Link to poetry.org section on sonnets: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems?field_form_tid=424
Part I - Overview of Metaphysical Poetry & John Donne
John Donne was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets, a term created by Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher. His wife, aged thirty-three, died in 1617 shortly after giving birth to their twelfth child, a stillborn. The Holy Sonnets are also attributed to this phase of his life.
The term "metaphysical poetry" is used to describe a certain type of 17th century poetry. The term was originally intended to be derogatory; Dryden, who said Donne "affects the metaphysics," was criticizing Donne for being too arcane. Samuel Johnson later used the term "metaphysical poetry" to describe the specific poetic method used by poets like Donne.
Metaphysical poets are generally in rebellion against the highly conventional imagery of the Elizabethan lyric. The poems tend to be intellectually complex, and (according to the Holman Handbook), "express honestly, if unconventionally, the poet's sense of the complexities and contradictions of life." The verse often sounds rough in comparison to the smooth conventions of other poets; Ben Jonson once said that John Donne "deserved hanging" for the way he ran roughshod over conventional rhythms. The result is that these poems often lack lyric smoothness, but they instead use a rugged irregular movement that seems to suit the content of the poems.
For an example of metaphysical rebellion against lyrical convention, one can look at Donne's Holly Sonnet VI, below.
"Holy Sonnet VI"
by John Donne, 1610
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's deliverie.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
The poem personifies death through an extended metaphor. It speaks to death as if poking fun at its history of being known as “mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so” according to the narrator. The speaker even goes so far as to say “nor canst thou kill me.” This ends the first stanza and is much more interesting and off putting than “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” or Let me not to the marriage of true minds” by Shakespeare.
That the punctuation is just as vital to the meaning of the work. In addition to challenging the conventions of rhythm, the metaphysical poets also challenged conventional imagery. Their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. There can be conventional ideas, where there are expected metaphors: Petrarchan conceits imitate the metaphors used by the Italian poet Petrarch. Metaphysical conceits are noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes us look at something in an entirely new way.
In the sonnet above, he last line is what does it for me, though and it was utilized brilliantly in Maraget Edison’s Wit.
Some editions of the text present the last line as follows:
And Death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die!
In the Gardner edition, it is presented as follows:
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
As stated in Edison’s play “Nothing but a breath. A comma separates life from eternal life.” Therefore, the metaphysical conceit of the sonnet is that when you die you live forever.
"Holy Sonnet IV"
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This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile, and my race
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point,
And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space,
But my ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint.
Then, as my soul to heaven her first seat takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred and would press me to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.
Part II - Modern Sonnets
"Sonnet XLIII"
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's deliverie.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
The poem personifies death through an extended metaphor. It speaks to death as if poking fun at its history of being known as “mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so” according to the narrator. The speaker even goes so far as to say “nor canst thou kill me.” This ends the first stanza and is much more interesting and off putting than “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” or Let me not to the marriage of true minds” by Shakespeare.
That the punctuation is just as vital to the meaning of the work. In addition to challenging the conventions of rhythm, the metaphysical poets also challenged conventional imagery. Their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit. A conceit is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor. There can be conventional ideas, where there are expected metaphors: Petrarchan conceits imitate the metaphors used by the Italian poet Petrarch. Metaphysical conceits are noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes us look at something in an entirely new way.
In the sonnet above, he last line is what does it for me, though and it was utilized brilliantly in Maraget Edison’s Wit.
Some editions of the text present the last line as follows:
And Death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die!
In the Gardner edition, it is presented as follows:
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
As stated in Edison’s play “Nothing but a breath. A comma separates life from eternal life.” Therefore, the metaphysical conceit of the sonnet is that when you die you live forever.
"Holy Sonnet IV"
by John Donne, 1610
If poysonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd, Alas ! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And, mercy being easie, and glorious
To God, in his stern wrath why threatens hee?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee?
O God, Oh! of thine only worthy blood,
And my teares, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sinnes blacke memorie.
That thou remember them, some claime as debt,
I thinke it mercy if thou wilt forget.
"Holy Sonnet X"
If poysonous minerals, and if that tree,
Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damn'd, Alas ! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And, mercy being easie, and glorious
To God, in his stern wrath why threatens hee?
But who am I, that dare dispute with thee?
O God, Oh! of thine only worthy blood,
And my teares, make a heavenly Lethean flood,
And drown in it my sinnes blacke memorie.
That thou remember them, some claime as debt,
I thinke it mercy if thou wilt forget.
