Nothing Gold Can Stay

The title of this poem really caught my eye; it made me think of the cliché "all good things must come to an end." This poem is talking about nature and how fast the beauty of springtime comes and goes.
The first line in this poem "Nature's first green is gold," is talking about how the first leaves on the trees are a yellowish green color, almost golden.
The second line "Her hardest hue to hold," means the beautiful young yellow leaves don't stay young for very long, and soon they become the darker green color. I thought about it as meaning to people that you're only young once.
The third line: "Her early leaf's a flower," is referring to the idea of the budding of plants, which are often flowers.
The fourth line, "But only so an hour," talks about how fast a flower can wilt. The budding, blossoming and then wilting of a flower can occur in a matter of days, depending on the flower. Metaphorically, I think the poem is referring to how life happens quickly, and if you're too busy to stop and enjoy the ride, you'll miss all the beauty it has to offer.
The fifth line "Then leaf subsides to leaf," talks about how "special" the flower is once it's gone. When it's no longer in bloom, it doesn't matter, the gold has faded away.
The next couple of lines give examples about how "nothing gold can stay." The sixth line, "So Eden sank to grief," has a biblical reference. The Garden of Eden was so beautiful and lovely until Eve ate the apple. The next line "So dawn goes down to day," talks about how beautiful the colors of the sunrise are, purples, oranges, pinks, and yellows, but once the sun has risen, it's just another day. There is nothing so special in an ordinary day.
The poem then ends with the title: "Nothing gold can stay." It solidifies the idea that Frost is trying to convey: that all good things come to an end.
I really liked the poem, but I wish the "moral" wasn't so widely accepted. We can make "gold" stay it just takes that much more effort.

This Is Just To Say

I decided to read this poem because the title reminded me of the song "Say What You Need to Say" by John Mayer which I really like.
Because I was in the mood of the John Mayer song before starting this poem, I was surprised by the mischievousness of the poem.
Reading the poem a second time, I wondered if the plums stood for something, if the poem had a deep philosophical meaning behind it.
The plums, even though they are only mentioned once, are the central topic of this poem. The speaker was hungry and ate some delicious, sweet and cold plums but now the person who was saving them no longer gets to enjoy one of the plums he was saving. How sad..
The short, choppy lines, (I googled and found out when an author interrupts a thought with a line break its called an enjambment. Authors do this to show the importance of the ideas trying to be shared.) show how bad the speaker feels. He feels guilty for eating all the plums, and is possibly at a loss for words in how to apologize.
The lack of punctuation show that the speaker was in a hurry. Maybe he didn't have enough time to make himself breakfast and so he grabbed the plums because they were quick and easy.

Sindhi Woman

This poem caught my attention by the title. I've always been interested in other cultures and a Sindhi Woman seemed to be the epitome of just that.
As I started reading the poem I thought it was really beautiful. In the first stanza, Jon Stallworthy was talking about the woman, graceful as can be, someone people should look up to. I envisioned the woman in my head reading the poem. She was head strong, tall, confident, hard working, tenacious, caring; the list goes on. The thought of her being in poverty didn't even cross my mind until the second stanza when garbage and excrement were mentioned.
I thought Stallworthy's ability to take something most people would automatically pity right away and turn her into an icon, a treasure, a jewel was remarkable. Even after he shared how she lived in poverty, I still admired her, I almost wanted to be her.
In the poem, Stallworthy uses the excrement, stones, and glass to refer to the difficulty of the woman's life. But the woman still stands tall, carrying the traditions and expectations and ancestry with her. And she continues to do this without complaints; just grace and beauty.
I really liked the meaning of this poem, and the way Stallworthy changed the view of a Sindhi Woman, if even just for a moment.

