35 Poems:
Sir Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where Is an Hind” (Blackboard)
o Italian Sonnet, octave and a sestet, abbacddcee
o Wyatt was an admirer of Anne Boleyn and witnessed her execution
o Poem acts as an extended metaphor. The hunting of a deer in the poem is an
allegory for Wyatt’s love for Anne.
o Motivation behind the poem: warning about the dangers of chasing after Anne,
she is owned by the King. Wyatt has given up the chase
o Alludes to important figures- politically charged poem
o Parallels are drawn: god= King Henry, Caesar= Pope, Jesus= Anne, Mary
Magdalene= Wyatt
o Last 2 lines- the voice changes to Anne instead of Wyatt. Stands as a warning
William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 18” (574)
o English sonnet ababcdcdefef gg
o Simile lover compared to a summer day
o But the summer day is changing and it reminds the speaker that summer is
short lived there are rough winds
o Decay- gold complexion may dim
o Volta- eternal sunshine shall not fade, followed by a repetition that reinforces
the change in the Volta
o Couplet- rhyming at ends and also repetitive and beginning- language reflects
the continuity of optimism
Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias” (577)
o Many speakers: narrator, traveler, king
o Sonnet, ababacdcedefef
o Narrator meets a traveller, the traveller tells him about an old land in history
o Travel tells the narrator about a decaying sculpture that exists. This sculpture,
according to the traveller, was created by an artisan who captured the firmness
and authority of the king in his work
o But now the statues is crumbling and in not part of a grand city or kingdom
o Passage of time leads to decay, what once may have been a symbol of power
(the statue) is now a gravestone. Power decays
o Irony of the King’s message- his work has crumbled and decayed, but the
artisan’s work continues to exist. Art as a medium between time and space
o Traveller’s voice is the main voice of the poem. The traveller metaphorically
travels through time and connects the narrator in the present to Ozymandias’
in the past. By using the traveller as the main voice (rhyme scheme), the reader
gets an impression about the extent to which time has been displaced
Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (548)
o Sonnet- octave and sestet, ababcdcd effegg; iambic pentameter
o Genre- elegy, not just for the death of the soldiers but a mourning for the boys
and girls at home which he refers to as “doomed youth”
o
Sound imagery- the sound of funeral rites, such as “passing bells” and
“orisons,” is juxtaposed with the sound of war- an excessive amount of sounds
in the octave
o Religious sounds does not bring the men back, just adds to the noise of war
o Alliteration- rapid rifles rattle, sad shires
o Repetition- only, nor
o Sestet- silencing of the sound imagery, yet equally depressing because we see
the effect the war has on the youth- silent grieving, mourning extends the
funeral rites
o Psychological effect of the war is seen in the last time- a drawing down of
blinds
John Clare, “I Am” (419)
o Does the speaker have a home or community?
o Speaker is institutionalized, his surrounds are made strange to him “Even the
dearest that I love the best, are strange
o Repetition of “I am” is a way to reassure himself that his identity and selfhood
is intact, even though he has lost touch with his community and detached
o But his reassurance opposes his description of himself. He sees himself as
vapours in a oblivious host- the mind and soul as separate from the physical
body- final lines is a disconnect btw himself and his body, envisions himself in
heaven looking down at Earth
Joy Harjo, “Song for the Deer and Myself to Return On” (175)
o Free verse
o Mother belly= native home
o Historical poem- reader recalls the displacement of natives from their former
homes, and the move to urbanization and cultural conformity over the
preservation of tradition
o Speaker wants to sing a song to connect them back to the “mother belly” (art
as a means of accomplishing this)
o Importance of sound and connecting with the past
o The poem is an attempt by a community to preserve its culture in the face of a
more dominant one
Julie Cameron Gray, “Widow Fantasies” (in BCP 41)
o Moment of private thought
o ‘Creating perfection from absence’
o Her storytelling about a “what if” event is described as clean, perfect, ideal
o Imagination creates something that can only exists in the mind and has no
place in reality
o In reality, death isn’t clean or perfect. It is messy and can be filled with mixed
grieving emotions
Shane Rhodes, “IntraVenus” (in BCP 75)
o Interplay of 2 voices
o Shock value
o
Response to AIDS- long chain to “culprits” who are responsible- boyfriend, drug
users, drug providers
Emily Dickinson, “The Brain—is wider than the Sky—” (452)
o The brain as limitless- it produces and envisions the world- poem marked with
idealism
o Human body conquering nature(the sea and the sky)- brain contains it
o “as syllable from sound” the syllable is constructed by sound, tightly joined
together- Dickinson makes a comparison between the brain and God. Just like
syllables and sounds, the human body is tightly wound with that of God’s
Langston Hughes, “Harlem” (501)
o Metaphor
o Tenor- dream deferred- the dream refers to the desire by African American to
be part of American culture and not be alienated and ostracized from the white
community
o Vehicle- raisin, sore, rotten meat, sugar, load – the different characteristics of
each vehicle try to explain what happens to the dream
o Final vehicle- does it explode like a bomb? Hughes suggests that the dream can
be a lot of things and it may even be suppressed, but eventually it will become
reality. The explosion of the dream marks its transition into becoming reality.
