Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Post #1: Poems from the English-Speaking World

On Tuesday, each of you chose a literary device from the list.  Find one example of that device at work in the poems "History," "One Art," "Days," "Talking in Bed," "This Be the Verse," "The Graubelle Man," or from "The Divided Child."  Quote the line from the poem, and explain how the poet's use of the device contributes to the poem's overall theme.

47 comments:

  1. From "The Divided Child", the line "felt like slippers muttering in Barbadian brogue is blending the senses of touch and auditory. The use of synesthesia in the poem is blending more than just senses it is connecting blending the people in the poem. Giving every person belonging but being out of place at the same time.

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  2. From “One Art” the fifth stanza “I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.” In this stanza, the use of meiosis is understating the realization of losing your home as only a minor problem rather than a much larger problem. From what we interpreted from the poem is that pretty much certain things in life are meant to be lost and that the art of losing is not something difficult to overcome.

    Brittany Mejia & Jess Moorehead

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  3. From "History" the line "his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire, his baby crying all night like a new machine". In this quote, the usage of similes is used by making comparisons between the two different noises of living objects and is being compared to noises of non-living objects. From what is understood of this poem is actually having a sense of understanding the intensity of how loud cows crowding together and a baby crying, with out actually having those two noises being heard directly next to me.

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  4. From "History", the first stanza or line "History has to live with what was here" is a personification. The inanimate object or concept would be history and the human characteristic being used is it having to live. The device helps contribute to the overall theme because when stated that history has to live with what was here, its referring to how past events have helped in shaping the way things are today and that it is now a part of history whether those events were horrible, boring, or enjoyable. Further on in the poem, historical events are mentioned to help in supporting the first stanza.

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  5. From "One Art" in lines 2-3, "so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their lost is no disaster" uses symbolism. In those lines it's saying that "things seem filled with the intent to be lost", so lost objects are wanting to be lost. From what I interpreted from this poem is that it's not hard to lose things but that some are meant to be lost.

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  6. From "The Graubelle Man", the line "The head lifts, the chin is a visor raised above the vent of his slashed throat that has tanned and toughened", uses imagery to describe the appearance of what seems to be a dead body. Throughout the poem the writer is describing this corpse with both tactile and visual imagery by using words such as opaque, toughened, tanned, slashed, and bruised. The poet's use of imagery contributes to the overall theme of the poem by painting a vivid picture of what this deceased body looks like.

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  7. From "History", in the 5th line, "Abel was finished; death is not remote", the author uses allusion by referring to the man Abel from Cain and Abel in the Bible. This poem is mainly about death, by using Abel the author brings up the topic of murder, because Abel was killed by his brother, he was "finished" and this adds an example of the author's point.

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  8. From “History”, the line, “his baby crying all night like a new machine”, is a simile. The author’s decision to use a simile in their poem enhanced the reader’s illustration of the line. Giving them a sound of reference made it easier to imagine the clamor of the baby’s crying.

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  9. In the poem "One Art", the first stanza, "The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.", uses rhyme by using a rhyme scheme of ABA. Throughout the poem though, there are only two rhymes in the lines either rhyming with "master" or "intent". Also, the repetition of rhyming words with "master" and "disaster" in the poem tells us that the author wants us to get accustomed and accept that there is loss in the world. Even though it might be hard sometimes, anyone can overcome the art of losing.

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  10. From the poem "Talking In Bed" I found an example of irony. The example I found says "...the wind's incomplete unrest" I chose this line because the wind is wind, therefore it cannot ever be in the state of unrest.

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  11. In the poem "The Grauballe Man" there was an example of a hyperbole. The example was, "... and seems to weep the black river himself." This Grauballe man is depressed about something he has done and feels as if he is dropped in tar. The exaggeration is that he has cried so much that he has created a river with his own tears and pictures himself in it.

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  12. In the poem ' One Art' in the line ' I miss them, but it wasnt a disaster.' shows an example of end-stopped line. By adding the period to the end of the line it creates a pause as you read the poem. The reason why i choose this poem was because i could relate to it and like how it was simple to understand what the meaning of the poem was. The poem's meaning is that we constantly loose things wether they are small things like a watch or peoples names or something much bigger with a bigger importance like even loosing your loved one but this poem says that we are always constantly loosing things that makes us master the skill of loosing things/people. I choose the specific line ' I miss them , but it wasn't a disaster.' Because it means that many people get so used to loosing things that once we loose someone or something it's not a disaster simply because we've gotten used to loosing things.

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  13. In the poem "One Art", there are many examples of rhyme but the line that I chose was, "I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I missed them, but it wasn't a disaster." There is rhyme between the two words vaster and disaster. The line is explaining that the person lost several stuff that meant a lot to them but no matter what they are perfectly fine because it is not the end of the world. That is the art of losing something because in the end you learn to overcome it.

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  15. In the poem "One Art" the stanza "The art of losing isn't hard to master" is an example of a metaphor. It is a metaphor because it is comparing the feeling of loss as a skill to master. One cannot literally master the art of losing. It's a metaphor that emphasize that one will experience loss and grief multiple times throughout his or her life, so loss will be felt over and over again, making it very familiar.

