Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Imagism allowed poetry to be short and sweet in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The shortness of the poems and the lines were something that had been seen before but never really talked about. In "In A Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound, the poem contains only two lines. It talks of the faces and the people and abruptly stops. This shortness shocks the reader and makes the reader re-read the poem to gain more insight as well as think more intellectually about what the people in the poem might look like and so on. It opens a whole new idea for the imagination of the reader to grow. In "The Pike" by Amy Lowell, the poem itself is a little longer but the lines are short. The descriptions are not as in depth as poems before 1910 and for about ten years this type of writing will continue.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Edgar Lee Masters' poems "Hamilton Greene" and "Elsa Wertman" are very unusual. It is unusual that a writer will link two poems together in such a way. I read "Hamilton Greene" first and did not realize the connection until I began to read into "Elsa Wertman". "Hamilton Greene" gives off a completely different vibe once the reader reads and understands "Elsa Wertman" because of the secrecy and scandal. The reader can tell that the time period that these were meant for was supposed to be an earlier time, perhaps the eighteen hundreds. The scandal of these poems is necessary because it shows to the reader that even the most proper of families have hidden secrets.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

William B. Yeats

William B. Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is exceptional because the words portray how the poem is about the earth and all of it's beautiful surroundings. Of course, a person can use this to be symbolic with love but the beauty of the words in this poem lead me to believe that it is actually about a beautiful day. I have sung this text to an octavo before and the text painting that goes along with the music is extraordinary. The song rises and falls with the text. In "To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time", the rose can symbolize multiple things. The color red is often associated with anger or lust, and the lust in this poem is not for another person but for life. William B. Yeats longs to find the thing he's been searching for that will make sense to him and that is what the color red/the rose symbolizes.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Edward Thomas compare/contrast

Edward Thomas's two poems "Adlestrop" and "February Afternoon" have many similarities and contrasts. Both poems are described in detail and in my opinion they both feel as if the tone were set in a nice time of day outside. "Adlestrop" is more choppy when being read and "February Afternoon" rhymes. The rhyming of "February Song" sets the mood for the poem. The poem is slightly longer and the flow of the poem makes the meaning of the words come through more. For example, the last stanza talks about us as people being unaware of our surroundings and how we are "stone-blind." "Adlestrop" also gives the sense that we cannot reach our goals because we as people can never fully approach them, hence Adlestrop as the man or fictional being.