The dream is not longer a vision. Optimistic about change
W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts” (383)
o Ekphrasis to Bruegel’s Landscape of the Fallen Icarus
o Discusses human kind’s indifference to suffering- in the painting Icarus’ wings
have failed him and he has fallen into the water. Everyone else in the painting
goes about their daily business and pay no attention to Icarus
o Repetition- how well, how it
o suffering takes place under natural settings
o Auden’s insight: this famous cultural piece of art contains suffering. What does
this say about European culture? Do we notice it in real life?
o Auden’s imagination is sparked by the painting, his poem does not replace the
painting but simply adds to our understanding of it
o High culture (museum of art) meets every day suffering- not so separate
Sherman Alexie “Evolution” (152)
o Buffalo Bill’s pawn shop is an allegory to the effects of European colonialism
had on the Native population in the Americas
o Darkly playful- ironic because it does not fit with the context
o Historical aspect
o Buffalo Bill made cowboy shows- he symbolic of the American West- to move
west many Indians had to die, gave up their land due to deaths or false
contracts
o Title- cultural domination is presented as natural, something that follows
Darwinism
o Objectification of the body- body is taken apart- metaphor
o Narrative form
o
One long enjambment- why? Long relentless cycle of pawning reflects the
historical reality of the Native situation
o Museum- how can the museum replace their culture which has been eroded?
Irony
Stanley Kunitz, “The Portrait” (514)
o Free verse, enjambments
o Describes death as awkward- detachment
o Builds on top of ideas
o Metaphor “She locked his portrait in the deepest cabinet” Figuratively, she
tried to erase him from her memory
o Moment preserved in time- the slap…private life. Feeling is preserved. That is
the main focus in the end
o Example of how narrative and lyric poems interact
Thylias Moss, “One for All Newborns” (545)
o Genre: nativity
o Excitement over birth diminishes with age
o Shifting agency: we take the position of the speaker, a mother at first. By the
end we take the position of God. Both positions are similar, exercise similar
agency, hopes, dreams
o Metaphor/ analogy: birth is like opening up the mind, God as a parent
o Subject matter: cyclic nature of birth, birth never what you hope it to be, ‘let’s
be better kids’- to our parents, and to our other parent- God
E. E. Cummings, “r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r” (174)
o He is spelling grasshopper in different ways
o Plays with punctuation, spacing, size of lettering
o Imagist poem- poem is meant to embody the grasshopper and show it hoppingjust as the language hops about, idea conveyed in just one image (grasshopper)
o Poem captures an action, not a meaning
Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” (175)
o Describes losing as not a big deal;, way of reassuring herself
o It is something that comes with practice- an art
o Last rhyme scheme- abaa- final couplet of quatrain. Content of the poem is
consistent with the form. The couplet marks a shift in the poem- the speaker
cannot maintain the consistency of the 5 three line stanzas before hand
o Climax- even losing you
o Villanelle
Lorna Dee Cervantes, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (176)
Ron Smith, “The Teacher’s Pass the Popcorn” (584)
o Class watching Romeo and Juliet
o Examines the interplay between the narrative (watching a movie) and the lyric
(feeling of regret expressed by the teachers)
o Gustatory Imagery- taste of popcorn/ taste of love btw Romeo and Juliet,
analogy between the two stimuli. This metaphor makes love more concrete
o Climax- “raw unforeseen regret”
o
Repetition, alliteration, assonance helps get the reader to feel that the
