"Ithaka" and "The City" by C.P. Cavafy
"The Triple Fool" by John Donne
"The Acts of Youth" and "Billie" by John Wieners
Comment on at least one of the poems by pumpkin time on Friday, April 3. Your comment could take several different forms:
* You might show how the poem addresses a theme (or makes use of an image or technique or relationship or ... that has been developed elsewhere too -- in the existential short story or non-fiction piece you have already written about, in King Lear, in As I Lay Dying, etc.
* You might explain how the way the poem is written contributes to its meaning and effect.
* You could respond in the form of say-play-imply (or say-play-suggest, if you prefer) or SOAPStone + theme or TPCAST + theme.
* You might respond to the poem personally. (Make sure you show an understanding of the poem as you respond to it.) Do you relate or connect? To what? Why?
* You might write a poem or brief play in response to the poem. (Again, as long as the literary work shows an understanding of the poem. Append a little note to the end of your creative piece explaining how your poem or play makes use of the original poem.)
First name and last initial.
The name of the poem(s) you will focus on.
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37 comments:
so is it SarahJ or SJohnson? i think we switched it around....
The Triple Fool
So in class today, we kind of translated the poem. In my own words, this is what the poem means (in no particular poetic form)
I know that i'm foolish not only for loving, but for writing about it in poetry. But if i score with this girl, who wouldn't want to be me anyways? In the same way desalination of sea water happens in the earth, i wanted to write down my grief in the zigzag lines of poetry. And i thought binding my pain through poetry would actually work, because using meter will help pound out the pain.
But, once i wrote down all my sorrow and tucked it away, someone went and put it to song and performed it! and just like that, everyone got joy out of my pain, which burst open again. Verse can't just be tribute to love and grief if it's purpose is entertainment, but in the same way, both love and grief are augmented by such songs, which is how they presented my pain in song. And so instead of just being foolish for loving and recording it, i'm also foolish for letting other people experience my work in a foolish song. The best of us foolish folk cannot help but use our wisdom to increase our foolishness.
I enjoyed this poem because, like Mr. Cook, i appreciate that the speaker comes right out at the beginning with that disclaimer, saying he knows he's foolish for loving, and for writing about it. He feels embarrassed, perhaps, at his own weakness and inability to write what he really wants. I think that's a pretty accurate description of what it's like to try and use words to describe your feelings. like Addie says in As I Lay Dying, words just aren't enough. There's love, but that word is empty compared to what it means. You can say the name of someone, but what does that name actually mean? I know that when i write, i always end up with 5 or 6 drafts of something i'm trying to say, especially if it's personal. If i'm trying to explain what i felt like when a relative died, or i when i was embarrassed or angry or passionate about something, i hate whatever i say. I either think it's too sappy, and that i sound like i'm playing the pity-card, or it just sounds lame and can't really describe what i mean. So the "whining poetry" Donne mentions is exactly how i feel about personal poetry. It's hard enough to have those extreme feelings, but writing about them is just painful.
At the same time, I also understand his attempt at using poetry to tame his feelings. Sometimes when i'm so full of thoughts and emotions, i can't even think until i write them down. In the past (middle school ish time), much more than the present, i used a journal to get around thinking about things, because once i wrote them down, they were overwith and i could move on. It's a way to move on from grief too. I have notebooks filled with poems about sadness and memories.
I think Donne is really getting at the heart of what poetry is, through poetry, which is brilliant, because having those thoughts about poetry is thought consuming enough. The second party of the poem i have more trouble identifying with, because i haven't released much of my poetry to the general public...and thanks to copyright laws i don't ever have to! in the end, i think what Donne has done here, pointing out his own foolishness, isn't foolish at all, but simply well done.flast
The Poem the Triple Fool was basically the only poem I think I understood fully, most likely because we said what each line meant in the poem in class. I like it because, like SJ said and we talked about in class, he starts off by saying that he is a fool. So this makes me feel like he is almost humbled, but it is not like he is asking people to feel sorry for him. There are a lot of poems that write about their grief and sadness or even their loves but it always seems to leave me with a gloomy feeling. This poem is a little bit funny; it has some humor about a situation that could be very sad. It also blatantly says what question the title asks. He is a fool three times over for loving, saying that he loves, and thinking the grief that comes from it could ever be released. And to go back to what I originally was saying, I like that it was not too sad. He says he is foolish which is cool, but lets everyone else know they are also foolish if they think they wouldn’t do the same thing. That is my favorite part, when he makes himself look dumb then says that we are all dumb which is where I think we are the foolish reader. We start to read thinking it will all be about him and his mistakes but really its kind of like…haha you are also a mistake maker. And not only that but when he talks about others reading his sorrows it makes us a fool again. Who are we to read these poems by any author and think we are doing any justice by reading it our own way? That’s basically it for the week though.
