Why I love Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman"

I chose Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" because it is a poem of empowerment. Written in 1978, it is part of a collection that was originally published in Cosmopolitan magazine. Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in April of 1928. She is known for many title's such as Hollywood's first female black film director, but her most famous title is of poet and writer. She was a Civil Rights Activist, working for Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. She is currently a professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

In the poem "Phenomenal Woman", the speaker is a woman who is very comfortable with who she is. She knows she's not perfect nor what society views as perfect. She expresses this in line two, "I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size." Also, throughout the poem, she expresses what makes her a "phenomenal" woman. The lines that caught my attention were, "It's the fire in my eyes,/ And the flash of my teeth,/ The swing of my waist,/ And the joy in my feet." These lines express a happy, determined woman.

Another example of this happiness and confidence is seen in lines 38 through 41, "It's in the arch of my back,/ The sun of my smile./ The ride of my breasts,/ The grace of my style." The speaker is comfortable with who she is. She has a bright smile like the sun and she views herself as graceful.

 The speaker also enjoys the way in which she catches men's attention. This can be seen in lines 30 through 36, "Men themselves have wondered/ What they see in me./ They try so much/ But they can't touch/ My inner mystery./ When I try to show them/ They say they still can't see." These men who are captivated by her are unsure what draws them to her and she say's that it's how she carries her self. She's a confident woman and men don't know how to handle this.

At the end of each stanza the speaker repeats the lines, " I'm a woman/ Phenomenally./ Phenomenal woman,/ That's me." This statement reminds the reader that the speaker is comfortable with who she is. She's strong, confident and knows that this confidence can be seen by others. She enjoys being a woman who is envied by other's and is captivating to men.

This poem is a strong example of what a woman should be; strong, confident, and comfortable with who she is. I found this poem to not only be inspirational, but also to be very easy to read. It's word's flowed very smoothly and  kept the reader's attention. One thing I noticed about the rhyme scheme was that there were always two lines that rhymed but they were never placed in the same location throughout the poem. Every woman should feel this powerful and confident and that's why I chose this poem.

Why I love Elise Partridge's Caught

 

Elise Partridge was born in 1959, and published Caught in her collection, Fielder’s Choice, in 2002. I love Caught because of its use of visual imagery to tell a simple story   Partridge uses five line stanzas, quintains, in her poem.  The rhyming scheme only repeats on the first and fifth line of each quintain. Caught is a simple poem.  It involves a fly who gets stuck in part of a spider’s web.  The poem manages  to make the fly feel less like prey and more like the victim of an unfortunate accident, since the web it gets caught in has been abandoned by the spider that spun it.  The fly attempts to escape, but only succeeds in making the situation worse.  The imagery in Caught is minimal, but fantastic.  Partridge’s ability to conjure up images of a struggling fly, a ruined web, and a skittering spider is wonderful, and the simple theme of nature works well.

My favorite part of Caught has to be in the first quintain, where the fly’s wing has been snagged on the web and its legs are running on thin air. 

He ran his six legs through thin air

like a cartoon character,

wrenching

his abdomen to his jerking head. (2-5)

This scene adds humor to the poem and gives the fly just enough personification for the reader to care about what happens to it.

In Caught, Partridge uses choice words to personify the hapless fly; wrenching and flailing, as well as comparing it to a cartoon character and a trapeze artist.  I love this about Caught because these words make the fly’s plight relatable, as the spider has moved away, and the fly is now stuck in the remains of a ruined web.   Even through Caught deals with a fly’s problems, I personally find myself stuck in a web of problems each day and find that I can figuratively place myself in the fly’s six legs from that perspective.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62085-2005Feb3.html

Christina Rossetti’s poem "Remember" was published in 1862 in Goblin Market and Other Poems. Rossetti lived from 1830 to 1894 and was a British poet, although the Italian culture heavily influenced her life and she fluently spoke the language. Many of her poems relate to religion since she was an Evangelical Christian and took her faith seriously—even turning down a marriage proposal due to the fact that the man was a Catholic. Her most famous poem is “Goblin Market”, which is a poem I enjoy thoroughly, however “Remember” is an exceptional poem as well.

