Lovely Literature

While I was reading this poem, I was thinking about how poems are awesome because they can compare the craziest thing to something completely unrelated and yet it just works.

Laundry compared to love. Not exactly the expected comparison! I really like the comparison though because it's unusual and because when it is put in the terms that Ritchie put it in, love sounds comfortable and nice.

The speaker speaks about her love as if she has lost him or as if he has gone away. It's hard to tell if he is permanently gone, but he is on some sort of journey or is not with her at the present time. She mentions Kuwait, so maybe he is a soldier and fighting in far away countries. She speaks about how simple their love is by mentioning small things like "pocket surprises" such as "forgotten matches/lost screws clinking the drain." I imagine a woman doing her laundry and finding her lover's clothes mixed in with hers bringing back memories of them together and putting her into a day dreamy mood.

"All those wrinkles
To be smoothed, or else
ignored; they're in style."

This is my favorite stanza. It brings to mind the thought that even though the couple has had a few wrinkles in the past, they accept them and continue on because their love is so strong. I like that she is ignoring the wrinkles by saying they are in style, so they ignore their differences because they are in love.

It's a great love poem...possibly one of the best that I have read because it is simple and easy for most people to read since it includes a common practice like laundry.

There are very few topics that I enjoy discussing more in history than wars, and Vietnam is one that I truly appreciate. I realize I wasn't alive during this time, but sometimes I kind of wish that I could have experienced the emotions that America experienced during this war.

This entire poem is chock full of IRONY...which come on, who doesn't love a good ironic poem and/or story?

The soldier who is in the "far country" is writing letters to his parents, namely his mother, and telling them random tidbits of information like how it rains often and how beautiful the sunsets are. The mother, being as all mothers are, senses that there is something more to his superficial answers than what he is letting on. She claims to want to know the truth and for her son to not "hold back." Finally, in the 7th stanza, he does not hold back and says:

So the next time he worte, the young man said,
"Today I killed a man. Yesterday, I helped drop napalm
on women and children."

Talk about hitting his parents with some truth! When he sends this letter, his DAD writes back and tells him not to say such horrible things because it upset his mother. Well, mother of son fighting for his country, do not ask questions you do not want to know the answers to!

The poem is ironic because the whole time he is shielding his family from what he is actually experiencing even though they claim to want to know what is actually going on. When he finally opens up and tells them the horrors he is experiencing, they are afraid and scold him! People really should not ask questions unless they are prepared to know the answers, no matter how gruesome or macabre.

This definitely represents America well during the time period. Americans did not know what the war was about...heck...soldiers didn't even know what the war was about!! They were merely doing their duties. The irony helps to emphasize how America was so oblivious to what was going on, and yet when they asked questions, they were upset to find out the answers.

This poem kind of hits home for me and probably every other girl who has felt pressure to conform to what society dictates. This girl in the poem is described as "usual" in the first line of the first stanza. The first stanza shows how naive and innocent the girl was as a young child until she went to school and met her other girl classmates. Honestly, I think girls are much more vicious than boys are, so this made perfect sense to me that the girl in the poem was innocent and happy with how she looked until she went to school and people told her of her imperfections.

This is definitely a shot at society.

"She went to and fro apologizing
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs."

Isn't it ridiculous the emphasis that society puts on being "perfect?" I mean, WHAT IS PERFECTION and who gets the right to decide that? Girls seem to have such a terrible time with the pressure of perfection in nearly every aspect, but especially outside appearance. It becomes quite ironic as the poem goes on because the last stanza states:

"Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending"

Personally, I don't think death necessarily equals a happy ending. It's ironic that she finally got her wish while literally laying on her deathbed: to be pretty and to have people notice her. It is difficult for me to tell though whether or not she killed herself or if she had some sort of plastic surgery that went wrong. Either way...I think this is a desparate cry to a society that values appearance rather than intelligence and inner beauty.

I have read a few of Keats' poems before and I'd have to say I'm a fan of his writing. He uses a lot of vivid imagery that must be read a couple times to understand it but it's not as confusing as Emily Dickenson.