Lucy M
Ithaka, The City
Although the tones of these two poems contradict each other, the general themes are the same. To me, both poems are about growing up. Each could be applied to a different form of growing up...the kind of growing up you do when you learn how to walk, or the kind you do when you get married, fall in love, change your mind, sleep...what I apply it to is my attitude about going to college. Ithaka speaks to the part of me that believes that I am about to begin a journey that will change me and be the true start of my life. The City yells at that part of me for counting on college to be a new beginning because it's impossible to separate your self from who you are. I think both perspectives are relevant and true. A person should view growth as a worthwhile adventure, but the adventure cannot be expected to be an escape.
MCiaramitaro
The City
“Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look/ I see the black ruins of my life, here.” Although, ‘The City’ is clearly about the urge to break free from the constraints of a defecating life, lines like the one above express more meaning. Whether it is a city, a person, or a memory, every person has experienced a feeling of distress brought on by one of these things. Personally, the line “I see the black ruins of my life,” reminds me of my college essay. My essay was written about the past, to help further me in the future, as a means to take me away from the “black ruins of my life.” I guess one way or another you will always end up back to the one place you always wanted to leave. The line, “this city will always pursue you” also shows alternate truths. Similar memories, situations, places, and people all add to the story of your life. The city was apart of you growing up, and will be always there. It could be in the same form, or another, “You will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,/will turn gray in this city.” I know this poem specifies the idea of one city, but I’d like to look at it as more than that. I also had wished it was more hopeful. Cavafy’s poem is disappointing. It sets the reader up with the promise of a new life with an accompanied hope, which leads into disheartening failure because of the shadow of a haunting past.
ATrotsky
The Triple Fool
In John Donne’s poem, “The Triple Fool”, the speaker states that he is a fool both because he is in love, and that he writes it in poetry. As we stated this is very self-mocking since a poet is making a jibe at poetry. He goes on to state that through poetry he is able to purge himself of his grief. His poetry is then read aloud and misconstrued by others, losing much of its potency. Finally, the speaker sees himself as a fool for yet a third time since his grief is now publicly-known. We got into deeper analysis of this poem in class, so I won’t bother with that. Rather, I wanted to draw the emotions in this poem to Shakespeare’s “King Lear”. More specifically, it reminded me of the part I read in class (France). France likewise was very sincere about his strong feelings for Cordelia [“She is herself a dowry” (1.1.278)], and moreover he put his feelings into verse, “Gods, gods! ‘Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect- My love should kindle to enflamed respect. . .” (1.1.294-296).
Although the emotions in this passage and in John Donne’s poem are similar, it is apparent that France does not feel as if he is acting like a fool, whereas the speaker in “The Triple Fool” openly states that he is (in fact the title of the poem gives this away).
Michael M
“The City” by C.P. Cavafy
In this poem I noticed there seems to be a theme of despair that runs throughout the poem. In the poem, the speaker quotes someone who says that they want to go to another city because, “Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried as tough it were something dead.” This line seems to say that this person is unable to find any hope or goodness where they are and they need to somehow get away from where they currently are. The speaker continues on the dark tone, quoting the person as saying, “Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look, I see the black ruins of my life, here,” However, even though the first stanza has a relatively dark and disparaging tone, the reader is still left feeling somewhat hopeful because the person still has a desire to get away and start anew. There is that last glimmer of hope that the reader can hold on to in the poem. However, at the volta, the speaker completely kills any time of hope that the reader has. The speaker states that, “You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, will turn gray in these same houses.” These few lines seem to increase the despair of the poem and suggests that nothing the person can ever do will rid them of their memories of where they came from and that they will never be able to put the city behind them. It will always be a constant presence in his/her life and there is nothing that can be done about it. This feeling of inescapability and despair in the poem seems to be saying that in life, no matter where you go or how many miles you put between yourself and your bad memories, they will always follow you and be with you. This idea seems to be stated by the speaker when he states, “You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:” Uplifting, no?
Brian Hand
The Acts of Youth
I had trouble reading this poem because it's really thick and heavy with strange images and phrases. I frequently saw myself changing the lines around subconsciously to make sense of them. For example I initially read the line "Is my mind being taken away me." as "Is my mind being taken away from me?" I think that Wieners might be drawing the reader's attention to such lines where they stumble across a line that appears to have familiar syntax, but really doesn't. I don't know what the line means, but my attention was definitely drawn to it. I also noticed how several times throughout the poem, Wieners carried over a sentence to the next stanza. Not only is there a line break in such instances, but a stanza break.
I understood this poem to be about life's impenetrable realities, and the will and emotion we commit to try to penetrate these truths.
I really liked the first line of the poem: "And with great fear I inhabit the middle of the night." I think this line is symbolic of one of the main ideas the speaker discusses in this poem: how as humans we do not own but simply "inhabit" the earth. We just exist in a place we can never fully understand. It is with "great fear" that we go through life in this strange place. The speaker understands this truth in the first stanza but in the second he tries to console himself with the thought that fear is simply something humans create, "there is no fear without me." But in doing so the speaker succumbs to fear: "worse still, behind bars." He longs to go to some place where he can "eat the lotus in peace." I like to look at the lotus as a symbol of human innocence and purity. Although he recognizes how humans are victims to these implacable truths, the speaker nevertheless wishes to escape them. He wishes to be given "the strength to bear it, to enter those places where great animals are caged. And we can live at peace by their side." The speaker wishes be free from the burden of "pain and suffering" and be "at peace" with existence, as "great animals" are.
