Wendy's+Poetry+Log


 * 1) //Dream-land// by Edgar Allan Poe - There are a lot of alliterations and repetitions in this poem, and the vivid imagery also effectively creates a vivid image of this "dream-land" in readers' minds. I found it interesting how the last stanza, which is almost identical to the first stanza, is used to round up and conclude his journey at this place.
 * 2) //Annabel Lee// by Edgar Allan Poe - This poem is about the speaker loving Annabel Lee and shows this through the constant repetition of "beautiful Annabel Lee". However, this lady is killed at sea and the speaker speaks of their strong bond and "the angels" jealousy of them.
 * 3) //If// by Rudyard Kipling - The poet uses the repetition of "if" to reveal the many difficult qualities his son must have to become a real man.
 * 4) //Invictus// by William Ernest Henley - The speaker conveys his "unconquerable soul" and strong wills through short and straightforward sentences, ending with "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul", using words like "master" and "captain" to underline his power over his own life.
 * 5) //As I Grew Older// by Langston Hughes - The sentences in this poem are all extremely short, and the motif of shadows appears in this poem, revealing the complications in life as the speaker grows older. The numerous exclamation marks convey the speaker's desperation to break through the walls and find his dream again.
 * 6) //The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls// by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - A lot of personifications are used in this poem to give life to the beautiful, peaceful scenes by the shore. The phrase "The tide rises, the tide falls" is repeated at the end of every sentence to convey the sense of leaving and returning, like the travelers who leave for town but eventually come back to the shore.
 * 7) //Life is Fine// by Langston Hughes - The speaker talks of his attempts to commit suicide but decided not to in the end because of love. Repetition is used, "...hollered! ...cried!" with many exclamation marks throughout the poem to convey the speaker's dramatic tone.
 * 8) //I Am Not Yours// by Sara Teasdale - Similes are used to convey the speaker's longing to return the favor of loving the person who loves her by being "lost as a candle lit at noon, lost as a snowflake in the sea". The word "lost" is repeated many times in the poem, revealing the speaker's confusion and lost thoughts.
 * 9) //Nothing Gold Can Stay// by Robert Frost - I have read this poem many years ago and I still like it a lot. The short simple sentences brings the poem right to the point, which is also the concluding sentence, "nothing gold can stay'.
 * 10) //I Taught Myself To Live Simply// by Anna Akhmatova - The poet uses vivid imagery and alliteration of euphonious words to portray the peaceful and quiet setting, which reflects the peace she has mentally and emotionally within herself.
 * 11) //A Red, Red Rose// by Robert Burns - The speaker uses a simile, saying his love for a girl is like a "red, red rose", conveying the great passion and adoration he has for her. A lot of repetition of sentences is used, portraying the speaker's building of emotions as he describes his love for this girl.
 * 12) //Alone// by Maya Angelou - The three lines "Alone, all alone. Nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone" is repeated after every other stanza to reinforce the speaker's statement that it is impossible to make it out of the obstacles in life alone, even if you are a millionaire or however powerful. This poem emphasizes and portrays the importance of having company because it is more important than any other material object.
 * 13) //The Lesson// by Maya Angelou - The speaker uses death and life together to convey that going through obstacles, getting hurt, and experiencing death is a part of life. The poem goes through different stages of life, from children, symbolic of life, to tombs, symbolic of aging and death. By doing so, the speaker reveals her willingness to go through hardships in life, because that is what living is.
 * 14) //A Passing Glimpse// by Robert Frost - This poem uses the speaker's experience of seeing flowers as he passes by on the train, but is not able to see clearly what the flowers are. He uses this experience symbolically to convey that beautiful things in life come unexpected and are hard to keep, the train being life and the flowers being the beautiful aspects of life that you pass by and cannot stop for. Checked 18 September 14/15-25 KBoyce Good collection. Lots of standards. Explore a bit more.
 * 15) //Petals// by Amy Lowell - The poet uses an extended metaphor describing life as a stream, we are the flowers and as we go through life, petals will fall and we will eventually be "swept away" but our fragrance will always remain. The use of the extended metaphor allows readers to see the passing of life and ageing in a beautiful way and have a different perspective to life.
