The Apparition

"Less that preserve thee; and since my love is spent, I had rather thou shouldst painfully repent, Than by my threatenings rest still innocent."

The tone of this poem is very hateful and resentful. These last few lines, however, I do not understand. From the poem, I can infer that these two lovers do not like each other very much. Perhaps they are already married? If that's what "solicitation" is. The tone of the poem leads me to believe the girl whom the speaker will haunt when he's dead is cheating on her. However, I do not understand the last lines and how they connect to that theme and tone. If it says the girl is innocent, then why is the speaker so mad at her? I think I just don't like how old this poem is. I never understand old English!

My mistress' eyes

"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare."

If I am reading this poem correctly, it is a huge paradox. In a way, it kind of confuses me. The tone of the first half of the poem is negative and judgemental. The speaker is describing a girl whom he finds no good qualities in. Imagery is used to talk negatively about this person. Red, white, and black are all colors used to describe the woman. Sense of smell is used as well to characterize her. However, the last two lines juxtapose the entire poem. The speaker says his love is "rare as any". If he doesn't like all these qualities in this woman, why is she his love? And why is she rare?

Hazel Tells LaVerne

"so i goes ta flushm down but sohelpmegod he starts talkin..."

I want to focus on the language of this poem. The language relates to a vernacular of a certain area. In today's world, we would relate this language to inner-city, or uneducated. This language is uneducated because it doesn't use proper grammar rules, doesn't capitalize, and uses slang. However, we can learn a good amount from this language. The setting is found out from the vernacular--an uneducated area where an uneducated woman is working. Language is especially effective in this poem because it presents a picture of where we are (setting) and who we're dealing with (character). Without this language, we wouldn't be able to place a time, place, or characterization towards the poem.

Getting Out

"we paced that short hall, heaving words like furniture. I have the last unshredded pictures of our matching eyes and hair..."

The quote above represents a part in the poem that the tone shifts. Diction in the first stanza represents a tone of confinement and wanting to be free. Tone then shifts in the second stanza to anger. Words like "heaving" and "locked into blame" are harsh words that represent the harsh tone. The most predominant shift in tone is between the second and third stanzas. While the second stanza has a tone of anger, the third quickly shifts to a tone of nostalgia. The speaker still has "unshredded pictures" of the couple and tries to hold onto that memory. It also becomes very sad in the last line. It talks about crying, holding tight, and letting go.

Dover Beach

"...hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;"

This anaphora presents a common theme and tone of the poem. Repition of the word "nor" is the anaphora. The negative connotation of the word "nor" relates to the negative tone of the poem. This poem describes the lack of faith a certain body of people has through imagery from Dover beach. The purpose of the anaphora is to make clear what this body of people lack--joy, love, light, certitude, peace, or help for pain. Without the anaphora, it wouldn't be clear to the reader how lacking of faith these people really are. It is effective because it is in the last stanza and ties together the whole poem's theme. It also represents the negative tone of these people lacking faith.

next to of course god america i

I really, really have no idea what to think of this poem. I believe I had it all figured out-- then I read the last line. The quotations makes me believe the speaker is actually speaking or reading something. The last line and the hurried tone leads me to believe the speaker was reading something very rapidly outloud. However, I do not understand the purpose of this hurried tone. I also do not understand the purpose of all the allusions to American songs in the poem. It is mainly made up of classical American freedom songs. The "next to of course god" line leads me to believe the speaker is speaking to an audience who believes in God.

APO 96225

I love this poem! For once, I've finally found a poem I can thoroughly enjoy reading the first time through. The repetition of the "Dear Mom, sure rains a lot here" really gets to me. I also love this poem because I understand it. During the Vietnam War, the public was upset for not being informed more about the war. Once they were informed, they thought it was too much information. The reality of war really upset the homefront during the war. The mom represents the rest of the United States in the Vietnam War.

