This is Just to Say

this is just to say William Carlos Williams
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...what?

So, I solely chose this poem because it was so simple...? It is confusing me how simple it is.
I feel like there is some crazy, metaphorical deeper meaning that I should pick out, but i think it is just about...eating plums that didn't belong to the writer?

Can I be a poet now? I'm pretty sure I can write something like this...unless I am toally missing the point.

There is much more I can say about the content of the poem, it is like an apologetic note you leave on the kitchen counter for eating something in the fridge you knew belonged to someone else.

I guess I can talk about the structure, which is also very simple. The poem is three stanzas and there are four lines each. There is no rhyme scheme or rhythm. I noticed the second stanza is not capitalized, but I'm pretty sure that is because it is part of a sentence.

I think that about covers it...

Many Red Devils...

Many red devils . . .
Stephen Crane
Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page.
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart.

I immediately recognized the Stephen Crane wrote this poem because of his creepy style! He wrote "Untitled," and I interpreted that the poem was about depression. It is interesting, because after reading this poem, my perspective kind of changed about the main point of his other poem.

I think that this poem is autobiographical and it made me realize that Crane must be...a little messed up? I don't know how to explain...but he reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe, because both are interesting, great writers but they have, weird disturbing styles or topics. The poem "Untitled" may not be about depression because Crane is naturally dark, and it wasn't something that he just wrote about once, not I realize all his poems are like that!

Anyway, I think this poem is about Crane getting his angst, anger, depression, and "dark thoughts" out. Instead of normal people going for a jog or venting to their friends, Crane uses poetry as an outlet, and let his "red devils" go.

On a side note, for some reason it suprised me that Stephen Crane's writing is so old!He is from the late 1870's and I totally thought he was a "new age" writer! His style is very modern.

For a Lady I Know

For a Lady I Know
Countee Cullen
She even thinks that up in heaven
Her class lies late and snores,
While poor black cherubs rise at seven
To do celestial chores.

Cherub- A winged angelic being described in biblical tradition as attending on God, regarded in traditional Christian angelology as an angel of the second highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy.

Celestial- Belonging or relating to heaven.

I think this poem has to do with slavery or racial issues. Maybe that race or class doesn't matter, but this girl always think it will...The cherub metaphor was interesting because it is an angel, so it is revered in heaven, but at the same time it is the second highest order so maybe it is symbolizing how when whites discriminated they were acting like God, so that was wrong. So, the ironic part of racial issues. It may also be a simpler analogy, that a white lady thinks blacks will always be lower class in heaven...Hmm?

I decided to look more up about the author and this poem. What I found is that Countee Cullen was a poet in the Harlem Renaissance (explains race issues). I also looked up more analysis of this poem and one source said, "presents a satirical view of whites obliviously mistreating their black counterparts as it depicts blacks in heaven doing their "celestial chores" so that upper-class whites can remain in their heavenly beds."
So, I think I was on track(:

I really liked how short and crisp the poem was, it really made it more impactful.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I LOVE this poem! Silly, but ever since The Outsiders I have always adored it. Obviously, Frost is metaphorically comparing nature and Eden to life...I think that this poem is pretty ambiguous, it can be taken in a depressing way, that nothing can stay "golden," or in a reflective way, that you should appreciate everything you have because it won't always be there forever.

I noticed Frost's biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden...Look, I just alluded to class! (:
Anyway, Frost made this allusion because when God made the Garden of Eden, it was supposed to be something permanent, but Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge when they weren't supposed to, and when God caught them, they were cast away from the Garden. Thus, "nothing gold can stay."

Moab

Tonight and most of the week, I will camping in Moab, Utah. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my poetry packet with me on my trip, so I decided to blog about a song I have heard called, Moab. Good reasoning, right?(:

Moab
Conor Oberst
I used up your compassion
So I've come to make a trade
You can hate me but just love me in return And if I know where to find you
I'll stay out of your way
I won't come beg to borrow all the happiness you earned

I'll just slide back down to the bottom While you make your place in the hills

There's nothing that the road cannot heal
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
Washed under the blacktop
Gone beneath my wheels
There's nothing that the road cannot heal

They say the sun won't burn forever
but that's a science too exact
I can prove it - Watch, we're crossing the state line
See those headlights coming towards us?
That's someone going back
To a town they said they'd never,yeah
They swore it on their lives

But you can't break out of a circle
That you never knew you were in
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
Washed under the blacktop
Gone beneath my wheels
There's nothing that the road cannot heal

Some would spend their precious time
trying to decorate their lives
Taking measurements for some new look they want
So from one to ten - ten's exactly what I am
Zero being everything I'm not
Tell me what you like

Is it less than five?
Is it less than five?

There's nothing that the road cannot heal
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
When I make it to Moab
I'll get my canteen filled
There's nothing that the road cannot heal
Washed under the blacktop
Gone beneath my wheels
There's nothing that the road cannot heal

This song is basically about how getting away or taking a break can replenish someone. In this case, a road trip to Moab, which is known as an outdoor, adventure place.

The first two stanzas are the main reasons why the singer, Conor Oberst, is sad, or needs a change.

The chorus is straightforward, a road trip, or getting away makes people feel a lot better and leave their, in a way, small problems behind ("Washed under the blacktop, gone beneath my wheels").

The rest of the song talks about material things that bring us down in life ("Some would spend their precious time trying to decorate their lives...") and how change, taking a break, etc. can clear your head ("That's someone going back to a town they said they'd never...").

The end is my favorite when Oberst says, "When I make it to Moab, I'll get my canteen filled. There's nothing that the road cannot heal." Oberst uses a metaphor to show that when he makes it to Moab, he will be rejuvenated and replenished, as if he was getting his canteen full again.

I can say that the last couple of weeks in school has really worn me out, and once I got to Moab, I realized how nice a break is. Therefore, I definitely related to this song.(:

A Poison Tree

A Poison Tree
William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, and my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And soft, deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night
Till it bore and apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

I really liked this poem! It makes the reader visualize a spectacular analogy between an apple tree and a grudge...and, to be honest, I love poems that rhyme, they sound so much more smooth if the rhymes aren't forced!

The second and third stanza is about a man who could not let go of his hatred, or grudge, that he held it in until it grew so deep his enemy could see. This poem, in a way, reminded me of Hamlet's plot to avenge his father. Hamlet thought about his hatred so much, that in the end, it consumed his whole life.

The third stanza explains how the author is so absorbed with his grudge, that he lets his enemy "win" because he put so much emotion and energy into his hatred.

The apple tree analogy shows this wonderfully.

Th rhyme scheme makes the poem flow well and it goes AABB for each stanza. There are four stanzas in the poem.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Much Madness is Divinest Sense
Emily Dickinson

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye,
Much sense, the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevail:
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, you’re straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain.

I really like this poem because it brought up the question of being normal and left alone, or being strange and "handled with a chain." It kind of reminded me of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
The poem is pretty straightforward to me, in Dickinson's eyes, to be mad is to be perfect because you are not the same as everyone else. If you agree to be "normal," you are sane and if not, you are unstable and dangerous.

I think it is cool that just about anybody can relate to this poem because everyone is different. Even if you did not have a life as strange as Dickinson's, you still can feel the same.

I noticed in the poem's structure that only "sane" and "chain" rhyme, but nothing else. I wonder if it is just a coincidence or did she mean to do that, because nothing else rhymes? Hmm