 * 16) //My Papa's Waltz// by Theodore Roethke - I found two different perspectives that this poem could be viewed in. I feel that this poem can be seen as a simple, enjoyable poem about the little boy remembering himself waltzing and having fun with his hard-working father, but it also might be about his father abusing him, using "waltz" as his own vague way of revealing his father beating him. There is a clear structure of four lines and four stanzas, with rhyming couplets throughout the poem.
 * 17) //Root Cellar// by Theodore Roethke - This poem is packed with imagery, similes, personifications and metaphors are used to make the plants and objects in the cellar come to life and become frightening creatures, adding an ominous mood to the poem.
 * 18) //The Return// by Theodore Roethke - The speaker refers to his house as "heaven", as he returns to see a peaceful place where his mother is knitting scarves and his father by the stove, giving a sense of warmth and peacefulness. He walks in with "muddy shoes" and isn't able to tell his parents about the complicated outside-world, revealing that his house is an oasis for him to not think about the troublesome matters he has to face elsewhere.
 * 19) //Bleezer's Ice Cream// by Jack Prelutsky - Although this poem looks very simple and unorganized, as the majority of the poem is merely a list of icecreams that are sold, there are rhyming couplets used throughout the poem, making this poem seem more poetic than it's content seems.
 * 20) //Night Poem// by Margaret Atwood - This poem is creates a very spooky mood as it starts of peaceful and giving a sense of security but then begins to describe the scenes of "us" arriving, which is the dark and evil side of the night. Various negative, frightening diction like "cold hands and dead flashlights" and "red wool" are used to add to the mood of the poem.
 * 21) //The Art of Drowning// by Billy Collins - The speaker questions and mocks the saying about people's lives flashing through their minds as they are drowning. He looks at drowning in a much more realistic view, saying it will "probably be a fish" that you will see. This poem has no rhyme scheme, adding to the speaker's realistic, simple, and straight-forward way of viewing and expressing his thoughts.
 * 22) //Pi// by Wislawa Szymborska - The speaker incorporates the digits of pi into the sentences, making it very difficult for readers to read through his sentences without being cut in between by numbers. He uses many different examples to show that everything, even heaven and earth, ends, but pi never will.
 * 23) //Love After Love// by Derek Walcott - This poem addresses the idea of getting over a heartbreak and moving on with life by describing this inner accomplishment as a physical act, when you invite the "new" you to eat and feast and throw away all the old memories.
 * 24) //Without You// by Herman Hesse - The poem has various metaphors and personifications to portray the speaker's lonesomeness as he is only accompanied by his pillow and darkness. He speaks of how hard and painful life is without his lover using diction associated with emptiness and pain.
 * 25) //To See Him Again// by Gabriela Mistral - This poem starts of seemingly innocent and peaceful, as the speaker uses many rhetorical questions to imagine the places she might be able to meet her old lover. However, the last stanza brings a twist to the poem as she exclaims she will be united in "an anguished knot" around his "bloody neck", bringing readers to understand that she is not longing for him, but instead hates him.
 * 26) //The Beginning// by Rabindranath Tagore - This poem expresses maternal love as the mother gives birth to the baby and holds it close to her chest. The scene is portrayed in a heavenly way as the child is "Heaven's first darling", and numerous metaphors are used to describe the beautiful baby in the mother's perspective.
 * 27) //The End// by Rabindranath Tagore - This poem links to the poem //The Beginning.// As signified from the title, this poem is about the end of life, while //The Beginning// was about birth. This poem is in the perspective of the child, as for some reason, the child must leave the mother. However, the strong bond between them is still apparent as the child is "in [the mother's] body and in [her] soul".
 * 28) //A Memory of June// by Claude McKay - The poet uses an identical line in the start and end of the poem to reveal the memory of love that is so important to him. He incorporates his sense of smell, touch, hearing, and sight to convey the perfect and romantic moment he has with his lover.
 * 29) //It Might Be Lonelier// by Emily Dickinson - The poet uses enjambments throughout the poem, revealing his disrupted and unorganized thoughts. The speaker's ideas contradict with what people usually think of darkness and loneliness, since she thinks of these as a comfortable surrounding that she has gotten used to, thus having peace and hope would disrupt her hopeless life right now.