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  16. Jocelyne RodriguezApril 4, 2016 at 8:36 PM

    In the poem "The Grauballe Man" there was an example of a simile. The stanza states, "His instep has shrunk cold as a swan's foot or a wet swamp root." Here the author is comparing the way the man walks to a swan's foot and to a wet swamp root. A simile is a comparison of two unlike things using "like" or "as" to specify a certain characteristic. Therefore, this would be consider a simile and not a metaphor.

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  17. From the poem "One Art" I found an example of rhyme. Lines 1 and 3 "The art of losing isn't hard to master; ...to be lost that their loss is no disaster" This shows how the author implements rhyme in the poem and is able to produce sounds appealing to the readers sense.

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  18. In the poem "The Grauballe Man" the third stanza "His instep has shrunk cold as a swam's foot or a wet swamp root." In this stanza, the use of eye-rhyme is portrayed by two words that look like they should rhyme but don't. The two words foot and root from the stanza look similar and should rhyme based on appearance but they don't sound anything alike.
    Simran Brar & Janel Sanchez

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  19. The poem "Days" by Philip Larkin is all together an ambiguous poem because it's resonating theme is a question asking what is a day? Which literally is a 24 hour cycle but poetically it can be anything. The most ambiguous line is "Where can we live but days? Ah, solving that question brings the priest and the doctor..." The first part of the line can either be taken as a legitimate question or a rhetorical question because logically we live day to day. The second part of the line says a priest (religion) and a doctor run to answer the question. I interpret the priest is meant to give religious meaning to the days of our lives. The doctor, for psychological medication either for a patient with depression, to make them happy, or a patient with schizophrenia to make them conform with society. Larkin mentions happiness when he says "They are to be happy in", "They", being days. In a way he is saying make your days happy no matter what society (the doctor) or religion (the priest) says but he could also be saying people need religion to make them happy and or a doctor to cure a persons depression or other mental illness. Like I said at the beginning, this poem is ambiguous it can be interpreted in many different ways and could have a definite meaning but Larkin wrote it in such an ambiguous way, the meaning can be debated. -Heather Segrest, Stephanie Hurtado, Brian Gonzalez

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  20. From the poem "This Be The Verse", I found an example of irony. In the very first line it says "They fuck you up, your mum and dad." I believe that this is an example of irony because I never expected a poem in this book to have any cuss words or the writer to talk about a mom or dad like that.

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  21. In the poem "History" the first stanza contains personification. "History has to live what was here, clutching and close to fumbling all we had- it is so dull and gruesome how we die, unlike writing, life never finishes". First of all, history does not live. It is giving human characteristics to history. As he goes on, he gives human characteristic to writing. He says it finishes. Life does, but not writing. Using this device in the poem makes it more intense. The author makes us think wha is he trying to refer too.

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  22. In the poem “For Sheridan”, the use of an apostrophe is found in lines three and four, “In the lost negative you exist”. The persona is speaking to his son. A father-son connection is also brought up in the poem in line ten “he, I, you” in which this may be a reference to a father, the author himself, and the son. He goes on to discuss about how everyone has expectations to meet that often times fail, but that such events are inevitable in life. The use of apostrophe helps the poems theme because it implies to the reader that his son is no longer with him. In some way they are detached, and with the use of apostrophe the reader knows the son is not present and therefore unable to respond.
    Marlene Herrera and Jacqueline Cardenas

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  23. In the poem "History" in line 8, it states, "his baby crying all night like a new machine". This is an example of a simile because it compares two unlike things to each other. The author compares a baby to a machine using the word "like" to connect them together and provide an example for the readers to understand.

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  24. The Grauballe Man, page 71.

    "As if he had been poured in tar, he lies on a pillow of turf and seems to weep."

    This is a hyperbole because it used the word tar to exaggerate the description of the main character covered in mud or dirt. That he looked as if he was covered in tar.

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  25. From "One Art", the lines "so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster", utilize enjambment (continuation of a sentence over a line break with no punctuation). This allows the author to control the rhythm of the poem by continuing the flow of thought into the next line. I notice that each line containing enjambed lines would not make sense standing alone without the next line.
    ~Daniela Flores

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  26. "History has to live with what was here."
    In the first line of the poem "History", the author's use of ambiguity is prominent and used to intrigue the reader. It's a great use of ambiguity as it captures the reader's attention and leads him/her to question what is meant by such a strong, yet unclear, statement just to find it is left for interpretation.
    Darrah Meador and Deon Danehy

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  27. In the poem "History" the author uses "unlike writing, life never finishes", as a metaphor. The two things being compared in this metaphor are life and writing. Therefore, he suggests that life doesn't end because the history behind that person lives on. Whereas in writing there is always an endpoint to the beginning of a specific work. It gives meaning to the point because it's talking about Abel from the bible, who was killed by his brother Cain over jealousy. Even today after being dead over hundreds of years the history of Abel lives on.