“Remember” focuses on a speaker who is dying and how she wants her lover to remember her afterwards. The speaker desires that her lover remembers her, but if he does forget, then this is acceptable since remembering her again could cause him pain and sorrow. Rossetti chose to write this conforming to the format of the Petrarchan sonnet with iambic pentameter. The characteristic volta of these types of sonnets occurs at line eight and is accompanied by a change in ideas.

“Only remember me; you understand/It will be late to counsel then or pray.”

(lines 6,7)

“Yet if you should forget me for a while/And afterwards remember, do not grieve:” (lines 8, 9)

The octet had focused on the imperativeness of her lover remembering her, however at this volta we notice a reflection on the part of the speaker as she realizes that it might be better if he did not remember her if he was to ever forget. To further mark this change in the speaker’s views, Rossetti also adjusts the rhyme scheme found in the sestet to cddece in order to set apart this new idea. Another aspect of this poem that should be noted is the fairly simple diction. Not much exists in the way of figurative language or literary devices which I found to be refreshing as it allows for her to connect easily with readers and present her depiction of these two lovers.

However, the primary reason why I love this poem is not for the rhyme scheme or the formatting, it is the idea found within the sonnet.

“Better by far you should forget and smile/Than that you should remember and be sad.”

This idea is pure. It speaks to the idea of love meaning more than fondness and trying to receive something from relationships. Especially in the current society, love is often associated with the fulfillment of desires. However, as explained in Rossetti’s poem, love sometimes can mean being selfless, allowing another’s happiness to come before one’s own wishes and desires. Indeed, I believe this is a truer idea of love than most we confront every day.

Why I love, “Let America Be America Again”, by Langston Hughes.

Written by Langston Hughes, “Let America be America Again”, is a powerful and thought provoking poem that forces its readers to question the “American Dream”. In 1936, when this poem was published, being an African American unfortunately did not allow you to experience the freedoms that are promised to American citizens. Langston Hughes took this truth and composed a passionate and effective poem, which is why I am drawn to it.

                The poem begins by requesting that we let America be America again, like the title suggests, and Hughes does not waste time revealing that he never did feel America to be any sort of dream come true. From the very beginning of the poem, rhetorical questions are asked that force his readers to see the hypocrisy America basks in if you are any sort of minority. Hughes also uses what is called repeated anaphora to prove his point effectively:

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. (19-24)

By using this repeated anaphora, Hughes is able to address all of the groups of people who are not able to experience America the way it is intended to be experienced. Hughes is giving all of these minorities a voice through his poetry, and this proves to be a powerful tool in order to strike nerves. Images that are used to represent patriotism in America are abundant and Hughes forces us to question these symbols, and also to change our ways.

Another reason why I love this poem is because it is not focused solely on bitterness; the prose also evokes a distinct air of hope: “I say it plain/America never was America to me/And yet I swear this oath/America will be (76-79)! This stanza is an exceptional example of Hughes’s willingness to show a measure of forgiveness to those who had previously stripped him of dignity. I find his ability to let go of the past transgressions to be an incredibly selfless action, given the circumstances of slavery. Lastly, Hughes goes on to present a call to his fellow Americans, through the words “We, the people, must redeem the lands, the mines, the plants, the rivers” (82-83). In doing so, Hughes expertly shows brotherhood, in the usage of the word ‘we,’ while simultaneously imploring all Americans to look beyond the bigotry and hate of the past. Hughes is able to create a work that opens with a passionate anger that gradually simmers down to a hope for change, making this a poem I love. 

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609

Why I love Gwendolyn Brooks' "the mother"

            I recently revisited a poem that I come back to every so often. It is “the mother”, by Gwendolyn Brooks, and it was published in 1945. The first two lines, “Abortions will not let you forget / You remember the children you got that you did not get", capture the reader completely. The phrase “you got that you did not get” is powerful and poignant.

