Blog Entry 13 - Quote-Response

I have found that when I really like a poem, I love figuring out the meaning of it or how I can relate it to myself.

Neutral Tones by Thomas Hardy

A symbol is a visible object that is suggestive of more meaning.  With that said, when I read Neutral Tones I think of the pond and the leaves being compared to life, "And a pond with grayish leaves" (16).  Really this lines doesn't have any meaning just standing on it's own.  You have to find the hidden meaning.

This poem begins by remembering a specific time that a love ended.  They meet again and are reminded of that day.  You can feel a tension between them where words are hard to find.  The pond to me, meant their circle of a life they once shared.  The grayish leaves refer to the memories the two shared.  Their circle is scattered all around by these memories and over time have turned gray.  They are not as colorful and vivid or hurt by them anymore because of the time that has lapsed.

Blog Entry 12 - Poem Paraphrase

Michael Drayton's
Since there's no help,
Come let us kiss and part

This poem is an example of an Italian sonnet.  The first eight lines state that a love has ended.  The last six lines, he is dying; which will finally end his suffering from the affects of the love which he lost.

            Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part;
            Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
            And I am glad, yea, glad, with all my heart
            That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

            Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
            When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
            When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
            And Innocence is closing up his eyes,

As I first began to read this poem, it was my understanding that they ended on mutual terms.  Later, I find myself wondering if it truly was mutual.  Perhaps, he has regretted the decision he made to free himself from this love.

Blog Entry 11 - Quote-Response

I chose the poem, All Day I Hear by James Joyce for its appealing sounds.  This first sound, "The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing" (7), shows a good example of alliteration with the whoosh sound in the w's.  The whooshing sound makes me feel and hear like a cold wind is whirling around me.  The second reason I chose this poem, was for its use with assonance in the long vowel sound in the o's.  Joyce uses 12 long o sounds in the following words, moan, going, forth, alone, monotone, cold, blowing, go, below, flowing, to and fro.   Using the assonance seems to tie this poem together making it flow seamlessly.          

Blog Entry 10 - Song Quote-Response

Ballad of Birmingham
Dudley Randall

The poem is about a child who pleaded with his mother to allow him to go into town and join the others in a a political rally.  Knowing that this could come out disastrous, the mother, employed with her child not to go.  Instead she allowed him to go to church.  The child did not listen.  When the mother smiled for the last time, it was at that moment, the explosion occured and her child was dead.  I think that "the sacred place" was not referring to the actual church, but to heaven. 

                                           The mother smiled to know her child
                                           Was in the sacred place,
                                           But that smile was the last smile
                                           To come upon her face. (Randall 549)


People use the word sacred to mean; holy and blessed.  Not only was this poem referring to a place for religion to be practiced but also for a higher place; heaven.  If you stress the word "the", it provides much more emphasis on the place.
                     

Blog Entry 9 - Haiku

This is my attempt at a Haiku!

Longing Love

Wanting, waiting, yerning for.

That time has past,

Come once more.

Blog Entry 8 - Poem Paraphrase

Anne Stevenson
The Victory

Anne Stevenson's poem, The Victory, is of an unwanted child being brought into life.  The means in which this child was conceived, may have been through sexual abuse. Stevenson is using the description of the child's conception, as a "Scary knot of desire" (14).  To me, this scary knot is describing the unconsenting sexual encounter that conceived this child.  The poet uses the phrase, "Tiny antagonist, gory, blue as a bruise" (5) in order to illustrate the brutal attack.  Choosing the word antagonist ensures that the hated enemy is within the child.  Describing the bruise and the newborn, at the same time, as blue and gory; further explains this monstrous act.  The persona thought, that when she gave birth to her son, she would have won against her attacker.  Instead, the attacker, yet again won.  Perhaps, she was seeing the child as a reminder of her attack and now resents her son for being an actual physical-being of her assailant.    

Blog Entry 7 - Freestyle

I read Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" from our textbook; oh what a journey I took in this short story!  First you are getting the impression that a young woman had just lost her husband and the pain staking effort that it took her sister and her husband's friend to break the news to her.  I related to this story because when I was 16 I was with my mom when we found out that my dad had suffered a fatal heart attack.

                     "She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment,
                     in her sister's arms.  When the storm of grief had spent
                     itself she went away to her room alone."  (Chopin 326).

I remember the sensations and emotions of my father's death so vividly but was never able to convey in words.  This story has put them into words.


While Mrs. Mallard was alone in her bedroom and coming to terms by finally realizing what she had just been told, the story immediately takes a turn.  Chopin's story changed from a deep sadness to a freedom. Then, almost immediately again, that freedom is taken away.  I imagined that her sense of freedom was stemming from an abusive relationship. 

Blog Entry 6 - Quote-Response

After reading Kennedy Chapter 5 on tone and style; I knew right away that in O.Henry's story, "The Gift of the Magi" they were going to give away their most valued items in order to give each other a gift.  (They must have been newlyweds).  "Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride" (O. Henry 166). Della's hair being one and Jim's watch being the other.  True, Della's hair will eventually grow back, even though it will take many, many years.  Jim's watch on the other hand, can never be replaced. 

Blog Entry 5 - Freestyle

Today I cam across a book that I had started reading awhile back.  When I say awhile back, it was a long while back.  Is a year ago a long time?  It is Jane Austen's Emma.  I'm going to have to skim through the first thirteen chapters that I have already read just to dust off the cobwebs in my mind and off the book itself.  I remember more about the trip to the bookstore when I bought it then I do the story.  Not a good thing.

Blog Entry 4 - Quote-Response

"Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; ..." (Jackson 217).  When I first began reading this short story I had no idea what the lottery was truly about.  My first thought was that the village people gathered to dole out their monthly pensions.  I was shocked when the reality of the story was an actual stoning.  In reviewing The Lottery this line seemed important to me because no one knew who would be the person to get stoned.  It could have been anyone of the boys, their mother, anyone in their immediate family; it would have at least been someone they knew.  If I was living in the village, I think I would have taken the first chance to get out of there and head to the village that no longer participated in such a barbaric ritual.

Entry 3: Freestyle

I have always wondered why some people think that romance novels are "just trash" and not worth reading.  I find them quite enjoyable.  Perhaps, I am a true romantic at heart.  I know, I know, the plots are basically the same; boy meets girl, they fall in love, a tragedy tears them apart, but in the end they always find their way back into each others arms.  No surprises, no murders, just romance!  Give me a good romance novel, a cup of hot cocoa, and a warm blanket while it's snowing outside and I am in heaven.

Entry 2: Quote-Response

"When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people were glad.  At last they could pity Miss Emily.  Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become humanized.  Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less."  Faulkner (31)  It struck me that in this story the townspeople did not know what to think of Miss Emily.  She was an icon of sorts; everyone knew of her, though they did not know who she really was, except a topic for the local gossip.  Growing up in a small town in Oregon, I saw this daily while growing up and still see and hear it to this day.  I don't think that it is necessarily a bad thing nor a good thing.  Gossip is just something that happens in our culture and in other cultures as well.