The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1865. Yeats was the senator of the Irish Free State is 1922, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. He married Georgie Hyde Lees (who was a powerful figure in his poetry. Yeats was one of the foulders of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. He was a poet, a cultural leader, and major playwright. Yeats died on January 28, 1939.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

While reading this poem, the pictures that flashed through my mind were astounding! I saw the cabin, the bees, the songs of the crickets, the lake— I saw the entire poem. Before I continue, there were two words I did not know when I started reading this poem. (It is always important to look up vocabulary words that are unfamiliar!) Wattles are material to make fences and walls that consist of rods or stakes interlace with twigs or branches. Also, a linnet is a brown or gray finch with a reddish breast and forehead. Plus, the poem is based of the small island, Innisfree, in Lough Gill, Ireland.

The poem's form consists of three stanzas with four lines each. Also, the rhyming scheme is ABAB for each stanza. I think the simple structure of the poem helps relay the simple message the author is trying to portray.

I believe the speaker in this poem is a city man who longs for peace and tranquility; the complete opposite from his home in the city. Many people need a break or a vacation to relax their mind and alleviate stress. What better place to enjoy life than a small island in Ireland?!?

Here are pictures of a linnet and a building made out of wattles and daub.
  

this is just to say by William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey in 1883. Williams was both a writer and a doctor. In 1948, Williams suffered from a heart attack and several strokes. He continued to write until his death in 1963.

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold I think this poem is crazy and fun to read. First of all, who eats plums for breakfast??? Not me! Plus, why would someone keep plums in an icebox? This poem reminds me of the cookie jar at my house. Someone eats the last cookie (that already had a dibs) fully knowing that the person is saving the cookie for dessert. When the person looks into the cookie jar, the other looks on with a guilty smile and says "Sorry, I couldn't resist. The cookie was too delicious." The irony of the last stanza of the poem "Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold" is that even though the speaker is apologizing, he or she blames the reason of eating the plums because of the taste and sweetness of the plum. But, the speaker would have had to eat the plum before he or she could understand the true delicious of the stolen plums. So, the apology is kind of weak. Most of the time, people do something they should not and put the blame on the joy they got from the act after the act was committed. They never explain why they wanted to commit the act in the first place. After the crazy week I had, it was nice to read a simple poem (that did not include death).

Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith

Florence Margaret Smith (Stevie Smith) was born on September, 20 1902 in Hull, England. She lived with her aunt after her father joined the North Sea Patrol and her mother passed away. In 1966, Smith won the Chomondeley Award for Poetry. Plus, Smith won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1969. Smith died March 7, 1971 from a brain tumor in London.

Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Throughout the poem, there is a shift between two different speakers. A bystander is present through most of the poem by describing the circumstance of the dead man. The other speaker is the dead man himself who says "I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning."

I decided the best way to analyze this poem was to take it stanza by stanza.

The first two lines of the poem "Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning:" is a description of the dead man by the bystander. No one could help the dead man because there was no one around to hear him; he died a lonely death. The next two lines are the direct account of the dead man "I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning." This could be interpreted as the idea that no one was there to hear his cries for help, but someone could have seen his gesture (waving) for help. Unfortunately, the waving was misunderstood and the man drowned. (It would stink if somebody waved back hello instead of gotten help...) I feel like the first stanza was a little background info to help the reader understand the rest of the poem.

The second stanza starts off as "Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead" which shifts back to the bystander speaker. Here, the reader gets the bystander's "sympathy" for the dead man and a brief insight of his life (or the bystanders perspective on his life!!). I feel the next two lines "It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said." are the bystander's assumption on why the man died. But, no one really knows but the dead man himself. I feel that the second stanza was a second hand account of the man's death by the bystander instead of the facts or truth.

The third stanza veers into a very different idea than the first two stanzas. "On, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning)" The bystander is still the speaker and portrays the idea that the water was always cold (no surprise that the man died) yet the man kept on moaning. The bystander doesn't really seem to care about the dead man, and I see a hint of annoyance from the bystander (why won't the dead man keep quiet, why does he have to keep on moaning?). Finally, the poem shifts back to the dead man's perspective as "I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning." The only difference between these two lines and the ones that appeared in the first stanza are all my life. Three short words, but they make a huge significance. I feel that these lines portray the idea that people sometimes feel that life is too much, too overwhelming, too crazy, and they experience a drowning feeling. People wave their hands, a flag, or a neon sign trying to ask for help and get noticed. But, people pass that person by leaving him or her to drown in the sometimes overwhelming sorrows of life. Overall, I learned that people want to be heard, but are not noticed until it is too late (they died).

Beginning Again by Franz Wright

Franz Wright was born on March 18, 1953 in Vienna, Austria. He currently lives in Waltham, Massachusetts. Wright married Elizabet Oehlkers, an American translator, in 1999. Like father like son, both Franz and James (his father) are poets. Also, Franz and James are the only father/son combo to win the Pulitzer Prize in the same category.

