Diving into the Wreck- Adrienne Rich

A little background information, I am horrible at reading poetry, I never seem to know what they are talking about because I generally lose interest fairly quickly. That being said I actually really enjoyed reading Adrienne Rich's, "Diving into the Wreck." It was easy to read which I could really appreciate due to the fact that I have deemed myself poetically-challenged. As I mentioned in a comment a couple blogs back I originally thought after reading the first couple lines it was going to be about this character murdering someone, which could not have been further from the case. I guess I should have used context clues from the title to realize it is obviously about diving. I really enjoyed the part about her climbing down the ladder when she mentions that it is always hanging there, innocently then proceeds to contemplate whether she was blacking out or not because as she descended further and further blackness takes over. One thing I was confused about she kept saying she was there for what she came for, which she mentions she was there to see the shipwreck, but as she continuously talks about the thing she came for it seems like that thing changed over time? I was a little confused during that but hopefully she found what she was looking for. Overall this was definitely one of my favorite poems in the class this semester.

How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl or Halfie) - Junot Diaz

This story is a how to, basically for young guys to "get the most" out of their dates. It generalizes that women of different ethnicities and social status will do different things for boys. White girls are the easiest and brown girls from your own neighborhood won't be so quick to let these boys in. This story tells young guys how to prepare for a girl that is coming over. First you want the house to yourself, no interruptions. Then you make sure anything that would make you look poor needs to be put away where it will not be seen. And you also want to put away anything that could potentially be embarrassing. Once  you have covered these areas you are well on your way to getting into the pants of whatever girl you can get to come over.

I thought this story was kind of funny. I love how this young guy has all these ideas about what you have to do and how he is able to categorize the girls into races. Reading this story I think it is brought to our attention how we can all categorize people into races sometimes, however unintentional it may be. I feel that that could possible be a reason for the story, to show us how silly it is. Everyone is an individual and will react differently to different situations.

Cathedral Raymon Carver

Cathedral by Raymond Carver was a really interesting story to read.  It starts off in a flashback with a man's kind wife that finds a job reading to blind people.  In this job she not only helps a blind man but also gains him as a new friend from it.  When she moves from him because of her old husband being in the military, she lets the man touch her entire face including the neck.  To keep in touch they used tapes to send each other back and forth.  The blind man's wife dies and he is visiting her and the narrator's house.  The narrator does not seem too fond of the idea because of his assumption on blind people.  Yet the narrator does not have many friends of his own. This to me stuck out because when an idea springs up that nobody likes, hardly anyone would give it a chance.  Who knows, there might be more then what meets the eye.

The story progresses and when the blind man is there, the narrator seems to be enjoying his company.  They end up smoking marijuana together and go into deeper conversation.  The wife falls asleep, and they continue  to watch TV.  The man suggest to draw something while the narrator's eyes were closed.  When the narrator does so it seems like he is putting himself in the blind man's shoes.  When he is done the man tells him to take a look but the narrator keeps his eyes closed, as well as understanding the man more, and tells him "it's really something."  This part was very interesting to me and I enjoyed reading this story.  Never judge a book by its cover.  The narrator and the reader learned very important lessons and I'm sure the narrator's wife won't be the only one talking on the tapes for the future.

Cathedral - Raymond Carver

This story is about a blind man named Robert coming to visit an old lady friend of his.  The lady friend happens to be the wife of the gentleman telling the story from his point of view.  I find it rather touching and emotional.  At first the man telling the story has very little interest in the wife’s blind friend.  He makes this obvious to readers when he says he doesn’t really care about some of the things his wife is telling him from their past together.  They had been sending each other tapes by mail; letters of course were out of the questions because the bling man could not read them.  They were everyday conversations, nothing too entertaining…  but of importance because the lady and the blind man were close friends. 

The second half of the story takes place at the woman’s house when Robert comes to visit after his wife died not too long before.  What is touching is not what they talk about at dinner, nor the mention of them smoking weed together (something the blind man had not experienced before.) it is what the man and Robert do when the wife falls asleep.

They draw a cathedral together, hand in hand, so the blind man can understand what one looks like.  Two people that do not know each other at all, have this moment when they almost become one.  Robert tells the husband to close his eyes and he keeps them closed after he finishes drawing.  The whole story seems pointless until they get to this point in the end.

Junot Diaz

"How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl,o Halfie)" by Junot Diaz was very funny and amusing to me. It seem like a conversation that i would've had with an older friend years ago while growing up in Queens, NewYork. To me it was just a funny story about to young inexperienced  teens trying to be casanovas with the girls. One so called expert trying his best to help his buddy get lucky with a girl. I don"t think the one guy giving the advice really had any more luck with the girls then his friend. This all seemed like stuff that the boy had seen on TV and was telling his friend so he could look like a big player, when in realty i think both boys still had plenty to go to get that "Date". It was not to serious and used everyday language and i thought it was a good last story for the class.

Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove

Having read very little poetry in my life, Thomas and Beulah was a welcome change from the majority of the poems we've read over the course of this class. Told with gut-wrenching emotion, Thomas and Beulah is the story of the lives of two black folks, one southern, one northern, who meet and ultimately marry. Throughout their lives together, they seem to experience very little true happiness. Their marriage seems loveless, and their hopes and dreams never come to fruition.
The story of Thomas is told first, and starts of with Thomas enjoying a wonderfully drunk moment with his best friend, Lem. The are aboard a steamboat headed north, when Tomas dares Lem to jump and swim to an island, a dare that Lem accepts. Lem quickly drowns, and references to Lem are made throughout the poem. Throughout his life, Thomas is seeking to somehow replace Lem in order to lessen his suffering over the loss of his friend.
        Beulah, the pretty northern lass that captures Thomas' heart, has dreams since childhood of visiting Paris. As we read, this dream is ultimately unrealized, which lends to her sorrow throughout her life. Yet, Beulah continues to hold onto these dreams, as they tend to make her life from day to day a bit easier. Thomas and Beulah go on to have two little girls, which is a bit of a disappointment for Thomas, as he wishes to have a boy to somehow replace Lem, but finds in a son-in-law a kind of replacement for Lem. Towards the end of the story, the characters seem to realize that they did truly love one another, and reflect on how fortunate they were to have one another.

