Thursday, February 27, 2014

Marilyn Hacker:Villanelle


"Every day our bodies separate,

exploded torn and dazed.

Not understanding what we celebrate


we grope through languages and hesitate

and touch each other, speechless and amazed;

and every day our bodies separate


us farther from our planned, deliberate

ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,

not understanding what we celebrate


when our fused limbs and lips communicate

the unlettered power we have raised.

Every day our bodies' separate


routines are harder to perpetuate.

In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,

not understanding what we celebrate;


wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late

morning as the wind tears off the haze,

not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate."


Marilyn Hacker uses the structure of a villanelle to give her poem a different quality. The frequent repetition of the same words and sounds throughout the poem gives a sense of déjà vu, which is frustrating,and appealing. The cycle created by the sounds of the poem echoes one of the poem's major themes, the cycle of celebration and separation. Marilyn Hacker explores the idea that lovers alternate between celebration of sexual relations and physical and emotional separation, creating an ever-changing but repetitive pattern that never resolves.
Marilyn Hacker uses a poetic device called enjambment to further reinforce the themes of her poem. Enjambment means that sentences are not broken up neatly into lines or stanzas, but cut across stanzas and end and begin in the middle of lines. This gives the poem a sense of speed. The reader wants to rush on to the next period. It allows Marilyn Hacker to fit long, and complex sentences into a poem with short lines. This creates the sense that the poem is struggling to break free of its bonds.
  Although its structure is repetitive, Marilyn Hacker's villanelle is dynamic because each time something reappears it has gained a layer of meaning. Far from repeating the same idea over and over, Marilyn Hacker creates sonmething that increases in significance as it progresses. The poem ends in much the same way as it begins, but by the end, the two simple phrases have become filled with meaning. This mimics the progress of human relationship, which grows and deepens as two partners become more in tune with each other's bodies, more emotionally committed, and more comfortable expressing their relations.

Marilyn Hacker: The Boy

It is the boy in me who's looking out
the window, while someone across the street
mends a pillowcase, clouds shift, the gutter spout
pours rain, someone else lights a cigarette?

(Because he flinched, because he didn't whirl
around, face them, because he didn't hurl
the challenge back—"Fascists?"—not "Faggots"—Swine!
he briefly wonders—if he were a girl . . .)
He writes a line. He crosses out a line.

I'll never be a man, but there's a boy
crossing out words: the rain, the linen-mender,
are all the homework he will do today.
The absence and the priviledge of gender

confound in him, soprano, clumsy, frail.
Not neuter—neutral human, and unmarked,
the younger brother in the fairy tale
except, boys shouted "Jew!" across the park

at him when he was coming home from school.
The book that he just read, about the war,
the partisans, is less a terrible
and thrilling story, more a warning, more

a code, and he must puzzle out the code.
He has short hair, a red sweatshirt. They know
something about him—that he should be proud
of? That's shameful if it shows?

That got you killed in 1942.
In his story, do the partisans
have sons? Have grandparents? Is he a Jew
more than he is a boy, who'll be a man

someday? Someone who'll never be a man
looks out the window at the rain he thought
might stop. He reads the sentence he began.
He writes down something that he crosses out.




While analyzing this poem, it comes across that this person is using his life as a metaphor that his ways inside of him indicates that he will always be a boy instead of a man. The fact that the poem is addressing gender, it looks like he is questioning his sexuality because he was maybe teased and didn’t fight back. Because he flinched and didn’t stand up for himself, he wonders if it would have been different if he were a girl. This was a very painful memory of an experience that he had in his past but he then he ‘writes a line, then crosses out a line. He feels that he will never be a man but theres a boy inside of him that is very frail.  He had just read a book about war that embarked on something similar and made him wonder if the boys could sense something about him inside that made them want to taunt and tease him and how ‘shameful if it shows’ he says. In the story he wonders about different things about the partisans like is the character more of a Jew than a boy who will someday be a man? He feels that he will never actually be a man as he looks out the window. But then he begins to write another sentence, but then crosses it out. He cannot focus.

