ICRN#4 Poetry

3/5/2021

As a genre, there was a time when poetry and not fiction, certainly not novels, reigned supreme as a literary force. Harken back to your lit classes where Queen Elizabeth I patronized poets who wrote poetry in her honor. Poetry is a much different beast now that encompasses many more formalized kinds of verse structures (like sonnets or sestinas or rondeaus), as well as free and blank verse and everything in between. Poetry is also not the money-making endeavor it maybe once was (though patronage is a precarious way to earn money--and one could argue that patronage is still how people earn some kind of a living as a poet).

But, also, poetry is the bread and butter of teenage angst, of broken hearted 16 year old girls, etc. We've all written that poetry. We all, on some level, sort of regret it.

And yet, how much poetry has anyone actually read lately? I'll admit it, most of my poetry reading happens while I am reading other things in The New Yorker. And yet, I never regret reading the poems, even the ones I can't wrap my head around an upack. Because reading poetry makes me a better reader of everything else. That's not some big important theory; I'm telling you that's what reading poetry does for me.

POST
And that's what I'd like the focus of this ICRN to be for our class. Choose one of the poems that you read for today's class and do a very close reading of it. What is this poem trying to get you to think about--and what does it seem to want you to understand about it? And, secondly, how do you know?

What poetic forms is the author using
How is the author using punctuation to affect meaning-making
What word choice is the author making that affect meaning
What grammatical decisions is the author making that affect meaning
What imagery is the writer constructing
Does the writer use things like alliteration? assonance? repetition? metaphor? synecdoche? (don't know what those are, look them up here).
What do we understand about the speaker in the poem?

In other words, I'm not asking you to just tell me how much you liked a poem. Or that a poem is about love. I would like real, sincere, intricate explication of one of the poems. Roughly 300 words.

AND RESPOND
Connect to and build on one other person's interpretation. Point out some other aspect of the poem they are writing about that lends itself to meaning-making in the piece. Do you have a different reading than someone else? Offer it up, with evidence based on the bulleted list above.

26 Comments

Kate Bazarsky

3/5/2021 10:09:48 am

"Number Theory" is a free-verse poem, however the shape of the poem is crucial to the poem as a whole. The poem has no stanzas; instead it uses line breaks and punctuation to carry a thought and move on to the next. The shape of the poem is snake-like which is a metaphor seen in the first line of the poem. Warren used metered alliteration throughout, in the first line, "The four-and-a-half-foot black-backed rat snake swayed". I did not look far enough into the poem to say what the meter is, but there is a clear pattern. When reading it outloud it has a sing-song sound to it. I think part of this is because Warren did not give us stanzas--because we are carried through every line with punctuation we have to keep reading. The only instance where Warren used punctuation at the end of a line (except for the last line) was in the beginning and it was a comma--which still means our eyes have to keep moving--we are not meant to stop. Since our eyes keep moving, it gives the poem a breathless feeling to it and ends it abruptly.
The last lines of the poem hit for me, "The opening through which/your thought will glide suddenly into a lit space/ and be at home. In a shaky house, where wasps gnaw the walls." When thinking about these lines (and in terms of a rat) all I can think of is the fact that he will make anything home--it is that simple; which leads me to the theme of impermanence throughout the poem.

Rebecca Monestime

3/6/2021 09:38:56 am

Hi Kate and yes I liked how you were able to explain yourself using examples from the text. I have also noticed that Warren did not have the typical stanzas which I'm sure is the point of the poem. It's meant to be different and "modern" which I have never heard of before until now. And with the commas, you are right we are meant to be reading the whole poem non-stop which almost feels like I am having a conversation rather than just reading a poem. It shows that it is that effortless and communicative to the reader.

