Home Burial

Home Burial expresses a grieving couple’s inability to communicate. The pair are torn apart not only by the death of their son, but also, by their different coping mechanisms. In the first two stanzas and into the third, the man tries to open communication with his wife/girlfriend regarding what she sees from the “bottom of the stairs,” but she does not want to talk about the death of their son in that context. It seems that just talking about the grave and its location is too matter of fact; she either wants to grieve alone or talk about her feelings toward the death of her son. After her husband/boyfriend tries to talk about their child and his grave, she feels suffocated in her home and is incline to leave. He then asks her not to go, but to talk to him about how she is feeling, but she does not believe that he knows how to talk to her about the child’s death, and thus, she does not give him the chance to try and understand. There is a barrier of conversation because the couple is grieving separately and in different ways. The woman is closed off to communication, but the husband just doesn’t seem to know what the right thing to say is. He says, “I do think, though, you overdo it a little.” This seems to be the absolute worst thing that he could say; this leads the reader to believe that his attachment to the child must have been much different than that of his wife’s, or in the time of loss, his way of coping is to try and move on and not dwell in the loss. The man goes on to say, “G-d, what a woman!” This again, is not remotely close to what would be appropriate to say. Neither the man nor the woman can put themselves in the other person’s shoes to understand the appropriate words to say. The phrase, “leap and leap in the air,/Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly” aptly explains the couple’s differing interpretations regarding the loss of their child. The woman interprets her husbands digging as something that was almost light-hearted, when really, the “leaping” of the dirt is out of his control. The repetition in the above lines seems to almost add agony, as if the digging of the grave will never end and thus the “wound” will always be open and the couple’s despair will never be quelled. The lightness of those two stanzas is ironic and almost inappropriate given the seriousness of Home Burial. However, I do think that it helps the reader to see the difference of interpretation between the man and the woman; it seems that the man can still find lightheartedness in his dealings, whereas the woman is continually pushed down by the death of her son (and understandably so). And then, he uses the fence metaphor; it seems that the man does not mean to be insensitive but his way of expressing his feelings is much different than the woman’s, and she is not in the right state of mind to understand what he is trying to communicate. In the final stanzas, it is clear that the man cares about his wife and wants to help her, but he is unsure how and all she wants to do is escape the pain of her home and the reminder of her dead son.

such small hands

e.e. cummings, "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond"

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
 
 any experience,your eyes have their silence:
 
 in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
 
 or which i cannot touch because they are too near
 

 
your slightest look easily will unclose me
 
 though i have closed myself as fingers,
 
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens 
 
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose  
 

 
or if your wish be to close me, i and
 
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly, 
 
as when the heart of this flower imagines 
 
the snow carefully everywhere descending;  
 

 
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals 
 
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture 
 
compels me with the color of its countries, 
 
rendering death and forever with each breathing  
 

 
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
 
 and opens;only something in me understands 
 
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) 
 
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Such Small Hands

Mending Wall

Discussion today about Mending Wall had me thinking about a lot of possibilities and connections that the wall could mean. After reading "Metaphor and the Authenticating Act of Memory," I came across a line that said, "every metaphor is a riddle." In Frost's poem, it is the wall that is the riddle. We have already established that it is separating the neighbors, but it is doing this in a multiplicity of layers: literally, it separates them. Philosophically, it separates them. It is a segregation between two different intellectual capacities: one that can live with whatever comes his way, the other afraid to step outside the boundaries that "the way things OUGHT to be" have laid out for him. While the speaker is listening to his inherent and natural questioning of the wall's purpose, the neighbor is stubborn, ignorant, unwilling to undergo CHANGE.

While we were talking, I kept thinking of historical references: Why did people in the dark ages allow themselves to be ruled by a small group of elite people, fat with wealth and greed. How did they come out of the dark ages? By GRASPING change, not resisting it. By embracing a broken down wall and allowing the "gaps" to be explored as windows of opportunities to a new outlook on life. Positive events happened because of this change: the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, America's independence from England, and countless other things aside from European history. One can view the wall as the element of tradition, with it's firm foundation built "stone on a stone." But that "SOMETHING," whether it's a stream of unconsciousness, intuition, God's will, or an inexplainable force of nature, invites the speaker's curiosity to question....why?