Oh No

This poem was very interesting. My first take on it was as if it was a consoling poem, saying that everything will be okay, "you" will get a nice chair to sit and relax in after death. Yet the simplicity of my take on the poem was unsettling, and I felt there was much more that I was missing.
As I read it a couple more times I started to think there was a dark, possibly evil, tempting tone. Like the poem was trying to get me or whoever to do something we weren't supposed to.
I began to research about other people's views on the poem... I came across multiple different perspectives, but the two most common were death and heaven.
While both thought similarly about "wandering" through life, the chair and the friends with their smiles were completely different. The darker version took the chairs as the "home" of the rich and wealthy - they forced their way to wealth and "bought" the chairs to sit and relax on their pedestals. The friends smiled, welcoming the newcomer, but they weren't really friends; there was no sincerity about them, and they were just engrossed in themselves as the newcomer supposedly is.
On the other hand, the view about heaven thought it was more of the relaxing part after death. Everyone got chairs because man was created equally; the friends and family were the friends of the newcomer who were already deceased.
I reread the poem multiple times trying to figure out which "take" I thought more suited my interpretation of the poem.
Whether the chair symbolized the wealth and money of the selfish and wealthy, or the nice relaxing seat of the old and tired.
I decided the poem was a combination of the two. That it took a positive outlook on life; positive in how people were selfish in the way they tried to saw themselves before others: survival of the fittest.
Towards the end of the poem I decided I was unsure about whether I liked it. The poem definitely got me to think about life.
I thought about my life.. How it's possible that the chair could be both the selfish's home but also the place where old friends connect... I almost found the poem to be a lesson on perspectives. But maybe it wasn't the poem that "taught," but the research to discover what the poem was about.

A Poison Tree

I really enjoyed this poem - and connected to it on a personal level (which I think most people can in some way or another.)
The poem begins by sharing two personal stories of "wrath." One was with a friend, the other with a foe. When the speaker was angry with his friend, he communicated his feelings to his friend and his "wrath did end." On the other hand, when he was mad at his foe, he didn't say anything and in his silence, his "wrath did grow." We begin to see what the poison Blake was talking about.
The second stanza Blake discusses fears. Fear and anger go hand in hand, and fear can make people do crazy things they otherwise wouldn't do. He then talks about smiles, implying the idea he is happy about this growing wrath inside of him... He ends the stanza with the word "wiles." I didn't know what it meant, so naturally I looked it up. It means a trick or way to deceive someone. Is the narrator going to play a trick on the foe?
The third stanza the speaker talks about his wrath growing and growing. It had now become that dangerous poison. The speaker then says it "bore an apple bright" - I naturally thought of a tree, because apples grow on trees. The metaphor has been completed. The poison tree was the wrath growing inside the narrator. The foe sees the apple and desires it - obviously because it looks so tasteful. He knows it's the narrator's too..
The fourth stanza the foe steals the apple when he thinks no one is looking, unaware of the poison it contains. The narrator awakes to see the "foe outstretched beneath the tree." He won. The narrator conquered his foe.. But in the end, did he really win?
I think Blake wrote this poem because he has seen what wrath can do to a person - it can drive them mad. My take on this was to be a warning to anyone and everyone to communicate; let others know when you feel angry with them instead of letting your feeling slowly fester until one day they burst. Don't let wrath be the poison tree that cuts you down.

Beginning Again

This poem intrigues me from the very beginning. As people grow older, we learn and become more experienced; I know personally looking back on my past I would have done some things differently if I had known what I know now.

The first line of the poem "If I could stop talking, completely cease talking for a year, I might begin to get well." I immediately thought this was going to be a poem all about why a person should heal themselves through not talking. But he goes on to compare not talking with brain surgery - I'm assuming he was using brain surgery as a metaphor; not talking for 365 days would enable him to "renew" himself and therefore "begin again."

The second and third stanza he brings the big question to surface. "Why," should we begin again. I began to think about why a person would want to begin again. I know I've learned lessons through the mistakes I have made, and through that I have become the person I am today; I wouldn't want to start all that over, but I haven't had as tough a time as others.
Maybe he means beginning again by starting over, coming clean and refusing to let the judgmental voices inside our head (sometimes formulated only because we have heard good or bad things - not because we've had that experience ourself.)

The fourth, and last, stanza in the poem brings forth a name, instead of the vague "he's" mentioned throughout the poem: Li Po. Of course I didn't know the name, so I had to research it. Li Po was a famous poet who many, now consider, to be one of the top Tang poets if all time. He lived secluded on a mountain a couple times throughout his life; Li Po was also banned from different cities because people found a way to claim his poems were vulgar or malicious.
Maybe Wright wanted Li Po to get the recognition he deserved instead of being banished, and by beginning again he would be able to?

Overall, the poem made me think really hard about starting over. I've thought that to begin again is the coward way to deal with difficult situations, but I think it all depends on the perspective and the situation.
Which brings me to the question, would you ever want to begin again? And why? What encourages the idea of starting over?

