Batter My Heart Three-personed God

This is a poem taht any religious person can relate to. All humans are sinners. We are constantly confronted with temptation. However, the author or speaker of this poem seem to have hit rock bottom. He claims to be married to the devil and wants God to save him. He says," Divorce me, unite or break that knot agian" The speaker obviouse feels that he must be punished inorder for him to repent. He uses paradox to describe his need for God. For example, he says he can not be free unless God imprisions him. This poem/prayer seems very desperate to me and heart-felt. The Speaker prays for God to save him and bring him closer to him.

Next to of course God America I

The format, or syntax, of the poem is especially important to the meaning. This poem has very little to no punctuation. This leads to the belief that this is being sad very quickly with no concern toward the reader's comprehension. The man being quoted begins his speech with phrases from patriotic songs followed my paradoxical word that point out how Americans should not really be so patriotic. For example he says, "why talk of beauty what could be more beautiful than these heroic dead" This line points out that we are at home talking about the war and being patriotic there are men who are dead because of it and there is no beauty in that.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

This poem, Like Barbie Doll, also is critisizing society's view on uniquness. Society is the opinion of the majority of people. The poem claims that if you agree with society's beliefs then society will say you are sane. However, the author says that in reality, the person who forms their own opinion is actually the sane one who thinks on their own. This poem uses the paradox, madness equals sense while sense equals madness, to prove a point. IF people always alow others to make decisions for them then they have given up their own thinking process and are there for mad. This was an interesting idea that can easily be realated back to The Barbie Doll peom. If the girl were never told by society athat she was ugly she may have been able to make the decision to be happy with herself and would not have given up her uniqueness.

Barbie Doll

This poem uses irony to satiracly express society's veiw on beauty. Young girls are often given dolls and toys that sterotype women. These dolls will be perfectlly thin and have a voulumtuouse figure; yet, these dolls are not real people they do not have thoughts and emotions like a real person. Young girls often feel as if they must look like these dolls in order to be beautiful. The girl in this poem is lead to believe that she is not good enough because she has thick legs and a large nose. The only time this girl is recognized as beautiful is when she has changed her appearances. The poem says she cuts off her thick legs and large nose and offers them up in a coffin. The coffin analogy gives the feeling that she has removed some part of herself that makes her unique. She replaced her own beauty with what society told her was beautiful and now her beauty is dead.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by: John Donne

This poem was one of the more confusing ones for me. When I break it down it seems to be talking about a lover and announcing their love to others. At the beginning of the poem however, it seems like a man is about to die and they are saying good bye. This is more fitting for the title because a valediction is a farewell. Perhaps the man who is dying is saying good bye to his love. The man may not literally be dying, his death is simply a symbol for his emotion. Unfortunately This symbolic meaning is one I can not make sense of. This poem along with a few of the others seems like a puzzle and it is hard to put all the pieces together so that they fit. In the article we read about the correct way to interpret a poem, it said all details must fit the interpretation. I find this to be the greatest challenge because often ideas of what the author is speaking of pop into my mind and then a new fact is revealed that ruins the original thought. I think this is a poem we should discuss in class because it is hard to make sense of.

I taste a liquor never brewed by: Emily Dickinson

I feel like Emily Dickinson wrote her poems like there were meant to be a puzzle or a riddle to be figured out. First of all, a liquor that was never brewed would not contain alcohol. So if whatever Emily is getting drunk off of it is not alcohol. The author describes nature and its beauty. However she does this using words related to drinking and being drunk. She says the drunken bee, the butterflies renounce their drams, and inebriate of air. These descriptions all are related to drinking yet they are describing things in nature that can not be drunk. I think she is trying to make the point that nature and beauty make her feel as happy as if she were drunk how ever she does this in a very artistic and creative way.

Febuary by: Margaret Atwood

The diction used in this poem sets a very distinct tone. The author is not happy. It is February, the month of despair, as well as the month in which Valentines day takes place. The author makes a few references to how Valentines day and the male gender are a waste of time. They are as shallow as cats (specifically her cat). February is cold and dreary and she wants to stay in her warm bed and avoid the world. The diction she uses such as; "Winter. Time to eat fat." "It's all about sex and territory" and "love has done us in", allow the reader to get a sense of the author's feelings and sympathize with her. Such graphic word choice such as your small pink bumhole, snip a few testicles, and we should eat our young like sharks; shocks the reader and grabs their attention. The diction really makes this poem memorable.

Dream Deferred by: Langston Hughes

This poem can be applied to any person's life. Everyone has dreams and hopes for the future that do not actually happen. The author uses descriptive imagery to compare these deferred dreams to unpleasant things. He compares the dream first to a dried up raison, meaning it has lost its appeal and is worthless. Then he says it could fester like a sore, meaning it will always bother the dreamer that they never completed this dream/goal. Finally he compares the dream to something that is crusted over with sugar as in it has been sugar coated so much that it now sounds better than it actually is. He makes these comparisons with similies yet his last line; "Or does it explode?" is a metaphor as well as a retorical question. Making this line a metaphor seemed to poss the other comparisions as possibilites but this last one as the one the author thinks is most likely to happen. The retorical question allows the reader to ponder what the author could mean by this and formulate their own opinion.

