sestina

Jordan Wampler
29 March 2011
“Let Me Count The Waves”
-Sandra Beasley
Sandra Beasley’s poem opens with the Donald Revell quote, “We must never look for poetry in poems.” This abstract thought sets the tone for Beasley’s nonsensical first stanza in her sestina, “Let Me Count the Waves.” Skirts and ducks fill the poem; ironically monkeys are wearing skirts in the second stanza but Beasley’s skirt has been torn off her body in the forth stanza. Either there is some extremely extended metaphor surrounding “skirts” or Beasley has surpassed Billy Collins with her ridiculous, intangible poetry. “Emily built a prison of her skirts” but Beasley also states, “We’re braces of mallards.... trading pelts for more durable skirts,” which leaves me wondering, “what is the significance of the ’skirt.’” I have to assume “Emily” is Emily Dickinson and her “prison” is referring to her self-imposed isolation built by her poems or “skirts.”
This poem makes absolutely no sense to me but I like the reoccurring images of “skirts” and “ducks.” The tone of Beasley’s sestina seems to be very humorous but it is mocking something that I do not understand so the humor is lost on me. The constant referral of skirts and butts makes me think of the late sixties and the hippie movement but that analysis has no educational authority other than my pure opinion. I get the sense that Beasley has tons of illusions within the poem that I have no knowledge of and therefore no appreciation of the commentary she is making. This poem gives me the impression of the song “American Pie” by Don McLean; with its multiple historical and political allusions and the majority of which I did not appreciate until someone explained their significance. I suspect the more I understand about the poem the more I will enjoy the poem but until then I will just have to enjoy the ridiculous nonsense that is “Let Me Count the Waves.”

villanelle

Jordan Wampler
20 March 2011
“Chatty Cathy Villanelle”
-David Trinidad
David Trinidad’s villanelle, “Chatty Cathy Villanelle”, employs the repetition of rhyme and exact lines throughout the poem as a whole. The repetition creates a tempo to the piece that would mimic the voice cadence of someone you might consider “chatty.” As the poem progresses the characterization of “Cathy” creates an image of a young, energetic, potentially annoying girl. Trinidad also employs a bit of nonsense that seems to flow through the stanzas which enhances the characterization of “chatty Cathy.”
I really enjoy this poem for many reasons but most importantly, there does not seem to be any obnoxiously obvious subtext. Another great thing about this poem is the comedic tone, which makes me think Trinidad is mocking the traditionally “significant” themes that plague the villanelle. I love the short stanzas that limit the author’s ability to dive too deeply into any one topic. Trinidad seemed to be aware of this and deliberately started a new thought with every new stanza, “Let’s take a trip to the zoo/… One plus one equals two/… Please come help me tie my shoe/… The rooster says cock-a-doodle-doo/… Our flag is red, white and blue.” I appreciate how the poem reads like Trinidad spent 15 minutes on it yet I’m sure it has all the technical aspects of a published poem. This poem proves, as a poet, you can ask your audience very significant questions, “Who are you,” while maintaining a simple, whimsical piece of literature.

the ode

7 March 2011
“Ode on Melancholy”
-John Keats
John Keats masterfully displays his “negative capability” in his “Ode on Melancholy.” Keats illustrates the journey of the human psyche as one suffers with sorrow. The ode ends, ironically, energetically as Keats compares joy to a grape. In the first stanza, the image of a grape is clustered with the ominous imagery of death and a reference to Hades. Keats closes the first stanza with a glimmer of hope, “For shade to shade will come too drowsily,/ And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.”
However, Keats dives back into the midst of the melancholy in the second stanza utilizing the imagery of flowers to contrast the dreary connotations of sorrow. Keats asserts that the raw beauty of nature can ameliorate the pain of sorrow, “But when melancholy fit shall fall/ … Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, or on the rainbow if the salt sand-wave, or on the wealth of globed peonies.” The second stanza seems to slow the tempo of the poem, allowing the concluding stanza to truly dictate the ultimate tempo of the total poem.
Keats opens his final stanza with a harsh reality about the beauty of an assumed lover, “She dwells with Beauty – Beauty that must die,” creating a sense of condemnation within the reader. Keats employs his trademark “negative capabilities” here in the third stanza painting a very dismal picture of the world, beginning with his comment on pleasures. “And Joy…Bidding adieu; aching Pleasure nigh,/ Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips,” this may be my favorite line in all of poetry. Keats captures the truly fleeting reality of pleasure and happiness. “Pleasure” turns to pain so quickly even the bee cannot drink in pleasure fast enough to avoid the “poison” pleasure has become. Yet he does not stop there, Keats furthers this realistic, possibly pessimistic, view of pleasure, “Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue/ Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine.” Again we see the grape imagery but in this conclusion its purpose has completely shifted. Keats says that only one who can endure the arduous task of breaking the skin of the grape can enjoy the pleasure the fruit has to offer.
I really love Keats; I have ever since Judge Heldman came to our English class sophomore year to introduce Keats and lecture on the British poet. I appreciate how he allows his pieces to end in somewhat disarray. Not every problem must be solved in 15 lines and not every aspect of life is truly worth celebrating or worse- dramatically lamenting. “Ode on Melancholy” allows the reader to understand sorrow is a fact of life and without “strenuous tongues” none shall taste the sweetness of Joy’s grape.

