Blog #10: Reflecting upon, "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

I really enjoyed reading this poem. It was filled with sentiment and reading it felt real. I believe in this wife's love for her husband, and I surely hope he feels the same way towards her. It reminds me of a Sonnet written by Shakespeare where he (satirically) expressed his love for the woman he was writing about. Clearly this poem expresses no satire, it is the complete opposite. BUT, it clearly represents a woman's love for her husband, as Shakespeare expressed his love. 

I liked the way Anne Bradstreet set all of this up. It's like she gives us something to think about, and then gives us a take away relating to her life. I feel like putting your feelings out there in that way shows vulnerability, and not necessarily "child-like" expression but a young aura. 

It seems to me, that the narrator, whether it be Bradstreet or someone else, sees more value in this love than in anything else. "I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold." I, personally, think that it'd be quite amazing to have gold, and seemingly endless riches, but I do wonder. I wonder what it is like to love someone so much, that they are your riches. They are the gold and the silver, they are the 50's and the 100's. They are your worth. 

Blog #9: Reflecting Upon, "This World Is Too Much With Us" by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The first time I read this, I started out thinking I knew what was going on. By the time I reached the end of it, I had decided that I had no idea what was happening. My first thoughts were like, maybe this poem was about how the human race has all of these beautiful things within nature, and we are wasting our chances and abilities to take advantage of them and their grace. But then, I was thinking that perhaps it is about the beauty of the world, and how things could amaze us, though there are aspects of nature that setter is, that make us wish that the world were as we dream or think. Considering we do not live in the time of the ancient Greeks, nor it's mythology, I don't expect Proteus to burst out from the sea with his Tridant. Nor will we hear Triton blow his horn, especially since I have never heard of Proteus or Triton (at least not in relation to this piece of writing.)

I'm still a bit confused about what's going on in this poem. I've read it in silence and I've read it aloud. And neither time do I really catch the essence of what is trying to be presented to the reader. I will acknowledge the wonderful use of imagery. I imagine laying like flowers and I imagine (even though I do not know what he is supposed to look like) Proteus rising from the water, and Triton with his horn. It has just little detail, but it's just enough for me to know, or to see what is going on. Even though I feel lost while reading. 

Blog #8: Reflecting Upon, "This Is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams

So when I read this the first time, I felt nothing. I really thought of absolutely nothing. After I read it, I was kind of just like, "Okay? You ate someone else's food? Rude, but okay." I guess what I can take from the poem is that it's maybe a note. Or one of those conversations you have in your subconscious. I imagine this to be between a man and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend or just some sort of home companions (roommates, suitemates etc.). I find it very difficult to say much else about the poem. But maybe that was the intention of William Carlos Williams. Since it is indeed, 'just to say', maybe that is all the poem is. Something to say.
Since William Carlos Williams is indeed a poet, I hardly think that he wrote the poem just to say. So let me pretend to be a poet, let me allow myself to think at an abstract of my own blatant and plain ideas. The poem was written about forgiving the ones we love. Whomever the narrator is, has taken a bite of a 'forbidden' fruit, and it was good, but it was cold. They're seeking forgiveness, but maybe they won't get it.
(Isn't 'forbidden fruit' a religious thing? I wouldn't know, but I think it might be.)
I do appreciate the way the poem is set up. How the pieces are sectioned, I feel like they're set up in how I would say it. But I believe that we were talking about something in class recently, that once you hear or see something said/done that way, it can alter the way you approach it yourself. I'm still unsure of the truth behind that, but it's possible.

Blog #6: Reflecting Upon, "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

Those Winter Sundays, seems to be a poem of sadness of the narrator, and the anger that flows through their home. Hayden presented readers with a time frame, only to the extent of a day in the week. But while reading the poem, I was able to imagine their father, with his dry and callused hands, getting dressed in the chill of morning. With such limited detail I can imagine, maybe, what his work place looks like. It is not a happy place, and as mentioned, it is not a profession that receives much praise from the people that benefit from the results of the job. The narrator comes off to me as young, and afraid. They are afraid of the tensions of the house, probably between the parents, maybe due to long work hours, difficulty making payments etc., but that's way too much for all of this. 