3/5/2021 10:34:03 am

"Number Theory"

The only form of punctuation used in this poem are commas. There are some periods but no exclamation points, parentheses, brackets, etc. just commas which shows the poem is meant to be read in a list format

commas for listing and emphasis the commas suggest a sort of rhythm to the poem. It doesn’t allow you to stop reading until the end where there is a period

Word choice: feeling, patient, companion, probe, the foundation, crevice, home, house, walls, infinity

Grammatical decisions author makes: short sentence structure, lots of adjectives and nouns

Image construction: in a house full of wall and two people trying to figuring out ways to solve their problems which proved to be difficult

The writer in this case does not use alliteration, repetition, assonance. There is an onomatopoeia at the beginning of the poem. There is also a metaphor which is the snake.

No, I don’t understand what the author is trying to convey for the most part

Derek Krysko

3/5/2021 10:56:08 am

“Blake Griffin Dunks Over a Car” by Matthew Olzmann may on the surface appear to be nothing more than a quick free verse poem told in jest, but rather it is a poignant explanation of the power belief has. The poem acts as a commentary on the charms of illusion, and how sometimes, even though we know something isn’t true, it is more satisfying to believe in the absurd or the mythical. Using Blake Griffin’s historically controversially dunk is an excellent entry into a more complex conversation, because it makes it clear immediately what the author is trying to convey. Blake Griffin jumping over the hood of a car is considered to be an incredibly lame dunk by basketball purists, one that is more concerned with showmanship rather than technical prowess. However, that perception only exists because people with a platform have deemed it to be so, and as the speaker demonstrates, at first glance he was, “spellbound, thinking it’s all so spectacular” (4), that is until those with a voice told him not to be impressed. This conflict is at the heart of the poem’s overall message, as the speaker asserts that believing in the marvelous is better than the alternative of thinking that nothing marvelous ever occurs. Olzmann uses repetition in the 6th stanza, the only time he repeats sentence structure in the entire poem, to say that believing is better than a world where, “No one dons a cape to leap over buildings./ No one turns lead to kindness./ No one sings the kraken to sleep” (28-30). The use of repetition here emphasizes how uninspiring a world without belief is, and how choosing to overanalyze things prevents us from appreciating the wonders around us.

The author briefly discusses religion at the end of the poem, which is arguably the clearest example of the power of belief. The speaker acknowledges that he knows he isn’t actually drinking the blood of Jesus Christ, rather it will taste like wine because it is wine. This knowledge however does not stop him from drinking from the cup anyway, because his belief in the fantastical is more powerful than doubt, and the speaker prefers to live in a world with possibility. The Blake Griffin conundrum is used here as a metaphor to represent a larger point about society as a whole. I think that the author is ultimately asking the question: why shouldn’t we believe in something just because someone else tells us not to? Comparing a dunk from an NBA player in a meaningless dunk contest to the practices of Christianity creates clear irony, as the absurdity of both is made apparent to the readers. Religion is viewed as a holy and sacred practice that should be revered by its followers, so juxtaposing that with a fairly innocuous dunk from a random NBA player helps to showcase how similar the two things actually are. Both things are given their power as a result of belief from others; Blake Griffin’s dunk is spectacular if you want it to be, and you are really eating the body of Christ if you believe it to be true. In this poem specifically, the speaker notes how, “In a kingdom that insists on repudiating all enchantments, / I feel catastrophic and alone” (31-32). The kingdom being a metaphor for the real world, and enchantments being a reference to the marvelous and remarkable, this line highlights how the speaker loses his sense of comfort without belief. If people dismiss the belief in the absurd, the speaker feels empty.

One other brief grammatical choice I want to mention is how Olzmann uses an em dash after writing “Still— I lift the cup” (49). This extended pause allows the reader to think while reading and gives them time to consider what has been said before continuing on to the final and most important line. The speaker lifts the cup anyway, and the speaker believes that Blake Griffin’s dunk was spectacular anyway, regardless of what others may say or what intense scrutiny may reveal. This poem expertly uses a trivial topic to engage in a more layered discussion of the importance of belief and not letting the opinions of others sway our own. Also, the inconsistent structure of the stanzas makes it appear more fluid, and better mimics a thought process of a human being.