feeling of regret is collective within the audience
o Triggers memory, brings on remembering their younger days
o Ending, taste as a metaphor for love
Danielle Devereaux “Cardiogram” (in BCP 35)
o About being single
o The “heart” acts like a child, a pest
o Personification- heart as human
o This poem engages with cliché (heart as metaphor for love) and reinvents
(heart as a child, excited)
William Wordsworth “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey on
Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour” (257)
William Butler Yeats, “An Irish Airman Forsees His Death” (200)
o Yeats uses a persona- the airman
o A symmetry achieved btw the context and the form
o Form- repetition “those that I” “my countrymen” AND consistent rhyme
scheme
o Content: in the face of death the airman claims he “balanced all”- future seems
dim, past seems dim
o Balance parallels act of flying
o What is the importance of the airman’s nationality- irish? Irish have been
historically dominated and controlled by the British
o Would this airman fit into the category of national hero? No, he only went to
war out of delight. Fits into the category of a Byronic hero. Airman is an
outcast, maybe a parallel to the Irish plight against the British?
Anne Sexton, “Her Kind” (210)
o 3 kinds- traditional witch, outsider/hermit, Salem witch
o Conflict btw internal identity and social identity
o Repetition of the refrain
o Changing voices- narrative form “ I have gone out” but the refrain is the
speakers own internal voice “I have been her kind” Been suggests that speaker
is looking back at a narrative and connecting with it in her present state
o Female roles
o OR look at witches as a metaphor for how she feels, how she is treated by
society, and what happens when her inner self and society conflict
o A conceit – extended metaphor
Alfred, Lord Tennyson “106 (Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky)” (611)
Robert Browning “My Last Duchess” (170)
o Dramatic monologue
o The Duke is speaking to an auditor about his prospective marriage and ends up
revealing his past marriage
o Killed his wife
o Irony btw speakers view of himself and learned implication of his actions- we
don’t connect to the speaker by want to withdraw from him, like the auditor
o
Final scene- Duke point to painting of Neptune taming a horse, cast in bronze
|| to his painting of his former wife- art as preserving these ironic moments
and how they repeat themselves in real life
o Duke- narcissism
o Art as revelation…in visual form and written form!
o Similar to the poem about Icarus- same irony felt
Matthew Arnold “Dover Beach” (146)
Philip Larkin, “This Be the Verse” (515)
Frank O’Hara, “Ave Maria” (547)
T. S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (201)
Ezra Pound, “In a Station of the Metro” (561)
o What is the relationship btw the petals and the faces? Suggests similarity- use
of semicolon, reader carried on his/her view of the faces to the petals
o No main verb or proposition, impossible to know the speaker (moving away
from the speaker, almost a prelinguistic expression)
H.D. “Oread” (174)
o Imaginist- no excessive language, directly treats the land and the sea
o What is the tenor and what is the vehicle? Can be either the sea or the forest.
What is doing the act? Who is the agent? UNCLEAR. No pronouns, but the title
suggests that it may be a nymph
o Connects the land and the sea- something that has been long divided in
traditional poetry
Allen Ginsberg, “America” (471)
John Ashbery, “Paradoxes and Oxymorons” (378)
Countee Cullen, “Incident” (450)
o Private experience speaks to a grander historical problem in the united statesracism
o Narrative and lyric
o Expresses feeling about the historical problem, private and public life
Yusef Komunyakaa, “Facing It” (24)
Julia Alvarez, “From 33” (372)