Beginning Again

“If I could stop talking, completely
cease talking for a year, I might begin
to get well,” he muttered.
Off alone again performing
brain surgery on himself
in a small badly lit
room with no mirror. A room
whose floor ceiling and walls
are all mirrors, what a mess
oh my God -

And still
it stands,
the question
not how begin
again, but rather

Why?

So we sit there
together
the mountain
and me, Li Po
said, until only the mountain
remains.
It took me awhile to figure out who the speaker was throughout the poem. For awhile, I thought the speaker was Wright, but in the third stanza, it became clear that the speaker of the poem was Li Po. "So we sit there together the mountain and me, Li Po said...." Overall, I would classify this poem as a reflective poem because the speaker is reflecting on his life and trying to start over.

I thought the topic of the poem was interesting because every now and then, people wish to a have a bright red, REDO button. When someone pushes the button, time rewinds to the point where he or she can resay or redo something in his or her life. Like a man forgot to set his alarm clock the night before, woke up late, arrived to work late, and got chewed out by his boss. The man presses his handy dandy bright, red REDO button and voila, he goes back to the night before and sets his alarm clock.

The how part of starting over is always important, but there is more. "...but rather Why?"
WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY... All little kids chant this at one point or another is their lives. I feel sometimes people want to start over every time something wrong happens in their lives (even something as little as forgetting to set the alarm clock). But, Wright his hinting at something deeper. Something that cannot be fixed by the simple push of a bright red REDO button. Something that takes time, thought, and sometimes leaves a person scrambling around for a light in the dark. This idea is prominent in the lines "'If I could stop talking, completely cease talking for a year, I might begin to get well,' he muttered." and "Off alone again performing brain surgery on himself in a small badly lit room with no mirror. A room whose floor ceiling and walls are all mirrors, what a mess..." I would never want to perform brain surgery because it is super complicated, messy, and just plain gross. Brains are not the most beautiful part of the body. Which leads me to believe that starting over is not going to be pretty or beautiful or quick or easy. Beginning again, writing a new chapter or book in a person's life will be messy, slow, frustrating, and sometimes ugly.

A Gray Haze Over the Rice Fields by Jayanta Mahapatra

Jayanta Mahapatra was born on October 22, 1928 in Cuttack, India. He earned a Master's degree in physics and started teaching at different colleges in 1949. Mahapatra started writing poetry at age 38. When he wrote the Relationship, he won the Sahitya Akademi award in 1981 and was the first Indian English poet to receive the award.

A gray haze over the rice fields.
The black cow grazing with her newborn calf—
long-legged, unsteady—
or trucks going past the high road;
such things only claim
that I am looking out in search of memory,
not death. Those little kisses on my cheeks
my long-dead grandmother gave me, or
the soft dampness of my tears when
my mother didn’t notice me
from beyond the closed door of her youth.

Today the dangling thread stops halfway down,
where my hands cannot touch it.
It’s not that I wait for judgment.
But at times I see a shadow
move slowly over these, a shadow freed
from the past and from the future,
that contains the footsteps of that childhood
so light I can only think of squirrels
slipping in and out of the mango trees.

When I first saw the title of this poem, I thought it would be about a man growing rice in a hazy climate. Actually, the poem is more about a man's growth from a troubled past as a child. Also, I think the speaker of the poem is the author considering his background.

"A gray haze over the rice fields. The black cow grazing with her newborn calf— long-legged, unsteady—" I believe this line describes the speaker's unsteady relationship at home. The stanza goes on to describe the source of pain as "Those little kisses on my cheeks my long-dead grandmother gave me, or the soft dampness of my tears when my mother didn't notice me..." From the sounds of it, the speaker lived with his grandmother and mother, but once the grandmother died, the speaker did not receive any affection or acknowledgement at home.

The speaker tries to reach something whether it be affection, recognition, etc, but he struggles to reach it. This idea is described by "Today the dangling thread stops halfway down, where my hands cannot touch it." Luckily, the speaker is able to learn and grow from the past by the lines "But at times I see a shadow move slowly over these, a shadow freed from the past and from the future, that contains the footsteps of that childhood." This line describes the idea that if the speaker had not been able to grow or move on from his past, he would have been stuck in a future that was shaped from what happened during his childhood. The speaker would have gone by unnoticed as he experienced life like "squirrels slipping in and out of the mango trees." During his childhood, the speaker slipped by unnoticed, but the future will be different. If the author was the speaker, I am impressed by the accomplishments he has made considering his childhood struggles.

Lost Brother by Stanley Moss

Stanley Moss was born June 21, 1925 in Woodhaven, New York. Moss attended Trinity College and Yale University. He founded the Sheep Meadow Press in 1977. Moss taught English in Barcelona and Rome; he is a private art dealer who specializes in Spanish and Italian Old Masters.