Matt McGuirk

3/5/2021 10:58:25 am

For this ICRN, I am going to analyze “Alive” by Natasha Saje from Pushcart. I really struggled to think of what this story was about, but Professor Torda said it was like “going up the food chain.” That’s almost exactly what I had in mind. I just had no idea how to specifically say it. I think the speaker of this poem wants us to understand where we are and where we are going. For our final destination, I think she touches on the fact that we don’t know what it is. She writes in her last sentence: “Imagine being led / by knowing, imagine the end as clear.” To me, I read this as a way that the speaker pokes fun at or questions the journeys we take and the reasons why we follow them. She talks about all these things early in the poem and then says, “A sea called dead is one that / will not mirror us.” So I interpreted the ending a similar way. We think our knowledge leads us places and we think we know where we are going, but the speaker questions this. The line, “What’s lost when a language / dies?” reflects that theme of always questioning.

I think the poet’s use of proper grammar symbolizes the complex situation/story she is describing. For imagery, picturing a dead sea helped me understand her images.

3/5/2021 11:02:59 am

It’s so cool how we can see totally different things in the same poem. For me this was about the misuse of resources and the plight of Mother Earth. How copper mining creates problems beyond the shiny new metal, what indigenous sacred places are lost and cultures dead and buried... how we can live symbiotically if we choose to, but capitalism cannot be what it is if it becomes altruistic.

3/5/2021 11:48:42 am

Hey CJ! I love your interpretation of the poem. The line about the dead sea definitely echoes that sentiment about the misuse of resources on Earth and pollution. I did feel like that was the main theme, but I really got a sense that the writer was challenging our social norm of "our journey."

In a weird a way, it's like the poet is totally writing about what you interpreted (and there is a lot of detail to go on), and then beneath the surface of it is an even deeper look at ourselves.

3/5/2021 10:58:50 am

I would also like to add that Number Theory has a lot of emotion within it. Warren is able to portray struggles of a relationship between two people and the snake is a representation of temptation to give up, The struggle is so immense to the point where the house is being shaken up. The choice of words is extremely moving and powerful and I just read it over and I can see a bit clearer about the message she is trying to send out. As I was reading this poem I felt myself reading on and on and on until I reached a period. The first period I have seen in the poem which shows that the poem is meant to read that as opposed to having stanza which separates words and phrases from each other. It feels more like a story than a poem which is rather unconventional in my opinion or at least from what I learned in high school. I have learned a lot about modern poetry through this poem.

Brittany Ann Oppenheimer

3/5/2021 10:58:56 am

"Encountering, instead,
our eyes, it slowly, deliberately, withdrew
to slide across the stone porch, over the wall, and along
the foundation, inspecting every crevice,
feeling, nosing, listening its way
toward a solution, which it found
around the corner, up the back flagstone steps,
where it squeezed its impossible length and girth, inch by
patterned inch, into the crack beneath the topmost slate."

I feel like this line alone has a bunch of stuff that can be talked about here. For starters, I feel like the author is using a stringy type of poetic form that resembles the length of the snake itself. In the first sentence of the poem, the author says the snake is around four feet in length. When I read a long sentence like this, it makes me feel like I am reading the text left to right on the back of the snake in a way. I wonder if the author is trying to get readers to connect the length of the snake with the length of the sentences within the text. I can imagine if the snake slithers around the house that the sentence will be much longer depending on hour far the snake has moved. That's one think I feel I can take away from this.

The other thing about this sentence I chose is that there definitely seems to be some form of repetition with this sentence in particular. Maybe not with words, but with the pauses that comes with each comma. This one sentence has a tone of comma's with no period breaks at all. I wondered if it was like this to give the idea of the snakes movement though out the story. Like, just like a regular snake, it always has to keep moving with small breaks to check for danger so that it can find it's next home. The place that it would be safe to live in. That's what I got from these comma pauses most of all.