Couplets open and close the poem, but the use of caesuras and enjambment in lines ten through nineteen add a great deal of depth. The work feels like it is pulling, pushing, tugging, and, at times, pleading with the reader not to follow it to the end. It is as if the mother wants to share her story of woe, but is alternately, and understandably, reluctant. We see this in lines eleven and twelve when Brooks writes, “I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed / children.” The line break preceding children is jarring, but it also draws the reader in. We know what’s been “killed”, but the use of the word “children” is unexpected. Placing the word children by itself in line twelve also gives the impression that the speaker must catch her breath before completing the thought. For the speaker it isn’t just a fetus, it is a dead child, a child that never existed while existing eternally in “the wind."

Brooks’ description transcends the political debate between pro-life and pro-choice camps, and instead speaks to the pain and suffering that abortions can cause. It fully renders the pain of a society that gives people the feeling that the act itself is necessary. Brooks works in concrete terms when representing the interaction between a mother and a child, while seamlessly drawing the reader’s attention to abstract ideas of loss, suffering, and pain in a tragically beautiful way.

Gwendolyn Brooks is an amazing poet, and I’d have to say “the mother” can be held up to any poem of the 20^th century. Its theme is straightforward, which is at times a tougher task than ambiguity, and is certainly part of its beauty. This is why I love “the mother."

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns

The poem that I chose to write about is called A Red, Red Rose, written by Robert Burns. This particular poem was finished in 1794. A Red, Red Rose is actually written to be a song. The poem is written in four four line stanzas, with alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines. Burns also uses a unique rhyme scheme of A,B,C,D, rhyming the words, June and tune, sun, and run.   This poem is a romantic style poem. I was particularly drawn to this poem because the author wrote about eternal love, and no matter how far away a person may be if it is true love it will always be there.

From the beginning Mr. Burns uses two similes, both of which are in the first stanza.

 O my Luv’es like a read, red, rose.

That’s newly fresh in June;

O my Luve’s like a melodie

That’s sweetly played in tune.

He is saying that his love his fresh and new like a rose. After I read line three I pictured two people flowing together so beautifully like a graceful melody. Two people in love always find this graceful way moving together, it reminds me of the way he describes his love for her in lines three and four.

In the second stanza he starts to become contradictory.

 As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will love thee still, my dear,

then Till a; the seas gang dry.

In the third stanza he is reiterating the fact that he will love her forever. He must really want his audience to know that no matter what happens in life this girl has his heart, and he is madly in love with her. It’s not until the fourth stanza that the poem takes a slight turn. He is saying goodbye to his love. He doesn’t flat out say how long he is going to be gone but it seems like quite a while. However, he does say he will come back for her because he is so in love with her.

In conclusion, I really loved this poem because it really shows that no matter how far away someone may be, they can remain that much in love. It may take a little bit of work to keep the spark alive but when you find true love it’s worth holding on to.

J'adore William Blake's Holy Thursday

       William Blake’s Songs of Innocence was first published in 1789.  Five years later the English poet published the Songs of Innocence and Experience Shewing the two contrary States of the Human Soul, a work combining his earlier poetry with a series of new poems  My favorite of Blake's poems is, Holy Thursday, which comes from the Songs of Experience.  The first time I read Holy Thursday it had a profound and deep effect on me and forced me to question my own beliefs and teachings of the church. 

       The first two stanzas of Blake’s poem consist primarily of rhetorical questions used to highlight the hypocrisy of religion.  Although the church (in this poem Blake is referring to the church of England) gives off the pretense of caring for all its worshipers, actions would say otherwise, as there are abandoned and orphaned children suffering on the streets:

            Is this a holy thing to see,

            In a rich and fruitful land

            Babes reduced to misery          

            Fed with cold and usurous hand?

            Is that trembling cry a song?

            Can it be a song of joy?           

            And so many children poor? (1-7)

Blake continues to depict the horrible reality facing the impoverished children in the third stanza: “And their sun does never shine/ And their fields are bleak and bare/ It is eternal winter their” (9,10,12).  In the fourth and final stanza Blake is most certainly being sarcastic and almost hauntingly playful with his audience: “For where-e’er the sun does shine/ Babe can never hunger there” (13,15). 