Gwendolyn Brooks:To Be In Love

To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there_
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.





To analyze this poem is like trying to define love while we already know what love is and each and every person will always their own or a different meaning. In this poem, it is saying that love makes you no longer look at life through your eyes but also through your lover’s eyes. What you feel he feels, what he feels, you feel; that is love. This is the message when the author says “You look at things through his eyes. A cardinal is red. A sky is blue. Suddenly you know he knows too. He is not there but you know you are tasting together.  Not only that, but a sense of respect is gained when one falls in love also. So, when something bad happens to break up the relationship,  it truly hurts her. She suffered really bad but tries to overlook all the bad thoughts she is having but the thoughts keep coming back over and over again. Even though the feelings she is having are still inside of her, she still cannot accept the fact that it is over because it becomes like a certain “death” to her. The poem is saying that love is very easy to come across but not always an easy thing to forget. It really makes a person hurt inside when they get hurt  and may look a certain way on the outside but painful on the inside.

Gwendolyn Brooks:Truth


And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.
This poem is saying that we have always long for the truth to be told for a long time for all different types of situations.  For if the truth comes,  how shall we handle it, how will we handle it?  It makes me wonder since we are always asking people to tell the truth , do we really want the truth? I say this because once it comes, it sometimes makes people unhappy and after they have not know the truth for such a long time. We even have times that we are praying that the truth is revealed  but when it comes it comes so hard making a person uncomfortable or even sad.  When it mentions  “Shall we not shudder?- Shall we not flee, it is saying that we probably should not always go looking for the truth because it can really drain you.  This poem uses a whole lot of metaphors and connotations to describe how the truth can not be so pleasant all the time causing a lot of dismay in peoples lives.
 
           
 
 
 

Gwendolyn Brooks: The Ballad of Rudolph Reed


Rudolph Reed was oaken.
His wife was oaken too.
And his two
good girls and his good little man
Oakened as they grew.

"I am not hungry for berries.
I am not hungry for bread.
But hungry hungry for a house
Where at night a man in bed

"May never hear the plaster
Stir as if in pain.
May never hear the roaches
Falling like fat rain.

"Where never wife and children need
Go blinking through the gloom.
Where every room of many rooms
Will be full of room.

"Oh my home may have its east or west
Or north or south behind it.
All I know is I shall know it,
And fight for it when I find it."

The agent's steep and steady stare
Corroded to a grin.
Why you black old, tough old hell of a man,
Move your family in!

Nary a grin grinned Rudolph Reed,
Nary a curse cursed he,
But moved in his House. With his dark little wife,
And his dark
little children three.

A neighbor would look, with a yawning eye
That squeezed into a slit.
But the Rudolph Reeds and children three
Were too joyous to notice it.

For were they not firm in a home of their own
With windows everywhere
And a beautiful banistered stair
And a
front yard for flowers and a back for grass?

 


The first night, a rock, big as two fists.
The second, a rock big as three.
But nary a curse cursed Rudolph Reed.
(Though oaken as man could be.)

The third night, a silvery ring of glass.
Patience arched to endure,
But he looked, and lo! small Mabel's blood
Was staining her gaze so pure.

Then up did rise our Roodoplh Reed
And pressed the hand of his wife,
And went to the door with a thirty-four
And a beastly butcher knife.

He ran like a mad thing into the night
And the words in his mouth were stinking

By the time he had hurt his first white man
He was no longer thinking.

By the time he had hurt his fourth white man
Rudolph Reed was dead.
His neighbors gathered and kicked his corpse.
"Nigger--" his neighbors said.

Small Mabel whimpered all night long,
For calling herself the cause.
Her oak-eyed mother did no thing
But change the bloody gauze.


