When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,
divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured
with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.

I know we’ve done this one in class already so I feel it is kinda cheating if I identify the same theme so I’m going to day that the poets intent is to question the running definition of Learn’d.

What does it mean to be educated?
That you can take a planetary system and convert it into binary code for anaylsis?
Or you can list the major cities of the world from 1456 to the current era?
Or that you can take a brilliant piece of poetry and break it down to every syllable?

The man in this poem would be of the school that says learning is being able to experience the subject in a meaningful manor. Despite being able to see the charts, or the math, or the lecture, he’d rather see the stars because that’s what he loves, not the science.

And there you go. Hope you enjoyed yourself

I Remember the Room was Filled with Light

I Remember the Room was Filled with Light
Judith Hemschemeyer
They were still young, younger than I am now.
I remember the room was filled with light
And moving air. I was watching him
Pick brass slivers from his hands as he did each night
After work. Bits of brass gleamed on his brow.
She was making supper. I stood on the rim
Of a wound just healing; so when he looked up
And asked me when we were going to eat
I ran to her, though she could her.
She smiled And said, ‘Tell him . . .’ Then ‘Tell her . . .’ on winged feet
I danced between them, forgiveness in my cup,
Wise messenger of the gods, their child.

Through some research I’d like to point out that the poet in this case is actually not Judith Hemschemeyer
but actually the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (Judith Hemschemeyer being here translator.)

I think the theme of this poem is that parents are the gods of our childhood.

I hope that any AP lit students reading this will appreciate a little bit more, the information we just learned in our last class.

The poet begins by letting us know this is a memory of her father (who we will learn later works in an electrical wiring factory.) She has hurt her self in some way and is confronted with the fact she must tell him. She runs to her nanny. And she, in her paternal way smile, but tells her to tell the two (her mother and father) about the wound. And like the messenger god Hermes, she spins the tale of her accident to Zeus and Hera. Side note: Zeus is the god of thunder, or electricity; Therefore it makes sense that the brass he pulls from his hands is the brass they use for electrical wiring.

She is a child of the gods, and that is where I get the theme that: in our childhood, our parents are our gods.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading.

The lesson of the falling leaves

the lesson of the falling leaves
Lucille Clifton
the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

This is the second poem, by Clifton, that I’ve read and I, thus far, appreciate her view of human nature.

Think to the long season past of fall. Of course you know where I’m going with this: In the fall the leaves fall from the trees. They float to the grown in hopes that there decay and departure from their old friend will result, win cold winter ends, with new life and the continuation of the trees life. This is what I think the poem is speaking of: that though it hurts to leave those we care about, it ends with new opportunities, adventures and friendships for them.

The leaves love the tree, but if they were to stay the tree would never be able to escape its dead appearance. So the leaves depart with love for the tree, loving in hopes that it is able to grow into something better, hopes that are based in faith, and the faith is that the tree will choose to continue growing (because if it doesn’t grow the leaves sacrifice was in vain. But the leaves trust, and have faith in the tree.) The faith is a virtue of grace. And the grace is only available by the grace of god.

The author poet uses “such” to show how one simple act, the leaves falling, going to college, or the passing of a loved one, is so much more then simple; it means more (ie. love, faith, grace, and god.)

Again hope you’ve enjoyed it.

What the Mirror said

What the mirror said
Lucille Clifton
listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!

I believe this poem is what people should think when they look in the mirror. Not a reflection for the purpose of bettering oneself for other, but for a reflection on how good he or she is. The theme of this poem, according to what I get from it, is that every women is an unique object of respect not only from herself, but from others as well.

I consider the listens, not only as the author’s trying to gain the attention of the reader, but also breaking up the poem into specifically different parts. Part one: Just the women, Part two: The women and others, Part three: A message to others.

Part one: Women, are unique, have the complexity of a city, have bodies that are different from any other.
Part two: People can’t approach the city (a women) with the assumption that they know their way around.
Part three: That any man, needs to know that this is not any girl, but is SOMEBODY.

Though this analysis had largely contained summary, the poem itself contains specialized development, and blatant meaning.

I love the theme, I think it should be applicable to all people, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog.

Many Red Devils

Many red devils . . .
Stephen Crane
Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page.
They were so tiny the pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart.

Well we’ve all read little of Crane’s writing, and this is another of his poems which I, after having to go through some interpretation, have grown to love. I believe the theme of the poem to be that writing, more specifically poetry, is a method or mending heart break.

Crane brings the image of devils, specifically red (either to represent rage, or love, or some other deep emotion, which run across the page. Then he uses words like mash, struggle, and muck to describe the way in which his writing has freed him of these demons. That even by the end of the poem thay cease to be devils and are simply things from his heart.

This poem is strangely heart warming and I hope you like, and will comment on my analysis.

A Case for Crane (great title, right?)

Untitled

Stephen Crane

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said: “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”

I for some reason LOVE this poem. I'm not sure why it is -I imagine it is for the vividness of the imagery- but I think that this poem leaves a lot of things open for interpretation. In the desert gives a a very plain, harsh, dry, dull setting. Perhaps it is meant to symbolize life in its unforgiving, ruggedness? And a creature. I imagine some kind of man lizard, beast like and naked. This to me represents inner human nature, or most basic, and brutal selves. And this thing has his heart, and is eating of it. Now the heart may represent the soul, or love, or compassion, or morality, or a whole slue of crap. But as for eating it, I think that again calls to the recognition of our primitive self, digging our teeth into the raw heart, and chews it like a piece of overcooked steak. What I get from the dialogue is that there is a relationship between the bitterness and his heart, because if it where not bitter, than it wouldn't be his heart, and if it wasn't his heart theres no reason he is working at devouring it.

Now reason for saying all of this is that Ana and I had a disagreement in-class where I compared this poem to a different work of the same poet, saying this work is much less specific in its theme then the other on. So by showing you that each symbol COULD mean a thousand different things (and that even the theme of primitivity is ambiguous-look two big words in one interrupter) I have shown that this poem can indeed have several different interpretations, causing me to refer to the poem as VAGUE in its meaning.

A Sad Tale

Reading Myself

Robert Lowell

[Note: Parnassus is a mountain in Greece and, according to Greek myth, the seat of music and poetry.]

Like thousands, I took pride and more than just,

struck matches that brought my blood to a boil;

I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire—

Somehow never wrote something to go back to.

Can I suppose I am finished with wax flowers

And have earned my grass on the minor slopes of

Parnassus. . .

No honeycomb is built without a bee

adding circle to circle, cell to cell,

the wax and honey of a mausoleum—

this round dome proves its maker is alive;

the corpse of the insect lives embalmed in honey,

prays that its perishable work lives long

enough for the sweet-tooth bear to desecrate—

this open book . . . my coffin.

To begin, I first notice things such as “pride,” “more than just,” and “never wrote something to go back to.” Now none of the these things are something that brings cheer and joy to our hearts, they are simply the “perishable work(s).” In the seven lines, the author tells about how he has, in his life, done exciting things (line 2), mastered impossible tasks (line 3), yet still is nothing is so important that he might go back and do it again (line 4). He has earned nothing more than fake flowers and a single blade of grass on the massive mountain of poetry.

Now the allusion to the bee in the 2^nd half of the poem simply tells how a bee works his whole life, making a hive to prove its existence-because things that are made must have a maker, but it dies in its work (line 12) and its life’s work is destroyed by something beyond its control (line 14).

Overall I think the purpose to this poem is to say life is meaning less and insignificant. …Sorry