My reaction to tone

For some of these poems, tone was a very easy to recognize because I understood what the poem was about giving the tone more meaning. However, for other poems that I did not quite understand, it was difficult for me to establish what the tone was. Sure I could go and look at the diction and try to find out the tone of the poem, but I don't think this is enough. Without knowing what the idea of the poem is, then the tone is meaningless to me and even though I looked at the diction, I could still be wrong about guessing what the tone is. Knowing what the theme and central idea of the poem are key to knowing the tone in my opinion because simply knowing what the speaker is talking about would give me a very good idea of the tone. If the poem is about death, then the poem is most likely going to be negative or sad in some way. Then looking at diction and such would solidify what I believe the tone to be. So in order to truly know the tone of the poem, I think the reader need to know firsthand what the poem is talking about.

Unlike the others

In the poem "Getting Out", the main idea is how these two people are married but it somehow just was not working out so eventually got a divorce. This is the quick, shallow version. But when read into, it seems as if the couple getting the divorce almost didn't want to get the divorce as if they still loved each other. For example, in the last stanza, the speaker describes how she and her husband were holding on to each other crying and almost just had to force themselves away from each other. So maybe it's not that the couple simply got in a fight or one did something wrong in the marriage. There has to be another reason that made them get a divorce simply because they had to even though they still loved each other. I believe that the reason for their divorce is found in the first stanza. It keeps taling about how they kept trying and trying to do something but they kept failing at doing it. What I believe they were trying to do was have a child, but for some reason they could not. They both wanted a child, so because of this, they got a divorce becuase they felt they had to go off and be with different people if they were to have a child.

Threatening

In the poem "The Apparition", the tone is very easy to describe. Throughout the poem, the speaker seems to speak in a very threatening and harsh tone. This can easily be identified just my the main idea of the poem in which the speaker would haunt the girl if she were to every leave him. This part is where the threatening tone is established. He then begins to spit out the harsh truth at her by saying how any other man would not be able to satisfy here as he would be albe to. This harshness is easily seen in just the idea of this section of the poem. But the tone is established in other ways as well. First of all, the word choice establishes the theme pretty well. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker is saying that IF you do this, THEN I will do this. Usually this kind of word choice represents an ultimatum or threat. Finally, the tone is also achieved through the diction. Words or phrases such as "poor aspen wretch" or "cold quicksilver sweat" all would be phrases that would be used in a poem with harsh toem and this reinforces the idea of a threatening tone.

Unexpected Irony

In the poem "My mistress' eyes", the poem is full of irony throughout the poem, and the big "bang!" part of the irony really comes out at the end. Usually when men describe the woman they love, they use hyperboles and go on to say very cheesy things. They may compare the girl to something that is far more amazing and beautiful than the girl, but they make the comparison anyway and "lie" about it. However, the speaker in this poem does quite the opposite. Instead, he goes on to describe how many other things in the world are much more beautiful than her. This is ironic becuase men usually don't say things like this to girls, the reader expects him to say nice things like how her eyes are like the sun. But throughout the poem he goes on to make these "negative" comparisons. However, the big irony comes to play at the end of the poem. He goes on to say how he loves her and she is as beautiful as all the other girls who are lied to (or exaggerated to). The reader would expect the speaker to not love this woman and probably even think she was ugly in the narrator's eyes. But instead, she is supposedly beautiful and throughout the whole poem, he was just mocking those who do exaggerate to their women.

I can relate

"Next of course god america i" was the poem in this unit that I could relate to best. The example given in class that is a very good example of this poem's theme is that when I say the pledge of allegiance every day, I never pay attention to it. Those jumble of words have in a way lost meaning to me and whether or not they were jumbled and and didn't make sense wouldn't matter. There are so many things in society that are repeated so much and become so cliche, that they lose almost all their meaning unless the speaker actually takes time to think about what they are actually saying or doing. And that's another point, the speaker isn't only talking about not thinking about what we say (which is conveyed through the first half of the poem), but by also the repeated actions that we do. We may go through the day without even thinking about what we are doing and why we are doing it in the first place. If we were to stop and think about half the things we were doing, we would not be able to explain the purpose of our actions. So that could be another good theme to take from this poem... just stop and think.

Mr. Z

I am kind of proud of myself because I think I partly understand the Poem "Mr. Z" just by reading it multiple times and not having to use any other source to understand it. Each stanza seems to go through a different phase in his life in which the first deals with his entire childhood and how he dealt with racial pressures until the last stanza that mentions the character's death. While the poem never directly addresses how the character is someone of another race, many clues are given to confirm this observation. For example the first line states, "taught early that his mother's skin was the sign of error" shows that he was never ignorant of the fact that he and his family and anyone of his race were looked down upon simply because of the color of his skin. Thoough, the first stanza goes on to descibe that he did not let this fact affect him. He tried hard at everything he did and would chose "raceless views of each situation." However, when trouble came to him about racial issues, he dealt with it. But I'm going to skip to the last line which I think criticizes viewing people not as a whole, but by their race. The writer's acclaim the man as the "most distinguished [member] of his race" instead of viewing him as a person all of humanity. I'm sure if it were a white person, the writer's would say, "one of the most distuinguished people to ever live."