"I could say "Elves" to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself." One interpretation of this could be that the speaker is suffering to see his neighbor not question the wall's existence, or (LACK of existence when it continues to fall.) He yearns for his neighbor to realize that "Elves" aren't "exactly" the explanation. It could be a martian or deranged gnome for that matter! The speaker is witnessing someone who is unable to think for himself and make his own decisions because he is haunted by "his father's saying." Even though the neighbor is not physically suffering, he may symbolically succumb to the oppression of the norm. And the norm may not always be the right path for everybody. People blindly follow the norms without realizing it, and won't realize they know something until somebody spoon-feeds it to them. The exciting part of a human's mental development is being able to engage in mystery of the unknown. How is it mystery if somebody tells you it's "elves?" There may not always be an answer for everything even though that is what we are constantly searching for.

Thoughts on Mending Wall

One of the first things I noticed when studying this poem was the fact that the things that break the wall down are all natural occurrences.

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun.

Nature is competing with the walls existence and essentially tearing it down. By repairing the wall year after year, the narrator is acknowledging that they are fighting with nature, which he clearly sees as fruitless. This fits into the viewpoint that the neighbor is existing in denial of nature - in denial of man’s innate desire for community, in denial of the temporary nature of life on earth, and consequently even in denial of death itself.

In a more concrete sense, even earthly happenings fight the existence of the wall - hunters who have no time to pass slowly through the barriers erected by the neighbors and who tear them apart without a thought, leaving them to be mended in the Spring.

Whatever the cause, the wall is constantly being broken down and repaired, although it is not necessary. Nothing is being walled in or walled out. There aren’t grazing animals or quickly expanding crops.

Another thing that I found interesting looking over the poem was that although the neighbors (or at least one of them) seem intent on living in segregation, they come together to build the wall. The wall is theirs; Neither is absolute owner. This is why the pronoun ‘we’ is constantly used in the poem. It seems as if this idea of the communal wall contradicts the entire context of the poem. It creates that tension that makes a work worth its while.

John Keats: Ode to Grecian Urn and Bright Star

John Keats: Ode to Grecian Urn and Bright Star

There is so much to say about John Keats and not near the time to say it. I actually had a lot of fun, YES fun, memorizing the section from Ode to the Grecian Urn. I wished I could have presented out loud, but I struggled to get the last 2 lines perfect. As we know, to mess up a word is messing up a whole lot more. If each word is chosen with care, to mess up a word is to be irresponsible with someone else’s hard work, effort, and care. I found the actual poem beautiful, and I don’t know the full details of why. I greatly appreciate the romanticism of it and the pace that the romanticism offers. The formalities Keats follows remind me of the formalities that one must follow to court a lady(especially from the time when Keats was alive). As we saw in Bright Star, John Keats was a hopeless romantic and fell for a romantic as well. The two together brought up great points for love and poetry in their conversations. So many quotes from this movie will forever stay with me. For example: when she looks completely disheveled and asks her mother, “Is this love?” I found this so striking, beautiful, and raw. I was jealous as a filmmaker how wonderfully they captured and conveyed the intensity of the love and loss so well. Every second in that scene was its own poem and its own photograph to me. Another amazing quote and metaphor from the film, was the amazing incite into poetry by viewing it as a swim in a lake. One does not just dive into the lake to immediately swim to the side and get out. One swims in the lake and “luxuriates” in the lake. This is something that I continually need to make myself aware of and practice at. I am so used to trying to plan my day out to the minute, and I never allow myself to luxuriate in much of anything, but when planning time for this class I definitely need to allow more time to indulge in the poems, perhaps their slow pace or their complexities that I do not immediately understand.

--Kelly J.

HTRAP: Ch. 2

Chapter 2: What is Poetry?