Adrienne Rich "Diving into the Wreck"

Well starting the poem off with a camera, checking the edge of a knife and a black suit, I was already thinking that this was going to be about killing someone and recording it for their own personal satisfaction.  Boy did I get the completely wrong idea.  Once I read the flippers and mask I started to realize that the person is about to go scuba diving.  The line "awkward mask" made me think that the narrator is not use to a scuba diving mask so I think it's different from previous ones or it is the first time scuba diving.  Once the narrator starts heading down the ladder I get the feeling he/she might feel a little nervous and confused.  I feel as if I'm being put into their shoes.  Once the narrator is in, it seems like they are not too fond with the feeling of water pressure as they sink deeper into the dark sea.  I know I would feel weird floating around and still able to breathe underwater.  The line "it is easy to forget what I came for," tells me that the narrator is getting use to being under water now.  Like all other things you let happen like riding a roller coaster or driving a car, you get use to it and ignore whatever feeling you were not use to before.  This story gave me the feeling of comfort because every knew thing we experience eventually comes easy to us.

Dragonflies Mating by Hass

The poem takes placed in different times in history but it starts with “[t]he people who lived here before us” maybe referring to the people who had live there recently or in the distant past.  The poem’s time is fragmented and scattered throughout.  People do still “camp and gather” suggesting the times people came together in order to achieve survival in the past.  The poem uses animals to describe the beginning of the world such as coyote,   fox,and dragonflies. The dragonflies are  to illustrate the mating habits of insects.   The poem is also divided into different sections creating more of a fragmented time line.  The message is still the same which is that of commitment and giving it all.  Commitment in believing the tale of the Red Fox is “pee[ing]” rather than a coyote used by a different Native American tribe, culture past on by the prior generation.  Then the time line shifts again in the 3^rd section with the introduction of the religion, disease, and culture.  Maybe this transition is the foreshadowing of mating dragonflies?  Maybe the dragonflies do give it their all which also include their genetic makeup, disease, and culture?   Also, in this section there is boy playing basketball and his mother is drunk, a byproduct of mating. The author does not mention a father which also points toward a foreshadowing of the dragonflies mating at the end of the poem.   Maybe the insects are the instructors who are “skilled” in mating.  The dragonflies find themselves out in vast openness of nature and once they do they commit to each other totally at that moment. Human time line is fragmented and so are the relations with each other is like finding one other  in vastness of human history.  Nature has found a way to survive and thrived.  Maybe human beings are like dragonflies traveling through time here and there and one day we mate and separate leaving a history, like the basketball boy and his drunken mother, a byproduct of a past mating experience.  Maybe we are traveling through time and evolving as well, and once in a while we mate but we might not give it all or are we giving it all, like the dragonflies?  Maybe we do give it all without knowing that we do, leaving a legacy in our offspring.

Junot Diaz

Diaz is particularly intriguing to me. At first read to me all we see is a kid who is telling us how to get laid but calls it "How to date". But in harsh reality I think Diaz is depicting what our society is today and how hegemonic powers influence us currently. This story truly grasps what powers can do to the everyday person and exactly how influential they are to our youth. We can look to the boy hiding the cheese in the beginning because the girl is coming over. Due to him being poor he knows that the girl of upper class would look down on him and remember first impressions are everything remember? What also plays into the hegemonic powers is the fact that this piece is strictly stereotyping something that a lot of people do and also the most uneducated do even more so. Because white people have always been in power racism and prejudice has developed into this power structure. This adds to why the boy is so interested in the white girl because she is almost the absolute good in his eyes she is perfect and has fair skin. The boy is also probably hitting puberty or just got done with it and this can be the most influential part of a persons life. He is most influenced by his friends hence why he has to call them after he has sex. This is his ultimate goal because of his environment his upbringing and most likely although not mentioned, media sources. I feel like this kid is any of us if we were as uneducated as him. Knowledge is power.

Junot Diaz's How to Date a Brown Girl, Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie Review

        I found this work of Diaz's very entertaining as well as a bit perverted. This appears to be a straight forward guide on how to date pretty much a girl from any ethnic group. What I find so mind blowing is how sex driven this is, Ive seen other books that say dating advice in the sense of giving pointers like opening the door for her at the restaurant and such. This however is more focused on how likely things will get sexual depending on the girls race as well as to what degree you should try to woo her depending on her being local or not as well. I found it kind of odd that he would say that if she is local just a fast food joint would be enough whereas if she isn't a local you have to amp things up by going to a better restaurant.

         I found the part about the nemesis interesting too that you don't do a thing and that the woman would react in one of a few ways depending on being local or not. I found what was said that if you lose a fight on a first date then its all over to be real cliche of male ego and appearing weak to a woman if beaten in battle. Last but not least toward the end when its said that either she would go all the way or be completely standoffish to be a bit stereotypical, not necessarily false but stereotypical nonetheless.

        It kind of irked me to read the part where if you did get lucky lets say, that you should call your boys and talk about it as one of the things to possibly do after. I find that really distasteful, I mean that by itself to me, a guy doing that means he has little respect for the girl. That all she is a trophy to him and that getting her to put out was him winning it and talking about it his way to show off the cup. Frankly as amusing as the story is, the fact that the whole thing seems to achieve the goal of getting laid at least in my view I think this is the top goal, I think this is very sexist in the sense that guys only see women as a conquest and to be victorious is to claim a woman as his prize. To me that is what this story truly tells over just how to go on a date.

Junot Diaz: How to Date a Brown Girl, Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie

This boy seems to have it all figured out. He’s analyzed and calculated every move he will make when interacting with the opposite sex. In my opinion it’s sort of brilliant, in a sense that he has dissected every aspect of these girls and their social standings/ethnicities in order to determine what to do and say. He knows what will comfort her, what she will do in reaction to what he does and how to behave in order to get with these girls. As I read his thoughts and analyses, I can’t help but wonder what causes him to be so calculating. This boy is no older than grade school, he’s obviously poor and I’m not sure if he himself emigrated from Dominica or if his family did before his birth. He is the son of immigrants, perhaps an immigrant himself. I’m not sure of the exact time period but coming from poor immigrants doesn't exactly give someone the upper hand. This calculated behavior may be necessary for someone in his social standing. Does he do it purely to “get some” from these girls though? I also wonder if this is the way all men calculate behaviors in the presence of women. That may be a question that discriminates upon gender but do they? Maybe it’s just a type of person, or the way any person with a goal would behave. Regardless this boy has it down; he’s obviously experienced many of these dates with these different types of girls. This makes me wonder if his calculated actions work often with these young girls. I’d love to see the situation from the girls’ point of view. It’s not hard to imagine though. I’m sure they really do think the intentionally sweet things he says are so spectacularly sweet, they adore that brief touch of the shoulder, and swoon over the false sincerities he spits out in response to stories of the hardships of her family. How naïve, right? One can only pity these girls and applaud this boy. He’s figured it out. Good for him.

