David Rivard
Forehead
I love you
I know as much as anything
for your courage
so companionably invisible
as it is
that it passes mostly
as simple
good sense. I don't mean you're
practical at all--god forbid--
only persistent
as far as dying brothers & cold calls
are concerned--not violent,
not weak, but like a lantern afloat on a wave
open if necessary
to sinking your light
offshore. Onshore
I am as you would know
strongly sometimes
impatient & inside a swarm of loud thoughts
self-absorbed & locked-up.
If you were to die
who would remove me
from those thoughts?
When you lean your forehead
against mine
what you hear inside there
are all those
sounds likely, vibrations
like windowpanes rattled by headland squalls
or bullet trains
late forever & loaded down
with passengers green
as hoodie-wearing witches.
I lean my forehead against
your forehead
gently knowing both
will shortly vanish.
"First of all," says Virgil, "find
a protected place
for the bees
to make their
honey, a place that's
safe from wind."
David Rivard's books include Sugartown (Graywolf, 2006), Bewitched Playground (Graywolf, 2000), Wise Poison (Graywolf, 1996), and Torque (Pitt, 1988). In Fall 2008he will begin teaching in the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpvOdN7vbmA
Forehead by David Rivard, is directly related to love and the feelings from one person to another. This peom explains how two different people are coming together as one through love, and their actions prove their feelings for each other. From beginning the peom with the line, "I love you", it creates an automatic focus for the reader realizing that the peom discusses the emotional feelings between two lovers. I chose the song "Always Forever" by Donna Lewis to relate to this peom because the song discusses love and the attractions between the two individuals. In this peom, the author has a unique way of expressioning the connotations of love and the actions of two people who are in love which are similar in Lewis's song.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Line 'Em Up
"Vermin"
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
What child cries out, "An Exterminator!"?
One dilligent student in Mrs. Taylor's class will get an ant farm for Christmas,
but he'll not see industry; he'll see dither.
"The ant sets an example for us all,"
wrote Max Beerbohm, a master of dawdle,
"but it is not a good one."
Those children don't hope to outlast the doldrums of school
only to heft great weights
and work in squads
and die for their queen.
Well, neither did we.
And we knew what we didn't want to be:
the ones we looked down on,
the lambs of God,
blander than snow
and slow to be cruel.
-- William Matthews
from The New Yorker, 1997.
I read this poem two to three times before I began to analyze the sentence structure and ideas in the poem. This allowed me to get a clear view of the author's theme and the ideas that were spread out throughout the writing. When reading this poem, I put a line break after what I considered to be an individual thought. Also, when reading it out loud I felt a rhythm in the sound of the words I was saying. This helped acknowledge where to pause for reflection. When editing the poem's line breaks, I payed attention to the punctuation at the end of each line which helped me decide how to break the lines, in order for the poem to flow correctly. In addition, periods and colons usually separate two ideas in a piece of writing, and I took that into consideration when working with this poem.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
What child cries out, "An Exterminator!"?
One dilligent student in Mrs. Taylor's class will get an ant farm for Christmas,
but he'll not see industry; he'll see dither.
"The ant sets an example for us all,"
wrote Max Beerbohm, a master of dawdle,
"but it is not a good one."
Those children don't hope to outlast the doldrums of school
only to heft great weights
and work in squads
and die for their queen.
Well, neither did we.
And we knew what we didn't want to be:
the ones we looked down on,
the lambs of God,
blander than snow
and slow to be cruel.
-- William Matthews
from The New Yorker, 1997.
I read this poem two to three times before I began to analyze the sentence structure and ideas in the poem. This allowed me to get a clear view of the author's theme and the ideas that were spread out throughout the writing. When reading this poem, I put a line break after what I considered to be an individual thought. Also, when reading it out loud I felt a rhythm in the sound of the words I was saying. This helped acknowledge where to pause for reflection. When editing the poem's line breaks, I payed attention to the punctuation at the end of each line which helped me decide how to break the lines, in order for the poem to flow correctly. In addition, periods and colons usually separate two ideas in a piece of writing, and I took that into consideration when working with this poem.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Poet Assignment
Emily Dickinson - Hope is the Thing
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
This poem from Emily Dickson is personally significant to me because I can connect to her visions of hope. She uses strong metaphors to explain her view and how she sees hope in her life, comparing hope to a bird. This allows me to open my eyes to recognize hope in a different perspective, while still seeing it's presence and it's importance. "I've heard it in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea." This quote, in particular, gives a comforting feeling knowing that hope is everywhere "and never stops at all". Hope is apart of my life everyday, while I wish or expect good things in the future. It is neat to see how others view hope in their personal life, and it inspires me to open my eyes to the many surroundings that offer hope. For example, a rainbow after the storm or the changing of the seasons.
Emily Dickinson - The Cricket Sang
The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.
The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.
A vastness, as a neighbor, came,--
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,--
And so the night became.
This poem discusses the different aspects and visions of the night falling. This picture represents my favorite time of the night, "when the cricket sang and set the sun", because it come with beautiful images in the sky, along peaceful feelings and sounds of nature. This picture also represents the day coming to an end, when it is time to relax, rest, and enjoy yourself at home after a long day of work, "the workmen finished one by one."
Emily Dickinson - A Bird Came Down
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.
The DIDLS in this poem are represented through diction, imagery, and detail. The colloquial diction used in this poem create an informal tone for the reader, using lines such as "and ate the fellow, raw" or "and then he drank a dew." Dickson's word choice in this poem are used to make the reading more conversational and less literal. In addition, she also uses lines in her poem, such as "unrolled his feathers" and "hopped sideways to the wall" to give the reader a vivid image of the bird's actions and how it effects the poem the altogether. The author's detail in the poem is used through words such as "velvet head" and "convenient grass", which also help convey the overall image of the poem to the reader.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
This poem from Emily Dickson is personally significant to me because I can connect to her visions of hope. She uses strong metaphors to explain her view and how she sees hope in her life, comparing hope to a bird. This allows me to open my eyes to recognize hope in a different perspective, while still seeing it's presence and it's importance. "I've heard it in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea." This quote, in particular, gives a comforting feeling knowing that hope is everywhere "and never stops at all". Hope is apart of my life everyday, while I wish or expect good things in the future. It is neat to see how others view hope in their personal life, and it inspires me to open my eyes to the many surroundings that offer hope. For example, a rainbow after the storm or the changing of the seasons.
Emily Dickinson - The Cricket Sang
The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.
The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.
A vastness, as a neighbor, came,--
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,--
And so the night became.
This poem discusses the different aspects and visions of the night falling. This picture represents my favorite time of the night, "when the cricket sang and set the sun", because it come with beautiful images in the sky, along peaceful feelings and sounds of nature. This picture also represents the day coming to an end, when it is time to relax, rest, and enjoy yourself at home after a long day of work, "the workmen finished one by one."
Emily Dickinson - A Bird Came Down
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.
The DIDLS in this poem are represented through diction, imagery, and detail. The colloquial diction used in this poem create an informal tone for the reader, using lines such as "and ate the fellow, raw" or "and then he drank a dew." Dickson's word choice in this poem are used to make the reading more conversational and less literal. In addition, she also uses lines in her poem, such as "unrolled his feathers" and "hopped sideways to the wall" to give the reader a vivid image of the bird's actions and how it effects the poem the altogether. The author's detail in the poem is used through words such as "velvet head" and "convenient grass", which also help convey the overall image of the poem to the reader.
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