“A poem is a fictional, verbally inventive moral statement in which it is the author, rather than the printer or word processor, who decides where the lines should end.” Poetry is not defined by the use of rhyme or meter. I have previously been an ignorant reader of poetry and did not really understand what made it a poem if it did not rhyme. Now I am beginning to realize what makes a poem a poem, is the intension behind each piece of wording and form. Eagleton seems to break poetry into prose and poetry, as if to say that prose are not poetry, though he already said they were? This was confusing to me. For a long time I did not consider prose poetry. I would pretend they were and call them poetry, but I never really understood what made them poems. I am slowly beginning to shift my understanding and I recognize the intensions behind poetry better. Furthermore, I was both confused and intrigued by Eagleton’s comments on poetry’s unique stance on morality through a fictional sense.

--Kelly J.

The quiz on this chapter was interesting. I admit I didn’t feel like I answered confidently to the questions, which was good because it encouraged me to reread the chapter.

Though even after I read it, I still got hung up on the poem, “This is Just to Say,” by William Carlos Williams. I have trouble understanding why he wrote it. What it means? Why he would put such care into words choice only to say nothing important.

HTRAP: CH 5

This chapter addressed the concern that criticism is merely subjective. I found this particularly helpful, because I have a tendency to think of criticism in this light. When looking into the tone or mood of a poem, there are so many different interpretations with one could walk away. It is interesting how only a few ways to look into a poem can be formalized. Though this chapter came down to one sentence in the mark that it left on me. “we may note to begin with that being able to disagree over an issue does not necessarily imply pure subjectivism.” People can dispute over whether someone is ‘waving or drowning,’ this is not subjective though just because there is not a single universal call for the person that is drowning to follow. That is the analogy that Eagleton used and it really helped put things into perspective. Another point, I have not given much though until not, is that the title is part of the poem!! Also, it was helpful how Eagleton went through how and why different people perceive different tones or moods within the same poem. Even after reading this chapter I still think it is a challenge to understand the intensity and pace except through punctuation. I guess after reading this chapter, I really would try to look closer at the line breaks in addition to punctuation Furthermore it is helpful to consider such use of literary techniques like enjambment for pace. Though my favorite part of this book so far was reading e. e. cummings’s poem and discussing Punctuation! I love how much punctuation can do for a poem, or how much the lack of punctuation can offer to a poem! Sometimes punctuation can clarify pace, emotion, etc. Also the lack of punctuation could add a sense of delicateness and gentleness to the tone, such as in e.e. cummings’s piece. Overall Chapter 5, has been my favorite chapter in HTRAP, and one that I plan to reference throughout the rest of the semester and…perhaps life.

Thoughts on One Art

I was particularly interested when Kris mentioned the idea of Christian heavenly bodies, and more importantly, how we are not a heavenly body. When I read this poem in relation to this, I can not help but think of how this could be related to the idea of Buddhism. I read about Siddhartha Gautama, who people refer to as the father of Buddhism, and the way this poem is portrayed, I feel it could be a reflection to the trails and tribulations of one trying to reach enlightenment. The idea behind enlightenment is to cut off all wordly ties, and in the poem, this could be the art of forgetting. To go on this, a person would be able to forget or cut ties with trivial material goods easily, such as the lost keys. But as the things get more serious and more personal, then to cut the ties would become increasingly harder. The natural progression of the severity is how I would imagine someone going through the process would actually take. For example, I would think the process starts with losing physical worldly goods that one has acquired, then losing the sense of attachment to hometowns/country pride, and finally with the  detachment of the self. Even the Four Noble Truths give me some kind of insight to this poem: (here's a wikipedia rendition of them)

  - Suffering exists

- Suffering arises from attachment to desires

- Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases

- Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the Eightfold Path

We talked about how because she has this deep attachment, she suffers when it is forgotten. I just thought it would be interesting to read it in such a tone, and share actually how successful I felt the reading was. Although,... there were a couple stumbling blocks where the poem did not relate in this way, such as when she says she was looking for her keys for an hour, I don't think if one was trying to lose things intentionally this would of happened.

One Art Response

After reading One Art by Elizabeth Bishop, I had the sensation that I was losing everything in my life without realizing it. The poem indicates that losing is a slippery slope. It may start with the things that are easy to lose, such as your keys or an hour of time, but eventually it progresses to losing things of importance, such as cities and continents. These early losses rarely result in disaster, as Bishop notes, but as the poem progresses, the stakes get higher. I have always been a "spacey" or forgetful person, and the idea of losing the most important things to me without realizing it is very scary.