Repitition

"APO 96225" has a pattern that really establishes what I think to be the theme of the poem. The whole poem consists of stanzas no more than 3 lines that all end with either the soldier replying to his family's letter or his mother replying. Each time the family replies saying that they want to know what it's really like in the war, but he avoids these questions and replies by saying something irrevelant. However, when he does tell them, his mother gets upset by what he describes. This form of the repitition in which it goes back and forth helps establish the theme of the poem in which I think it symblizes how the average person wants to know about what really goes on and their curiosity overshadows how they might not like the truth. But when the truth actually does come and they get a sense of things, it is too much for the normal person to handle. So the repitition of the last line in which he replies by saying what he did in the first letter may be the soldier's realization of this. However, I am not sure about that.

It's all a paradox!!

In the poem "Much Madness is divinest Sense", a word that sums up the whole poem is paradox. First of all, I don't think that this poem can be thoroughly understood until the words Assent and Demure are known because after knowing these words, I had a greater understanding of the poem. But back to paradoxes, the title itself gives away the paradox in which the speaker states, "Much Madness is divinest the Sense." This is stating that if you're mad, then that is divine and you are sane. This seems to contradicts itself. But as you read further into the poem, you realize that the speaker is saying that society expects the sane to simply go along with everyone else, and if you don't, then you are mad. So the speaker is criticizing sociey and its beliefs. The function of this paradox is that it causes the reader to think about the point being made in depth making the reader understand and believe it better. If a writer simply states that it is mad to go along with society, the reader is going to forget about that line soon after because they didn't have to think to hard about it and it's probably just another cliche thing they are hearing. So in order to really get a reader to listen to a point you are making, the key is to get them to think.

Unit overview: Chapter 5.

I enjoyed these poems much more than the previous unit. The reason for this is that I understood these much easier than the previous unit. "Dream Deferred", "Bright Star", "February", "Pink dog" were all easy reads. I don't know if this is because they were just simply easier or if it's becuase I have improved in my interpretation of poetry. I'm hoping that it's my skills that have improved. All these poems were comparing some object to some greater thing and that is why I liked the themes so much. By using these comparisons, the author was able to bring out good themes in the poems that we can relate to. However, there are still one or two poems in this chapter that I had trouble understanding until I received the help from an outside source, so I still need practice when analyzing poetry.

Pink Dog

Pink Dog was a very interesting read for me and I think I understand one of the major points of the poem but I'm not 100 percent sure. The pink dog itself symbolizes, I think, a prostitute. The prostitute is not literally naked, but that is how others see her. They can see what she really is like a dog with no fur (pink dog). However, as the poem continues, the speaker starts to get more vulgar towards the "pink dog" representing how he does not agree with what prostitutes do. It shows that he judges them. Also, I thought the line "Where are your babies?" was a humerous line because he is saying that the prostitute participates in so much sinful sex that she should have a lot of kids by now. Instead, she is using methods so she does not become pregnant and the speaker seems to mock this. In addition, as the poem goes on, it gets harder for me to understand what the speaker is relating the prostiture to.

February: the lonely month

Throughout the whole poem of "February", it has a very negative tone and negative approach to life except for the last 6 lines or so. The author achieves this through diction and pretty much the main idea of the poem. She does this through diction, first of all, by giving words that seem to have a negative feel or attitude. For example, the first line, "Winter. Time to eat fat." show a negative attitude. First of all, winter is usually seen as a dreary and cold time of year and eating fat is what people do when they don't take care of themselvs or are just depressed. Also, "pollution pours out of our chimneys" is a negative way of saying how the smoke escapes our chimneys. All these negative words and phrases represent how the speaker has a negative approach to this time of year and of a lot of people such as men probably because of valentine's day and the speaker is lonely. However, towards the end of the poem, she gets a more optimistic view as she tells the cat to go out and stop whining in which she is really talking to herself.

"Dream Deferred" theme

In my opinion, "Dream Deferred was an easy read...therefore I liked it very much. However, that is obviously not the only reason, of course. I enjoyed reading about how he compared deferred dreams to different objects or ideas. By comparing it to a "raisin in the sun", or "fester[ing] like a sore, the speaker then easily brings about a very good theme. If summarized in one sentence, I would say the theme is how putting off your dreams or goals only brings about negative effects. Through the main body of the poem, he compared it to images that are easily comparable to a deferred dream. However, the last line is different from the rest. It is more of a metaphor and stands alone to make it stick out. It reads "Or does it explode?" and this line takes a little more interpretation than the others. This is because it can be interpreted a variety of ways. How I interpreted it, however, is that a deferred dream could bring about violence, for example, a dream about civil rights.

Sybolism of the star

Throughout the poem of "Bright Star" the speaker expresses his dislikes and likes about how a star lives. But this overview of the star of course is going to stand for something much more. The star symbolizes how he wants his life to be spent. The reader can pick this up because at the end of the poem he starts describing being with his live and "to feel forever" and "so ever live- or else swoon to death." The reader is comparing his life to the star's life and how he does not want to live alone. Instead, he'd much rather live in the arms of his lover. So because of all this, the reader can then go back through the whole poem and then know how the speaker would want to live his life. So without the last few lines of the poem where the speaker references himself, it would not be as clear to understand he is relating the star to himself.