Lost Brother

I really liked the poem Lost Brother by Stanley Moss. Even though on the surface it's talking about two trees, the deeper hidden meaning is very real, raw and something many people struggle with daily.
I thought of the author as a younger brother tree who had been separated from his brother long ago, and was now remembering his older brother's life: "when I heard he was cut down.."
When the tree talks about his mother, I thought of Mother Nature. Every living organism has a purpose on Earth, whatever it may be, and if it tries to be something it's not, it's ruining itself. Life is short to be upset about the small things!
The poem talks about how the tree survived "impossible locations, at elevations over ten thousand feet in extreme weather." It persevered - everyone has their ups and downs, it's part of life. He had friends, and little "creatures old and young he sheltered" needed him to protect them against the brittle cold.
Towards the end I think Moss is trying to make a statement about how precious our environment is. If we keep tearing down animal habitats sooner or later there will be no more animals left.
My interpretation of the poem is to remind people how important they are to society - even when they feel there is nothing left, someone or something still needs them, like the "black-tailed jackrabbits and horned lizards." It's also hinting at how we judge ourselves against everyone we know. How can we be the best we're supposed to be if we are constantly trying to be someone else? People, animals, plants, and microorganisms were put on the face of the earth for a reason. To disrupt the animals kingdom by destroying habitats, food, and our source of oxygen will turn around and hurt us in the long run. We as a society, need to preserve the beautiful earth for as long as we possibly can, for what would we do if it all just disappeared?

Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle

Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle by John Updike was a very beautiful poem. The words flowed flawlessly off the tongue and created vivid imagery in the brain: "glow became a milk," "cased in thin but solid sheets of lead."
I thought Updike chose words that evoked an emotional kind of feeling - music moves people, it calms the anxious, pumps up the nervous, and even soothes the broken. I think he was trying to (in some way) move the audience like music moves him. I researched about his childhood and he had a condition called psoriasis, a disease with scaly patches covering the body.
In the poem he referred to the violin and playing music as though he was a part of it: "we rustled into place," "our beating hearts," and "our violins." Updike took solace in music because of his insecurities about his disease; now he is sharing the beauty of it with us.
My favorite quote in the poem was "listening eye." I connected with this because I am a very visual person, but when I am listening to music, I listen with my eyes. I paint pictures of the music in my head to emphasize the beauty of the music for me.
After reading the poem, I researched Seine (a long river near Paris), how Vivaldi or Brahms sounded. Vivaldi is more powerful, in your face, and Brahms is a shorter, almost staccato kind of rhythm.
I really liked the poem and connected with it, even though I'm more of a visual person rather than a listener.

Wallflowers

The cute, fun little poem "Wallflowers" by Donna Verreyer appears to be about words. She uses personification to make the words have humanistic qualities to ensure a connection with the audience. Many readers can sympathize with the lonely, "tired," "poor" words that "no one speaks."
In the beginning of the poem she talks about how she "heard a word I'd never heard before" automatically bringing the audience in - I know I've heard words I had no idea what they meant! Yet instead of perhaps ignoring the word, or looking at the definition but soon forgetting, she "let it know it was loved" with her pen.
She continues on to introduce the idea that people can own words by saying them three times. I never thought about a word being mine and this made me think about if I own any words.
In the third stanza Vorreyer compares the words to "hollow-eyed orphans in Dickensian bedrooms." The change in tone draws my attention and I think about how maybe the poem is a metaphor for homeless, orphan items, or even people! She continues to explain how the unknown words "wait patiently, shy shadows at the high school dance." This draws my attention to the title - Wallflowers. A wallflower is (by dictionary.com definition) "a person who, because of shyness, unpopularity, or lack of a partner, remains at the side at a party or dance." These words are wallflowers by definition - they "wait bitterly" for someone to discover them, to turn them from the unknown into the known.
At the end of the poem the author does what she says she wants to do and gives the two words, gegenshein and zoanthropy, a home. She "helps" the two words by putting them out into the world; some people who read her poem will be curious to figure out what gegenshein and zoanthropy mean and now if not more, at least one person knows about the two forgotten words.
My interpretation of the poem was a light way to express real, raw feelings about being useful versus being useless. I really like the poem and I think it resonates deeply with audiences who read it because they can relate to how the words "feel".