Junot Diaz

I found How to Date a Brown Girl, Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie to be a very interesting short story. As I was reading I was placed in the state of mind of the narrator and reminded me a lot of my middle school days and the way some of my friends talked about "dating." It's always interesting to listen to someone else's experience and find out that it was fairly close to your own and I feel like this story is one that a lot of my friends growing up could relate to. The way I read the story is in a very straightforward manner for the most part. The way it was written was a bit confusing, as the narrator seemed to be changing subjects spontaneously, but then quickly got back to the topic of "dating." I thought the descriptions of how eight graders think, such as when the girl is getting dropped off and when a girl says I like you, are exactly how an eight grader thinks. He just wants to look cool and not mess anything up. The whole story to me is just a description of a boy trying to get laid and making sure he doesn't get caught by his mother. I couldn't figure out if there was a specific point to the story, a lesson to be learned, as everything seemed to work out for the narrator. I really enjoyed the story mostly because it took me back to my days in middle school and it's funny to think about the very immature way we used to think about "dating."

Junot Diaz- How to Date

Junot Diaz's "How to Date" depicts the struggle of a young Dominican boy living in an urban area looking to impress a girl that may be white, a "halfie", or a girl from the neighborhood. Depending on the ethnicity of the girl he's referring to the speaker will say very different things to impress her, and she will also act differently according to her ethnicity. Throughout the poem the reader can't be positive he's Dominican and I believe Diaz purposely does this to make the reader feel the different emotions and mindset that the speaker is going through. By the end it's clear it is a poor Dominican boy living in the city, who has to hide his family's "government cheese" so as not to embarrass himself in front of his date.
I think Diaz's work is commenting mostly on the experience that many immigrants have in America. In social situations many people feel pressure to act accordingly depending on the ethnicity of the people interacting. This creates stress for the individual and I think this story is a response to that pressure. The story also conveys the pressure in American culture on men to play it cool in regards to women and to try to remain in control of the situation, and that it's okay to change your personality in an effort to do so, and to ultimately get laid.

Junot Diaz

The main character in “How to date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or a Halfie” by  Junot Diaz is nothing more than a field manual written by a teenage boy with Dominican roots. The story was very straight forward. So straight forward that I didn’t notice any themes, symbolism, or metaphor on the first read. But, after reading it again I noticed how cocky the speaker was. Had these methods of getting with girls worked for him before? There was something to his cockiness that stuck out to me. That’s when I realized that he was making generalizations about different races. All of these generalizations seemed extremely Laissez-fair, and that there waasnt much thought put into the characteristics of each race. In my opinion, this is the authors way of pointing out that we generalize everyone, and we do it constantly.

Haas Meditation at Lagunitas

In this poem Haas talks about the death of a word. He talks about how a word can never mean what it appears to represent. Due to what a word really is, which is just a representation of a true idea or object we can never actually say that "blackberry" means blackberry. I really like this poem because this is the everyday concept of life. And that is putting meaning behind everything we do and everything that happens. People often times do things they regret later because they don't actually think about what it means to do these things. I do not think this is what Haas is referring to at all but I think there is a direct correlation on how we go through life not knowing knowing who we really are or why we are here BUT we move forward anyway. I favor the end of this poem a lot because despite all the bad and muddiness of what he describes he says that "the body is as numinous as words" which i think means we are just as imperfect as words but sometimes in some afternoon and evenings we cannot help but embrace the beautiful reality of what we are.

Adrienne Rich- Diving into a Wreck

This poem is my favorite out of all of his other ones because the subject matter is on deep sea diving which always catches my interests. Another thing about this poem is that its short stanza structure. I feel like it is easier to read and follow along with. Rich does a great job of adding very distinctive descriptions of what he wants the readers to feel and/or see. For example, “I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element,” in reference to that the movement in water is much different. He goes forward and describes the “wreck” as a drowned face. Along the lines of that he continues to give it more characterization, “Whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress…” Rich, then changes the point of view to the wrecked object saying, “we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten logs the fouled compass.” Given that image, the readers are given more of insight of what Rich is getting across. All and all the poem is straight-forward and is able to capture the reader’s attention because of how descriptive it is.

Raymond Carver

"Cathedral" by Raymond Carver seems to me to be a story of a man that learns to accept and understand others who are not like him. The husband has issues about meeting this man from the very beginning of the story not only because he is a male friend of his wife but because he is a blind friend of his wife. The husband feels uncomfortable even when making conversations with this man during the beginning but slowly starts to change after smoking some weed and getting in a different mind zone. After conversing with the blind man throughout the night he begins to see the man as man and not a blind man. After getting more into the conversation the husband wants the man to understand whats going on on the tv, and the blind man suggest he draw him the Cathedral. I think this is the pivotal point in the story when the husband puts himself in the shoes of the other man. The moment the husband closed his eyes and "sees"what the other man sees, is the moment that i feel shined a light on the husband.

Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich’s “Diving Into the Wreck” seems like a straight forward poem about a diver exploring a sunken ship, but reoccurring themes and symbols let the reader know that this work is not just skin deep. I felt that this poem focused around transformation. The first example of this was the ladder. Rich takes something as simple as a ladder and describes it as "hanging there innocently", and "a piece of maritime floss, some sundry equipment". The ladder for a diver hold much more significance, it’s the portal that allows them to enter the water. The ladder is the barrier for the diver between his/her normal life, and the unfamiliar. Throughout the poem the narrator suggested that they were alone. At one point the narrator points out that unlike Jacques Cousteau, they were alone and with out an “assiduous team”. At the end of the poem the speaker says that they have been transformed into a Mermaid, and a Merman. The speaker has not only changed twice, but has bridged the gap between land and sea, and men and women.