When I first read the first line, I thought that Bishop was talking about losing in a sports match or video game. I anticipated that the poem would be about sportsmanship and growing from adversity. However, Bishop uses the word "losing" vaguely. She uses it to mean several things ranging from physically misplacing something to wasting time to experiencing a disconnection from ones home. It appears the art of losing is all to easy to master for the poet, and has lead to her losing everything in her life.

As far as form is concerned, the poem features enjambment throughout, which lead me to feel as though I was stumbling through the poem awkwardly. When considering form, the last stanza stands out because it is four lines while the rest are three. This makes the last stanza stand out and draws attention to it, forcing the reader to consider it more closely. The content of the final stanza is also seemingly more significant than the rest of the story. It is clear that all the author's losses became progressively more serious building up to the last stanza, and in the final stanza she addresses the person for whom the poem is intended, the person whom she lost. But she goes on to say even losing "you" was ultimately easy, which can be interpreted as the authors final admission that she has lost so much that she can lose anything easily.

Ch 5 Part II HTRAP in connection with todays class

I just finished reading the second part of ch.5 of HTRAP. There were so many observations and connections with the poems we read today, that I decided to share them. Plus, it was pointed out that making connections to other literature or even our observations to other literature helps us develop a clearer understanding:

"Syntax is pressed into the service of a tenacious commitment to truth, as each proposition threatens to cancel out the previous claim in a dogged struggle to pin down just what the speaker feels." This reminded me a lot of Dream Song 29. We discussed how Berryman began sentences with prepositions and ordered the words of this poem in a strange, and unusual way. Not the same kind of way that we would read a poem by Keats. Authors all have their own way of formulating a thought similar to the way we formulate our word choice in conversations. It's important to understand syntactical differences to develop a flexibility in conversations as well as reading literature. Where some authors are fluid and rich in language others "left the untidy stitches on his tapestry visible."

This portion of the chapter also discussed the "doubts, shifts of viewpoint" that occur in a poem. One Art was a clear example of this because the casual tone at the beginning changed to a scattered and almost defeated one at the end when the speaker had to force herself to "(write it!)." When I read this I couldn't help but think about the "full circle" endings we so often witness in literature. Maybe the poem starts off in one way, but goes through a transformation rapidly and builds toward the end. This isn't to say that ALL poems do this, but it is another way which sets poetry aside from the prose of a novel. The shifts in viewpoint take a faster risk in poetry.

The shifts in viewpoint correspond to the paradoxes and ambiguity that is often present in poetry. Since poems "do not come readily equipped with material contexts" to define a certain "meaning," we have to be open observers of irony and tonal changes within the language. "The split between how you are and how you appear" also reminded me of One Art. The speaker attempts to appear to be fine and dandy, but what she is...is not.

Another interesting element of this chapter was about rhyme. Too often I end up writing poems that rhyme because of that "sense of security." Not that anything is wrong with rhyme, but it is important to know when to use it. For instance, if one was going to write of feelings about disassociation, alienation, disconnection, failure, the feeling that everything is falling apart....one might want to write with that style. Perfect rhyme endings can give that aura of truth and perfection, but "para-rhymes" can also change the atmosphere of a poem as demonstrated by the "eerie quality" of Wilfred Owen's poem.

Thoughts on One Art

Walking back from class today, I kept thinking about the poem One Art, which we discussed at the beginning of class. Outside of the classroom, I was able to take a step back and consider the poem from a new perspective. When I reread it, I started to wonder if perhaps whoever is writing the poem has been choosing to lose the items mentioned in the poem (this would require in some instances the idea of the items as symbolic). I started to think of some one who perhaps gave up all of the comforts of life for her art or her goals. I think that the tone could coincide with this idea - the sort of forced, carefree nature. I was looking at it as of the speaker was an artist. It is supported by the mentions of isolation, which could be considered to be self imposed isolation rather than a literal loss of community. It also is supported by the mentions of financial loss and loss of comfort.

Then, at the end it could be argued that whoever the person who was ‘lost’ is someone who fell by the wayside in the speakers search for success or vision, or whatever the unmentioned goal may be.

It’s out there, but I do think the support is present in the poem to make this a viable interpretation.