Lost Brother

I knew that tree was my lost brother
when I heard he was cut down
at four thousand eight hundred sixty-two years;
I know we had the same mother.
His death pained me. I made up a story.
I realized, when I saw his photograph,
he was an evergreen, a bristlecone like me,
who had lived from an early age
with a certain amount of dieback,
at impossible locations, at elevations
over ten thousand feet in extreme weather.
His company: other conifers,
the rosy finch, the rock wren, the raven and clouds,
blue and silver insects that fed mostly off each other.
Some years bighorn sheep visited in summer—
he was entertained by red bats, black-tailed jackrabbits,
horned lizards, the creatures old and young he sheltered.
Beside him in the shade, pink mountain pennyroyal—
to his south, white angelica.
I am prepared to live as long as he did
(it would please our mother),
live with clouds and those I love
suffering with God.
Sooner or later, some bag of wind will cut me down.

—Stanley Moss
The overall impression I received from this poem was that everyone (even trees) has a role model to look up to. A person could focus his or her whole life trying to live up to the memory and expectations of another. Although people should try to be their own person because no two people are alike. I feel the idea of striving to be someone else is an internal struggle that all people deal with at one point in their lives. The ones who overcome the struggle and become their own person have sturdier roots (less likely to be knocked down by the wind).

There are two lines in the poem they made a deep impression on me personally. "His death pained me. I made up a story." Death is a painful topic that is avoided at dinner time conversations; people deal with death in many different ways. In my life, I have death with the death of my father and brother, but this poem relates more to my brother. At the age of 2, I traveled to the hospital with my father because my mom was in labor with my first sibling. Since she had the flu, the birth was hard and the baby did not survive. I was young and never not got to know my brother, but that does not mean his death was any less painful than my father's six years later. As a family, we planted a tree in the backyard in his memory. Sometimes I dream what it would be like if Nikodemus was still alive? Would his nickname be Nick, would he share a room with my other brother, would he like to swim as much as I do, would he share my passion for books, or would he be the sibling I would always go to in times of happiness and trouble? I will never know. But, some nights I lay in my room imagining what he would look and act like. "I make up a story." Lucky for me, my family was blessed with three more children, so I have two sisters (Kadia and Abbey) and a brother (Cleveland) that I can play with, annoy, or talk to. I am happy for the life I have, but every now and then I wonder how it could be different.

Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle by John Updike

Over the past few weeks, I have practiced pieces on my oboe to try to earn scholarships and a place in the band at different colleges. I like music; I play because I love to play and have fun (I cannot see myself growing up to be a famous musician though). I picked the Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle by John Updike because the poem seemed centered around music like my life as been while I prepare my audition pieces.

Before I start, John Updike was born March 18, 1932 in Pennsylvania. Updike died on January 27, 2007 at the age of 76 from lung cancer. He received two Pulitzer Prizes for fiction.

The celebrated windows flamed with light
directly pouring north across the Seine;
we rustled into place.  Then violins
vaunting Vivaldi's strident strength, then Brahms,
seemed to suck with their passionate sweetness,
bit by bit, the vigor from the red,
the blazing blue, so that the listening eye
saw suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes
of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held
the holy glowing fantasy together.
The music surged; the glow became a milk,
a whisper to the eye, a glimmer ebbed
until our beating hearts, our violins
were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead.

I loved the imagery in this poem. I was able to see the church and windows in my mind; sometimes, I could hear a violin playing in the background. I loved the lines "the celebrated windows flamed with light," "the music surged," and "so that the listening eye say suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held the holy glowing fantasy together." When I read the line "so that the listening eye," I laughed because I imagined an eye with ears since I have never heard the senses of sight and hearing combined in such a way. Plus, when the music was described as a "holy glowing fantasy," I thought to the few times when I played a piece of music that moved me deeply in heart and sole. Sometimes the songs I sing (out of tune most of the time!!!) and play (in tune), bring tears to my eyes, and I would consider them a "holy glowing fantasy." After reading the poem, I wanted to see what Saint-Chapelle actually looked like and how it compared to the image in my head.

I found the pictures and information at http://www.paris-architecture.info/PA-015.htm. La Sainte-Chappele means "The Holy Chapel" in French. The church is found on the Ile de la Cité in Paris, France. (I have never been out of the country, but I really would like to travel to France to see the Sainte-Chapelle because the church is beautiful!) The church became a Historical National Monument in 1862. There is an upper and lower chapel. The upper chapel is home to statues of the twelve apostles and religious relics. Plus, this chapel displays the Gothic architecture of the time. On the other hand, the lower chapel has a vaulted ceiling that was painted to remember the "star-filled heavens." Also, this chapel is dedicated to the Virgin Mary (statue in the center) and has twelve medallions that represent the twelve apostles. Finally, the most interesting piece─ the stained glass. All of the stained glass covers around 600 square meters or 6456 square feet. (That is a lot of stained glass!) Surprisingly, the glass tells the biblical story from creation to the redemption through Christ, and reads like a book (left to right and top to bottom).


I really found this poem interesting and learned new things. I am glad I decided to research the Sainte-Chapelle. The place seems so interesting, I would like to visit the church someday.