Robert Hass

When it comes to Robert Hass I definitely agree that analyzing each stanza is critical when it comes to what you get out of the poems. His poems give us readers, a foundation and structure that truly show Robert’s delightful approach with each poem. With each poem I feel like he creates simple but challenging meaning and it reflects how he feels during throughout the story. They come off as emotionless at first but we get to see the peacefulness and compassion he creates within each stanza in every one of his poems. It can be difficult to figure out where he stands at some points but he definitely does an outstanding job and conveying post-modern behavior. The poem “Meditation at Lagunitas” comes off at somewhat strange in the beginning but as we progress and read further we can see the compassion he shows when he speaks about the women. The imagery he creates is peaceful and brings calmness to the readers, which I think is the best part about his poems. In “Dragonflies mating” I feel like he is trying to create a narrative connection with the readers, which made me feel more connected to the meaning and what he was trying to express.  All his poems were great to read but my favorite would have to be “Faint Music” because it starts off with a depressing tone and conflicted soul but it end with a meaning that life is tough but there’s always a bright side to it.  

Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah

I like the way Rita Dove was able to tell the story of her grandfather and grandmather in a very artistic and clever way. The way she was able to tell the story of her grandparents from both perspectives telling the story of how they first met, how they lived and the challenges within thereselves that they had to overcome. I love the way Rita Dove used colors to describe her Grandparents relationships and how the same colors show up throughout there lives. She uses the color yellow to show for her father and for Thomas and how she compared them but she also showed the flaws in her father that Thomas didnt have and was able to set aside his problems that he struggled with for his family, as for her father he wasnt able to. Her father would turn yellow during the winter but he did that for his whole life because he was Cheeroke and it showed that just like the color yellow was stuck with him just like the alcholism, Thomas was able to put up his yellow scarf with his Mandolin showing that he was able to choose when to associate himself with his problems. I love the was Rita Dove used poems to tell there stories and how she was very clever doing it. I had to read the poems more then once to understand some of the more suttle hints of what she was trying to get across. Also I like how she was able to control what we perseved out of the poems. Overall I enjoyed her story and would suggest it to someone to read because of how cleverly it was written out.

Robert Hass

When reading Robert Hass's four poems, there was one that stood out in particular. "Measure" is written with few words compared to the others and forces the audience to analyze each stanza as opposed to the brief explanation in "Meditation at Lagunitas,"  "Dragonfies Mating," and "Faint Music." The title  "Measure" gives the reader a foundation of structure and form that the poem is composed in. The stanzas are all equal in length and width. The first lines describing the "Coppery light [hesitating]/ again in the small-leaved/ Japanese plum" and the "Last light/ rims the blue mountain" adds imagery of peace and calmness to the structure sturdy foundation. The combination of structure and serenity create a simple happiness that reflects how he feels during "the habitual peace of writing." The even stanzas form orderly tiles that take out the complexity of  untangling the poets thoughts into understandable literature. How the scene is filled with universally peaceful images also calms the reader, that instinctively questions writing with chaos in the diction or form, making it easier to believe Hass's equal feeling of pleasure and delight while writing and the tranquil images. The way Hass is able to evoke trust and explain a usually complex relationship with writing in a concise and structured poem is a remarkable achievement and proves his rightful place as a poet.

Robert Hass

I felt as if Robert Hass's poems were easy to read but difficult at times to understand. Meditation at Lagunitas was great poem, but it was difficult to understand where exactly Hass was going. Is he speaking about a woman he used to love, that is no longer in his life? He seems to reflect on memories of holding and being around this certain woman. When Hass states, "All the new thinking is about loss," is Hass referring to this woman who he once shared something with? This is something that rattled me for a second and kept me thinking.
Dragonflies Mating was another one of Hass's poems in which I found really interesting. The poem seems to reflect on certain stories about indian belief and life in the mountains. This short poem was a lot easier to follow considering it was one poem basically broken down into short stories. I liked the second part of the poem in which Hass discusses the Coyote and how the world was made, but over all, this short poem was fun to read and easy to understand.
Robert Hass's last poem, Faint Music, has some relation to Meditation at Lagunitas. In Faint Music, the narrator is discussing his feelings for a certain woman but it seems as if this woman has already fallen for another male named nick? You can see that the narrator has feelings for this woman, but it seems as if she is just using him for sex and comfort. Then the narrator goes on to describe the world as being full of pain, with some type of singing involved. He states, "First the ego, and then pain, and then the singing." Is this something he feels because of the woman? Would someone like to explain?

Robert Hass

I enjoyed Robert Hass because he seemed to just tell it like it is. No noticeable emotion, or surprises, just saying whatever was on his mind in a plain way. And I appreciate that because frankly drama can be a little wearisome. Measure was interesting because it is a self aware piece concerning writing. I felt that Meditation at Lagunitas was a strange poem, as if he was high or something. Except when he talked about the woman, I thought that was touching. My favorite was Dragonflies Mating. I like the narrative format, when the author tells a story. I can almost imagine myself sitting there in front of him, nodding and listening. And when no one knew why the coyote peed away from people when there were no people, that made me laugh a bit. When he said that when he made the free throw it was like killing his mom, it made me feel a little sad, but also disturbed. I like the premise tho. I felt like the one about fear was very basic and simple. The one about the bird and insects was boring. Descriptive poems about nature dont do it for me i guess. Faint Music i also enjoyed. I like how he set it up, then dove into the story of his friend. I was sucked in to his story, and actually wondered why they do call it seafood. I also felt pain momentarily for him when he was getting cheated on. I feel like if the poem actually produces emotion, its done a good job. Overall, I liked reading Robert Hass.

Rita Dove - Mandolin

Rita Dove attempts to tell the story of her grandfather Thomas in the section "Mandolin." The story begins with Thomas's friend Lem drowning in the river, and ends with Thomas having his own river to cross which ends in his death. The stuff between these two poems arent very happy or cheerful but lend a pessimistic tone. I am curious why Rita Dove went this route, why focus on the negative? Was his life truly like this? Or does she have some misguided view. Typicically, if you are fond of someone you try to put a positive spin on things. Maybe Rita decided that the truth, at least as she saw it was the best story. I do like how she uses the third person which I think produced a good perspective. I enjoyed observing history through Thomas's vantage, and seeing the ups and downs of the man. To me it is not the poetry that stands out, but the story. It is a collection of poems, but primarily a tale which you can do whatever you please with, to learn or just enjoy. I hope Rita Dove embarked on this task for some lofty goal, and not just because she thought it was a good possible narrative. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed her work.