"Holy Sonnet X"
by John Donne, 1610
My pilgrimage's last mile, and my race
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point,
And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space,
But my ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint.
Then, as my soul to heaven her first seat takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,
To where they're bred and would press me to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.
Part II - Modern Sonnets
"Sonnet XLIII"
by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1956
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
"Florida Doll Sonnet"
by Denise Duhamel, 1961
I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.
"The Harlem Dancer"
by Denise Duhamel, 1961
I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.
"The Harlem Dancer"
by Claude McKay, 1922
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
"Ever"
"Ever"
by Meghan O'Rourke, 2015
Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
"Superheroes as 2004 Volkswagen Passat: A Double Sonnet"
by Bruce Covey, 2012
The Invisible Woman is the windshield.
Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
"Superheroes as 2004 Volkswagen Passat: A Double Sonnet"
by Bruce Covey, 2012
The Invisible Woman is the windshield.
Mr. Fantastic is the wiper fluid.
The Thing is the tire.
The Human Torch is the spark plug.
Spiderman is the antenna.
Storm is the ignition coil.
Rogue is the crank shaft.
The Punisher is the exhaust pipe.
Captain America is the hub cap.
Quicksilver is the oil.
Rogue is the gasoline.
Psylocke is the catalytic converter.
The Hulk is the cylinder block.
She Hulk is the mount.
Mantis is the manifold.
Ms. Marvel is the muffler.
The Scarlet Witch is the instrument panel.
Iceman is the cooling system.
Wolverine is the hood.
Colossus is the camshaft.
Banshee is the horn.
Polaris is the voltage regulator.
Silver Surfer is the rearview mirror.
Powerman is the bearing.
Phoenix is the powertrain.
Emma Frost is the hinge pillar.
The Vision is the fuse box.
Black Widow is the brake.
Dylan Brenner
ReplyDeleteFirst Communion
The mortal fruit upon the bough
Hands above the nuptial bed.
The cat-bird in the tree returns
The forfeit of his mutual vow.
The hard, untimely apple of
The branch that feeds on watered rain,
Takes the place upon her lips
Of her late lamented love.
Many hands together press,
Shaped within a static prayer
Recall to one the chorister
Docile in his sexless dress.
The temperate winds reclaim the iced
Remorseless vapours of the snow.
The only pattern in the mind
Is the cross behind the Christ.
This sonnet is more of a happy and joyful sonnet because it explains your first communion. I feel like this poem also has a peaceful but mostly joyful tone because having your first communion is a big thing in the christian religion. This sonnet relates the ones we have read in class. This sonnet has the same format we used in class, this poem has 4 quatrains. This sonnet has much more of a joyful tone that some of the ones we have looked at.
Michael DiCenzo
ReplyDeleteThe Dream
Winifred M. Letts, 1882 - 1972
I dreamt—before death made such dreaming vain— A
That sometime, on a day of wind and rain, A
I would come home to you at fall of night B
And see your window flushed with firelight. B
There in the chill dark lonesomeness, I’d wait C
A moment, standing at the garden gate C
Scarce trusting that my happiness was true,— D
The kind warm lights of home and love and you. D
Then, lest they’d vanish to be mine no more, E
I’d speed my steps along the garden path, F
Cross my own threshold, close the wind-blown door E
And find you in the firelight of the hearth. G
O happiness! to kneel beside you there H
And feel your fingers resting on my hair. H
The sonnet is about a dream. It seems to be happier but also is kind of creepy when he talks about watching a waiting for this girl. He speaks about his dreams as if he was resting a script but he also talked about maybe his wife or a girl. He even says “There in the chill dark lonesomeness, I’d wait.” This sonnet has iambic pantamider. The sonnet is a sestet because it has 14 lines. The sonnet doesn't have any repetitive phrases.
Xingyun Pan
ReplyDeleteThe Dream
I dreamt—before death made such dreaming vain—
That sometime, on a day of wind and rain,
I would come home to you at fall of night
And see your window flushed with firelight.
There in the chill dark lonesomeness I’d wait
A moment, standing at the garden gate
Scarce trusting that my happiness was true,—
The kind warm lights of home and love and you.
Then, lest they’d vanish to be mine no more,
I’d speed my steps along the garden path,
Cross my own threshold, close the wind-blown door
And find you in the firelight of the hearth.
O happiness! to kneel beside you there
And feel your fingers resting on my hair.
