From "Jubilate Agno"

I thought this was a very interesting poem. One noticeable aspect was anaphora with the word "for." Each line seems to be a reason for something, which could be explaining why "I will consider my Cat Jeoffry" or some other point made earlier in the poem. In the beginning, the speaker follows the cat's actions and movements, praising his elegance and devotion to God. The "ten degrees" to which Jeoffry considers himself are neatly laid out, one after another, each conveniently numbered. This gives the impression that this cat goes through the same routine every day in a set, orderly way, which the speaker has observed and knows well enough to list with confidence and numbers. Once "his day's work is done his business more properly begins." Here Jeoffry goes about tasks such as counteracting the devil and powers of darkness, and we learn about his abilities and admirable traits. The speaker also mentions the virtues of cats in general, from England to Egypt to Israel. It seems as if the speaker is observing this cat and letting his mind wander while thinking about cats, and is sometimes interrupted in that train of thought by an especially attention-grabbing incident, such as Jeoffry's alarming rat-inflicted wound.

We Real Cool: Audio

Here's a link to an audio file (mp3) of Gwendolyn Brooks reading her poem. She's an amazing, musical reader. She's also quite funny. Do have a listen.

Link

Holy Sonnet 14

This poem’s core lies in the commands of the narrator to God, with the rest of the poem sculpted around them. Through the poem he demands, “batter my heart,” “o’erthrow me,” “bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new,” “divorce me,” “untie or break that knot again,” “take me to You,” and “imprison me.” The first thing to notice is that he is commanding God to do these things, not asking God, and this of course cannot be done as God cannot be commanded to do anything. In this way the poem is unique, as most poems about religion have someone praying to God or asking him for something. The second thing to notice is the tone and language of these commands. The language is full of violence, lust and a need to be controlled. He demands that God free him of the enemy he is “betrothed” to, sin, and therefore human nature, by” imprisoning” him in His love. He tried to rid himself of the enemy and remain faithful to god before (as is indicated by “again” in line 11) but he failed because his reasoning is “weak or untrue.” However his commands cannot be met because only he can “o’erthrow” himself; it is up to him to get rid of his sins.

We real cool

I think this is a very appropriate poem for college students because it reveals a sense of uncertainty and insecurity in oneself. After all, everyone must go through the grueling process of finding out exactly who they are. Self identity is part of growing up and “We real Cool” depicts students who are in the plight for self awareness. The kids hide their insecurities in the poem by calling themselves “cool” as the lines chant phrases such as “we real cool” and “we left school.” The terse sentences serve to resemble the language of these students who are too cool to be grammatical or maybe because they have “left school” so much they are uneducated and only can speak in sentences that are at the level of elementary school children. The enjambment with the “We” in every line except the last subtly shows that the kids are faltering with this concept of “we.” I think the kids have succumb to peer pressure so much that they are having an especially difficult time pulling themselves out of this cookie cutter image of the “cool” kids that skip school and put on the façade of bad teenagers. The last line of the poem is striking because it changes, making the reader realize that this life of uncaring and sticking with the “we” identity instead of the “I” identity results in a death that is practically unimportant. Therefore it is important that these students stray from the group and find themselves as individuals.

Sherman Alexie's Evolution

This poem describes the "decline of life on an Indian reservation," as Vendler puts it, using the example of a pawn shop-turned-musuem to show the hardship and spiralling sense of self endured by these people. In the first sentence, covering two and a half stanzas, people are pawning off their material possessions such as VCR's, jewelry, and precious garments. Once all this is gone, we reach the second sentence, which covers the rest of the poem. Here "the Indians / pawn their hands, saving the thumbs for last, they pawn / their skeltons... / and when the last Indian has pawned everything / but his heart, Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks." Here we reach the climax of the poem, in which "the last Indian" has lost everything, from material possessions, to body parts (a means to live, work, and experience the world), and finally to his heart, which represents the soul and essence of the individual and the people as a whole. Alexie ends the poem with three lines that seem to contradict this climax in their material, unemotional, almost ironic attitude--now that Buffalo Bill has taken everything from the Indians, he profits off their now-gone culture by opening a museum. This part to me is the most powerful and striking, how even after the total ruination--the pawning of the heart, which he doesn't even deem is worth much--of a group of people, this man and whoever he represents still goes on making money off of them as if this was their only purpose.

Dover Beach

The tone of this poem does a complete 180 as is made evident by the comparison of the first line of the poem (“The sea is calm tonight”) to the last line of the poem (“Where ignorant armies clash by night”). At first the narrator looks out onto a scene of waves crashing against a beach and is so taken by its beauty that he calls his lover to the window to enjoy it with him. But this tone of peacefulness stops as soon as he listens to what is going on, and words such as “calm”, “fair”, “tranquil”, and “sweet” are replaced by “grating”, “roar” and “tremulous.” By the end of the first stanza he has woven his internal feelings of sorrow into the natural action of waves hitting the beach, and it brings “the eternal note of sadness in.”
The second stanza transports us to a different time and place, where the Aegean Sea represents “the turbid ebb and flow of human misery” to the Greek tragedian, Sophocles. The end of the stanza takes us back to present day, where the two of them can “hear” the same thing looking at a different sea.
The third stanza also starts off in the past, with the sea now the “Sea of Faith.” This faith used to be “full” and encompassed the whole Earth, but as the tense shifts to present, we see that this sea is now receding and is about to dry up. The world used to be fully clothed in its faith, but now it stands naked and in the dark as its faith begins to drain away.
In the last stanza the narrator starts off with the dramatic proposal: “let us be true to one another!” He sees this as the only way to combat the deceptive world that is devoid of joy, love, light, certitude, peace and help from pain. Sight is deceptive because the world only “seems…so beautiful, so new”, so hearing is the only way to discover the true nature of the world. He is saying that they can only control how they act towards each other while they are surrounded by “a darkling plain.”

Keats' desire to live through "Poesy"

John Keats’ poem, “Ode to Nightingale” grapples with the idea of death. Keats envies the nightingale because she is an “immortal bird.” Keats muses upon death’s tender grip stealing him away from the “weariness, fever, and the fret” of life, yet he also is in love with life. He has been “half in love with easeful death” and “called him soft names” but ultimately Keats does love the sensations of life. After all, through living Keats can experience the nightingale’s eternal chirp. Keats writes in a dream – like state where he is not completely conscious. For example, the poem closes with Keats questioning “Do I wake or sleep?” The diction in the poem with the allusion to Bacchus and the repeating of the word “wine” suggest that narrator is in this dream-like state induced by alcohol. Yet, Keats waves this theory away saying he only thinks of letting Bacchus’ “chariot” his “pards.” Instead Keats wants his artistic vision and poetry to follow the nightingale as he says, “Away! Away! For I will flee to thee.” “On the viewless wings of Poesy.” Perhaps Keats wants his writing to be eternal because he knows his body will eventually be nothing but “grey hairs” but his “Poesy” has the opportunity to keep the nightingale’s call company through the ages. Only then can Keats be like the bird that is “not born for death.”