Sorting Laundry

The laundry the speaker is doing is a symbol of all the memories of the speaker and his or her lover. Laundry also holds the memories itself of the experiences of the lovers. The poem uses sheets, towels, shirts, skirts, pants, etc. to start an anechdote of the couple's experiences. Sheets symbolize the dreams of the couple. Towels symbolze the years after years the spent on the beach. The poem also uses things such as paper clips, dollars, and change to provide an anechdotal symbol to the objects. The purpose of these symbols is to give the reader an idea of the importance these memories have on the speaker. It also presents the reader with an idea of how much the speaker adores his or her lover.

Barbie Doll

This poem is a satire as well as a metaphor. The speaker in the poem compares a growing girl to a barbie doll without explicitly stating it. It starts off explaining how the little, healthy girl plays with barbie dolls when she is young. It also gives the girl human qualities that state how normal, healthy and strong she is. However, the tone changes and becomes a satire after the line "Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs." The poem then states how the girl cut off her nose and legs and offered them up, then dressed in pink and white and wore cosmetics. The irony of "to every woman a happy ending" presents the poem as a satire. This is effective because it criticizes fake women in the real world and connects to everyday fixations of women who are insecure.

Much Madness is divinest Sense

Emily Dickinson never fails to be as confusing as she can be. This poem, however, is a huge paradox. Madness and sense are juxtaposed throughout the whole poem. She says "much madness is divinest sense." This statement, the theme of the whole poem, says that madness in itself is actually sanity. The paradox is effective because it continues throughout the whole poem. It also is effective because there is truth in her statement. The purpose is to state that if the world is mad, it has sense, even though it should be the other way around.

I taste a liquor never brewed

Emily Dickinson's poems always confuse me--always. There's a point to where I think I understand, but then I"m always completely wrong. So on this one, I barely even attempted. Once I'm explained her poems, I admire them and her creativeness. I could never think in the way she does. This poem, specifically, confuses me because she gives such praise to this alcohol, but I have no idea what the liquor is. Maybe the liquor is something of nature? But she doesn't literally taste the liquor. She just gets a taste of it when she sees the nature. Maybe I'm completely wrong--which I probably am.

Pink Dog

This poem confuses me but intruigues me. I believe it's about a person outcasted in society because of their looks. The pink dog symbolizes this person. The harsh diction paired with ugly or degrading adjectives leads me to believe it's a person outcasted in society. However, a lot of it confuses me. This poem makes me want to know what it's about so bad! The figurative language and the adjectives used to describe the dog stand out to me and make me think about the person it's describing. It also leads me to believe the speaker is compassionate for him or her.

Dream Deferred

This poem is saturated with rhetorical questions. The questions are not asking for answers, but making the reader think. It also is trying to prove a point. The rhetorical questions are there to ask what happens to dreams that are not followed or are not reached. However, none of the questions are positive. Therefore, the point of the poem is to express that unfollowed dreams only disperse in a negative way. They hurt the person who's dream it was or have a dying fate. The questions are completely necessary in order for the speaker to get the point across.

February

This poem is full of metaphors and symbols, and I would like to reflect on a few. The cat is the central theme and metaphor in the poem. It symbolizes the dread and dreary party of winter, and how depression takes over us when it's cold. It even explains that February is "a month of despair." The cat metaphor extends through the whole poem. Another symbol is "a skewered heart in the centre." The skewered heart represents Valentine's Day. The adjective "skewered" leads us to believe the speaker is not too fond of Valentine's Day. Even though it's supposed to be a time of love and joy, it is the opposite for the speaker.

The Joy of Cooking

The tone of this poem helps to characterize the figurative language. Harsh language is used such as "scrubbed," "skinned," "carved," "firm and dry," and "sour". This bitter tones describes the speaker's true feelings of her brother and sister. The tongue of the sister represents how she constantly talks or tells secrets. The heart of the brother represents his cold, sour, and bitter heart. The speaker uses this tone throughout the poem to show her hostility towards her brother and sister. She wishes to get rid of her sister's tongue and her brother's heart, metaphorically. The figurative language is brought about due to the bitter tone.