This poem is making  a point about the way discrimination took place a long time ago. A man by the name of Rudolph Reed wanted to make a life for his family the same as whites so he moved them to somewhere that they could live life the same as others and be happy. He said he did not need food and he did not need bread, all he wanted was a place that him and his family could comfortably lay their head.  It was a dream of his to one day be able to provide this way for his family and he was not going to let anything get in his way, even it is was a “white only” neighborhood.  But once he got where he thought they would be able to enjoy their living standards, a big rock as big as two fists came through the window. Rudolph Reed and his family really just ignored it in a way until around the third night there. This is when his wife’s blood was seen and his patience was really gone by then. He had to come to his wife’s side to help her and by the end of the night, he was at the door with a butcher knife. He ran outside taking it out on the white man causing him harm and he was no longer thinking straight. Each time it continued to happen, all he thought about was defending his family. By the time he had hurt the fourth white man that attempted to attack him and his family, he was dead. The neighbors showed no remorse as his wife cried in the night blaming herself. Her mother did nothing at all but change the bloody gauze.

Gwendolyn Brooks:Sadie and Maud


Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine toothed comb.

She didn't leave a tangle in
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chicks
In all the land.

Sadie bore two babies
Under her
maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.

When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie left as heritage
Her fine-toothed comb.)

Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this
old house.
This poem is comparing the lives of Sadie to Maud and how it landed them in very different places in life. It starts off by saying how Maud was the one that went to college and I know everyone thinks that the one who goes to college will probably be the one that will always come out on top in life. In this case, Sadie was the one in this poem that made the most out of life because of how she lived her life. It is saying that she is one of the most “livingest” chicks which probably means that she really enjoying and enhancing what life is giving her. She is “scraping life with a fine tooth comb” by celebrating and making the most of what everything around is offering her. She made sure that she did not miss a thing around even though she did not go to college. She wanted to make sure that she was happy and content with what it was offering. Although she made a life for herself, she went on to have two kids while she was unwed that really embarrassed Maud and Ma and Papa and made them ashamed. So eventually she left home but left a reputation behind also. However, Maud, the one who went to college, was the one that really missed out on life because she is now living all alone in the old house.
 

Gwendolyn Brooks:Of Robert Frost


There is a little lightning in his eyes.
Iron at the mouth.
His brows ride neither too far up nor down.

He is splendid. With a place to stand.

Some glowing in the common blood.
Some specialness within.


This poem is saying that Robert Frost was just an ordinary guy. There was nothing spectacular about him starting from the way his eyes look to the way his mouth was made. Even the way his eyebrows formed, being that they were not too far up or too far down on his face. Even though there was nothing original about him, he was stated to be a very superb person that held a huge place in the community or world. The fact that he had some glowing in the common blood and some specialness within lets me know that a person does not have to look a certain way in life to be special or have a special place in the world. There could be things that they are doing around us that makes them stand out as a person and making a mark that will be around for a very long time. It sorta makes me think about how we can judge a book by its cover and miss out on a lot of things and people around us that we take for granted. You don’t have to look the part to be an individual that makes a mark in this world.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Gwendolyn Brooks: My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait Till After Hell

I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep my eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.


                The analysis of the poem seems very simple to begin with. My opinion on the poem appears to sound like a person who has discovered they have a serious illness and they are about to undergo an intensive round of therapies in order to attempt to beat it. In the poem written above the author uses the terms honey and bread as a metaphor meaning dreams. The poem is involving of course the author in her lifetime situations. This poem seems very differently from her other ones. It's dark, it's short, and it has a more personal subject from these previously stated poems. The poems also seem different from other ones ive read because of the ambition it has in its meaning. The meaning of this poem describes the times she has been through hell and she cant come to reality with her dreams. This poem is about tough times and hurt and hopelessness and depression. Of course the author wants to wait until her tough times of hell and depression to go away so she would be able to overcome it and go back to the way things are suppose to be. Gwendolyn Brooks has the feeling of being lost in the world. Having her dreams and work materialized into extremely humble, and maybe cheap, foods, shows how helpless she feels. The poem identifies that she did something horrible in her past and all of her mistakes is a result of sin. She seems punished for her mistakes and she cant obtain her "honey" which is a characteristic of her dreams that she has. She also states "My taste will not have turned insensitive." which means everything will go back correctly when she is done suffering through whatever she is going through. Gwendolyn Brooks seems like a very passionate woman but her studies for sin seems to really bother her and she hopes to overcome her fear so everything can go back to normal with her future.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Marilyn Hacker:Fourteen


