#11 (poem #8) When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

 

 

   This poem basically symbolizes every student ever, and what I mean by that is that when we hear about something epic and amazing, we have our expectations set out for us. Like when we sign up for a certain class, we think that it’s going to be all fun, but in reality, it’s kind of suckish. For example, when I signed up for filmmaking, I thought that it was going to be this super cool artsy class, but in reality, since my class didn’t want to put any effort into anything, we just watched movies and wrote reviews the whole time. (not that it was Mazza’s fault that the students didn’t care), but either way, I was highly disappointed. So this was exactly what happened with the speaker, he was stoked to be learning about space and astronomy and how the stars looked like, but to his disappointment, the astronomer discussed the mathematics behind it. And he excuses himself from the class (due to nausea, or wanting to puke from boredom), and looks out into the sky to see the stars. I feel like this moment was some sort of revelation about how life actually is like. What I mean by that, is that when we are younger, we think that we could accomplish anything and that the world is limitless and effort isn’t needed, (so unlimited that we could go to space) and when we realize that life is what you make of it, with hard work and determination, we sort of get lazy and just want to skip to the fun stuff. To succeed in life, you sometimes have to do something we dread, which brings up the point of Expectations vs Reality. Sometimes, what we expect doesn’t match the reality and you just have to deal with it.

 

 

My Papa's Waltz #10 (poem #7)

The whiskey on your breath   

Could make a small boy dizzy;   

But I hung on like death:   

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans   

Slid from the kitchen shelf;   

My mother’s countenance   

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist   

Was battered on one knuckle;   

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head   

With a palm caked hard by dirt,   

Then waltzed me off to bed   

Still clinging to your shirt.

So this poem is kind of strange, but it’s easy to analyze and follow because it’s actually a little more literal. So basically there’s this father, he seems to have had a lot of drinks down his system and he starts awkwardly drunk dancing with his son. And the thing that I love about this is that this is totally my grandpa, my grandfather is the father in this poem when he’s drunk. And the son who is also the one telling us the poem, he goes into depth about what his father is doing. He’s drunkenly dancing the night away with his son as he accidentally pushes pots and pans off the shelf to whom his wife is not too happy about that. But he goes further when he talks about how his father is a hard working man and has a couple of drinks just to relax. “ The hand that held my wrist   

Was battered on one knuckle”, this already gives us a clue that his father is a handy man (not a tool guy to be exact, but someone who does a lot of labor) so this guy doesn’t really have the right tools to commence the “chill out”, but he’s doing something. When he dances with his son, he’s so clumsy to the point that during the dance, his kid accidently scrapes his ear with his dad’s belt buckle. And that concludes the night. I feel like this  poem is important because it addresses a father/son relationship. Sort of how the dad is trying to reach out to his boy, but doesn’t really know how to, so the father aggressively prys into the son’s life. The boy sees that and has an appreciation for his father’s attempt on trying to relate to him, kind of letting his father know that his actions are not in vain and that he’s grateful for him as a dad.

Death be not Proud #9

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Well that totally wasn't morbid at all, I really like this, I kind of turned it into this rap thingy because the flow in the poem was really nicely done. I like the beat and the pace that this poem was in because it kept me focused. I find this text really ironic in a sense because the author is giving Death, "life", doing that by using personification and sort of telling Death that he/she is nothing. Death, you're nothing you're just in the same level as sleeping and resting, which are obviously both very harmless things that people do on a daily basis. Death goes around living by killing people and the author challenges Death by saying that he’s never going to die, he will physically die, but he will continue to live on. The only that’s going to die, is Death itself. But it doesn’t just stop there, the speaker is so fired up about owning Death in a rap battle (at least I’d like to think so), that he calls Death a slave. Saying that all he does is hang out with terrible things such a sickness and war. Basically saying, “Death, you are so lame to the point where you hang out with the bad crowd to try to look scary. Wanna know the sad part? I can take drugs and they will have the same effects as you.”

“Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well”

I feel like this author probably experienced some loss of a loved one which is why he’s so fired up. I mean, I understand, this is a vent, a nicely written vent.

Pass/Fail #8

You will never graduate

from this dream

of blue books.

No matter how

you succeed awake,

asleep there is a test

waiting to be failed.

The dream beckons

with two dull pencils,

but you haven't even

taken the course;

when you reach for a book - 

it closes its door 

in your face; when

you conjugate a verb - 

it is in the wrong 

language.

Now the pillow becomes

a blank page. Turn it 

to the cool side;

you will still smother

in all of the feathers

that have to be learned

by heart.

 

This poem gave me anxiety when I was reading this, talking about testing when the AP test is less than a month away, NO THANK YOU. That’s adding on to the extra pressure that I don’t need in my life right now. Speaking of life, although the structure and symbolism behind the poem is about taking a test, it’s about life. In life, we have choices that can change everything, whether it be which college you want to go to (help), if you want to get married, and what your career should be. Life is a test full of multiple choices and open ended questions, only thing is, you can’t really study for it, you either pass or fail. The blue books nightmare could express the discomfort that the person is going through in their existential crisis. It shows that they are not happy at the moment because they unsure about their future. Kind of show that they are depressed or scared of taking any risks in their life. The pencils could symbolize what path you’re taking and how sometimes you’re not sure whether the each path could lead you to a path of success or a path of self destruction. And the pillow to me symbolizes that it’s totally okay in not knowing what you’re going to do in the future, which is basically the story of my life at this point, maybe we all could use a pillow, I enjoy naps…. But there’s the beauty of the unknown, I might not know what I’m going to do in the next year, but I don’t need to worry about that, I need to worry about now.

This is Just to Say #6

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

This is Just to Say, to me personally, seems like a really pointless poem because of the fact that it's solely about a guy's regret towards eating a plumb that didn't belong to him. And I use the word regret loosely. To me this guy only seems to be apologetic because he knew that his friend wanted it, he doesn't seem really guilt ridden because of the last lines that go "Forgive me, they were delicious, so sweet and so cold." that translated sounds more like "I'm only saying sorry because you're my bro, but that plumb was so good and I regret nothing." At least that’s what I got from it. But when the author was going to into depth about how nice the plumb tasted, you can tell in the words that he used that this plumb was some sort of temptation. He wanted to eat it this whole time but he didn’t want to go for it because of his friend, but if that obstacle was taken away, he would have eaten that plumb a long time ago. The mere fact that this is also a fruit kind of alludes to the bible story of Adam and Eve, how these two were not supposed to eat a fruit from a certain tree (they never said it was an apple), and how they were tempted and overall convinced to eat the fruit. Of course they felt remorse, but the remorse came right after the fact that God told them they were separated from him. So, does this poem just allude to a bible story, or just a guy eating raiding his buddy’s fridge? 

The Forge (An Ode to Blacksmiths) #5

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows

This poem frustrated me so much. I had such a hard time trying to find deeper meaning in this poem and I was so close to losing my mind. During the beginning, I was just thinking that the author was just going down this wrong path or something when in reality, this was about a blacksmith. Okay, I had to look this up, but I had no idea that a Forge was another word for blacksmith, so that was really dumb on my part. (I had to look that up) After that clarification (thanks to the interwebs again), the poem made more sense to me when I read it for the second time. The vibe I got from this poem is that the author is in a state of admiration towards this blacksmith and is going into great lengths of detail to talk about his work and craftsmanship. Basically this is an ode to blacksmiths, the overlooked job that no one really stops to think about in the grand scheme of things. So this poem wouldn't be consider on my list of good poems I've read, but it's interesting to see something write something pretty sweet for people in this profession. The thing that worked well in this poem was the imagery, when the author talks about rusting iron, his apron, and his nose hairs for some creepy/odd reason. But I was able to see how this blacksmith looked like in my head, and him working, and that's what the author wanted.

