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.