Difficult to understand

Aside from a few poems, I do not like a majority of the poems introduced this week. For one, I am not a fan of poetry and its non-literal form. I have always had difficult trying to figure out the theme of the poem. For some, I come up with one that I can agree with but for others, I have no idea what they are trying to tell me. For example, the convergence of Twain poem is one that I have reread over and over again but cannot decide if its just simply describing the Titanic disaster or if there is some deeper meaning the speaker is trying to get across. It could be that I am approaching these poems so far from the wrong angle, but so far I am having difficulty understanding these on my own. After group discussions, I understand the poem, but for some of those poems discussed, I could never have come up with that material on my own. I think that I am just going to need some more practice.

Relationship between the two

Spring is one of the few poems in this week's collection that seems to be somewhat joyful. This is mostly due to the fact that it compares Spring (a normally happy/beautiful time of year) to the Garden of Eden (a place of infinite beauty and joy). Throughout the poem there are words and references that seem to compare the two. For example, peartree could represent the tree from which Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree causing original sin. "Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy." This line can be easily seen as representing Adam and Eve. As the line describes, the two were very innocent minded even though they disobeyed God's will. So my reaction to this poem was that the speaker was just trying to describe how beautiful he or she thought Spring was. Comparing it to the Garden of Eden makes it appear even more appealing and joyful.

My view of the poem.

When I read this poem, I got a whole different understanding from it then the class did when we discussed it. But for me, the central theme was: even when we are given so much, as God does for us, we are ungrateful for what we are given. For me, the father in this poem represented the God and I think that the him making the fire is God giving us warmth and comfort when it could just be cold and dreary. "No one ever thanked him." This line is where I got the feeling how the author is describing how ungrateful humanity is and this is pretty much where the central theme comes from. The very first word of the poem "Sundays" is also where I get the feeling that this poem is religious since sunday is the most important day of the week for Christians. However, during class discussion, it was said that the poem's theme was mainly about the speaker not having a good relationship with the father. For instance, "Speaking indifferently to him" shows the poor relationship. However, I believe that it represents the poor relationship with God that most people have.

A whole greater meaning

"The Widow's Lament in the Springtime" is full of imagery representative of the tone and theme. The imagery in the description of the of her lawn and the flowers are mostly visual imagery in which the speaker creates a mental picture we can see. The theme of the poem is how she doesn't want to leave the memories of her husband, even when she has the choice of going to a place so she can forget (the marsh). As she uses this imagery on her lawn and flowers, it eventually represents how they symbolize her memories of her husband and even though they make her sad, she doesn't want to leave them because she feels it is equivalent to leaving her husband. These three lines strongly represent this idea, "some bushes yellow and some red but the grief in my heart is stronger than they for though thery were my joy..." So because of how the imagery is used, it helps establish the theme of the poem. Also, the tone of the poem can be determined because of this imagery. Since the imagery brings about the theme of not wanting to forget her husband, that only brings a tone of nostalgia.

Very easily seen

Attempting to discover the tone of "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" is a very simple task. From the start, or even getting a sense of it from the title, the tone appears to be a very dreary and negative tone. This is mainly becuase the topic of the poem references death because of the funeral in the speaker's head. But not only does this central idea of the poem unveil the tone, the tone seems to be achieved through diction and style. First of all, Dickinson uses many negative words such as "mourners", "treading", "numb", "creak", etc. These words represent the tone ideally because of how they seem to fit the theme of death. When trying to get a sense of the poem's tone, the first thing to look for is proper diction to fit the tone becuase words such as these would never be used for a poem whose central theme was happiness. Lastly, I believe her style in part attributes to the tone because the ending of the poem just seems to cut off which resembles the suddenness of death bringing a dreary tone to the poem.

Interpretation of Poetry

I think that it is very interesting that poems have no set meaning. The authors of course have a set idea of what they describe in their poem but since they do not go and give a summary of their poem as novels do, many can be interpreted in any which way. I agree with Perrine's method of interpreting poetry because it would only make sense that correct interpretations should satisfy every detail of the poem. Something that makes this very interesting is that the author of the poem must be a very skilled writer. The writer has to be sure that the poem contains no contradictions that would leave a skilled reader confused. They must be sure taht every detail is correct of the central image. This is why not simply everyone can go out and write a "successful poem". Writing poems either takes great practice or is a natural gift.

This reading will definitey have me looking at poems entirely in a new way. What I have always done, I believe, was do a kind of scan of the poem and from there try to get what the gist of it was saying. I have never truly analyzed poetry. For example, when I read over some of the poems in this article, Perrine later analyzed it pulling out key words that I didn't even remember reading. I can't just read poetry like a novel, I must be much more careful and precise. Because of this article, I have realized the correct way of reading poetry and will try to improve my skill in that area. Even as poets have to be very skilled, the readers also have to have skill and experience if they wish to correctly analyze a poem. So during our poetry quarter, I am going to strive to become a better analyzer by the end.