Once you get to the final piece of the poem, you can tell it is lovers quarrels. "Speaking indifferently to him," I think here is where the wife comes in strongly. She and her husband are having an argument, and the narrator, their child, isn't quite understanding it. The child sees their father as a good man, a caring man. He cleans their shoes, and warms their homes as well as others homes, he is a good man, why would he be getting in trouble? But this was all in the past, each Sunday. Since the narrator was young, they felt they knew nothing of love's difficulties, and the lonely moments that came with marriage.

Blog #7: Reflecting Upon, "Ozymandias" by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

    During my initial reading of Ozymandias, I had started to think that this conversation was post-battle. I think that it was, "sneer of cold command", that had me believing that. When I think about wars and battles, I assume there to be a leader, a commander. When I saw that Ozymandias was actually a king, a king of kings, I thought that this poem, if it were to have a time period, would be more so medieval. Considering the fact that we do not really have Kings anymore, I figured it was definitely not a modern poem. I hadn't had any other thoughts about the poem following my initial reading. I guess perhaps I wasn't paying that great attention.

    During my second reading of Ozymandias, I realized how sad the poem actually is. To be honest, I believe many poems to be extremely sad. "Nothing beside remains Round the decay, Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away." This part of the poem contains very strong imagery. What I can see, in my head at least, is a dry and barren field or platform of land, bits of wreckage here and there. The land goes on for a grand distance, all looking the same. 

    For as long as we have been reviewing and analyzing poems in class, I have come to notice that reading things more than once makes all the difference. Reading things twice has broadened my imaginative perspective of poems. Though, I do not believe reading a third or fourth time would make any difference at all. 

Blog #5: Reflecting Upon, "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

When I first saw even the title of this poem, it annoyed me. "We Real Cool", annoyed me because I feel like it's supposed to be 'we're really cool', or something of that sort. But once I got over the title, I began to read the actual poem. At first I enjoyed the childish aspect it had to it, they're young and trying to have fun. They're listening to music, cutting class, having a good old time. But the moment I reached the last line, I was quite upset. The last line hit me like a falling brick, I felt extremely upset that these fun-loving people would say, "We die soon." Like, it may be true, which is also sad, but nevertheless, I felt bad. I had a lot of sympathy towards the unknown characters that believed themselves to have an early death. But also, I felt like I could relate. I think that I believed that I was one of them, it was truly upsetting though. In my head, I felt like maybe, well not that I wrote it, but that maybe I could have written it. I don't know, I just felt like I had a strong connection to this poem, and to me, that was very strange.
The progression of the poem was very strange, in a way. Things were happy and slightly mischievous, then everything kind of goes down hill. They're going out, hanging out, and then they say they're going to die soon. Like what is that?? Why would you say that? But, I get it. I understand that. I still feel like there's a lot missing. But how much could a short poem say, apparently a lot actually.

Blog #4: Reflecting Upon "Since there's no help" by Michael Drayton

The first time I read "Since there's no help", I quite enjoyed it. I could tell that there was a great deal of sadness in the poem, and it felt like it was just a short and sad story. Though it was only 14 lines, I feel like there was a lot of information put into it. After the first reading, I didn't think too much about it other than what I just mentioned. But following the second reading, I got a better sense of what I believed it to be about. I felt like the poem was just a poetic way of talking about a breakup. I'd say what made me believe it to be about a breakup was certain words Drayton used, or the order that he put them in. "Former love", "cancel all our vows", "and when we meet at any time again", it all seems like a big farewell to love and unity.
As far as the questions go, the first question I felt was the easiest. It seems similar to a question asked recently in class concerning the subject of a sentence or line. While the word, "Love" is a representation of a human emotion, within the poem it also serves as a being. He is love. He is also "Passion", and "Faith", and he is "Innocence". I think that the questions could help someone understand the poem better, but for me they didn't change my perspective of it. But, I appreciate their existence and their purpose.