Rita Dove Comment

I liked the characteristics and nature of Rita Dove's Canary in Bloom. It is about her grandmother, Beulah, and is in a narrative form. I thought it was a touching, beautiful, and provoking work. I also approved of her choice to end the work, which also is my favorite poem from the volume, " The Oriental Ballerina". I thought the personification of the ballerina was excellent and engaging, and I appreciated the new perspective she gave on the ballerina, saying she drilled all night to come to America from China. For when I read poetry I hope to read something new, something I have not already pondered or came about. And I feel Rita accomplishes this. Also, at the very end of the poem, she ends her tale of the ballerina and says there is no china, just a head on a pillow in a room smelling of camphor. I like this ending because the end of the ballerina coincides with the end of the tale, and youre done and its just you in  a room smelling of God knows what.

Rita Dove:Mandolin

First of all, I am sorry I am getting to this so late, those of you needing to comment.

I definitely enjoy reading poems as a story much more than when they are singled out. Reading Mandolin, which is about Thomas, reads like any book, it's just telling a story, in a slightly different way. Thomas is obviously musically inclined, has a best friend named Lem, meets a wonderful, believe Native American, girl, they start a family, he works on airplanes around World War II time period, daughter gets married and I believe he dies or is injured in a bad car accident.

To me that is the broad picture, the shortest version. But, there are some little things I have questions about. Where did him and Lem go? They seemed to have been in the south and decided to go somewhere tropical maybe, maybe Hawaii? They talk about an island and banana trees, that's what makes me think this. "The Event" says,
they called to the tarantulas
down among the banana

and then

...pointing

to a tree-capped island

Also, did Thomas kill someone and if so who? Or was it all just a dream he had?
In "The Charm" it says:

At night he saw him,
naked and swollen
under the backyard tree.
No reason, he replied
when asked why he'd done
it. Thomas woke up
minutes later, thinking
What I need is a drink.

This makes me think it was just a dream but then at the end it says:

...
The canary sang more furious
than ever, but he heard
the whisper: I ain't dead.
I just gave you my life.

So did he actually kill someone and was dreaming about it? Did he witness someone else killing someone. I feel like it could have been a friend of his, maybe Lem since in the beginning of "The Charm" he seems to be reminiscing:

They called us
the tater but twins.
...


**Again, sorry it took me so long**

-Alyson Vann

Rita Dove "Comment"

Because there are no posts to comment on, I will create my own 100 word "comment" and others are welcome to comment on also :)

Reading poems in a series all together has its pros and its cons.
A pro is that I found myself more involved in the story, I LOVED the poems "Variation of Gaining a Son" and "The Stroke". I feel that because I had been reading the poems leading up to them I had better understanding of what they were about, and just a better appreciation for the characters.
A con is that I found myself so involved, that sometimes I would not take the time to really dissect the poems, only taking them at face value. I'm sure I missed a lot of hidden meaning that if I went back and read again I would understand. I do this even in regular novels, and I find after I read them again I missed so many little details that are so clever, so I believe poetry is similar, except I feel if you miss a little, you're really missing a whole lot of meaning.

Documentary about Jack Kerouac's Later Life

Anne Sexton

"The Starry Night" by poet Anne Sexton is a poem that analyzes the painting "The Starry Night" by painter Vincent Van Gogh. Her visual analysis implies that “the black-haired tree” (a cypress) represents death, the final release, which in turn leads to the stars which are souls burning brightly in the sky. The clouds are the unseen serpent swallowing the eleven stars. The unusual color of the moon is orange, and the author explains that this is because the sky is hot, boiling. Perhaps this relates to the idea that souls are ascending from the town below, to the stars to burn up, and eventually be swallowed by the serpent of the night sky. I think that this poem is confusing because the author states that the poem was written in a letter from Van Gogh to his brother, when in fact, she is the author of the poem. The poem does not explain itself, however, "The Starry Nigh"t is a well known and popular painting, so many readers will understand what she is referencing. After I understood this I realized that this poem was an ode to the painting itself. The poet's first stanza, the introduction implies that the author has found salvation through the painting's colors and meaning similar to that found in religion.

A Perfect Day for Bananafish

As I read this story I found it to express the oddities of each character described in the story. In a way it seems that Salinger wrote it to have the story play out in a weird sort of Sundance film kind of way, at least that is the feeling I got when i read it. One thing I didn't understand in the story is why Seymour committed suicide? and also why was he playing with 3 year old girls? It seems kind of creepy and I wonder if Salinger had things from his own life contribute to the story and its characters. Also what is up with Seymour and his feet? Did his self-consciousness lead to his eventual suicide? I think Salinger really develops the story in unique way as he provides insight on the characters and the roles they play in the story. However i do wish Salinger would have written about the internal, ideas/problems that Seymour faced, so readers could have concrete evidence to understand his actions and more of his character.

J. D. Salinger: A Perfect Day for Bananafish

When first reading the title of the story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" I was quite interested in wanting to know what it was about. As I read the story it seemed pretty interesting and good, but it was a little weird. I wonder what the author was thinking when he wrote it, because its very different. I also wonder more about why the mom is very concerned about Muriel Glass' husband. I feel as though the relationship between Muriel and her husband is very strange and weird. It is also ironic how the little girl on the beach happened to say she saw a bananafish, when it was made up by Seymour beforehand. The ending of the story is strange in the fact that he killed himself; I think the whole story in general was strange and different but that's just my opinion. But to some up my opinion I really did like this story; it kept me reading and wanting to know what happened next. Both the husband and wife were a bit strange and especially when the husband got mad at that lady in the elevator for looking at his feel; that was weird. Makes you wonder if something is wrong with his feet.