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  28. From "Talking in Bed" the author uses imagery in the 7th line, "And dark towns heap up on the horizon" to describe the nature of the place that the couple is currently in. This line sets the place of where the couples minds seem to be as well (isolated and dark). In other words, The couple has failed to communicate with one another. They don't seem as they are on good terms by reading this line and then the lines that are to follow. I liked how the author used this to describe the current situation of the couple and the overall theme.

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  30. In the poem "History" in the line 9 through 11 it refers as an allusion "As in our Bibles, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends a child could give it a face two holes; two holes", an allusion is giving a reference to history within the whole poem talking about how history has changed and it is death that surrounds us throughout . The author also makes an allusion to the bible referring to death. Referring to the bible the author helps the reader understand the references from the bible to the theme of the poem.

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  31. From "History", the author uses allusion in the 9th line, "As in our bibles, white-faced, predatory, the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends". The poem talks about how history fumbles to record all the things that happened. The author uses the allusion of the bible to describe the nature of history, using the words "mist-drunken hunter" to imply that death is always lingering upon us. The poem has a dark tone and the allusion adds emphasis on the thought of death and how history tries to salvage us.

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  32. The poem “Days” it talk about how we worry too much about anything and we don't notice how time passes us. In this poem where their is a visual imagery is in the sentence that says “Where can we live but days? Ah, solving that question Brings the priest and the doctor”. Usually when you see a doctor and a priest at the same place it is usually because the patient is about to die. When I was reading this part of that poem I imagine the doctor and the priest coming in and the priest giving a person its last rites. The author is trying to give the image that a person is dying, and only then is when a person could live its days day by day, when they are dead.

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  33. The first stanza in "This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin reads, "They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you." Larkin uses end-rhyming with alternating lines, which is also commonly known as the ABAB rhyming scheme. The end of line 1 rhymes with the end of line 3. In the poem, for example, "dad" rhymes with "had". Similarly, the end of line 2 rhymes with the end of line 4. In this case, "do" rhymes with "you". And so forth, throughout the rest of the poem. The alternate rhyming within "This Be The Verse" is the rhythm of the poem and helps the reader harmonize with the text. Larkin conveys an aloof and direct tone throughout the entire poem to most likely bring upon the theme of parents unintentionally ruining their children in a sense that may differ for the audience. The rhyme scheme in Larkin's poem contributes to the overall theme by proclaiming that some children accuse their parents for their hurt.

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  34. In the poem "History" the line "his baby crying all night like a new machine". The author is giving the reader a clear image of what the baby sounded like all night.

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  35. In the poem "History" the writer presents a Biblical allusion in line 5, "Abel was finished; death is not remote." Abel in the Bible was killed by his brother Cain and the significance of the death of Abel is that the curse of evil in humankind will continue to live on in Cain's descendants. The writer uses this allusion to present their overall theme on how we humans physically die but our spiritual lives on in our legacy of history.

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  36. In the poem "The Divided Child" the author uses the literary device apostrophe when he writes, "Ah moon/(bend,stroke) of my delight/(bend/stroke) that knows no wane." He is directly talking to the moon as if it were going to respond or it can hear him, however the moon is an object that cannot respond.

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  38. In the poem "This Be The Verse", Philip Larkin takes on a persona of a young adult or teenager going through a rebellious phase. He basically blames the problems of his life on previous generations, as explained in lines 1 and 5. This reflects a lot of a teenager or young adult going through trouble because they blame everything on everyone else but themselves.

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  39. In "This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin, he utilizes the simile "It deepens like a coastal shelf" to emphasize his main message in the poem, which is not to deepen, or pass on to future generations the problems and/or troubles our parents have passed onto us. He utilizes "humor" by suggesting to put an end to this by committing suicide.

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  40. This be the verse by Philip Larkin
    This poem is about an angry child or young adult that is complaining about his or her parents. This is the person that Philip was was portraying. They mention that its not exactly their fault, but their parents fault and along the way they bring more faults with them to their children. In the end they tell the reader to not have kids, maybe because he or she feels that as a parent its just something that is bound the happen, give their faults, and more, to their children. The costal shelf is a metaphor for being trapped by being in that family.

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  41. The poem that I chose was Dream Song 14 by John Berryman. I liked the poem because I like the way he expresses what bores him through the stanzas. He goes into depth with what boredom actually means to himself. I do notice a repetition of "Inner Resources" which his mother made him believe that if you do not have anybody when you are young, you have nothing at all. In stanza one I found an example of personification; "The sky flashes, the great sea yearns". The author is giving no human characteristics to the sky and the sea. It gave me a vivid image throughout the poem.

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  42. The poem I chose was " 1940 " by Requiem
    The way each stanza is expressed is really creepy to me. He uses many literary devices such as irony and metaphors, to further his laid back approach to discussing the dead, " Sorrowing heads... The moon swinging like a pendulum" just another example of a metaphor to talk about time. Really loved the creepiness of this.

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  43. I found " A kind of loss" by Ingeborg Bachmann, to be the one I liked the most. To me the poem talks about the many feelings he goes through when the seasons come and go. For example " I've fallen in love with winter, with a Viennese septet, with summer". To that describes his overall joy for the cold and the bundling up opposed to summer, where he feels more secluded.

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