The sonnet I’ve picked is The Dream which written by Winifred M. Letts. The tone of this sonnet is nervous and cold at first but happy and warm at last. The first part of the sonnet uses some negative words such as “death”, “dark” and “chill”. But the diction in the second part becomes more positive, the author uses words like “happiness”. The structure of this sonnet is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first part) and the sestet (the final six lines). I feel like the first part of the sonnet is trying to create a dark and gloomy environment to match the characters nervous feeling. The second part has a very warm environment and full of happiness to create the “recovery” feeling of the character, also increase the contrast between the first and the second part to create irony. Shakespeare’s sonnets were mainly written in iambic pentameter nut this sonnet from Winifred M. Letts were separate into two part, the second part is the inverted or the answer part.
Luke Newton
ReplyDeleteSonnet XI
Alan Seeger, 1888 - 1916
On returning to the front after leave
Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),
Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue
Look the leftovers of mankind that rest,
Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you.
War has its horrors, but has this of good—
That its sure processes sort out and bind
Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood
And leave the shams and imbeciles behind.
Now turn we joyful to the great attacks,
Not only that we face in a fair field
Our valiant foe and all his deadly tools,
But also that we turn disdainful backs
On that poor world we scorn yet die to shield—
That world of cowards, hypocrites, and fools.
In my perspective this sonnet is about someone looking down at the earth. They are seeing the different types of people, the wars, and all the problems. I think it is somewhat realistic but not totally.
Olivia Dionisio
ReplyDeleteDead
Winifred M. Letts, 1882 - 1972
In misty cerements they wrapped the word
My heart had feared so long: dead... dead... I heard
But marvelled they could think the thing was true
Because death cannot be for such as you.
So while they spoke kind words to suit my need
Of foolish idle things my heart took heed,
Your racquet and worn-out tennis shoe,
Your pipe upon the mantel,—then a bird
Upon the wind-tossed larch began to sing
And I remembered how one day in Spring
You found the wren’s nest in the wall and said
“Hush!... listen! I can hear them quarrelling...”
The tennis court is marked, the wrens are fled,
But you are dead, beloved, you are dead
This sonnet is about death. It is about being afraid of death but knowing it has to come. It speaks about the process of death, what you think, what you feel, etc.
Celia Hoffman
ReplyDelete"Florida Doll Sonnet"
by Denise Duhamel, 1961
I love Fresh Market but always feel underdressed
squeezing overpriced limes. Louis Vuitton,
Gucci, Fiorucci, and all the ancient East Coast girls
with their scarecrow limbs and Joker grins.
Their silver fox husbands, rosy from tanning beds,
steady their ladies who shuffle along in Miu Miu’s
(not muumuus) and make me hide behind towers
of handmade soaps and white pistachios. Who
knew I’d still feel like the high school fat girl
some thirty-odd years later? My Birkenstocks
and my propensity for fig newtons? Still, whenever
I’m face to face with a face that is no more real
than a doll’s, I try to love my crinkles, my saggy
chin skin. My body organic, with no preservatives.
This poem is about the author feeling not in trend. She is relating that to seeing younger woman shop at the supermarket with designer clothes, scarecrow limbs, silver fox husbands and rosey skin that suggests a fake tan. These metaphors show us what kind of women the author is talking about. I think the author is intimidated if not a little jealous of these women. I think this poem relates to a lot people, when they feel out of touch or not in style, even somewhere as non-important as the supermarket.
Jaqui Magner
ReplyDeleteThe Dream
Winifred M. Letts, 1882 - 1972
I dreamt—before death made such dreaming vain—
That sometime, on a day of wind and rain,
I would come home to you at fall of night
And see your window flushed with firelight.
There in the chill dark lonesomeness I’d wait
A moment, standing at the garden gate
Scarce trusting that my happiness was true,—
The kind warm lights of home and love and you.
Then, lest they’d vanish to be mine no more,
I’d speed my steps along the garden path,
Cross my own threshold, close the wind-blown door
And find you in the firelight of the hearth.
O happiness! to kneel beside you there
And feel your fingers resting on my hair.
I think this sonnet is about a scary dream. It talks about dreaming and the loneliness of being stuck in the dark. I feel like what this sonnet means is once you start to wake up you feel relieved and free and happy and safe, which is what it's saying in the last couple of lines.
Luke Newton
ReplyDeleteEdna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950
The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.
This poem is about how the author's mother was a very brave woman and how she left her golden brooch to the author. There is nothing the author treasures more than the brooch but they wish that their mother had left them her courage as well because that was her greatest quality.