Jack Karouac

In this excerpt from "On the Road" I mainly got that he was telling a story about his life. I love that he is a cop and doesn't want to be and he gets drunk making his rounds. I feel like I can relate to his life somewhat. Living as well as he can just making the best of his job just trying to make a living while he is pursuing his dream. But, then I feel like he is not fulfilling his true dreams. He's talking about writing a story for Hollywood but sounds rather indifferent about it. I can relate, as I am sure many students ca, you are in school going for a certain degree but is that what you really want to do with your life? Back to Jack... all in all he's just telling the story of his life and the way things happen for him. Sal is Jack who is Remi?

Drunk Texts from Famous Authors

Thought you all might enjoy a little chuckle! Drunk texts from Gertrude Stein and Emily Dickinson:

Howl- Allen Ginsberg

The first thing that struck me about Howl is the way that it's written. Ginsberg writes in a way very similar to the way Walt Whitman did in "Song of Myself", where the words seem to describe the way one would think rather than actually speak. This makes for a more interesting read, and adds to the landscape of this beatnick masterpiece.
The poem is divided into three parts. The first part opens with
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness"
He then goes on to explain exactly who these great minds are. To Ginsberg these men are not whom people would typically regard as "Best minds of a generation" material. They are the insane, homeless, drug addicts, drug smugglers, hipsters, and many others. Note Ginsberg's use of obscene language. It's understandable why many people had a problem with Ginsberg in the 1950's America. But his lines containing obscenities are equally as important. there are no restrictions and that's what I admire about it. Again to compare Ginsberg to Whitman, Whitman included lines in "Song of Myself" alluding to gay sex and the bodies of young men, and receieved the same kind of flac, only to later on be wholly embraced. It's interesting that both poems are now anthologized in our textbook. But he goes onto explain that eventually all of these people, who you get the sense are his friends, were eventually used, washed out, "with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years".
The second part of the poem explains what made them this way. Ginsberg uses Molloch to project all of his anger and resentment towards the elements of American society that turned his friends completely crazy. The second part just seems to roll on and on, as if Ginsberg is just ranting and raving. He points to the politicians, institutions, wars, and ultimately the American capitalist system as the culprit. One line that I find particularly imporant is when he says,
"They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios,
tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about
us!"
I interpret this to mean that those that are the power wielders in American capitalism will do anything they can to continue to exploit the friends of Ginsberg and others, in order to protect the status quo, and protect the false American vision of the 1950's, and hence they'll "break their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!". At the end of this section, everything goes "down the river". I'm not sure exactly what he meansby this but i think he is referring to the apathetic attitude of the powers that be to pay any attention his generation,and that eventually these great minds of his generation "bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving!
carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!"
These men turned to getting wacked out on drugs rather than joining the system they loathe, until eventually they were insane, homeless, poor, wandering the streets. But they CHOSE this so their laughter is "holy" but still of a "mad generation".

The third and final part of the poem, Ginsberg addresses his friend Carl Solomon, a friend of his from the time he spent in a psych ward, and also the one whom the poem is dedicated to in the beginning. He repeats the line "I'm with you in Rockland" at the beginning of every stanza. From this part, I sense Ginsberg's true connection with the people he's been talking about the whole poem. Ginsberg tells you that Solomon was insane and you can feel Solomon's descent into madness in this part, and that eventually Ginsberg and Solomon are united in madness.  I get the sense that Solomon is both a savior and a victim of this generation that Ginsberg is describing. In the end, the reader is left to question whether Ginsberg has been describing real situations and people he knows,or whether this was the product of a dream state of Ginsberg's that he was able to describe and use to characterize this generation of people. Perhaps it's both.
I find this poem extremely important, especially given it's time period. Howl is able to capture Whitman's essence of the American spirit and what that has come to mean in Ginsberg's time, while also bridging the gap to the 60's and giving birth to it's youth movement and drug/counter culture.

Ginsberg's "Howl"

     I was supposed to blog about Ginsberg and Kerouac, but upon searching for the readings in TRACS, the Kerouac readings seem to be missing, so for now, we'll just concentrate on "Howl."
      As much as it annoys me to tell you this, the best way to ingest "Howl" is with a reefer and  Walton, Jones, or Davis getting down with it somewhere in the background. After all, this poem is a tribute to what happens to intelligent kids when they get bored with the status quo, which is, of course, getting loaded.
      "Howl" reads like it was written ten years later than what it was, and it's no surprise that so much of the culture of the hippies of the sixties was lifted directly from the Beat Generation. When this poem was written, the "$64,000 Question" was the most popular show on television, followed closely by "I Love Lucy." These were what most of us look back upon as being the squeaky-clean post-war years, where everyone washed their hands before sitting down at the dinner table, praying before dinner. In that context, it's easy to see why the authorities came down hard on "Howl." Blatant drug references and depictions of sexuality were not taken lightly in those days, and authorities did their best to keep "Howl" out of the hands of the youngsters of America.
      Part I. of "Howl" addresses specific incidents involving friends of Ginsberg, as well as tales to to Ginsberg by Carl Solomon, whom Ginsberg spent some time with in a mental institution. Part II. is devoted to the spirits of authority, who in their minds find it best to quell the demons which inspire individual thought, while Part III. affirms the friendship Ginsberg had with Solomon, and the sympathies the author has with insanity, and the importance insanity plays when battling Moloch.
      "Howl" is a revolutionary piece of poetry, laying down a solid foundation for the massive surge of counter-culturalism that was just around the corner.

Ellison: Invisible Man

Obviously the time period in which Ellison wrote Invisible Man was in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement of African Americans. But looking a little closer into history, this novel was published just before the first big milestone for African Americans in regards to racial segregation. (In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education, that establishing seperate public schools for blacks and whites was unconstitutional.) So, I believe that most African Americans, at the time Ellison was writing this, felt so oppressed that they were invisible to the white man. However, I was under the impression that this was a non-violent time period, yet the narrator seems to be somewhat violent at the beginning of the prologue. When Chapter 1 begins, he mentions his grandparents and how they lived so timidly, meaning they never stood up for what they believed in. I find it kind of disturbing that "separate but equal" was the how Americans saw the racial divide.

Invisible Man

The main theme of the story "Invisible Man" was the black man struggling to find his identity, he realized he was in fact living in a white racist society. He wanted to become invisible to the world to ignore stereotypes. They were treated horribly, the whites made the boys to look at the white woman and threatened them if they didn't, they also made tricked the boys to fall into their trap- an electric rug filled with money. The story is filled with lots of stereotypes and racism is seen throughout. It was hard to read not because of the difficulty of the reading, but because of the disturbing, depressing scenes that happened in the story.