Bright Star by: John Keats

I found this poem to be mediocar. I'll begin with the positive. I found this poem easy to relate to. If you have ever been in love it is easy to get carried away in the happiness of it all. You want it to be steadfast and to never end. This is the qualities the author wants to have in his love. However, the heartbreak is almost unbearable. If it were possible to just disapear at the moment love is the very best and never have to deal with the falling out, love would be perfect. I have never thought of this idea before but it really sounds appealing. On a more negative note, I was not really relating to the star comparison. The author begins saying how he wants to be like the star because it is steadfast and patient but he doesn't want to be like it because the star is always alone. I can see how this works but there are so many better comparisions that could have been used to symbolize the love this author has and the anxiety that goes along with it.

The convergence of the Twain by: Thomas Hardy

This poem was discussing the sinking of the Titanic and description of it at the bottom of the ocean. The organization of this poem was very interesting. each stanza consists of two short line followed by a long like. The two short lines are description of the boat while the long line is description of the ocean. Although this may be a bit of a stretch the lines also seem to look like a boat floating on water. Poetry is different than other forms of writing because the poet can be creative with the format of the writing, the capitalization,dashes, and other ways grammar can be used in artistic forms. This poem was very descriptive but it really caught my attention because of the format.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by: Emily Dickinson

This was by far my most favorite poem to read. First of all this poem told a story from an interesting point of view; inside a cofin at a funeral. But what makes this poem the most interesting is that while is does literally discuss the events of a funeral, it also has a symbolic or allegory type meaning. In class we discussed a few theories on what this poem could truely be describing. some of these included the idea that she was describing going mentally insane while others spoke of drug addiction, loss of faith, and a mental break down. I found reason to support all of these ideas but i personally thought the mentally insane and loss of faith we the best suggestions. In the poem she says "the plank of reason broke" suggesting that her sense of reason or mental state has been lost. Also, this may imply that she has lost the reasoning she once had in her faith, or the explanation of religion has lost its meaning. This was a very ambiguouse poem and i found it to be the most creative.

London by: Willian Blake

This poem reminded me of the movie/musical Sweeny Todd. Both poem and movie took place in London and the setting is dreary and sad. London and england in general, was one of the first locations of modernized government. However, the government was much harsher and unfair during the time period of this poem (1757-1827). Through out the poem the word chartered is repeated, meaning law, and is used in a negative connotation. The poem also points out how the working class is not satisfied. "how the chimney sweepers cry....the hapless soldier's sigh." Such imagery creates a feeling of poverty and unhapiness with the society these people live in. A poets imagery can invoke a setting and feeling along with it if used properly.

Those Winter Sundays by:Robert Hayden

The tone of this poem was a central to the feeling it is meant to imply. The storyline seemed simple enough; a man looks back on memories of his father and regrets not realizing how much his father loved him. The author uses details in his diction to describe the father's hard work. Some of this diction includes; he got up early, cracked hands, labor, and ache. Other diction states that the boy was scared of the anger in the house, suggesting that his father may have been the source of this anger. In the end the author seems to realize how much his father must of loved him and how ungrateful he had been as a child. The diction in this poem and the tone it creates allows the reader to understand the way the man felt both as a child and looking back. The reader can also see the strain and hard work this father put forth for his family.

Spring by: Bernard Manley Hopkins

This was the first poem I read and there were a few things I noticed right of the bat. First of all, this poem is describing spring and the new life that goes along with it. However, with the second reading I found that this poem had some sort of religious aspect. This is apparent through the reference to the garden of Eden, Christ, and lambs. This may be a reference of how all humans started out as innocent but were corrupted by sin. yet, I don't think this poem was in fact very religious. I believe the point of this poem is to explain how as children we are innocent and pure as it was in the garden of Eden and we must appreciate it before it is over run with sin and impurity. This poem appears to be mostly symbolic and meant to point out the importance of remaining innocent.

"The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry"

Poetry has always been a frustrating subject for me. A large part of this is due to the ambiguity poetry leaves for the reader. However, with Perrine's guidelines it appears there a very few ways one poem can be interpreted. According to Perrine, the criteria for interpretation of a poem is this; (1) the interpretation must account for every detail of the poem and (2) if there is still more then one interpretation then the one that has the fewest assumptions is correct. I can see good points and bad points to this theory. Later in the article, Perrine demonstrates his theory by interpreting a poem by Emily Dickinson. When I first read the poem I interpreted it in the way Perrine said most of his students had; however, he goes on to use his theory to show how this interpretation is in fact false. Using his method did work out in this case and his interpretation was much more interesting and possibly more accurate.
While Perrine's method did work fairly well, I still found a few debatable flaws. I've always felt that English teachers and readers in general often over analyze a reading. Yes, there are some very symbolic and deep works of literature but maybe the author was just trying to say something simple. Maybe Emily Dickinson wanted her poems to be ambiguous so that everyone would have a different interpretation or maybe she was describing flowers, or maybe Perrine is right and she was describing a sunset. this is where poetry becomes confusing for me. In my opinion, poetry is meant to be left to interpretation. The author wants you to imagine your own interpretation and feel your own feelings.