Blog 19
“Desire” by Langston Hughes
This poem is written into one stanza with nine lines within it. It doesnt have a specific rhyme scheme but in two lines the last words rhyme: “death” and “breath”. Other than that nothing else rhymes. The first line: “Desire to us” is interesting because it leaves the reader guessing who “us” is. The author basically states that desire is impossible for “us to acheieve because he says that death “was like a double breath/ swift dying/ of our mingled breath” and that doesnt sound like desire is an achieveable thing to accomplish. The imagery in this poem is something that is hard for me to imagine like “of an unknown strange perfume/ between us quickly/ in a naked/ room”. This is hard for me to imagine and I am not exactly sure how to decipher it. The line breaks in this poem are really random. I probably would have done it differently. Each new word in a new line is capitalized even though if it isnt a new thought. I dont really like this poem because it kind of destroys my image of desire with something creepy since I have no idea what Langston Hughes is talking about. i think that this poem is really hard to decipher. All that I can take away from it, is that it doesnt sound like desire is a good thing. I think that this poem follows a stressed then unstressed pattern. I think the line “swift dying” is interesting because it kind of contrasts each other. When I think of the word swift I think of wings or something positive. Dying obviously makes me feel sad at this line contrasts each other.
”Prayer” by Langston Hughes
The first thing I notice about this poem is that the author uses repition. Langston Hughes repeats “Gather up” at least three times throughout the poem. He also repeats the line “in the arms of your pity” twice. I think this poem is very church related because it is obviously beause of the title but in the line “no love from above” indicates that “above” is heaven. This poem actually reminds me of New Orleans and after the storm. The first stanza is “Gather up/in the arms of your pity/ the sick, the depraved/ the desperate, the tired/ all the scum/ out of our weary city”–it actually kind of scares me how much this sounds like New Orleans. I think that the author is saying for people to gather up and pray for people who need help or who are less fortunate. The second stanza makes me think that the people who he wants to pray for cant pray for themselves because he says “Gather Up/ in the arms of your love/those who expect/no love from above”. I think he means that the “those who expect/ no love from above” do not have a lot of faith and need other people to have faith for them. I like this poem a lot becuase I think the tone of the poem is faith and wanting to help people. As for structure the poem is written into two stanzas with six lines in each of them. There is no rhyme sequence.
“Island” by Langston Hughes
The first thing that I think of when I read this poem is that it makes me think that this is the person from cast a way writing it. The poem has four stanzas with couplets in each. The rhyme scheme in this poem is really weird it follows an abxbxxab. This poem makes me think someone is stranded in the water and sees an Island of hope. “Wave of sorrow/do not drown me now” is really pretty because i like how he calls a wave sorrowful and by saying “do not drown me now” he is saying that he is not going to be defeated by the sorrow. “I see the Island/Still ahead somehow” is saying that he is hopeful to reach the island. “still ahead somehow” is saying that is not there yet but he still has hope for it. “I see the island/and its sands are fair” is saying that he is almost there and the reward of getting there is going to be good–you can tell that by the way he describes the sand. “Wave of sorrow/take me there” is saying that something bad can turn out to help him out maybe. Like the sorrowful wave that was hurting him can turn out to be good because it can take him to the island. I think that this poem follows a stressed unstressed pattern that carries on through consistently.