3/5/2021 10:59:17 am

“The Rules” by Leila Chatti

This poem plays with punctuation and I believe really lends itself to be read aloud or performed like button poetry. Hyphens, periods, commas and line breaks mess with the way the poem can be read. Yes, you can read it line by line, but it becomes a rich dialogue when spoken aloud and the unpunctuated line break becomes a ½ pause… similar to a hyphen but not as long as a comma. The title hints that this poem will be breaking rules. The speaker opens with stating that there will be no stars and yet ends the poem weeping over their beauty. One line is followed with another that takes away what was originally said (the speaker discusses a blue - oops - there is no blue in this poem). The author used words that required me to use a google search (pelecinid wasp) but also place the setting in America. Although the form appears to be a-b-a-b, c, a-b-a-b, c, this is a-b-a in the 6th stanza and then returns to a-b-a-b for another stanza before going to a-a-b, a-a-b, c in pagination. We find that the form is not rhyming couplet and by changing the form of some stanzas, it is not firmly constructed. Assonance and consonance can be found with words like skies-single-cicadas-dusk-crescendoing-secretions-sidewalk. Lastly, this poem is about poems, the title for this is “ars poetica”. It pokes fun at poetry technique and subject matter and yet ends with a soulful moment pondering the night sky. I especially liked the way the speaker used the expectation of the reader at the end of some lines to create momentary confusion when the line really ended some place else (pretty - okay with it). This is a poem that is meant to be read through a number of times and the reader isn’t even introduced to the full depth of subject matter until the second read through.

This poem has no children; it is trying to be taken seriously.

Marissa Merlino

3/5/2021 11:46:26 am

I loved that you ended your comment with that line from the poem. It was an interesting choice for Chatti to include that line since as you noted, we see the speaker correcting/contradicting herself. This implies that she is trying very hard to get a specific message across to the reader, which is a message about poetry itself. The momentary confusion you referenced is another interesting choice, because it seems as if at the end the speaker is in a moment of confusion herself: knowing that at the beginning of the poem she was trying to steer away from cliche and convention, but noticing the beauty in a subject that is often referenced by many poets and making a point to highlight this in the final lines. From how I read this poem, I think it's about how writers might often try to take themselves and their work too seriously, but sometimes it's good to humble ourselves and make a mental note of why the topics we see written about a lot appear so often (i.e. poems about love).

3/5/2021 11:01:35 am

"The Out-&-Proud Boy Passes the Baseball Boy" by Josh Tvrdy was my favorite poem we read for today. First of all, the poem starts off with a piece of punctuation instead of a word which to me was a strong way to start. The poem is mostly blunt but Tvrdy is careful with his words, a line that stuck out to me was, "Later that night he took/my mouth to his starving places". A few lines later, the speaker tells us that he never kissed him--of course after the beautiful poetic line he brought us back to his bluntness.
Part of the charm in this poem is the fact that it goes there--wherever 'there' may be. Tvrdy uses punctuation carefully with two line stanzas that create a zig-zag pattern. I have two theories for the pattern (1) it creates the illusion of a zipper on pants and he talks a lot about sex (2) it simply makes you keep reading.
The end of the poem was the turning point for me because that was where the 'poetry' came in. "Trying to believe my body can pass/ his on this cracked sidewalk without /flinching into shadows because I’m nothing/ like him. I’ve gnawed through every curtain/ to belong in this light. This gorgeous April light." The rest of the poem almost read as an internal monologue--most of the metaphors are based from real life. However, once we get to the end, the punch comes--not only is he craving affection, he does not know if he is 'allowed'-- "trying to believe my body can pass his on this cracked sidewalk without flinching into shadows...".

Maddie Staples

3/6/2021 06:42:07 am

Kate,
This was also my favorite poem, and I agree that one of the most striking things was the juxtaposition between the more "poetic" lines-- "O, look at the sky, look / at that nearly blooming magnolia, its heavy bulbs / needing one warm day to fully unbuckle, / floppy white petals finally draped with sun" -- and the very blunt and gritty lines, most notably, "Let me say that / less gay: I gave him a blowjob on a sinking / air mattress in the corner of a cramped Air / BnB with somebody’s foot flicking in sleep / three feet away." The fact that the poem is bookended with these grand poetic sentiments makes it seem as if the narrator is aspiring to this flowery, beautiful, visible kind of love which he can only really believe in between the less pristine reality of "truck stop" hookups. That there can be a "less gay" way for two men to have sex is steeped in homophobia that the narrator has obviously internalized, forced to shut off that beautiful, romantic part of him in order to be with these closeted "baseball boys" and have it be "good."