Sonnet #3

1 March 2011
“A poet! He hath put his heart to school”
-William Wordsworth
A master of the Petrarchan sonnet, William Wordsworth illustrates the trials and tribulations of life as a poet in his Italian sonnet “A Poet! He Hath Put his Heart to School.” Wordsworth illustrates the rollercoaster of emotions through the Petrarchan rhyme scheme; following brief lows and suspended euphoria, A-B-B-A-A-B-B-A-C-D-C-D-C-D. Wordsworth explains that the trouble of a poet arises from the art form which has been shoved on the poet, “Nor dares to move, unpropped upon the staff/Which are hath lodged within his hand-.“ Wordsworth goes on to juxtapose the freedom of a forest flower to the imprisonment of a poet. As the flower lives without the concerns of the world, the poet remains to emote whatever his audience deems entertaining.
In sobering irony, Wordsworth succeeds in painting his poet an “everyday man” unlike the free flower and forest tree. I often find poets to be emotional lunatics yet Wordsworth reveals the startling fact that the poet, “must laugh/By precept only, and shed tears by rule.” Poets are subjects of the population and succeed or fail on our terms and that relationship strips the artists of their “divine vitality,” according to Mr. Wordsworth.
Just as I begin to believe this lament I, myself, realize Wordsworth has fooled me into sympathy. I did not force these great writers to assume the profession of poetry, rather they chose to plague ME with their flighty verses, emotional cries of distress, and ultimately an English curriculum. Wordsworth victimizes himself, the poet, “In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool/Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.” Am I seriously supposed to apologize for my criticism of poetry? William, you chose to write poetry, did you not expect a little criticism along the way? Maybe “Scorn” should write my epitaph.

poetry response 4

AP Lit 6^th

11 Feb 2011

“Upon a day, came Sorrow in to me”

-       Dante

Not surprisingly, Dante brilliantly captures the paradox of love and sorrow in his sonnet, “Upon a day, came Sorrow in to me.” The poet does not introduce the “black hat” of love until after the shift in mood at the end of the second quatrain. Ironically Dante does not acknowledge the true sorrow he must face until Love enters his home with the terrible news of his lady’s fate. Sorrow, herself, carries little authority on the subject although she does invite the unwelcomed guests, “Bile and Pain.” The poet casually dismisses Sorrow, comparing her to a “Greek… arguing in an easy style,” as if to say Sorrow only rambled of insignificant matters yet Love arrives “silently… having a black hat set upon his hair.” The poem opens with Dante describing an average day and Sorrow happens to stop by for a visit; however, the poem closing sestet ends with Love crying as he delivers the tragic news of Dante’s lover dying. This is a fantastic commentary on life enhanced by the poet’s use of true Italian form.

          Dante’s sonnet carries a tasteful amount of irony as he illustrates a horrific scenario of love and impending loss. The unconcerned poet greets Sorrow as an annoying mosquito, which shows the regularity at which sorrow visits us all. On the other hand Love, whom many wait anxiously for their entire life, enters the scene as a princess to a ball, bringing true grief into Dante’s home. The entire household notices the “trifler” coming with tears on his face and although Love bears bad news, he enters the grief with Dante as he replies, “A grief to be gone through/ For our own lady’s dying, brother dear.” Love does come with a cost, you cannot feel love yet avoid pain and grief all the while; however, indeed, it is comforting to know Love does share in that grief – it does not abandon you in those times of heartache. Dante shooed away the gnat of Sorrow, “away with thee,” but the magnitude of love could not be ignored and thus came Love and Sorrow Dante.

dramatic monologue 2

“Confession in a booth at the Hollow Log Lounge”

-R.T. Smith

            R.T. Smith’s poem, “Confession…”, is more obviously a dramatic monologue than some of the other convoluted pieces on the link. As the title suggests, the setting of the monologue takes place in a lounge, presumably in Georgia. As the women begins to illustrate the details of her life as a seamstress in a “non union sweatshop” she characterizes herself as a lonely, talkative woman who is beside herself to talk to the unnamed listener, a man, in her booth. The syntax remains unchanged throughout the poem creating a droning cadence. The woman realizes that she is about to miss her opportunity to dance with the listener in the lounge and the poem closes with the speaker’s request to dance with the listener.

            When reading this poem and listening to the rapid succession of repetitive sentences I cannot help but imagine the poem in the middle of a Gilmore Girls episode. The most annoying part of Gilmore Girls is the constant battle by the actors and mostly actresses to spit their lines out faster than the previous speaker. I imagine the women giving the monologue in the Hollow Log Lounge as Lauren Graham overwhelming this unknown male listener with boring details about a life in a sowing factory. The humor and irony in the closing line, “You ain’t married just now, are you?” shows the woman’s obnoxiously impulsive readiness to reveal the boring details of her life with a man she has very little to know relationship. I wonder if she even knows the guy’s name. The “friendliness” of the woman could be part of further characterization of the setting, as she constantly compares her situations and desires to typically southern items such as, “[I] want to eat a hot pig’s foot.” Maybe I’m really cynical but the mental image I get of the speaker is a socially awkward, lonely woman who finds herself in the “Hollow Log Lounge” every evening searching for a man who can put up with her incessant ramblings. 

glogtastic

http://solideogloria.glogster.com/hollowbones/gloger