Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Road Not Taken, By: Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

9. By: E. E. Cummings

there are so many tictoc 
clocks everywhere telling people 
what toctic time it is for 
tictic instance five toc minutes toc 
past six tic  
Spring is not regulated and does 
not get out of order nor do 
its hands a little jerking move 
over numbers slowly     
we do not 
wind it up it has no weights 
springs wheels inside of 
its slender self no indeed dear 
nothing of the kind.  
(So,when kiss Spring comes 
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss 
lips because tic clocks toc don't make 
a toctic difference 
to kisskiss you and to  
kiss me)
Reaction: Having already read a poem by this brilliant author, I wasn't as confused as I might have been. I was slightly surprised however, at how simple the poem was after a second glance
Meaning: The title "9" refers to the 9 'tics/tocs' and 'kisses' that go on during the poem. Cummings suggests that the clocks that are continuously telling people what time it is, that they are late or early, or if they are running out of time or have plenty of time to spare. He feels like he should be aloud freedom; the clocks do not seem to give him that. In the summer, however, the clocks don't matter because it is a season for (mostly) careless fun. He could really care less about the clocks and their tictoc ways then.
Technique: Free Verse

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r, By: E. E. Cummings


Reaction: I was really confused at first. I was all like "What the heck's this supposed to mean?" But I was intrigued by the uniqueness and strangeness of it, so I tried to figure it out.
Meaning: After rearranging the letters, I think it came out to be "Grasshopper, who as we look now up-gathering into a grasshopper leaps! Arriving to become rearrangingly a grasshopper." This poem that Cummings wrote illustrates the movements of the grasshopper itself, leaping wildly from place to place, as did the letters and words in the poem. It shows the spontaneity of the grasshopper, leaping into then landing back on the ground again. What was also interesting was how Cummings wrote the word 'grasshopper'. He scrambled the letters every time he wrote the word, excepting the last time.
Technique: Cummings used some free verse, along with capitalization, spelling, spacing, and grammatical techniques in order to make his poem even better.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Death of Santa Claus by Charles Webb

He's had the chest pains for weeks,

but doctors don't make house
calls to the North Pole,

he's let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap

open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it's only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won't

stop squeezing. He can't
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he loves goes black,

and he drops on his jelly belly
in the snow and Mrs. Claus
tears out of the toy factory

wailing, and the elves wring
their little hands, and Rudolph's
nose blinks like a sad ambulance

light, and in a tract house
in Houston, Texas, I'm 8,
telling my mom that stupid

kids at school say Santa's a big
fake, and she sits with me
on our purple-flowered couch,

and takes my hand, tears
in her throat, the terrible
news rising in her eyes.



Reaction: I was shocked but struck by the comicalness of it all.

Meaning: When a child is old enough, the parents will tell him or her that Santa Claus really does not exist. This is the "death" of a beloved imaginary creature. This poem symbolizes what it is probably like to the child after hearing that Santa does not exist--- it is like a slow, painful death. The poet, however, somehow makes it slightly comical but eerie at the same time.

Technique: Free Verse/Form Poem, Imagery