Madison Staples

3/5/2021 11:03:33 am

"Milk" and "Alive" were both striking to me, and it felt that they were doing similar things. I definitely didn't understand "Milk" the first time around, but as Dr. Torda mentioned, reading the piece out loud really helped me to hear what was being said by the poem. Hirschfield used very simple diction, itself "so all present / that we drink it without thinking." These simple, placid things, however, offer great "resistance"--a concept that is emphasized by the full stop of the sentence and stanza. The speaker identifies the placid as existing in boulders, trees, the halls which funnel the howling wind, but also in smaller things such as furniture and a gentle, grazing cow. These placid things are then juxtaposed with the vibrant life that they both enable and contain--fire, sea, wind, human life.
I think it is important that "milk" is never actually named in the piece. Instead, it is described as "blue-white" "loss," again forcing us to stop drinking it "without thinking." The simple, almost blunt format of the poem I think also contributes to this message, which asks us to stop and think about the simple "placid" things on which our life is founded. These things "dig in / for an existence / in the long haul, slows." This descriptor, which breaks the previous format of ending stanzas with punctuation, seems to speak to the entrenched continuity of placidity, which "knows / its worth."

Lynne Campbell

3/5/2021 11:03:37 am

The poem called "On The Overnight Train" by Alice Friman stood out to me and I can't really pinpoint exactly why. I really liked the way the scene was described and how detailed it was. This poem is written in prose, making it sound as if someone is talking or thinking to themselves. The punctuation that was used throughout this piece was interesting because there are hardly any period breaks in the middle of the lines. Each line seems to flow into each other, making the readers eyes continuously travel throughout the poem. Much like the train that the speaker is riding. The tone and word choice that this author uses is close to that of a younger teenager which reflects the point of view of the speaker. Even if the speaker isn't a fifteen year old boy, he admits to himself that he is acting like oneI really can get a sense of desperation and longing that the speaker is feeling throughout this poem. phrases like "playing Alice down the rabbit hole" reflects this speakers longing to hurtle deeper into his impulses. There is a very clear disconnect between the speaker and his travel companion and the situation that they are currently in. The environment of the cattle-car is very serious and dismal. Phrases like "divorced from history: the country surrounding us and the crimes committed there" really stick out to me because this reader is choosing to ignore the world around him so he can listen to what his body is craving.

3/7/2021 08:17:03 am

I think it is great that you highlighted how the lack of punctuation better mimics the movement of a speeding train, and it is a great example of how simple mechanics within a poem can often reveal much larger points. I also think the lack of punctuation makes the poem feel like a stream of consciousness, and like the speaker is just thinking aloud rather than taking the time to sit down and compose his thoughts. This gives the poem a more fluid sensation, and in a sense makes it feel more human, because it makes the reader believe that this is just someone observing and thinking in a very natural way.

3/5/2021 11:03:53 am

The poem "Alive" by Natasha Saje gets the reader thinking about human nature and our place among the rest of the organisms/elements on earth. The poem begins by directly connecting the speaker to the reader by saying, "You and me", signifying that the speaker is grouping their self in with the reader/the rest of humanity. Starting by describing small, seemingly insignificant life forms, such as a microscopic bug, yeast, and bacteria, the writer implies that something about these life forms is important enough to write about. We are provided with imagery of not only living things that may be deemed unimportant, but the poet also describes the elements. Saje writes, "And rock, which lives so slowly it's hard to imagine it as sand then glass". Here, Saje is referencing the fact that humans tend to not think too hard about how everyday items/occurrences relate to the bigger picture. For example, we don't think about a piece of garbage sitting in a landfill taking years to decompose when we throw something away. We are often too wrapped up in our own lives and in the present to think critically about the world around us. Throughout the poem, Saje uses simile and personification (ie personifying the rock using the verb "lives") to make meaningful connections, in contrast to the way Saje is implying that humans think about the world: "Ductile as a shewolf's eyes pigmented red or green, exposed to acid in the air". Saje emphasizes the strength and resilience of this animal, which is being put at risk by an outside force. "Acid in the air" could be referencing pollution, a manmade problem which animals are forced to live through. Saje then asks questions within her lines that don't really have definite answers, such as, "What's lost when a language dies?". These questions, through my analysis, are meant to confuse the reader and make them understand that while they think they might understand the world, they in fact know nothing.