Invisible Man

I personally liked and disliked reading this story, but it was confusing to read the further you read.Even though the story was quite confusing at some times, i believe the story was about a young black man that was from the south and didn't understand why there was racism in the world. The story was dark and i got confused after reading more towards the end. I liked how he wanted better for himself by going to college, but then its messed up how hen gets expelled because of his race. This story even though was hard to understand and had its boring moments; it was still very interesting and a person can learn and take a lot out from reading it. This story makes the reader think about what is really going on in our society around this time; the author really made the writing dark and confusing at times. I would get confused about what point he was trying to make or where he was going with certain things. It was really hard to understand the story, but i tried my hardest.

Invisible Man

The section was very dark with a lot of disturbing moments. For one he is told to fight with another man, he is yelled at when he opens his mouth, and teased with a naked woman. There was no lack of description to it. After the fight the author went over his injuries with detail. He also explained his longing for the money on the rug. The section also felt a bit cluttered at times. I felt as if there was some unnecessary information. I am also confused as to if he is receiving the scholarship or not.

Invisible Man

The ending of chapter 1 kind of confused me. Was the scholarship a joke or was it a letter from his grandfather? Anyways, the story was barbaric. I know why he would resent powerful white men after being teased with a naked girl, beat up blindly, forced to fight till he or Tatlok was knocked out, teased again into collecting coins on an electric rug, and then speaking while most of them laughed and scolded him. It seemed like he was very patient toward the treatment he recieved by the white folks, but it always "boomeranged" back and I guess he finally had enough and realized his invisibility to them. Later on I guess he decides to treat white folks the way they treated him. Interesting story to read, but pretty "F"ed up at the same time.

Amiri Baraka: An Agony. As Now.

Though Amiri Baraka's tone is anything but uplifting, he is an incredibly intriguing author. His word choice is absolutely pristene in excerpts such as...

"This is the enclosure (flesh,

where innocence is a weapon. An

abstraction. Touch. (Not mine.

Or yours, if you are the soul I had

and abandoned when I was blind and had

my enemies carry me as a dead man

(if he is beautiful, or pitied."

 

The style in which he writes could easily be percieved as melodramatic if it were written by another poet, but Baraka pulls it off with a certain grace that is vastly appealing. The line breaks and punctuation used are strange, but serve a purpose to emphasize the alliteration and sharp rhythms within the poem.

 

In another excerpt...

"I am inside someone

who hates me. I look

out from his eyes. Smell

what fouled tunes come in

to his breath. Love his

wretched women."

 

This one is much more simplistic than the last, but the symbolism is great. To describe himself as inside of himself, where the outer body hates the inner, holds a lot of metaphorical value as well as a strong image.

 

Though Amiri Baraka's poetry is pretty dark, it does much more than depress you. This is a great poem by a great poet.

Amiri Baraka: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

To be honest,
I chose this poem because I thought that Baraka may have committed suicide, and some dark, twisted side of me wanted to read this poem to understand why. After reading the poem, and a little research, I found that he did not commit suicide, in fact he is still alive.

This poem is from the first volume of poems he published, and I have found that his was a very political person. He was very involved in African American Rights, and I believe this poem reflects that.

It feels that in this poem he is not happy with the way things are, and that it does not seem to be changing. This is seen by him saying that he has "become accustomed to the way the ground opens up and envelops him..." He later states "it has come to that..."

This statement seems so blunt. He is not happy. He does not like his everyday life.

He later states that he counts the stars, and there are always the same number. By saying this, I feel that he is telling us that things are not changing. He is hoping for a new one every time he counts, (why else would he count?) but there is always the same number. Meaning, nothing is changing around him. It has become the normal.

I feel that he has lost hope, but this last stanza is what changes him.

His daughter is talking to someone on her knees into clasped hands. I take this that she is praying, and prayer to me, means there is hope. In this stanza, his tone changes to. By starting it out with "And then," It changes what he was previously feeling. By seeing his daughter hold onto this hope that there is something better, he knows he has to make it better for her.

The Negro Speaks of the River

In Langston Hughes' poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" he references many historically important rivers. I think he uses them to symbolize of Africans in American history. First he references the Euphrates which along with the Tigris forms the Fertile Crescent, where civilization began. By saying this I think he is saying that Africans have been in America since its very beginnings. Next he says "I built a hut near the Congo", by him saying he built a hut on the Congo (a river in Africa) I think he is saying that that is his homeland. When he says he built pyramids he is referencing how Africans were once enslaved and the pyramids are a metaphor for America. I think he’s is trying to say that America was built with the sweat of African slaves. By referencing Abe Lincoln going "south" on the Mississippi he is talking about how he freed the slaves. The overall felling in the lines about Lincoln and the Mississippi are happy and joyous because of the words "singing" and "golden". It makes me think that he was happy about emancipation. The line "muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset" to me is a reference to how the South went from having slaves (muddy) to having freedmen (golden). I liked this poem because it was easier for me to decipher what Hughes was actually trying to say.

Langston Hughes:The Weary Blues

Of all the poems I read so far, I feel I can relate to "The Weary Blues". A poem seemingly to be about the confronts of music during a time of depression.  The man he describes playing the piano doesn't stop playing because he has no one. " Ain't got nobody in all this world, Ain't got nobody but ma'self". Even though the man playing the piano is singing these words, I feel that they are Hughes true feelings, sung through the man, playing the blues. Hughes grew up without out his parents and talks of being alone in other poems such as the "Theme for Enlgish B". Although this poem speaks of depression, it also speaks of a love for music. A love that is hidden behind the words of melancholy.  The man plays music "far into the night he crooned that tune". Thump, thump, thump,went his foot to the floor". these quotes hint at enjoyment, while the words he sings paints a depressing picture. "I ain't happy no mo' And I wish that I had died". This line tells of the harsh thoughts of a depressed man contemplating suicide, or is so depressed, that he just does not want to be alive.

Countee Cullen

I may just not be good at understanding poetry, but to me "Yet Do I Marvel" is out there. It opens up by stating that they do not doubt God and that he is well-meaning, and kind. It then goes on to say how a man quibbled and than moles continued blind. I've heard the stories of Tantalus and Sisyphus before but for some reason they just don't fit in the story to me. Is the poem about their punishments? That is just something I can not figure out.