Griffin Littlewood
ReplyDeleteListening
Amy Lowell, 1874 - 1925
’T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
One music with a thousand cadences.
This poem refers to a person's actions as songs. The person who is wrote the poem is listening or seeing the actions in progress. The writer notices that the song is great so he believes that they are starting their own path with her actions. The writer believes that they are creating a great song or life for themself. The writer compliments them throughout the poem saying things like " This perfect beauty; waves within a tide or single notes amid a glorious throng." here he compliments the beauty of her life as well by saying that her life is glorious.
Shruthi Saravanan
ReplyDelete"The Harlem Dancer"
by Claude McKay, 1922
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
This sonnet was about an amazing singer and dancer who did a amazing show and the audience loved it. This sonnet shows that this performer was very graceful and that this was the place she was meant to be in, on a stage showing off her talent. This sonnet follows the a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, e, g, g pattern. There are two quatrains and then a pair at the end of the sonnet.
Evan Lin
ReplyDeleteSonnet XLIII
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
Like the Holy Sonnets, the rhyme scheme of this sonnet starts as ABBAABBA. Like Shakespearean sonnets, each line contains ten syllables, except for the 9th and last lines. There are two slant rhymes (lines 6,7,10,12). The sonnet is about someone who has forgotten about everyone they have loved. They ask “what lips my lips have kissed” in the first line, stating that they cannot remember. In line 9 they compare themself to a lonely tree, as they have forgotten everyone, and have no one to be with. The tone is sad.
Hanna Saad
ReplyDeleteV. The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke
It follows the same pattern of ababcdcd. It has similar from to one of many sonnets out there. It has fourteen lines. Its deminor is not as sad and happy like other poems. There is color and hope in this poem.
Jacob Moore
ReplyDeleteDead
In misty cerements they wrapped the word
My heart had feared so long: dead... dead... I heard
But marvelled they could think the thing was true
Because death cannot be for such as you.
So while they spoke kind words to suit my need
Of foolish idle things my heart took heed,
Your racquet and worn-out tennis shoe,
Your pipe upon the mantel,—then a bird
Upon the wind-tossed larch began to sing
And I remembered how one day in Spring
You found the wren’s nest in the wall and said
“Hush!... listen! I can hear them quarrelling...”
The tennis court is marked, the wrens are fled,
But you are dead, beloved, you are dead
-Winifred M. Letts, 1882 - 1972
I chose the poem Dead by Winifred M. Letts because it is similar to the poem that we analyzed in class "Holy Sonnet VI". In the poem Dead I think the meaning behind the poem is that you are constantly brought off track by other people from the thought of death. I also believe that in the end of the poem when it says “But you are dead, beloved, you are dead” it means that the person was telling them that we all die one day so we might as well call ourselves dead already. It has a different meaning than the poem "Holy Sonnet VI" but they are both about death and are both very similar
Sean Curtis-
ReplyDeleteListening
Amy Lowell, 1874 - 1925
’T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
One music with a thousand cadences.
This poem shows a person's actions based on songs. The person who is wrote the poem is listening to the song and seeing the actions. The writer notices that they are starting their own path with their own actions.
Nick Entner
ReplyDelete"Superheroes as 2004 Volkswagen Passat: A Double Sonnet"
by Bruce Covey, 2012
The Invisible Woman is the windshield.
Mr. Fantastic is the wiper fluid.
The Thing is the tire.
The Human Torch is the spark plug.
Spiderman is the antenna.
Storm is the ignition coil. Rogue is the crankshaft.
The Punisher is the exhaust pipe.
Captain America is the hub cap.
Quicksilver is the oil.
Rogue is the gasoline.
Psylocke is the catalytic converter.
The Hulk is the cylinder block.
She Hulk is the mount.
Mantis is the manifold.
Ms. Marvel is the muffler.
The Scarlet Witch is the instrument panel.
Iceman is the cooling system.
Wolverine is the hood.
Colossus is the camshaft.
Banshee is the horn.
Polaris is the voltage regulator.
Silver Surfer is the rearview mirror.
Powerman is the bearing.
Phoenix is the powertrain.
Emma Frost is the hinge pillar.
The Vision is the fuse box.
Black Widow is the brake.
In this poem they use imagery to show Marvel superheroes as a car. Some of the character are the surtan car part because they have something that matches with the part of the car. But others you have to think of why they put the character as that part of the car. They use metaphors to say that they are like the car parts. They use juxtaposition to compare multiply heros to one thing. This was a fairly simple poem to understand but there were part where u had to think of why they did the comparison.