Even though Blake's Holy Thursday is upsetting in many ways, I find it to be incredibly powerful and thought provoking.  I would recommend this poem to anyone who enjoys reading poetry.

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wblake/bl-wblake-soe-holythursday.htm

Why I love Walt Whitman's To a Locomotive in Winter

Walt Whitman’s “To a Locomotive in Winter” was published in 1881. One thing that I find interesting about the date of this poem is it helps you understand why Whitman wrote it. Since the industrial revolution had come and passed the years afterwards lead to inventors improving the technology and inventions that had been already created. Just as other inventions locomotives transformed as time progressed. First starting with wooden rails then to iron rails and lastly using steam powered engines.

The reason I love this poem so much is how Whitman chooses specific vocabulary to describe the locomotive and the noises it produces. It is not just that he uses technological vocabulary but he uses it in an artsy way to make one see the beauty of the machine. A perfect example of this is in line 4 where it states “Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,” This is a great example because you can see how he uses a color such as golden to enhance how he explains the way the brass looks.

In this poem Whitman uses most of your senses to portray a train that is driving in a snowy storm. You can hear the roar of the engine that is in the distance and how you can see the head light in the front as well as the smoke cloud flowing out of the smoke stack. You then can feel the swift wind and snow falling around.

Whitman also personifies the train cars by being “obedient, (and) merrily following,” I believe he decided to use personification on certain parts of the train such as the carts and its whistle to give it more of a personal feel. He focuses on the train’s noises the most and compares them to a song. As if the train is singing, laughing, and causing a commotion as it is driving through the snow storm.

            The poem ends expressing how a train is free, and just follows its tracks as it crosses the country “o'er the prairies wide, across the lakes, To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.” I love this thought of being able to keep traveling with no real destination, just going from town to town.

http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2131.html

Why I Love Sylvia Plath's "Mirror"

     Written in 1961, Sylvia Plath's "Mirror" is a poem about womanhood and how women, and their roles, change over time.  This poem was written only two years before Plath took her own life, but it was not published until ten years later.  Plath had a difficult life and constantly struggles with depression, so her poetry sometimes has a dark undertone.  The poem is written in free verse, which means there is no set pattern of rhythm or rhyme.  Despite this, Plath uses words that sound similar such as "fish" and "darkness."  She also uses repetition with pharses such as "over and over" and "day after day."  These elements make the poem seem to have a type of rhythm even though it is written in free verse.   
     The most fascinating part of this poem is that it is told from the perspective, or point-of-view, of a mirror.  Plath does not hide this fact or try to make a riddle out of it. She makes it clear before you have even started reading the poem by making the title "Mirror" and then makes the first line "I am silver and exact."  We as readers are immediately intrigued by what the mirror is going to say or do. The title choice could also symbolize poetry and how all poetry somehow reflects something about the reader and their life. 
     The first stanza of the poem is mostly about the mirror, which we learn is hanging across from a pink speckled wall probably in a bathroom.  The mirror is very personified and has human characteristics and thoughts.  The mirror feels affection for the pink wall and is almost egotistical about how it only reflects the truth.  The poem continues with a woman looking into the mirror and seeing herself older and not as beautiful as when she was young.  The mirror turns into a lake about halfway through the poem, but it still has the same characteristics and reflects the same truth as it did as a mirror. 
     This poem is not just about appearance, but it is also about the passage of time and growing older.  This is shown in the line "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman."  The poem also has the theme of feminism and how women were changing at that time.  Women were not only changing individualy, but as a gender.  This relates those feelings of fear, but also tells that truth even if it is scary to contemplate. 
     I absolutely love this poem and I think it really makes the reader, especially women, look at how they themselves will change, but also how the times and roles of people change.  It's a powerful and interesting poem that is easy to interpret and grasp even if you are not accustomed to reading poetry. 