In the end I feel that the speaker resolves the conflict by proclaiming that humans are "bride to the burden," that we are inherently married to this truth and in the end we must "sustain its force" because that is what we "are made for;" I like to think that the speaker builds off of this idea in the final stanza. He concludes that humans are not meant simply to endure the harsh reality but to prevail. As he says, "we rise again."
While we were reading the poems "The Acts of Youth" and "Billie", both by John Wieners, in class today, I noticed that doom and some sort of god kept popping up. When reading both poems, I felt the sense of impending doom that Wieners was portraying, whether he meant to or not. "The Acts of Youth" seems completely hopeless in its entirety, and a line that stuck in my mind constantly was the last stanza, which, aside from the two prior references to God(s) seemed unusually hopeful and almost prayer-like and prophetic; "And we rise again in the dawn. Infinite particles of the divine sun, now worshipped in the pitches of night." I am not too much of a church go-er myself, but from the experiences I have gathered when I have attended church, the word "divine" is often found in the bible to represent the holy figures and symbols. I wonder if there was any connection between the word choice and the seemingly connected references of gods and fate/doom? Also, in "Billie", Wieners refers to "him" as god-like. In the second stanza, he refers to the girl as being "a dream to herself", which I envisioned as angelic. Desperation seems to be a theme in this poem, as he asks for help in finding anyone who matches their description because he says he needs them. Could he "need" because "she" represents hope? The last sentence states "What lives on in my heart is their flesh like a wound, a tomb, a bomb." which indicates to me a state of despair without these two god-like people. I guess what I am getting at is that faith and fate (or lack thereof) seem to be incorporated into both poems and a religious-like theme seem to be relayed, at least to me. I enjoyed both these poems immensely, but I would like to know what exactly Wieners was thinking when he wrote them. I'm not sure if anyone will understand my post, but I hope someone does!!! It would be a lot easier to explain my thoughts about it in a verbal discussion...
CourtlandK
(I don't like it the other way around...it sounds like my dad...)
The Triple Fool
To me, this poem gives one writer's explanation for writing poetry: why he does it, how it helps, the problems that arise when others read it/steal it/sing it, what happens when it is sung, and again how he is a fool. The self-mocking tone that Donne establishes in the first three lines is important for the rest of the poem, especially in his use of fools. Self-mockery is a type of self-reflection and criticism. As this poem is mainly about the speaker’s own experiences with poetry, this makes sense. I also think that this self-mocking tone needs to be realized in the last line to make full sense of it. In class, we were having a hard time agreeing upon the meaning of the line, “Who are a little wise, the best fools be.” The word “fool” is very ambiguous, so this line can be interpreted many ways. However, when I read it, I did so it as a reflection of the first sentence, “I am two fools, I know, / For loving, and for saying so / In whining poetry.” Therefore, I also interpreted it as self-mocking, and also self-reflective. This made me think of “fool” as meaning one capable of mocking oneself, and “a little wise” as aware of one’s flaws. Therefore, I interpreted the line as meaning: Those that are self-aware are best at seeing their own foolishness and flaws. As Mr. Cook pointed out, being able to criticize oneself is an important skill for true thinkers (aka AP English students), thus making those fools “the best.”
Mleach
(I actually thought of a poem to go with this...I don't know if it really goes with the assignment...but it came to me :))
Response To: Billie- John Weiners
Jersey Devil
It looked like the Jersey Devil
Except it wasn’t…He didn’t stand on hooves
Or Flap with gallant wings
And it wasn’t in Jersey.
It wasn’t anywhere…really it was everywhere.
Maybe I should call it HE
Although I’ve heard it called a he and a she
I’ve been told it’s just proper to call things you don’t know the gender of, as He.
He’s a bit unforgiving too…a bit finite
He’s a he.
And he controls everything
Because ends are beginnings in a post-modern world
And appearances are suddenly nothing.
So with an ability to destroy and create…
He is quite the character.
And the Jersey Devil
Comes to Revere beach
And drowned her
And left him
Alone.
WE can’t handle the evil of mishap
So we blame nature on characters
We name them Jersey devil
And Death.
And blame them for shortcomings.
My heart be strangled with fear
And my feet worn and bloody for traveling this path alone.
Jersey Devil may find me.
And take me and my beloved
Home.
S.J.
Meghan, i just want you to know i think your poem is wonderful, and SO TOTALLY pertains to Billie. i think you handled it really well, and even if someone hadn't read Billie, they could get a lot out of your work. I especialyl loved the way you created another "he" character, like the God/Death being, but used them in a different way, and i liked that you incorporated parts fromt he other poem that were straightforward (Revere beach) and also others that you had interpreted (and drowned her/and left her/alone). i applaud you meghan, well done.
