be learned through experience and maturity
 * imagery --> "sometimes the woman borrowed my grandmother's face" (displays inability of children to relate the dilemma to themselves) -- the speaker is an old woman
 * diction --> "drafty," "half-heartedly," and "half-imagined" give the reader the idea of how faintly the dilemma was perceived and understood by the children
 * repetition of 'old woman'
 * metaphors --> "The colors / within this frame are darker than autumn, / darker even than winter" and "the browns of earth, / though earth's most radiant elements burn / through the canvas." (painting is not a simple drawing, it is something alive)

36. //Bashert// by Irena Klepfisz
 * speaker talks about reasons for why people survived or died in the Halocaust
 * conclusion: the only reason for living of dying is because it is Bashert (inevitable)

37. //The Lover// by Don Patterson
 * uses vivid imagery describing how a human is knocked down by a car and because of love is brought back to life
 * theme: love is the strongest force in the world

parent whose imagination has not been lost who moves us from cloudy to glassy to light
 * //__Total Poems: 19__//**