Why I love Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

I honestly have never been one to go out of my way to read poetry, it has never really been my thing. So when faced with a writing a blog post on a poem that I personally love I wasn’t quite sure where to begin. I started by researching popular poems, and after awhile of searching I finally found one that I enjoyed. "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost was written in 1923 and is a poem that I truly enjoy.

The poem essentially is a few moments of reflection made by a traveler stopping by some woods to reflect on the falling snow. The traveler briefly contemplates the owner of the woods and what he may think of the situation, but knows the owner won’t be anywhere around. The traveler also contemplates the questioning done by the horse about the situation, about why they have stopped in the middle of nowhere. But this is not of concern for the traveler, for now all that the traveler wants to focus on is the beauty and peacefulness of the situation. 

“But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep.” And seemingly, before you know it, it’s time to get a move on. This brief period of reflection and relaxation is ended by the fact that the traveler has places to be. 

“To watch his woods fill up with snow,” I can relate with the joy of simply watching nature and being immersed in that moment. I personally have a love for nature, any season of the year I can always simple take a step outside and relax. In regard to the specifics of this poem itself, one of my favorite times of the year is winter. There’s just a feeling that I get watching the snow fall that doesn’t compare to anything else, it’s as if I ware a child again watching the first snowfall of the year. 

All things must come to an end however. Our lives are so busy that we seldom have a moment to just stop and enjoy the moment, that's what I got out of the poem, that's what it means to me. We should often take time to reflect on where we are before we push ahead. 

Why I love "Sonnet XVII" by Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda's "Sonnet XVII" is one work in a collection of poems published in 1960 called 100 Love Sonnets. Neruda had a turbulent life, often having to abandon his work, country, wives, and friends to move, due to political strife in Chile or his own financial issues. He also often struggled with depression and turned inward to his work to try to convey the loneliness and longing he felt. Overall, Neruda lived a full and happy life, taking many lovers and often using those experiences to inspire his writing.

"Sonnet XVII" is most certainly a love poem but it is not a celebration of love that people usually think of. Neruda starts the poem with "I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz or arrow of carnations that the fire shoots off:” He conveys that the person he loves is not someone he wants to shout his love and admiration for, nor is she a prize to be won. There is romanticism about loving someone so deeply and so unjustifiably that you want to keep them a secret, in fear of the world taking them away. This can be seen in lines 3 and 4 "I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul." If anything it is a tale of a lustful love, one that consumes a person's whole being, and leaves its mark for many years to come.

I can relate to that immediate feeling of elation, of being engrossed by another person, of the whirlwind of a romance that you know is wrong but feels so right. I've always connected with this poem, since the first time I read it. I felt like Neruda was putting his hands into my heart and finding the words I had been trying desperately to find. My favorite line of the poem is "so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.” For me, this line is a piece of art that perfectly conveys loving someone so greatly that you feel as though you've become one person with them.

For me, the poem "Sonnet XVII" is a celebration of a love that people outside of the relationship can't understand. You have to be consumed by the fire of your love to know the feeling of never being able to understand why you love this person. There are no explanations, no words that can do it justice, except: "so I love you because I know no other way." Para usted, mi amor.

Why I Love John Donne's "The Flea"

I would like to discuss John Donne’s “The Flea”. “The Flea” was published in 1633, but it was written before that. John Donne himself died in 1631, and it is not unusual for his poetry to have been published after his death. Many scholars of his day believed Donne’s work was brilliant; however, there were some that believed that he wrote more wit than poetry. In my opinion, “The Flea” is a work of art. Who on Earth would have ever thought that sex and a flea could be put together to make a light-hearted poem? Donne’s use of wit is brilliant.

            “The Flea” is a poem about a man wanting to have sex with a lady. A flea bites the couple, and it gives the narrator of the poem a reason to plea why his lady friend should sleep with him. He brings up that their “two bloods mingled bee” in the flea (line4). The narrator claims that the flea has gotten more action than then he has. He goes on to say that in the flea they are practically married. His lady friend threatens to kill the flea, and he tells her not to because she would be committing suicide. She does kill the flea and throws it in the narrator’s face that he is fine. He turns the whole argument around that sex would be the same uninteresting ride.