Alex R
Dramatic Reflection on "The Acts of Youth"
A city street late at night. There are no cars in the road or people on the sidewalks. Two young coworkers lean up against the wall of the fast-food restaurant from which they have just emerged smoking. A single streetlamp towers over them. Several feet away a homeless man sleeps on a set of stairs.
John: Maybe I am just being melodramatic. I will find another job someday. I just know my life won’t end up like this forever.
Jack (slightly uninterested): Yea, of course.
John: And it’s not like I did anything to deserve better than this. I slacked off. I never worried about these kinds of things.
Jack: Oh yea? I don’t really know if I’ve ever seen you unworried.
A pause.
John: No, you’re right. I’ve always been worried. And for what? It’s gotten me nowhere. I’ve committed myself to the fear.
Jack: Isn’t it a little late to be philosophizing?
John: I don’t have to worry. I could just relax for a while. I could hold the same job, make the same paycheck to pay for my same apartment every month.
Jack: Sure you could.
John: I could be comfortable. If I wanted.
Jack (gesturing towards homeless man): Hey, at least you’re not this guy.
John (hesitant): …yea. At least I’m not that guy.
A pause.
John: I’ve got to go somewhere else. This isn’t my city.
Jack: Whose city is it? It’s not mine either. After so many years I’m not sure I know it any better than I did when I got here. I know my way around, sure, but I don’t know it any better.
John: Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you grew up somewhere else? A foreign country even?
Jack: I do. But I can’t imagine it.
John: I would still worry.
Jack: You’ve got to lighten up.
John: I would still worry. I don’t think my life would have been much different. I will always worry. I need it. The worry. And I will suffer. But it will be worth it eventually I think. If I could just bear it something would change for the better.
Jack: I’ve got to take off, man.
John: I’m being melodramatic.
Jack: Later.
John is left standing under the streetlamp. A siren far in the distance.
---
The major theme that I got out of “The Acts of Youth” was the human ability to persevere through the uncertainty of life. Unlike “caged animals” we cannot just accept the uncertainty and inevitable suffering of life. But even though life is unpredictable and difficult we do great things and we survive. Like Wieners’s “Infinite particles of the divine sun” we seem to be blessed with our abilities; we exist as reflections of the “divine sun.” Even though we see and just narrowly avoid tragedy every day we still make something of ourselves. I tried to reflect on these ideas a little bit in my one-scene play.
Allie L
Yay! I'm glad other people are writing dramatic and poetic responses to these poems
I also wrote a poem in response to Billie.
Billie is gone, Billie is gone
Billie is dead, Billie’s buried
She kicked the bucket,
She snuffed it and
She won’t get up in the morning
But mother, who saw the
Water fly up like a fountain
When her foot hit that red plastic
But father, who cried when
The wind blew out her
Yellow candle
Those stinging bees went and sucked
Up all her honey
But my feet still pound out her
Slow, low, blues
As I walk down the long street.
This poem is mostly a response to Billie but it contains elements of other Wiener poems. I took from the poem the plausible idea that the poem is about Billie Holiday's death and tried to express it in another way. "Mother" was taken from his Christmas poem. I tried to express Wiener's unique playfulness with language such as "I ain't seen them since." Another thing I tried to include is the language in the poem that appears "found", "If you find anyone with their description please let me know." I also tried to emulate the terrible bitter sadness that I feel in Wiener's poems.
L Fox
"Ithaka" response
I "hope your road is a long one
full of adventure, full of discovery."
Shut out the monsters under the bed
and the 3 am exboyfriends banging the door.
they'll go away
"as long as you keep your thoughts raised high"
and your bottles, too.
Monsters and boyfriends are heavy if you offer to carry them.
I read The City and Ithaka in conjunction with each other. I think each dealt with tenses other than the present. The City was about the past and how it haunts your ideal future, inhibits it. Ithaka was about the future and how it becomes your past, so live it well, bring with you the best parts, leave the rest behind. But I think both poems had a tone of despair, an understanding of the painful scary depths that exist. (Ithakas cannibals, giants, and "depth" (bc of posiedon!), and the City's black ruins, destroyed, wasted years, and SAME gray houses, corners, etc.)
I think what the reader should take away from the poems is an awareness of the PRESENT, because "the NOW is a gift, that's whty they call it the present!" Just kidding. But reallly, the future can be awesome, and the past just is, so accept it and dont try and forget the past, own it and hope for the best in the future, but make the best of the present.
ALechleiter
Billie
So when first reading this poem what I thought it meant was that the writers’ girlfriend was stolen from him by another more attractive person. Then one of my friends pointed out to me before class started that the person stealing the girl away might be death. This idea never really occurred to me but that is what good friends are for they spot the small things, so the next logical step if the thing is death then “Billie” has in fact died. Then what if Billie didn’t die but instead ran away with death, if you can personify death in the form of a person then why can you not have Billie run away with death, away from her old life and a chance to be born anew and have a new beginning.
Jaclyn A
Billie
In this poem, it’s evident that the speaker experiences a loss. The speaker begins with telling the loss of the girl he loved and his memories with her. Those memories were his sources of happiness, and he misses them. He says, “I need them to carry the weight of my life”.