 * 30) //The Romantic Age// by Ogden Nash - The poet conveys how ridiculous teens these days are about being in love, and the rhyme scheme and rhythm to the poem makes the speaker sound laid-back and slightly humorous.
 * 31) //A Knock On the Door// by James Tate - The irregular enjambments convey the speaker's confused and unclear thoughts, as he reveals that unlike everyone else, he does not worry about such pressuring and worrying and deep topics like life and death.
 * 32) //Alone// by Sara Teasdale - The speaker uses the imagery of her standing alone on a mountain to convey her loneliness, and finds it difficult at times to keep living.
 * 33) //Miscarriage// by Jennifer Reeser - The speaker is talking to her lover (the baby's father) about her miscarriage and talks of the contrasting thoughts they have towards what the baby means to them, as the baby meant little to the father. The poet uses repetition of numerous sentences to convey the speaker's build up in emotions.
 * 34) //Afternoon// by Dorothy Parker - The poet names the poem Afternoon because although the poem does not mention the word "afternoon", the speaker talks of herself approaching old age and how peaceful her life will be then, which relates to afternoon as it is when the day is about to grow dark and end, just like a person's life.
 * 35) //Fast Rode the Knight// by Stephen Crane - This poem was really depressing as it uses a lot of descriptive imageries to make the contrast between the knight and the horse's outcomes: the knight wins all the fame and glory while the horse is forgotten and dead by the castle.
 * 36) //Waiting For The Miracle// by Leonard Cohen - This poem is about two lovers who cannot be together, and the sentence "waiting for the miracle, for the miracle to come" is repeated many times to convey the speaker's desperation to be with the man, although she cannot do anything about it.
 * 37) //Fairy Tale// by Robert Desno - The simple, repetitive structure of the poem portrays the simple, cliche stories of fairy tales, where the man and the woman do not love the ones who love them, and rarely find the "perfect" ones who love them back.
 * 38) //I Remember, I Remember// by Thomas Hood - The speaker expresses his childhood nostalgia through describing different places he went and things he did when he was little, using various euphonious words to convey his memorable, peaceful childhood.
 * 39) //Things// by Lisel Mueller - This poem mentioned some very interesting points about how people have named objects with human profiles, like tongue inside a bell, lip of a pitcher, mouth of a cave, etc). The poet uses metaphors to further add to the idea of relating objects to humans.
 * 40) //A Day Like Any Other// by Lisa Mueller - The poem talks about the fact that the world does not stop for you, even as the speaker finds out something very important and shocking about herself from the doctors. Similes and metaphors are used to give life to objects as if they are also ignoring her and living their own lives.
 * 41) //Two Truths// by Helen Hunt Jackson - There are not many literary features used, as the short poem mainly consists of the lovers' dialogue. The poem is structured into three stanzas, one of the man's words being truthful, saying he did not mean to hurt the woman by forgetting about something, one of the woman's words that she forgives him, and the last one of the woman's thoughts and conclusion, which revealed the second truth, that the man does not love her enough. 5 December 2011 41/45-75
 * 42) //The Sentence// by Anna Akhmatova - This poem is structured into three stanzas, first talking about "the sentence" that crushed her, using a metaphor to show how she was affected by it. The poet uses repetition in the second stanza, listing out the things she must do to forget about it and move on. However, the last stanza reveals the difficulty of moving on, as many things will remind her of it.
 * 43) //Biography In The First Person// by Stephen Dunn - The poem is very straightforward and blunt, talking about the speaker's life happenings, both good and bad. This poem has no rhyming scheme and no organized structure, showing the most realistic, unpolished side of the speaker's life and this poem.
 * 44) //Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines// by Pablo Neruda - The poem has a very orderly structure and repeats the same line, "tonight I can write the saddest lines", throughout the poem, revealing the speaker's depressing tone.
 * 45) //She Walks in Beauty// by George Gordon Byron - The poet uses an ABAB rhyme scheme and many nature imageries and metaphors to portray the woman's beauty and how mesmerized the speaker is.
 * 46) //Confessions// by Robert Browning - There are many allusions used in this poem, and the speaker's tone changes throughout the poem, showing his/her mixed feelings.