            “The Flea” varies between iambic pentameter and tetrameter, and there are three stanzas with nine lines each. The really interesting part of “The Flea’s” chosen form is that the rhyming scheme: AABBCCDDD. He makes it so that every two lines, a new argument of why his lady should sleep with him is brought up. Also, Donne use of metaphors is the prize of this piece. Again, he uses the subjects of flea and sex and somehow makes them work. It is brilliant. However, there are other metaphors of the same importance. He mentions how their blood mingling in the flea together is like the exchange of body fluids during sex. Another example is when Donne displays how their blood in the flea is like their life is in the flea. This also alludes to the mechanist views in England during the 17^th century. Mechanist believed that soul could exist, but if it did, it had to exist in a bodily form. In Donne’s case, it was in the blood. I believe it is the metaphors that gave “The Flea” the wit his critiques were concerned about, but I believe it is this wit that gives the poem its comedy and entertaining qualities.

            John Donne’s “The Flea” is a piece of work. Although it was written centuries ago, it still has its audiences shaking with laughter whenever they read it. The form and metaphors create a clean and cut poem that is easy to follow. People years from now will enjoy Donne’s work."The Flea"  

Rain and Wind

Rain and Wind
  By Trevor West

The Poem Rain and Wind by Trevor West is a simple poem I came across when fist went searching for a break from the loftyness of Shakespeare and other authors of the era that I instantly fell in love with. I have always been a fan of the Haiku and West has captured my college career in its entirety in its three simple lines. Its conciseness and sincerity makes me both smile and shake my head at the same time.

Rain and Wind follows exactly the basic form of an American Haiku containing seven syllables in the first line, five syllables in the second, and again seven in the last line, for a total of three lines and seventeen "sound units".  From my understanding throughout my teachings in school a haiku is meant to be short and to the point but still evoke much more meaning in its simplicity. West has done just that to me in his poem.

For me, as a reader, West pulls my attention and thoughts to the crazy weather that most in Ohio have to deal with. Trying to scurry from class to class sometimes carrying my papers and books it would always be just my luck that I would either drop a page or crinkle something important that of course I would need. The poem also expresses my exasperation with my college experience with its "Oh crap! I Need that!"

All in all, I can say that I love Rain and Wind by Trevor West because in essence it has summed up my weather ridden and sometimes frustrating college career thus far.

Why I Love e e cummings' "in time of daffodils"

 

"in time of daffodils," published in Cummings' 1958 book 95 Poems, is fairly straightforward for a Cummings poem. There are few to no puzzling line breaks, made-up words, or strange uses of puctuation. Instead, Cummings presents his words in five stanzas of three lines each. All three lines in each stanza rhyme, albeit sometimes with a stretch. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter, which makes the poem read smoothly, like well-organized speech. Cummings fans will know that this is not always the case in Cummings' poetry.

In the first stanza, Cummings asserts that daffodils know "the goal of living is to grow." This sets the tone for the rest of the poem. It begins to indicate a love for the present, for expansion and improvement of the self. One question that comes to mind after reading the stanza is that of the use of the verb "to grow." Does Cummings mean literally grow bigger? Or does he mean grow with experience and new knowledge? Or does he mean both? I took it to mean "grow with life and learning." He follows with the warning to forget why (e.g. it doesn't matter why you grow; just do it) and remember how (as in, sometimes we forget how to enjoy life as we did when we were small children, growing and knowing).

The next stanza states that lilacs know "the aim of waking is to dream." This can also be read in two ways. The first is that the aim of waking is, quite literally, to go back to sleep and have some more jolly dreams. The second reading is that the purpose, the sole reason for being awake and aware is so that one can have ambitions and hopes. The last line of the stanza says to remember to do so and to forget "seem," which I took to mean "forget seemliness and perfect manners; if you want something, ask."