Mr Fear

Throughout the entire poem Mr Fear by Lawrence Raab, "fear" is personified as being a living, breathing human. By giving "fear" human like qualities, Raab is able to let the audience view fear in a different way.
The tone in the poem is an almost tired, "fed up with" voice of fear, perhaps living in fear. "Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams, what do you have for me tonight?" Raab seems to be so used to fear that he is blatantly asking, "what are you going to scare me with tonight?"
Later in the poem, Mr. Fear is thought to either smile or feel sorry about pulling the fears out of his "black sack of troubles." By giving the option of the audience deciding whether or not they think fear is evil at its core, Raab is adding to the idea of Mr. Fear being a human. The indecision and possibility of a good guy steered in the wrong way is the core of all human's mistakes.
Contradicting the beginning of the poem when Raab seems almost bored of fear, he pleads that fear "Make it small, please. Let it fit in my pocket, let it fall through the hole in my pocket," showing that no matter how fearful he can tell himself he is, fear still has an underlying power that can not be defeated. This "power" that fear holds - even to a fearless person - shows the audience how real fear is. Fear is a part of everyone's life, and Raab uses the pleading as a way to comfort those scared souls to show them that it's normal to be fearful.
Towards the end of the poem, Raab hints at his views of fear being evil. "Fear, let me have a small brown bat and a purse of cricket" implies youth and innocence. The idea that fear is preying on the young and the weak implies he is no "good guy steered wrong," but a guy who enjoys to bring unhappiness and despair into people's lives.
I think Raab is trying to take a stance against fear, but he "can't" do it by himself - he needs the support of loved ones. I like the poem because it is saying, in its own way, that it's okay to be scared, but if you have the support you need to believe - not let something as small and common as fear stand in your way.

The Halo That Would Not Light

From the very beginning of reading the poem, The Halo That Would Not Light by Lucie Brock-Broido, it sounds very sorrowful and depressing, almost spiritless. Starting out, the title provides a glimpse of the youth trodden down by darkness referred to throughout the poem. A halo is thought to be connected with innocence and angels; a halo that won't light sounds wrong - as though the purity was taken away.
Just glancing at the structure of the poem, it is odd - sentences start halfway towards the end of a line and lots of empty space. (As after reading the poem I think the empty space symbolizes and reassures the idea of endlessness.)
Reading through the poem, I find the second line describes what the first line is saying: "dropped your tiny body/wrapped in its nest of linens wound." The dropped bundle was wrapped in linens. The words continue to hint at a child or baby, "tiny body," "carriage," and "child," but the darker, more haunting words give a different meaning: "raptor," "scarab-colored hollow," "invisible," "endlessly," and "hunting." The combination of the two (youth and innocence with dark, haunting scariness) imply something was taken from the child. "Endless childhood" at the end of the poem solidify the idea that the child never grew up; endless meaning it will stay a baby for forever. Perhaps the spirit of the young is caught, forever as a child roaming the heavens, because in heaven you don't age... So it's young for forever.

1943

Throughout the poem 1943 by Donald Hall it switches back and forth between being "in" the war and being away from the war.
It begins by talking about two males - one who "knocked out" the other in a high school boxing tournament and ten months later Dominick Esposito is killed in the third wave at Tarawa. War changed the boys' lives so quickly; one minute they were carefree high school students, the next they were fighting for their country.
The poem goes on to talk about how every morning the milkman brings each house bottles of milk. The daily task of getting fresh milk every morning symbolizes the idea that life goes on. Even in times of war, life goes on.
The poem then switches back to describing events about the war - soldiers marching "with frost bitten feet as white as milk." Popping up into the readers' mind (because of the blatant pause in the poem to ask "what could we do?" is the question what are we (the citizens who are not "in" the war) supposed to do? How are they supposed to help their country? are they supposed to enlist in the military also? Maybe their whole job is to keep the country "alive" so the soldiers have something to fight for.
War is a tragic worldwide occurrence that can alter many thousands of people's lives in an instant. Perhaps throughout the poem Hall is trying to portray the idea that as life goes on when people are away from the war, and time stops when faced with the difficult situations and obstacles soldiers had to overcome in the war. For the boys in the beginning life was drastically changed (and ended) so differently than had the war not even happened.