 

The World Is Too Much With Us #4

This poem wasn't really my favorite, but I really liked the message that the author was putting out there. At first, when I read the poem, I was really confused due to the fact that I thought the author was discussing a relationship he has with someone and how it's them against the world. But that didn't really make any sense when I continued to read on because it goes to describe the earth and the atmosphere. So, with the help of google and rereading the poem, I found out that this poem isn't about a person at all, it's about the earth. "The world is too much with us", meaning that the world is fed up with us! The world is getting sick and tired of being abused and trashed, it's tired of humanity being so wrapped up in materialistic things and never really taking the time to stop and admire the beautiful sights to sniff the flowers. The tone of this poem is angry, complainy, and sad at times, this author really wants humanity to stop taking nature for granted. The themes behind this poem would have to be materialism because it mentions how everyone is wrapped up in themselves and their things. Another would have to be finding beauty because beauty is everywhere (super cliche) “This sea that bares her boosom to the moon; the wind howling at all hours.” it’s using personification to describe the sea and how it reflects the moon and the wind blowing around. It’s pretty and I think that’s why I got confused a bit when I thought they were describing a person. Yeah, I’m still a rookie when it comes to poems. But I loved the use of personification in this poem to convey a message of just taking a second to admire the beauty of earth.

 

"We real cool/Mending Wall" #2&3

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.  The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side.  It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn’t it
Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.'  I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself.  I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

Okay, so the poems I read were "We real cool" and "Mending Wall" The thing that I liked about these two poems is that there was a big difference between the two. Not only in length but also in language and tone.
    For Mending Wall, there was a lot of flowery language that describes this scenario where these two people seem to have had a falling out and are trying to mend this friendship they both shared. But the one neighbor seems a little to stuck in his ways for the author and him to restore their friendship.

"He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."

He's basically telling the author to stay in his own lane and leave him alone. The author is torn because he wants to build this wall between the two but he doesn't know whether that will restore or end their friendship. In the end, the "friend" builds the wall and ends with the same quote  "Good fences make good neighbors." My difficulty with this is  that at first, since the language was more focused on imagery, I took it more in a literal sense. And I actually thought that there was a wall being built throughout this poem, but nope, the wall is supposed to mean friendship and whether it's worth to save it or let it die.

"We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon."

I laughed at this poem because for some weird reason, I thought about the song "Fancy" (even though Iggy isn't my cup of tea), anywho, I had no problem trying to figure out the meaning behind this because this poem just seems to sound like a bunch of rebellious kids trying to be tough to impress people. The author in my opinion seems to sound super sarcastic and point out that these kids are all talk and don't really know how to mature or grow. It was just interesting to see how these two are different yet can convey meaning and display an image in your head as you read.

"Since there's no help" |Poem Reflection| #1

Overall, I really liked the poem, I thought that there was a lot going on in such a short amount of words. Basically, the poet is in love with his partner (doesn't say whether it's a boy or a girl, but considering the time of the text, it's probably a girl, but that's not the point), he love her but their love is dying. There's no more passion, there's not more lust it's just love withering away. As I continued to read on, he mentions something about canceling his vows, and when they ever cross paths again, that neither of them should be scorned about the crossfire that happened between the two. "Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, and when we meet again, be it not seen in either of our brows." Ouch. He wants them to go their separate ways, but the thing is, that in the end he tells his lady friend or whatever that if there was any way to rekindle this romance they once had, than they should at least attempt to try again. So, I feel like this guy isn't just ready yet to let go of her.
                     The difficulty of this poem is that I hard a little bit of a hard time detecting what his tone was? Was he upset? Or was he more ready to leave? But as I reread this a second time, I realized that he was more on a helpless state of mind because throughout the poem, he's just basically giving up on this girl. So, I mean I think it's something that I have to work on personally because this poem is beautifully written (like I said, I wish I could write like that), and this text uses a lot of imagery and gives personification to the emotions of love, death and faith. Overall it was a good read.