We shopped for dresses which were always wrong:
sweatshop approximations of the lean-
lines girls' wear I studied in Seventeen
The armholes pinched, the belt didn't belong,
the skirt drooped forward (I'd be told at school).
Our odd-lot bargains deformed the image,
but she and I loved Saturday rummage.
One day she listed Loehmann's. Drool
wet her chin. Stumbling, she screamed at me. Dropping
our parcels on the pavement, she fell in
what looked like a fit. I guessed: insulin.
The cop said, "Drunk," and called an ambulance
while she cursed me and slapped away my hands.
When I need a mother, I still go shopping.
 
 
 
 
After i read the poem i realized that it seems more depressed than exciting. The title is what I believe the girl's age and how she is still being influenced by society. A girl at the age of fourteen is still trying to find herself, but she is still dependent like how she goes shopping Also when i read the poem i realized that she seems very insecure about her body and the way that she dresses. My personal opinion on the poem is that it is very understandable. Most teens always feel insecure at a point of time. Most of them feel insecure about the clothes that they wear and how others may look better than them at some point. After reading line 6 which says ''Our odd-lot bargains deformed the image,"that states that the speaker appreciates the time she and her mom spent. Even though this ideal image is being "deformed" she enjoys it. The speaker also struggles with insecurities dealing with her mom actually being a drunk and can't really provide for her child. The text on line 12 it states that "The cop said, "Drunk," and called an ambulance." The speaker seems to not be able to move forward without her mom to provide guidance in her life. The 17 year old discusses her daily problems and discusses her problems like her belts dont fit, her skirts fall forward and she can't shop for the right things that she needs. I would describe the theme as dependency and insecurity by the way the speaker describes her home life and how even though her mom is a drunk, she still has to live with her to survive in the world. She is insecure about herself through the clothes she has, but she also accepts herself that way because that's all her mother and her can buy to begin with. The speaker seems to have a rough lifestyle, but she deals with it and looks at the positive like at the end. The last line states "When I need a mother, I still go ahopping." The line states that even though she has a rough lifestyle she still feels happy even though she lives in a very broken life.

Gwendolyn Brooks: We Real Cool

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.




We real cool. We
Left school. We


Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We


Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We


Jazz June. We
Die soon.
 
 
My initial response on the poem is it involves many problems that you often see high school students go through. My personal response on the poem is it seems to react with more of slavery. The text seems as if there are high school boys that trys to search for freedom in order to get respect out of everything that they deserve. The text shows that the students are more of boys than girls. My perspective relates to girls because most wome wouldnnt seem to appear in a bar and play pool in order to recieve there rights. The text is involving maybe high or middle school students that always left school. The setting includes an appearance at a place called Seven at the Golden Shovel. The place is a very prestigous and a place that seems to only involving pool, jazz singing, and dancing. The first line is book-ended by the word "We," which makes the boys sound both arrogant and self-conscious. They left school and decided to lurk late. Lurk late is a alliteration and it means they would go out and have some fun. The term "strike straight" means means they would do what ever they would want without any problem. We thin gin,” they are deciding to break the rules and have a but of freedom by drinking alcohol. By having freedom they decided to sing sin in order to stand up for themselves. If the students tried to recieve freedom they would end up dying if they searched for freedom. This is what the text means at the end when it says we die soon. Although the text seems to appear to be very plain it involves a lot more. The text seems to relate more to freedom and justice instead of skipping school and hanging out with friends.