 * 47) //A Kiss// by Thomas Lux - This poem is filled with imageries and metaphors of the sea, and the enjambments create a disorderly structure, just like how the waves and the speaker's love is uncontrollable.
 * 48) //A Dream Within A Dream// by Edgar Allan Poe - The first stanza is about the speaker talking to his lover who has left him, and is wondering whether he was in real life or just dreaming. The second stanza changes to when the speaker is by a shore, and uses imageries of the sea to portray his longing for his lover. The many rhetorical questions at the end show his confusion and helplessness.
 * 49) //The Journey// by Mary Oliver - The poem is about being loyal to your own opinions and not letting external factors influence you and change how you really think. This are great amounts of personification and vivid imagery to portray the great hardships one has to go through in order to realize what it is they really believe in.
 * 50) //A Girl// by Ezra Pound - The entire poem is an extended metaphor describing the girl as a tree that is growing inside of the speaker, revealing her growing existence and importance in the speaker's mind.
 * 51) //If// by Rudyard Kipling - Juxtaposition is used extensively in this poem to emphasize the difficulty of being truly a "man", as you have to be able to accomplish many different tasks. The simple last sentence is ironic as it makes it seem like it is not difficult at all to "be a man".
 * 52) //The Widower// by Rudyard Kipling - The speaker is a widower who describe his feelings about his wife's death, and uses a metaphor to imply that he is waiting to join his wife and bring him to the "safe" land.
 * 53) //Last Curtain// by Rabindranath Tagore - The poem talks about how one must face and accept death when it arrives. There are metaphors and personifications used to describe aspects of life and death in order to convey the casualness of death.
 * 54) //The Child-Angel// by Rabindranath Tagore - A great contrast is created between the child and the surrounding people, as the child is described to be an angel who creates peace and harmony between people. There is vivid imagery used to portray the peacefulness and warm atmosphere that the child creates.
 * 55) //Symbols// by William Butler Yeats - I did not understand what the poem meant, but through the vivid imagery used to describe the surrounding as well as naming the character "the fool", I was able to sense that the poem had a tragic ending.
 * 56) //Broken Dreams// by William Butler Yeats - This poem talks about the coming of age and how beauty does not last forever and will merely be vague memories after a long period of time. The sentence "vague memories, nothing but memories" is repeated throughout the poem to convey the unavoidable truth that a person's beauty will gradually fade away.
 * 57) //The Sad Mother// by Gabriela Mistral - This poem sounds like a lullaby, as it repeats various words like "sleep, sleep" in order for it to seem like the mother is talking to her child. Metaphors are used to portray the contentedness and peaceful atmosphere as the mother takes care of the child and protects her.
 * 58) //To See Him Again// by Gabriela Mistral - A lot of interrogative sentences are used to convey the speaker's desire to see "him" again. However, the ending is very surprising to the readers as the speaker exclaims that she wants to see "him" again to kill him, an exclamation mark used at the end to heighten her emotions.
 * 59) //At Night On the High Seas// by Hermann Hesse - Personification is used to describe the sea, waves, and stars as being relaxed and peaceful. The speaker's isolation is shown through his "conversation" with the sea.
 * 60) //WIthout You// by Hermann Hesse - The speaker's loneliness and longing for his partner who has left him is revealed through the metaphors and vivid descriptions of the surrounding.
 * 61) //Macavity: The Mystery Cat// by T.S. Eliot - The repetition of "macavity, macavity" is used throughout the poem, making the poem rhythmic and lyrical. The poem reminds me of fantasy films, where cats are characterized in detail and have human behavior.
 * 62) //Gus: The Theatre Cat// by T.S. Eliot - I noticed that T.S. Eliot has a great amount of poems related to cats! This poem reminds me greatly of Death of A Salesman, as the cat is also like Willy, always boasting about his past glory's, but in reality is not successful at all. The cat, of course, is personified as a real person with human characteristics and actions.
 * 63) //March// by Boris Pasternak - There is vivid imagery of a day during march, conveying the liveliness of the environment as the weather becomes warmer and there are more activities taking place.
 * 64) //WInter Night// by Boris Pasternak - There is a repetition of "A candle burned on the table; A candle burned" at the end of most of the stanzas, emphasizing the existence of warmth even in the harsh winter night.