What is unclear is who takes his girl away. I really liked the angle we looked at this from in class when we suggested that “he” was death. Reading the poem with this in mind changes it’s meaning. It turns the poem away from being a love story where another man takes the girl away, but rather, hints that the speaker’s loss is due to something uncontrollable, such as death.
As the speaker watches death take away the girl he loves, I would imagine that he uses the words “wound” and “tomb” and “bomb” to regard the space left by her absence.
"just sayin"
Alex's dramatic response made me think of Cafavy's poems.
I identify a ridiculous amount with MegHan and LM's ideas about college/The City/Ithaka.
SJ's prose was ballin'. (and it reminded me of the "reb lobster" version of the "my mistress' eyes" sonnet. but um, not as greasy and disgusting)
I think HBenz was right when she said that Triple Fool wasn't too sad. It wrote about grief with a more upbeat tone, and I think that's one of the reasons that the poem is effective.
ML and AL, both your poems were poignant and perfect. And in each, the final stanza was constructed amazingly. I really enjoyed reading them, and while they each pertained to the poems we read & could definitely be connected to them, I don't doubt that they could stand alone and be just as frikin' awesome.
“Ithaka” & “The City”
I think, that to me, the Cavafy poems spoke most to me. Perhaps it is because I am at the point where I am ready to leave and start my own journey, as cliched as that maybe, or perhaps it is the fact that I desire to experience the that act of missing a place. I have never left Gloucester, not for an extended period of time, and the act of leaving that once seemed so far away is now looming on the horizon, coming closer every day, and it’s hard to resign myself to it. It seems hard to think that in a few months I will be gone and I will experience what it really is to leave and miss my home. Undoubtedly the journey will be new and full of all the things Cavafy speaks of in “Ithaka”, new sensual experiences, but in the end the act of leaving is really only preparation for returning as “The City” points out albeit in a more dismal way. The tones of the two poems seem to me a little contradicting, but I actually feel as though the contradiction is what makes them real. When one leaves a place there is not one set of emotions that accompanies the desicion. There is a mix a wealth of swirling confusing contradicting emotions that attack the senses and make one question why they leave and if they should even bother, if they will find something better or if they should just stay.
The sorting through of these emotions are the verses and lines of “Ithaka” and “The City”, I would argue though, that the order of the poems should be switched. I feel as though “The City” is a sort of first step in the act of leaving, it is the indecisive portion the part that seems as though there would be no point in leaving, things will not change, it is too late there is nothing that can be gained from moving from a spot so long occupied. While in “Ithaka” the act of leaving is rationalized by the knowledge that one will eventually return, but the place will be changed because one has left it.
CRideout
(see ride out, cry doubt)
"The City"
First off, I did like this poem, but it also infuriated me. It divided me because of the speaker's mood and the other character's (the 'you' in the poem) mood. I related to it too easily, too well. I read it, took the basic theme to be the inescapability from the past, then reread it.
Then I got too involved with the speaker's relationship to the other to focus on the theme.
I reread the first stanza- how easy it is to pity the other! I thought "Wow. This person is pretty idealistic, I just want to persuade him to see the truth. I want him to feel better. I want to help him." He is easy to feel for, albeit melodramatic with his talk about the "black ruins of my life".
But wait. Why should I feel sorry? I read the second stanza again, and get all upset with the first character.
I thought, "Way to be speaker! Enough is enough!" The speaker's tone is angry, disappointed, exhausted, as if he has heard the other's speech about escaping a countless number of times. The speaker had believed that the other would change, and had invested a lot of energy into this hope. But the speaker realizes that his friend/lover/relative will never be able to leave his past behind, to get rid of the things that haunt him. The other will never actually leave. In this stanza, the speaker doesn't want the other to calmly accept the past, he is stating that the other will never escape it. Accepting one's past is a positive action, a relief and healing process. The inescapability of one's past is a negative action; it's about hiding from your history. From your city. The speaker is bitter. "As you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere else in the world."
Then I thought: Did the speaker actually say these things to the other? Did he tell him (or her) "Don't hope for things elsewhere", or was he afraid he would offend their feelings...
For anyone reading this still, I clearly started to relate this poem to my own experiences. I became the speaker. There are so many unanswered questions about the relationship behind the speaker and the other that this poem is extremely relatable to anyone who has felt even SLIGHTLY the same way as the speaker. Is 'the other': an old friend, old lover, current drug addic? Is the speaker younger than the other? I really don't know. And it doesn't matter, since when reading this poem my primary intention was to find some consolation.
When reading Cavafy's poem, 'the other' became one of my old friends and I became the speaker. I thought similar ideas as the second stanza, though slightly different. (I picture the speaker's friend to be much older, and to have suffered through much more, than my friend. I think my friend still has chances to get out and accept the past.) I imagined a third stanza, one where the speaker would actualy speak at the other. Tell him the truth about the inability to escape one's past and how we must accept it. And I imagined another version; one where the speaker let the other keep talking, and stayed hopeful that he would change. As passive stanza, a stark contrast to the ferocity of the second stanza. Again, this imaginary stanza depends on the way one relates to the poem, and whether or not they want MORE from the two characters. For purposes of healing, I know I wanted more from them.