I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain...again

This poem really irritated me and intruiged me all at once. What irritated me is that I could not figure out what it was about! While we should be focusing on imagery and literary skills (which I did, I promise), I couldn't help but wonder what this poem was about. At first, I thought it was about a headache. Now that I read it more thoughtfully, I wonder why I even thought that? Even though the imagery proves that it is happening inside the brain, I wasn't exactly right. The diction used leads me to believe the speaker is going insane. What I love about this poem is the metaphor that it's a funeral in his or her brain. The diction futher makes the metaphor more interesting and deep.

London

This poem by William Blake was one I really enjoyed interpreting and figuring out. What stood out to me was the repetition of "every cry" in the first two stanzas. It really had a tone of distress and mourning. The third and fourth stanzas were important in the fact it told you what the poem was about. The third stanza places blame on two parts of society: royalty and the Church. Both have pushed away the ordinary in society or the soldiers. The fourth paragraph has a tone of sympathy. Specifically, the speaker is sympathetic towards "harlots" and infants who tear apart marriages. What I love about this poem is that once you read the fourth stanza, you have to connect it back to the third in order to decipher what is really to blame in this society.

The Convergence of the Twain

What struck me the most from this poem is the rhythm and pattern. Rhythm is the fluctuation of voice using stressed and unstressed syllables. However, each word at the end of each line in a stanza rhymes. For example, in the first stanza, the words "sea," "vanity," and "she" all rhyme. This truly allows the reader to follow the poems rhythm because the rhyming words give it a flow and a voice that is easy to catch onto. The structure also includes stanzas of three lines. Without the use of the rhyming, the poem wouldn't flow as well due to the number of syllables in each line. The division of the stanzas also contribute to the easy flow of the poem.

Spring

In this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a specific alliteration jumped out at me. He  uses the letters "w" and "l" to do this. "When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush." This alliteration uses two consonants to really slow down the reader while reading this part of the poem. He does this particularly to emphasize the imagery he's using within the alliteration. "Long and lovely and lush," is strong imagery. It shows us the visual detail of the weeds during the spring. Without the alliteration, the reader could miss the importance of the imagery. It's significant because his poem about spring really connects to how we see, feel, and hear spring.

I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain

Although this whole chapter is about imagery, this poem has specific qualities. While reading through this poem by Emily Dickinson, you'd notice that there is no imagery that connects to sight. It uses strong hearing and feeling imagery. For example, drums beating and heaven's bells are used for sound. "My mind was going numb--" applies to imagery connected to feeling. There is importance that there is no imagery for sight. Because this is something happening inside the speaker's mind, there's no sight. Simply, the speaker is going crazy. In the midst of going crazy, the speaker hears and feels things, yet doesn't see anything. This is significant because it gives the reader a hint into what going crazy really feels like, and doesn't look like.

Laurence Perrine Article

To be honest, I disagreed with this essay up until the last paragraph. While I completely agree with Perrine's approach to determining "correct" interpretations of poetry, I don't really believe there is always a "correct" interpretation. While some poems might have a right answer to it, I believe there are some in which the author wants the reader to make their own interpretation. What specifically struck me was when Perrine said that an author should not explain their poem, or they have failed as a writer. If we don't get the right answer, how are we sure that anyone's interpretation is right? That concept confuses me. Even if someone tries to explain to me that there's always a right answer, I don't think I'll ever believe it. Humanity is so opinionated and words are so limited that there cannot always be one right answer. Even if some interpretations might be widely accepted or make sense, there could always possibly be another interpretation that makes sense.

One concept I do agree with, however, is that symbols are limited. His idea that dropping a rock in a pool will send out ripples in all directions, but with walls on the pool is spot on. With language, there are many words and phrases that mean the same thing. However, not all words mean the same thing. While there may be multiple interpretations of a symbol, it is limited in a way. Although I do not agree that there is a right interpretation, I assume my teacher thinks there is. Therefore, this artile will help me greatly. From this article I can see that I need to focus on little details such as singulars and plurals of words and sometimes not using context clues to help me decifer a poem.