To Myself

First reading the poem To Myself by W.S. Merwin I didn't have the slightest idea of what it "meant." To be honest, I don't think it has one specific meaning, or way to interpret. It's for the reader to feel as he pleases.
For me, the first two lines "Even when I forget you I go on looking for you" are impactful. The idea we are always searching for something even though we don't realize it is really eye opening.
Reading the title of the poem I began to have a "take" on the poem. He is talking about who he is as a person. Even when he isn't consciously asking "who am I?" he's always thinking about it. As the poem reads on it's clear that the no punctuation has a purpose other than make it more difficult to comprehend. It symbolizes the passing of time, and no matter how badly we want time to stand still or time to hurry and pass by, it keeps going without fail.
Towards the middle of the poem, the tone changes to more accusatory: "you who are not what they say."
He is analyzing himself, realizing he may not be the person who he claims to be. He is different, constantly changing but never acknowledging the changes.
We begin to see he was searching for himself for the entire poem, and at the end "you who are not lost when I do not find you" ties the poem together. Even if we want to be someone else, we can never truly not be ourselves, or even the slightest little piece of ourselves. We may sacrifice parts of our self because of the situation we're in, but we are who we are; we're not lost, we're just hidden until we can allow ourselves to be free.

Kite Runner

I finished reading Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini last week but have been procrastinating the "blogging" of the book because I don't know what to write. I have never blogged before and this is a completely new experience for me. Please forgive me for my inexperience.

In my AP Lit class we (as in the students) are supposed to blog about Kite Runner. I don't exactly know what we are supposed to blog "on" and my inexperience doesn't work in my favor.

I completely jumped face first into the story. I understood the characters and loved reading the book almost as much as I love watching movies - which is saying something! The author Khaled Hosseini was able to incorporate such disgusting parts of life into a story of understanding, growing up, forgiveness, and redemption. It was truly spectacular in every way.
I absolutely loved the book. It was very heart wrenching. I remember reading when Hassan and Assef had their encounter in the alley. I wanted Hassan to give the kite back to Assef so he would leave! I was soooo upset with Amir for not helping out the best friend he ever had. I shed tears while reading the horrible events that happened; I felt sick to my stomach for the rest of the day and had a hard time eating. I felt so bad for Hassan and hated Amir for what he hadn't done, yet I understood the difficult situation he had been in. I still think he should had "grown a pair" and gone to stand up for his friend like Hassan had done for him so many times before.
After Hassan's assault and Amir was the one ignoring Hassan while Hassan was trying to be friends again I was furious with him! Especially when he yelled at Hassan telling him to leave him alone, to stop talking to him, to "leave." When Amir hid his watch and some money in Hassan's house blaming Hassan for stealing and Hassan "confessed" to the crime he didn't commit I wanted to slap Amir in the face. I wanted to shake the cowardice out of him. How could Amir not see the loyalty and love Hassan had for him?!?! I was extremely upset. My heart ached for Hassan. My stomach knots up just thinking about it.
Rahim Khan finally gets Amir to go back to Pakistan. The trip ends up changing Amir's life forever. While Rahim Khan was explaining what happened to Hassan and his wife I hoped that Hassan was still alive. I wanted Amir to be able to apologize for wronging his friend so many years before. But unfortunately that was never an option. Instead, Amir was sent on a mission to find Hassan's son. This was the last possible way to redeem himself for his mistakes in the past.
When Amir and Farid sit in the seats surrounding the field and two people, an obedient man and the screaming woman, were carried out and buried in the field I felt sick to my stomach. And how the doctors checked to see if the people were still alive disgusted me. I wanted to puke of the wretchedness written in the book. How could the school make us read about the stoning and bloody scene in which Amir and Farid watched?! It was one of, if not the most disturbing part of the entire story.
I think the most shocking part in the story was realizing Assef was the man in white. My mouth literally dropped open when I read who he was. I was appalled, but I understood how the horrid scene in the field was "possible." It was Assef, the cruel twelve year old who raped other boys his age. When Sohrab, Hassan's son, was introduced into the story by "performing" for Assef and the other security guards I wanted to rip Assef's eyes out. He was abusing Sohrab and I wanted him to stop.

I don't know what else to explain about the story except I learned a lot about the harsh realities of war, the terrible lives people lived, and the extent to no extremes people will go to to get the answers they want. This book opened my eyes into the world which can be so good yet so horrid to others at the exact same time on opposite sides of the world.

This book was astounding. I would definitely recommend it to others.