CRideout to IPett (Or whoever)
Isabel, if you read this poem, don't you think the opposite tone of the speaker would be the speaker from Tilly and the Wall's "The Freest Man"? I think there are some similarities...
IsabelP...IPett
"Billie"
It's unreal how much this poem reminded me of the song "Steven" by Voxtrot. Not only is there the music reference (Billie Holiday) but also the needing ("I need them to carry the weight of my life"- Billie, and "Steven I love you I can't grow past you"- Steven). Another connection is death, or being taken away. In class we considered that the "he" in Billie was actually death, "He looked at my girl,/a dream to herself/and that was the end of them." The speaker says that the loss "lives on in [his] heart...like a wound". This line correlated in my mind to the line "Steven, I missed you, the whole world kissed you" in the song Steven because, while the song lyrics seem to be lighter, both infer that the lost one will be strongly missed. Beyond the themes and meanings behind the words, I really just felt like you could tack on "Billie" to the end of "Steven" and it would flow flawlessly, and as is the case with most poems, I could most definitely see the poem being put to music. Of course what jump started my thoughts was the fact that both the poem and the song were named after a person, but the more I analyzed what was being said the more they fit together.
A. Randazza
The Triple Fool by John Donne
When reading and talking about this poem in class I was reminded of the introduction I wrote for our poetry projects:
"I could not possibly mold any of my emotion into those [found] poems due to the fact that I saw poems as lines and stanzas of emotion. The poems that I found already had their emotion and can only evoke emotion from you, by putting you in the shoes of the speaker. In order for me to be the speaker, and to put my own emotion into poetry I had to write it myself."
In The Triple Fool, Donne talks about the three fools he finds himself to be. He is a fool to love, to write his love in poetry, and to think that the grief that comes with love can simply be locked away in verse. My very personal connection to this poem is the opposite of the three fools John Donne though himself to be.
My first fool: I did not love a family member when they passed on… so through my
second fool I wrote poetry for the poetry project but was not exactly confessing my grief, or writing down my lost, yet somehow discovered feelings. Though by writing the poetry I discovered through my third fool that I actually did have some feeling for my family member, that something was there, and it was a relieving grief.
The City
I sort of have a soft spot for this because it was in my anthology. It's always fun to re-visit a poem especially when you're looking at it in a different way.
so basically Cavafy is saying that it is impossible, if you leave your home, trying to get away and find something different, to leave it all forever. No matter what there will always be similar, almost identical towns and cities wherever you go. You take your home town/city with you your culture, your "past" life and your past becomes your future, your present. It all sticks with you, you can't change what is written in your soul...
Both of Cavafy's poems are about trying to leave everything behind and being unable to. "Ithaka" however does have a happier tone toward the end more so than "The City". In "Ithaka" he says "you won't encounter [monsters] unless you bring them along inside your soul." It speaks so true to life because you can't run away from your problems you can only conquer them or "set them up in front of you." Ithaka is more hopeful, bringing light and advice to your journey to not go on a journey to in search of the end but to go on a journey for the journey. Life is a journey to be enjoyed like "summer morning[s]" and "sensual perfume" and "gather[ing] knowledge."
The journey in Ithaka is to be enjoyed whereas the journey in The City is about being held down by your home city because your home is part of you wherever you go. "as you've wasted your life" trying to run away from "The City" "you've destroyed it everywhere else in the world" and now no city will ever be better because you couldn't just accept and embrace your city.
wow chloe....crazy that i didnt even notice that post and i made a music connection with another poem...we're so in tune with one another (hehehe). And yes, I completely agree. Love that song.
CHugel
The Triple Fool (John Donne)
I know that we talked this poem to death in class, but I thought it warranted a response because the only way I can choose a poem to blog about is to quantify its worth to me.
First of all, I adore that Donne mocks himself. I think the best writers have a sense of humor and the things that are all seriousness never speak to me as much as things that can judge themselves. I can only assume this is because I like the voice of the author to come through. I love the idea of knowing where art came from and there is a fine art to putting yourself in your art without making that art about you.
Oddly enough, that’s what this poem touches on. Donne pours his pain and grief into his poems and is annoyed when his grief is intensified by the poems being read. I think this adds another fool to the mix. Once you create something, you put it out into the world to be judged. It isn’t just yours anymore, so how can you take offense when someone takes a different meaning away from it. If artists want their work to be viewed in one specific way, they should write an instruction manual. Otherwise, that work is going to be subject to all ranges of the human experience. Everyone will take something different away, and if that offends an artist then they are in the wrong field. It doesn’t matter what someone takes away from a work, the point is the work gave them something to take away.
I think that Donne forgot that mimicry is the most sincere form of flattery and that the emotions of “love” and “grief” are not solely his and if he wanted them to be, he shouldn’t have immortalized them in “whining poetry”.