 * 65) //A Dog Has Died// by Pablo Neruda - Although the speaker talks as if he does not care much about his dog that died, the words he uses and scenes he describes reveals that he has always appreciated the dog's company. The poem ends with significantly shorter stanzas, conveying that although they have spent a lot of time together, the simple ending and truth is that the dog has died.
 * 66) //Walking Around// by Pablo Neruda - The poet provides vivid imagery of the town scenes, with a great deal of hyperbole and personifications to make the town come to life and also express the speaker's strong dislike for the city.
 * 67) //Song on the End of the World// by Czeslaw Milosz - The poem talks about how the end of the world will be a normal day, describing the normal lives of all living creatures while using many repeating sentences such as "as long as... as long as..." to convey that the last day of the world will be a typical, normal day.
 * 68) //That's Me// by Czeslaw Milosz - The poet uses various different aspects like the winds, the clouds, animals, and humans, to express that there is no one to speak to about his/her sins. The poet uses a metaphor, describing that he was "an ugly toad", revealing his true appearance and imperfections.
 * 69) //Letter to an Archaeologist// by Joseph Brodsky - The poet expresses that he does not approve of the actions of archaeologists, as they should not be looking through the belongings of the people. Short, fragmented sentences are used to convey the speaker's direct tone as well as to describe the many features of their culture/environment in detail.
 * 70) //A List of Some Observation...// by Joseph Brodsky - All the sentences are short and straight-forward, as hinted from the title that they are just observations listed out.
 * 71) //Love After Love// by Derek Walcott - A metaphor is used to describe you "greeting yourself" as if greeting a person you love in order to convey that you need to learn to love yourself before you love others. Another metaphor is used for "feast on your life", relating the feast you have with "yourself" to feasting on, or enjoying, your life.
 * 72) //Dark August// by Derek Walcott - The sun is personified as the speaker's sister who refuses to come out and brighten her day. The poet also uses color to signify the contrast between the darkness the speaker must experience without the sun brightening the skies.
 * 73) //Blackberry-Picking// by Seamus Heaney - Detailed descriptions give vivid imageries of the procedures of picking blackberries, The last two lines of the poems rhyme, giving a more catchy and rhythmic ending.
 * 74) //Mid-Term Break// by Seamus Heaney - There are three lines in each stanza other than the last, which makes it stand out more. The last sentence reveals that the person that died was a four year old, possibly the speaker's sibling. Every stanza mentions different people's reactions to the event of the child's death, the order going by who the speaker walks by while entering the house.
 * 75) //Going Home// by Wislawa Szymborska - The theme of being a child is evident in this poem as the grown man curls himself up inside his blankets, revealing that he wishes to be troubleless like a child inside a mother's womb.
 * 76) //Pi// by Wislawa Szymborska - The digits of the value of pi are mixed within the sentences that the speaker says, which are random thoughts about all sorts of topics: animals, shirt sizes, money, etc. The long, continuous sentences parallel the idea that the number of digits of pi is endless.
 * 77) //Poem (Don't Look...)// by Harold Pinter - The title of the poem got me very interested.. the poem only has two stanzas, and the second stanza has a long ongoing sentence describing that the world will not be able to fulfill all our demands and ultimately lead to darkness.
 * 78) //Restaurant// by Harold Pinter - The short poem talks about people who are seemingly happy in restaurants, but reveal their sadness when they depart from the restaurant and head home alone. The phrase "Everyone is as beautiful as they can possibly be" is repeated, but having different meanings the two times. The first time, it conveys that the people are truly beautiful, however the second time it hints that they are only trying to impress others and are not truly beautiful or happy.
 * 79) //Refusal// by Maya Angelou - The speaker conveys that he/she refuses to die until being with his/her lover again. Enjambments are used to separate various ideas, such as "your lips your hands your laughter", that the speaker wishes to emphasize through the pauses created.
 * 80) //Snow// by E.E. Cummings - The structure (and content) of the poem confused me, because it was all jumbled and irregular. The only idea i noticed was that the structure of the poem, which consisted of extremely short lines, seemed like snow coming down from the sky..
 * 81) //Messy Room// by Shel Silverstein - The poet uses vivid imagery to describe the messy room