In "From The Dark Tower" the rhyming scheme throws me off a bit. The first section goes ABBA 2 times and the second part of the poem goes AABBCC. Like previously stated I'm not to good at poetry so that took me a few times to figure out. It sounds like when someone passes away we should take a moment and tend to ourselves. "tend our agonizing seed" could mean a lot but it sounds like its talking about a broken heart.

"Uncle Jim" seems to make the most sense out of the 3. It's a boy with his uncle who appears to be African American and has something against White people. "Young fool you'll soon be ripe" to me sounds like hes saying that hes going to grow into his color soon and realize what he does. It says that he turns away from his poem that hes reading and sits and thinks with his uncle, shows that he really does care for him but maybe not his opinions.

William Faulkner

Does William Faulkner use alternate annunciations for "it" and "can" to portray that the father hit his kin? I found it strange that every time the overwhelming father acted out in violence, the son or narrator always mentions that it is not as bad as it seems. The smaller son gets the bulk of the abuse in the story and his hopes for it ending is always italicized. This kind of goes back to modernist writers experimenting with style or form. Personally William Faulkner utilized too many adjectives, that it had a negative effect for me to follow the story.

Was there a meaning to this story other than family abuse? Other than the Snopes, the other characters really did not have relevance except to show the father get into quagmires and revert to beating his son. The wiry boy liked to chop wood, was it a way to get anger out and maintain the gentle image of his father? At the end, the boy finally decides to run away. A lot of kids back then ran away from home to end abuse from their fathers, so the story seems a little more relevant to the 30's when it was written.

I think that the story was difficult to read due to all the adjectives and overall style of writing that I didn't really get anything out of it.

"Barn Burning" by William Faulkner

The beginning paragraph of this story was kind of hard to follow for me. What was significance of repetitively talking about the smell of meat and cheese? The way he described the setting and Colonel Sartoris Snopes stomach and his view was a very strange way to describe something. He took alot of detail and time into describing his empty stomach and the smells and the cans on the shelf.

Why is Snope so rude and ruthless? He speaks of loyalty to family and blood because that is all you essentially have, but i do not get the sense that he was very nice to his family. The message to me was that when going through a crisis, whether you ( or your family) was at fault, you always stand behind blood. But Abner is a monster, and ends up destroying everything, even the one thing he said you should always have, family. Sartoris faced a conflict between what he thought was right and what his father has always told him. I think that Sartoris made the right decision, because it saved the rest of his family from the crisis they had been in from moving all the time, and knowing the wrongful of the fathers doing.

The only thing i got out of this story was that in 1939, men ruled everything. Because in the story lizzie says that if Sartoris does not warn the de Spains that the barn is going to be burned, then she will. When faulkner desribes the sisters, he only speaks of their physical appearance, never their names or age or anything else. This story kind of gave a subtle side story that women were not important, and what they say did not matter. And as much as the mother tried to give a calm. loving presence, she was always taken down by the stern temper of her husband with the family.
Overall, i thought this piece was kinda of boring.

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" Robert Frost

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was a very interesting poem, and definitely my favorite out of the assigned readings. Automatically I tend to search for any kind of symbolism in Frost. I was especially intrigued by the poems ending lines "And miles to go before I sleep./ And miles to go before I sleep." because they entice feelings of being on the road and the theme of travelling or being in a transition phase becomes apparent. In addition to the theme, I liked the word choice Frost uses. For example, "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep/But I have promises to keep," are poignant and left an impression on me. Word choice along with Frost's use of imagery are reasons why his poems stand out among the rest.

Robert Frost

I enjoyed reading Robert Frost, he wrote one of my favorite poems 'Nothing Gold Can Stay'. 'Mending Wall' was a tad bit confusing to me. I like Frost's modernism and I feel there are many things you can take away from his poems. It feels that almost everyone can relate in one way or another. What I found in 'Birches' was maybe he wasn't really talking about the actual birches themselves. When Frost got done explaining how the birches became bent and formed it dawned on me when he specifically said,

"...And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves;..."

it made me think that he could possibly be talking about a persons experiences in life. Bad and good things happen to each and everyone of us and once they do we are never the same. Yet, we don't break, we persevere, and keep on living because to give up under ever little or big pressure that is pushed upon us is usually not an answer. Even with good things that happen, we want more good things so we don't typically just stop and say...well that was good enough. The last thing is I find myself saying often...well it could be worse...and it does have an influence on your perspective to thing of people and situations that are way more difficult to handle than yours, ultimately giving you some of your motivation.

"...One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

I really enjoyed 'The Road Not Taken'. I love all of the meanings you can get from it. A saying that comes to mind is "going against the grain", which I love. He choses the road less taken to explore and find himself, I believe. It turns out to be more than he could have expected so much so that he states he may never return. This unworn road was more beautiful and gave him much more happiness. So what I get out of this is don't always follow the crowd, it doesn't always get you where you need to go.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost has always been a favorite of mine. His poems are sometimes difficult to understand but for the most part it is relatively simple to see the underlying message. I like his style of writing and the rhythm of his poems. “Mending Wall” was not one that I enjoyed, it seemed kind of jumbled to me, like he jumped around from idea to idea. However, my interpretation of the poem is something to do with the idea that if you put up “walls” in your life you will be happier due to the fact that he used the phrase “Good fences make good neighbors” more than once. “The Road Not Taken” is probably my favorite poem by Frost. It’s very simple to understand with a delightful meaning and life lesson. He is faced with a decision to be a follower or take a chance and not go with the crowd. He chooses to take the road less traveled and was very pleased with his decision. I believe this is something everyone, no matter how young or old, can learn from and use in life. “Birches” is a little more difficult to understand but what I got out of it is that he sees the trees bent by the ice storm but he likes to think it is because of boys swinging on them as he once did. And when he did he felt like he left the worries and problems of earth for a short time and was gently let back down. I actually enjoyed this poem as it is not one that I would usually like. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is pretty short and to the point. There isn’t much to it and is pretty much explained in the title. However, if there must be a deeper meaning I would say it is that sometimes you just have to stop and enjoy and appreciate what is around you even if it seems unusual or not exactly beautiful at first sight.