Kaylie M.
“Billie” by John Wieners
We discussed this poem for a long time in class. The double meaning within the poem that we suggested was interesting to think about. The double meaning in the poem between the he being a man or god creates tension in the poem. I also noticed other aspects of the poem that created tension. One aspect is the tone; it seems to switch from sarcastic and somewhat humorous to a heavier and more serious tone. In the section “If you find anyone…I need them” the tone is blatantly switched in this way. As the tone switches I find the lines that follow to be very interesting. The end conveys the deep pain of the speaker. He shows the extent to which he still needs them and the extent to which they still greatly affect him. Whether the them is a god or man and girlfriend or Billie Holiday or each of these only adds to the burden of what the speaker feels. I wonder what “the old gods are gone” completely means. It seems to me that since it is part of the line “I need them to carry the weight of my life…” he is saying that they are the most important beings to him and that he has no greater gods to look up to. I find the images in the last section to be powerful. First of all, it is their flesh that lives on in his heart. I feel it is significant that although he is some sort of a god and she is disappeared it is their physical quality that has stayed inside him. It is their flesh and human element that is “like a wound, a tomb, a bomb.” These three word choices are interesting. For some reason each time I read “wound” I also think of the word womb echoing it. This may or may not be in the poem, but I feel it is somewhat relevant because he has lost his girl. “Tomb” is fitting because he says they live on in his heart and so by being a tomb they stay in him forever. However, tomb does not signify living on, but rather emphasizes their death, or at least their death in relation to him. Therefore tomb distinguishes that they are also dead as well as alive within him. Finally “bomb” signifies that the pain is still strong within him. It is not only settled like a tomb, but for me makes me think that the pain could worsen at any unknown time for the speaker.
In the poem "Billie" written by John Wieners I noticed that be used interesting syntax to portray the images in the story. In the third stanza the speaker says, "They disappeared beside the sea/ at Revere Beach as/ I ain't seen them since." I thought it was interesting how as "they disappeared" the words on the page disappear as well. There's no elipses after the word "as"; the words just seem to disappear too. When he says, " I ain't seen them since" I wonder if he also means that he hasn't seen the words since. He can't really totally describe how and where they went when they left. They just disappeared, and he can't find them or the words.
Ecastro....EmilyC
The Acts of Youth
In his poem "The Acts of Youth" John Wieners expresses the unspoken fears that every individual must, eventually, either come to terms with, or attempt to reject. First Wieners discusses his dread of the harsh realities that he must face and then entertains the notion of escaping to a place where he could "eat the lotus in peace". I took this to be symbolic of a place were he can enjoy and indulge in the pure, innocent pleasures that life has to offer, away from the dim reality of his future.Weiners then wanders back to actuality and continues to dwell on the verisimilitude of the existence that daunts him, saying that poverty and terror await him and that he will exist only as a lesson to others who are destined to "trod the same path", with out the protection or guidance from a just god. Wieners says that as those after him will follow in his path, he will follow in the path of those before him, those who met with "disaster or doom". The next two lines confuse me: "Is my mind being taken away from me./ I have been over the abyss before." The first line, in almost any other work would be end with a question mark, wieners however, instead of posing a question, makes a statement, and I have no idea how to interpret it. In the next line he says that he has "been over the abyss before", which confused me because prior to this the focus of the poem was on what lies ahead, as opposed to this statement, which speaks of the past. What I think Wieners is saying is that each human is fated to live a life of darkness plagued with catastrophe and its resulting sorrow, so the line is not meant to be understood as "I have been..." but rather " Humanity has been...". Then the mood and tone of the poem change from hopeless and frightened to optimistic and accepting. " Do not think of the future... Give me the strength to bear it, to enter those places where the/ great animals are caged...for that is what we are made for; for that we are created...we rise again." Wieners, through his introspection, discovers that he must let go of the fear and anxiety that he holds in his heart because he is not alone in his trepidation. He realizes that if humans could not withstand the burdens of existence they would not persist, thus finally understanding that we are meant to be here because we can endure.
'SOMETIMES I MEDITATE'
alio
I read 'Sometimes I Meditate' over several times and found connections in my own heart every time. For me, this play was someone whose thoughts went so deep that no speech or words could ever portray. The mystery of these thoughts, and the mystery of not being able to portray these thoughts in a way important enough as they seemed in his\her head is to him (and to myself) painful to know. Sometimes thoughts in my head\heart are just…so much..that I can actually physically feel my body ache a little at the knowing that I could never write down\present them. I feel as if this author is fascinated and overwhelmed at the thought and feeling we beings are capable of and he knows that in his deepness is even more layers beyond layers of unending unexplainable, genuine, true, and real deepness. To exist. It’s remarkable, scary, confusing, and all we ever knew from the beginning of our existing. To me, there was no way to talk about this poem without sounding a little nuts or out there…but that’s why I picked it, because I can certainly relate and I think it’s suppose to leave you feeling many emotions all at once.
