Blog 21
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden
This poem is written into three stanzas with 5 lines within each. I like this poem because the author uses a lot of description and imagery to tell the reader or to describe how cold the weather is. He uses imagery like “blueblack cold”, “cold splintering”, and “cracked hands that ached”. All of these things people can relate to because everyone has felt coldness in their life. When he says “cracked hands that ached” I think of when it is so cold that your hands are like that and they ache because they are so cold and cracked from being so cold. This rhyme has no apparent rhyme scheme. Each stanza has lines that have enjambent. If it were written in prosaic, the lines would be run on sentences. Each new line is not capitalized with also makes it more clear that the lines are enjamb (spelling?). I think this poem is really sad because I think it is about a son taking his dad for granted and not appreciating him. The first stanza describes how his dad woke up early on sundays in the “blueback cold” and “No one ever thanked him”. The second and third stanzas talk about how he would talk back to his dad even though his dad had “driven out the cold/ and polished my good shoes as well”. I think it is interesting that the author then repeats “what did I know?” twice because reiterates the fact that he didnt appreciate his dad and he is looking back and feeling stupid I guess. The last two lines “What did I know, What did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices” sort of makes you look at the dad’s life and hints that it wasnt necessarily rewarding or that his dad was lonely. It makes you feel bad for the dad and the fact that no one ever thanked him. I like this poem a lot.
“Happy Insensibility” by John Keats
This poem is written into three stanzas with eight lines in each of them. This poem has a A B A B C C C D A E A E F F F D G H G H I I I D rhyme scheme which I think helps the poem to flow easy. This poem is assoicated with winter and christmas time and the author uses cold imagery like “Sleety whistle”, “frozen thawings” ” crystal” and other words to describe the holiday time like “Christmas” ”tree” “green felicity” and “joy”. The first two lines in the first and second stanza are the same “In a drear-nighted December” which I can not tell if that makes the poem sad or happy. I think that this poem is saying that Decemember is happy to be winter but sad at the same time that it is unable to remember “Apollo’s summer look”. I think that this poem follows a stressed and then unstressed syallable pattern although I feel it could also go two unstressed syallable and then one stressed. I think the title fits the poem well. Since Decemeber is happy to be winter but unable to feel the good qualities of Summer it shows that it is a happy thing and clears up any confusion the reader may have. The flow of this poem reminds me of “Twas the Night Before Christmas”.
“Song for A Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes
This poem has three stanzas with quadtrains in each. The second and fourth lines are indented in each stanza. There is a lot of repition in the poem. The first lines in every stanza are “Way Down south in Dixie”. The second lines in the first in third stanza are “(Break the heart of me)” but all of the second lines in each stanza of the poem have parenthesis. This poem is really sad because it is about someone’s “black young lover” being hung on a tree. This poem is about race because the author uses the description of Jesus and calls him “white Lord Jesus”. By calling Jesus white he also might be saying that Jesus is not going to help him since he is white and the author is black and the author also says “What was the use of prayer”. The author uses a lot of imagery like “Love is a naked shadow”. Shadows are dark so maybe the shadow is a reffurl (spelling?) to the dark skin of his lover. This poem does have a rhyme scheme A A B A A B A B A B X A. I would be interested in hearing this song if it really is a song. This poem was written in 1927 which, in the South, there were still slaves or at least predjudices against blacks.
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?” by Emily Dickinson
The first thing that I notice about this poem is that the author, Dickinson, uses A LOT of punctuation especially exclamation points and dashes. I think Dickinson is famous for her dashes. I think she uses all the exclamation points because she is so excited about writing poetry. This poem is written into two stanzas with quadtrains in year. This poem has kind of a rhyme scheme: A A B C D E F E. The author does use one similie : “How public - like a frog”. This poem is really confusing and I actually feel that it is just babble. I kind of feel like the poet is talking to herself in this poem like shes looking in the mirror or at a twin or something. I actually do not like this poem because it is so random and babbley. I think the pattern of this poem is two stressed syallables and two unstressed syallables. I am not sure if I am a huge fan of Emily Dickinson even though she is so highly rated and famous.