The third stanza, probably my favorite, states that roses amaze us by showing us paradise in one moment on earth. It reminds us not to get too caught up with promises of the future or memories of the past, but to enjoy the present. To me, this is something very profound. Plenty of people are trying to embrace this sentiment, but are never quite sure how, because if we enjoy the present too much, then the future may be less enjoyable. (Overzealous pursuit of the pleasures of the present is often attempted with the proclamation "YOLO" and consumption of far too much beer.)

In short, I believe Cummings presents a beautifully written, delicate work of art that warns us to take time and enjoy now, because very soon, "now" won't be "now" anymore. He crafts it with care, and his rhyme scheme and meter are clever and discreet enough not to be obnoxious; instead, they seem more like a demure, well-dressed cousin of free verse.

This is why I love in time of daffodils.

The Beauty of Goodbye

This week pick of best poems to love happens to be "When We Two Are Parted"  published in 1808 by an acclaimed romantic period poet, Lord Byron. What clutches my appreciation for this poem is for the form that Byron uses in this poem as a lyric style. Byron uses his hurt and pain to create a beautiful poem that can allow other’s to relate to a time when someone had their heart broken.

In reality this poem can illustrate the truth about what love really can become. Love isn’t child’s play but when treated as play it can produce fear and pain within a heart. “In secret we met—in silence I grieve” Explains how he finally realizes how wrong his love. Reason being was that he seeing each other in secret was him allowing his love to become a game and resulting in the ill fate of despair for himself.

Not only does this poem illustrate the truth of what love can become, but demonstrates a person so ingrained into a relationship that doesn’t want to admit that their loved one might not have the same feelings anymore. “The dew of the morning sank chill on my brow. It felt like the warning of what I feel now.” Bryon’s failure to admit to himself that he knew that his loved one did not love him anymore indicates the reality of a relationship departing. This line really made me questions how love could become blinding and maybe I had become blinded once.

One line that I like the most is:

“A shudder comes o’er me - - Why wert thou so dear?”

This line really catches my attention the most and had me repeatedly reading the line over and over. Then I realized that I not only repeated this line, but this helped me recall a moment in my memory that I had once repeatedly asked myself once. Then it finally hit that love is so strong that it has even myself lose a tender side of myself and help me see a new matureness I’ve never realized I had.

Why I love The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy's, "The Ruined Maid" was first published in 1901. The first time I read through the poem, I immediately fell in love with it for the questions it raises about women's social rank, morality, and sexuality. The poem begins with a farm maid meeting Melia in town. Melia is admired by the farm maid for her "fair garments" and "prosperity," but Melia has been "ruined." "Ruined," in this case, means that Melia sells herself as a prostitute. As the poem continues, it is revealed that Melia was once a farm maid as well, but could not handle the work and became unhappy. By "ruining" herself, she now lives a life with elegant dresses, jewelry, and feathers. Most of all, she lives happily with her new social status, "One's pretty lively when ruined."

 The word "ruin" is the central focus of the poem and what it means to be "ruined." If a woman is "ruined," no man could possibly want to marry that woman. To be "ruined" would mean that a woman's life is worthless and destroyed. Instead, Melia does nothing but enjoy her newly attained status and lifestyle. So much even that the farm maid envies Melia and her status, "I wish I had feathers, afine sweeping gown, And a delicate face, and could strut about Town." Melia has freed herself from the social constraints holding the farm maid in place. In England, at that time period, I don't believe Melia could have freed herself by any other means other than using her body.

Women have come a long way since 1900, but women are still judged socially by a different set of rules as women and that is why I truly love this poem. It is still relevant today, and is both a thought provoking and sexy poem. As a man, I am able to sleep with three different women this weekend and not only will I not be judged, I will also be applauded by other men as if these women were just objects at my disposal. Reversing the scenario to one woman with three different men in a weekend, and she will be judged harshly. She will be "ruined" and men will not want to marry that type of girl. I guess that's supposed to be a bad thing. Melia has freed herself from social constraints using her sexuality. By ignoring the expectations forced upon her by a male dominated society, she enjoys a dominance over them. It seems to me there needs to be a few more "ruined" women in this world. 

http://www.poetry-archive.com/h/the_ruined_maid.html

Why I adore, “since feeling is first” by e.e. cummings

e.e. cummings first published, “since feeling is first” in 1926. The first reason I love this work is because it lacks regular capitalization and punctuation, which is very characteristic of cummings. He is rumored to have legally changed his name to all lowercase letters. This stylistically enhances the poem for me because e.e. is a rebel in respects to language. I am predisposed to liking a rebel.