I found the triple fool to be a really interesting poem. At first it was somewhat complicated and hard to figure out, but after a bit of dissection in class it became clear. I like how it showed that there is more than one type of “fool” in the world. When we say fool we generally think of someone dumb, or silly. Here though John Donne, expands that to someone who loves, whines about loving, and then a third fool. It shows we are all fools in one way or another, by simply loving we become fools. Perhaps even more than one fool. The idea of being a “triple fool” is intriguing. Perhaps some people are quadruple fools, or even more than that. We all are at least one time in our life, we all make foolish decisions or have foolish ideas even if temporary. It seems though he knows he is making himself the third fool when he “…frees again / Greif, which verse did restrain.” So, he may be saying that we can prevent this foolishness we bring upon ourselves. Then maybe the last line suggests, though he is a fool, he is the smartest of them all, perhaps learning from his mistakes.
The references to the night-time in "The Acts of Youth" pulls together the meaning of the poem. The poem reads, to me, as a series of thoughts rather than a succinct central idea, so it was hard at times to isolate a lot of the intention of the speaker. He talks about fear, the future, suffering, and it seems that he arrives at an important idea in the tenth stanza with "For that is what we are made for/ for that/ We are created." The 'that' refers to bearing burdens, pain and suffering.
The night-time imagery particularly paired with the title actually reminded me right away of the movie 'Rebel Without A Cause,' in which darkness plays a big role as well. When asked if he thinks the world will end at night-time, Jim (played by James Dean) responds, "Uh-uh. At dawn." The lives of people in their youth are centered so much around the night-time, not only physically, referring to their social life and the time they're alone with each other, but also there's something to be said of what night-time and darkness can *do* to you. In the night, it's easy to feel tiny and insignificant, it's easy to work yourself up into a terror - and he begins the poem, "And with great fear I inhabit the middle of the night". And we bear the burden of this fear, "Until the dark hours are done."
Ryan O
Billie
When reading Billie in class, I almost immediately came to the conclusion (which someone else pointed out in class) that the poem was about the death of Billie. For me, the references to the god seemed to make it clear to me. However, it also seems as if it is about a loved one leaving him for someone else. One of the great things about analyzing poetry, or any kind of writing, is that there can be multiple truths for each person. Perhaps to the narrator of the poem, Death was someone of whom is loved one pined for. As we discussed in class, Billie was referencing an old jazz singer who often did drugs such as heroin. Perhaps making this confusion is a way of Wiener saying how Billie was constantly dancing on the edge of death, taunting him, until one day she went to far, and he lost her.
Billie
I also wanted to respond to “Billie” I felt as though in class there was a lot of discussion and thought about the occasion of the poem and the subject matter, whether it was about a lover gone astray, or someone who had died. To me, it seems as though the lover has gone astray, not died. This seems to be a poem of self consciousness and not so much the act of betrayal but how the one left behind deals with their own feelings of inadequacy. When Weiners asks if anyone has seen anyone of their descriptions he is asking frantically if anyone has seen the couple that destroyed his self confidence, he needs them to carry all his problems because they are the cause of them. "Billie's" leaving him has left the author as a shell, lost to himself in the swirling haze of his memory of the last woman he loved, and his inability to sustain her. The author is haunted not by the ghost of a tragically dead lover, but by the burn of inadequacy. There is undoubtedly an air of ambiguity about the nature of this poem, but perhaps it is just the way it sounded to my ear and appeared to my eye, but that is the way I interpreted this poem.
Britta A
(I prefer this one because Bakerley I dont like the sound of bakerley)
The City
This poem really confused me, but I really liked it. Cavafry begins the poem by having the narrator speak to someone based on what they have already said. This person wants to leave the city and escape, "wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look, I see the the black ruins of my life, here.." This person seems to think that the city is what brings him.her misfortune, and the only way to live a goo life is to live it elsewhere. In the second stanza the narrator gives advice on the subject, explaining that, "you won't find a new country." The narrator explains that the problem is more deeply rooted than a simple matter of location. The problem is within, and wherever the person goes, they will take that problem with him/her, and therefore must look for other escapes than a simple move. "You will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods.." There is an emphasis on the lack of change. Also, i am led to believe that there is a deeply rooted problem with conscience because of the line "...my heart lies buried as though, it were something dead," and "the black runs of my life," may be some of this person's regrets, and the affect that they have had on him/her.
I think this has a lot in common with the poem "They Don't Have to Have That Look," because they are both about confronting something that you are unable to escape by death or by leaving town. You cannot run away from your past, you must accept it, correct it and make changes for your own future.
Kyle Smith
Discussing “Billie” by John Wieners in class was a very interesting look into the thought processes of our class and served as a very interesting way of looking at a simplistic poem. My first thoughts were of a man whose girlfriend was stolen away from him by someone much better looking. But upon listening to other inputs, I began to consider that this unknown being was perhaps death, snatching the life away from his love. The ambiguity of this poem leaves the reader with a multi-faceted impression of the piece and kind of reminded me of King Lear which also has two distinct levels of reading.
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