Eating Poetry by Mark Strand

In Strand’s poem, “Eating Poetry,” he expresses the ways in which he loves poetry by using an extended metaphor of him eating poetry and becoming a dog hungry for poetry. While in the library, he literally eats all the poetry and the librarian gets upset: “ When I get on my knees and lick her hand,/ she screams./ I am a new man./I snarl at her and bark.” In these lines, Strand creates the image of becoming desperate for more poetry. So desperate that he acts like a dog, barking and licking the librarian’s hands. He depicts haunting images of snarling dogs and crying Librarians, therefore giving the sense that Poetry has a frightening power. Strand depicts the power that poetry has over him and how poetry can literally transform you.

I enjoyed this poem and the metaphor within in to help create an image in my head. Can't believe that this is the last blog of my high school career. Its been great!!

Many Red Devils... by Stephen Crane

While reading this poem I really enjoyed the imagery. I like to picture things in my head and I could imagine exactly what was going on in the poem. Stephen Crane is fabulous at telling a story through imagery.

 I believe that the poem is about many different things.  I interpret it to be about expressing oneself honestly and truly, and maybe they're devils because they're the things about ourselves we've never had the courage to face or admit to, but to struggle to put that "red muck" into words releases, names, and conquers those facets of our self. What a shame to not enjoy this, to miss out on all it says. One would have to know nothing about honest personal writing. I think the poem has a feeling of relief attached to it. While the speaker finds writing that way strange, he also is happy to put his thoughts on paper, or out into the world. They may not be the best of thoughts, but they are his. 

Perhaps this was a telling of when one is beginning to write on a subject, but the words that flow out are reflective of a state of mind the writer was unaware of and was suprised by the change of attitude as he was writing. The mind can become freed as an idea grows while it is being examined and expressed; an idea can also be crushed during examination and expression. The devils could be an idea he wanted to disagree with at the start.  This happens to me when I am writing a timed essay sometime. I start writing one thing and then another idea pops into my head interrupting what i am already writing.

I really liked this poem and it put a new twist on writing and the red devils involved.

A Poison Tree by William Blake

I remember doing this poem during the AP Lit make up session. I really enjoyed this poem and didn't know my exact thoughts on the poem were exactly, but I think I understand the meaning of the poem.

William Blake has also shown that be they friend or foe, harboring a grudge only makes things worse. Imagery was portrayed and has connected with the reader by discussing the deep feeling of a victory over an enemy. He states that the only way, at the time, to releive that pain is by hurting someone else. Many lines have the same basic meaning. One of these shows his anger growing whilst keeping his anger bottled up inside him. \"I was angry with my foe, I told not, My wrath did grow\" Throughout this Poem, Willliam Blake has discussed a situation where a person has had a foe, he has portrayed the \'foe\' as some sort of bully obviously he has been bullied by the same perosn for a long time.
Not only has William Blake portrayed the wrath inside of this person growing on a tree, he has shown that by adding a apple on the poison tree this makes the reader beleive that the boy has made some kind of lure for the bully, for when he is at his weakest, the boy will get his sweet revenge. \"And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine.\"



My thoughts were kind of jumbled while trying to explain hopefully you can pick your way through them.

This is my Kafkaesque cartoon. The cartoon is based off the movie Twelve, which is very senseless in a way. The movie if kind of all over the place and becomes confusing at times and the cartoon shows pretty much what the movie was about. Pretty senseless!

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman

This poem I like probably because it was a little easier to read then some of the others in the packet. I have heard of Walt Whitman but I don't think that I have read any of his stuff before and I like what he write so far. The speaker is talking about how he does not enjoy the way the professor is teaching Astronomy. The teacher uses numbers and data to explain his teaching, and the speaker does not understand his way of teachings. This causes the frustration in the speaker of what he is learning. At the end of the poem he wanders on his own to look at the stars. This is stated in the actual poem. I thought that it was actually pretty cool that he found comfort in the stars, which is originally what Astronomy, looking at the stars. He finds comfort in what originally is Astronomy before all the numbers and confusion happened. Finds comfort in what originally attracted him to Astronomy which can be a little ironic.

I enjoyed this poem and kind of like Walt Whitman's work so far even though I have only read one poem. :)

This is a photograph of me by Magaret Atwood

Reading this poem a first and second time I thought that this is a poem that can put a bad day into the worst day. Just don't read the poem when you are in a good mood.

My first thought to the poem is that in the beginning she starts by creating  an image in your head about a possible tree branch, but she never describes herself in the picture about herself, which is interesting. It seems like she wants you to guess where she is in the picture and what this mean. I think the "drowned in a lake" has something to do with the photo also. My thoughts are that in the first 14 lines confused me in my first reading, but reading it a second time with emphasis on the parathesis part did I see the meaning of the photograph.

I think the picture described in the first 14 lines is just the result of the distortion.

I believe that there is no branch or the frame of a house halfway up the slope because of the lines:
'At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;' 

I believe that is not a branch because it says "a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree", which keeps you asking what is it? If it is not a branch then what is part of  the tree.

She tells you that she is in the lake in the centre of the picture just under the surface of the water. Then we are given the hint that it is the distorting effect of water that makes it difficult to discern what is there in the photograph. But if we looked long enough we'd see her eventually.

The Day Milicent Found the World by William Stafford

This poem seemed to tell a story, the journey Millicent took to find herself and realize that she has a place in the world. The beginning of the poem says she started out staying "near light, the edge where bushes grew, where her way back appeared in glimpses among dark trunks behind her." This tells me she was curious to explore the world, or "the woods," but that she was not yet prepared to get lost and completely separate herself from the comfort of home and the life she has always known. However, one day she finally ventured her way far enough through "openings where giant pines had fallen" and reached her destination: Lost. Now she was lost, everything she would encounter would be new and surprising. I particularly liked the end of the second stanza where it talks about Millicent first realizing "she was part of the world and that it would follow wherever she went." That epiphany is something I think we all experience at some point, often in childhood.

As I was reading this poem, I really thought of myself and how I am still trying to find my place in this world among all these people. Millicent reminded me of the person I am now, being a Senior and trying to figure out where I want to attend college and what I want to become after college and really just the person I want to be in life. I’m scared to death to think about venturing out on my own and taking on this world, but at the same time. Millicent did not find out that she had a certain place in this world or what that certain place is until she ventured out on her own and became “Lost”, which in my opinion meant being around things foreign to her or being out of her comfort zone. When people are put into situations where they are uncomfortable and out of place, I believe this is really when they find out just how strong they are and what they can make of themselves in that situation. Stafford described Millicent as being a part of the world’s breath, she was a part of the world, a piece of the puzzle, and not just a bystander watching the puzzle being pieced.