"Bright Star" is a symbol. He is speaking directly to the star in apostrophe, but he is actually speaking about something/one else. He is speaking to the star about his love and how he wants his love to be like the star in its unchanging manner. The star can stay forever in its place [in his mind at least] and see everything. The speaker would like to lay with his love forever [No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable/Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast] and never change or lose what he has with her. He claims that laying with her forever would be the best way to spend the reset of his life, and he would even "swoon to death," which doesn't sound like an awful death. The bright star is a symbol for everything he wants to be, except for the fact that the star hangs in the sky by itself. He never wants to be alone and he always wants to be with his lover.

He compares himself to the star in a way by saying all the things that stars can see. If he himself could see all of these beauties [snow upon the mountains and the moors...etc], they would not compare to his love. Keats sounds like quite the romantic poet in this poem. It always makes me wonder what poets and writers think when they write such poems. Is it about their experiences? I'd like to think so in this instance.

My fellow Emily has got to be the coolest yet oddest [is that a word..?] poet from whom I have ever read material.

She just does what she wants. I kind of admire that about her even though I think she was kind of psycho. I know we aren't supposed to focus on the way she writes, but her capitalization truly drives me insane. She capitalizes all of the nouns in the body of her poem and then decides to not capitalize the important words in the title. Talk about author's preferences.

Honestly...I don't understand this poem too well. I understand that she is using liquor as a metaphor or a symbol for something else...but it's difficult to decipher. She uses words such as brewed, Tankards, Vats, Alcohol, and Debauchee that are reminiscent of alcohol, but I'm still not positive what they are in reference to.

In group discussion I formed the idea that maybe this is about the rain. The clouds are "leaning against the sun" and they take in the unbrewed liquor [a.k.a. water] for a new rainfall that quenches the thirst of the Foxgloves and plants.

This poem really got me thinking...and then confused me :/

'Toads" is an extended metaphor that continues through the poem comparing a toad to something that is responsible for controlling the speaker's and other peoples lives. This poem uses many alliterations [Lots of folks live on their wits/lecturers, lispers/losels, loblolly men, louts] and has incredible diction. The diction along with repetition helps the speaker get his point across. He is not just going to sit down and allow the "toad," or "the man," run his life. At the same time, the speaker seems almost envious of the toads because they do not have to worry about making money.

"Their nippers have got bare feet
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets--and yet
No one actually starves,"

This stanza makes me think that the speaker wishes he could have a wife "skinny as a whippet" just because she watches what she eats, not because she is starving. He wants to live a lush life and not stick to what the man says. He wants to be "The Man."

The final stanza makes this point yet again.

"I don't say, one bodies the other
One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,
When you have both."

The speaker is referring to the "fame and the girl and the money." He seems to think that once you have one, it's difficult to lose the other. He definitely seems to think he is stuck in his life and not moving along. His diction shows his passion and somewhat angry feelings for those who are of higher authority and salary than he.

"Pink Dog" by Elizabeth Bishop seems very political and ironic. This tells a story of a "shaved dog," which represents an individual in society who tried living his or her life by the standards of society and then decided to break away from that norm. The speaker is speaking to the dog in apostrophe and trying to "persuade" the dog in a way to conform to society standards. The Carnival represents society as a whole-- a place full of fakeness and bright colors trying to cover up normal boring discrepancies.

"They say that Carnival's degenerating
--radios, Americans, or something,
have ruined it completely. They're just talking."

This line really stuck out to me. It calls out America for its superficiality since this poem seems to have been written about Rio de Janeiro, a city in Brazil. It's pretty annoying to look at American media sometimes and see what superficial and unimportant issues that are in the headlines. Yet, Americans feed on the drama, the gossip, and the superficial. Wonderful place we live in, isn't it? I kind of wish we could all just step back and see how stupid the things we worry about are. But... you know... I'll probably still worry about the same stupid things. I'm glad Elizabeth Bishop could call us all out though. We need a little reality check at times.