1) Listening to a poem on the radio,
Mike Holmquist stayed awake on his drive home
from Laramie on Interstate 80,
tapping his hand to the beat of some lines
by Longfellow; while overcome by grief
one lonesome night when the bathroom cabinet
still held her husband's meds, May Quinn reached out
for a book by Yeats instead and fell asleep
cradling "When You Are Old," not the poet's best,
but still... poetry made nothing happen,
which was good, given what May had in mind.
Writing a paper on a Bishop poem,
Jenny Klein missed her ride but arrived home
to the cancer news in a better frame of mind.
While troops dropped down into Afghanistan
in the living room, Naomi Stella clapped
to the nursery rhyme her father had turned on,
All the king's horses and all the king's men...
If only poetry had made nothing happen!
If only the president had listened to Auden!
Faith Chaney, Lulú Pérez, Sunghee Chen--
there's a list as long as an epic poem
of folks who'll swear a poem has never done
a thing for them...except... perhaps adjust
the sunset view one cloudy afternoon,
which made them see themselves or see the world
in a different light - degrees of change so small
only a poem registers them at all.
That's why they can be trusted, why poems might
still save us from what happens in the world.
2) The title of the poem makes me think that the poem is going to question how much poetry actually does for us, since it has that question mark in the title, and is gonna emphasize the importance of poetry in everyday life.
3) Mike Holmquist stayed awake on his drive home from Laramie on Interstate 80 by listening to a poem on the radio, and tapping his hand to the beat of some lines by Longfellow.
May Quinn was overcome by grief one lonesome night when the bathroom cabinet still held her husband's (medicine), she reached out for a book by Yeats instead [of her husband’s medicine] and fell asleep cradling "When You Are Old," not the poet's best ,but still... poetry made nothing happen, which was good, given what May had in mind.
Jenny Klein was writing a paper on a Bishop poem, but when she arrived home to the news of cancer, she was in a better state of mind.
While troops dropped down into Afghanistan, Naomi Stella [was] in the living room (clapping) to the nursery rhyme her father had turned on, All the king's horses and all the king's men...If only poetry had made nothing happen! If only the president had listened to Auden!
Faith Chaney, Lulú Pérez, Sunghee Chen-- there's a list as long as an epic poem of folks who'll swear a poem has never done a thing for them...except... perhaps adjust the sunset view one cloudy afternoon, which made them see themselves or see the world in a different light - degrees of change so small only a poem registers them at all.
That's why they can be trusted, why poems might still save us from what happens in the world.
4) Longfellow was a poet from the 1800's
"When you are old" is a poem by William Butler Yeats which talked about reminiscing about the old times, of a lover that has passed, which we can presume is what happened to May Quinn, and why she would find solace in that poem.
Elizabeth Bishop was a poet from the 1900's who was familiar with tragedies happening around her, which is why a Bishop poem would ease the news of cancer.
All the king's horses and all the king's men is a reference to the nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty, who couldn't be put back together even with "All the king's horses and all the king's men" which is a reference to perhaps the broken mind of Naomi Stella, and why she found solace in that nursery rhyme.
Auden was a poet in the 1900's that was born in England, but later moved to America, and was involved in several different types of movements, and writings that changed various topics throughout the years.
5) The speaker seems to be a poet that is speaking to someone that thinks poetry is useless, or even society as a whole. He/she wants to show that poetry does a lot more than we think it does, and is providing example after example of what exactly poetry can do.
6)This poem matters because it's expressing the importance of poetry for the mental health of people, that it can prevent suicide, feelings of loneliness, etc. In this poem, he exclaims that it does nothing, yet ironically it does things through it's nothingness sometimes.
7) The poem is written in stanza's that seem to be about the same length, it doesn't rhyme, or have alliteration or anything like that. It has lots of enjambments,which makes the poem seem like a giant run-on, instead of several different sentences, which it actually is. It gives it a rambling on feel, and makes it seem really rushed, basically like they're in an argument, and just rambling on about things as they're popping into the writer's head. It seems all jumbled together, and yet has distinct clear ideas separated by the stanzas. It adds a little bit more irony to the poem as a whole, since it's all jumbled together with separate, distinct ideas.
8) This poem appears to be a type of blank verse, but it doesn't have the iambic pentameter that is usually associated with a blank verse. By not following the iambic pentameter, it helps to give the rambling feel, with lines that seem to be more jolting or jarring than others, much like how speaking your mind without really forming your thoughts would go.
No comments:
Post a Comment