It is one of my favorite poems because it is very upfront with the fact that it is about feeling, and feeling is the essence of poetry. Feeling is what every poem is about. Poems either get you to feel a certain way or tell you how the poet feels. This particular poem is expresses the value of feeling. It blatantly states its purpose in the title. The fact that the poem is so upfront it one of the reasons I love it.

Cummings is attempting to explain the notion that if you concentrate too much on how things work, and the general rules of life, you wont ever fully live. The simple gestures that one makes in the moment are worth far more than ones that have been over thought. 

The speaker’s begins with the stanza, “ since feeling is first/ who pays any attention to the syntax of things/ will never wholly kiss you;” this is arguably the main point if this entire work. If there is too much emphasis on the way things should be done how can you put you whole self into actually doing anything. The poem goes on to imply that the speaker is for “wholly” being a fool because, “kisses are a better fate/ than wisdom.” With this line the object of the speakers affection has apparently become upset. It may be because it is implied that his lover isn’t smart, but sweetly cummings goes on and reassures her that, nothing from his brain could mean more than the simple gesture of her “eyelids’ flutter” because that tells him that they are meant to be.

The poem then ends with, “for life's not a paragraph/ And death i think is no parenthesis”

these last few lines of this poem can be taken many ways and one reading of them does not necessary rule out the other. I feel that cummings refers to writing to imply the usage of syntax again alluding to his prior statements. I also feel that he chose these lines because we typically use parentheses to interrupt a sentence or to make a side comment. In this way he is saying that death is not separate from life, it is included in the experience. Death is not something that is all encompassing. 

I do love me some Defeat and Imagination.

David Berman’s “Imagining Defeat,” published among a compilation of other contemporary works known as Actual Air in 1999, is my choice for this week. I’ve always been partial to contemporary poems, ones that evoke that ethereal, escapist, I-never-thought-of-it-that-way kind of feeling you find in older works, though put into a context and phrase that doesn't require hours of analysis to understand. “Imagining Defeat” is one of these, perhaps more enigmatic and interpretive than some of Berman’s other Actual Air machinations, and goodness, interpretation is such a heavy priority where poetry is concerned.

This rhyme-less, meter-less poem (as is customary with a lot of Berman’s poetry and even the wider contemporary poetic ‘architects’ of today) gives us a reasonably superficial view into an interaction between a man and his wife, or lover, and her leave from his life: “She woke me up at dawn / her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels / . . . a bus ticket in her hand.” The woman then questions the narrator, asking “If I ever thought of cancer.” Immediately Berman throws us into one of his theatrical tangents. He responds with (or muses on) a sort of polar hypothesis, where cancer wouldn’t matter if it were too far away or so far in the past.

But is this actual cancer we’re thinking of? Maybe we could rationalize this cancer alongside the struggle of a relationship. Looking ahead to the evils of a broken two; remembering those traumas in the future, and wondering which one matters less, or matters more. And even then, we still have to ask why the woman brought this up to begin with. I can venture to guess they’re both aware, though we only hear the narrator and his descriptions, attributing a “dead soul” to the aftermath of the death of a relationship, killed with some kind of festering cancer.

And then the last lines, “Though to believe any of that / You have to accept the premise / That she woke me up at all,” which I interpreted as a leave without explanation, or communication. A woman who packs her things and walks out without affording the luxury of the past of the future to the narrator. The defeat is quiet and undefined, and whether in the far-off or the far-behind, at this point, doesn’t really matter now.