Emily N Spagna

3/5/2021 11:03:55 am

"The out and proud boy passes the baseball boy" is about two young gay men exploring their sexuality and each other really. The narrator of this poem is, i believe, the "out and proud boy" and the "baseball boy" is not out yet and is not completely comfortable with his sexuality. But as i read it again, i second guess that. The very last two sentences "I've gnawed through every curtain to belong in this light. this gorgeous april light." could be saying that this narrator has done everything he can to not present as gay, even when he say "Later that night he took my mouth to his starving places. let me say that less gay: i gave him a blowjob on a sinking air mattress in the corner of a cramped air BnB", is he trying to hide his sexuality? Is he not fully accepting it? Or reading it as he is the out and proud boy, he's broken through so many barriers to love himself the way he is, but concious of not making other people uncomfortable. The line that makes me think the narrator is the one who is out is "Even at the club, where it was easy trying eachother on- nervous fingers sliding the spines slick chute all the way down to sacrum, then lower- even there, he had to close his eyes, imagine me different." The narrator no longer feels that shame.

Amanda Guindon

3/5/2021 11:06:59 am

I definitely read the poem as the narrator was the out and proud boy, and the end of the poem really solidified this thought for me. He was able to bask in the beautiful April sunlight, and this made me feel like he had already gone through the hard part of gnawing through the curtains to get to this light, and the baseball boy still had to go through this to get to enjoy the sunlight as the other boy is.

3/5/2021 11:07:35 am

Hey Emily, I focused on that same line at the end because it was a really interesting way to end it. I think he ended on the metaphor of the light because maybe he has been in the dark about his sexuality or the fact that the other person clearly was not as comfortable with it. Regardless, I agree with the fact that the speaker has no shame--it is clear that he is unapologetic about his sexuality and does not hold back--which is why It was so powerful.

3/5/2021 11:04:35 am

The poem I chose to do my close reading of was The Out-&Proud Boy Passes the Baseball Boy by Josh Tvrdy. This poem showed so much of a certain scenario in just a few sets of lines, and the power behind the words holds so much meaning. It seems like the poem is told in a series of couplets, and they all flow together in some parts as minimum punctuation is used. This gives the poem a very light, flowing feeling, like how the two characters are described as passing each other on a sidewalk. While they are walking by each other in a flow of movement, there is a shared moment or memory that is told in the poem, so the form ends up matching much of the content.
The word choice in this poem felt almost hurtful to the narrator, as I’m sure the narrator wanted to portray the hurt and negative emotion that came with being disregarded in a way during a sexual encounter. The narrator says things like how the boy must have wanted him to be “different” and how he didn’t blame him for this thinking. Other words like “shame” and very blunt descriptions of the blowjob and how there was little to no romantic feel of it further drives home the negative connotation of this memory. However, there is a shift towards the end of the poem when the author describes the beautiful April day and how he is nothing like the other boy because he is out and proud to be in this beautiful light.

John Walden

3/5/2021 11:04:58 am

Qassida to the Statue of Sappho in Mytilili by Khaled Mattawa is a poem about the experiences of migrants/refugees in the Europe. The poet focuses on a woman, Kyria, who has left her country in exile to start a new life.
The start of the poem draws us in as the speaker asks Kyria questions about why she “stand askance” and why she cares a lyre on her shoulder. As a reader it draws you in to thinking about Kyria and where she is in that moment. We get the sense that she is in this kind of melancholy state, as she is “facing neither the sea nor the mountain, not even toward your wildflower fields”. It begs the question, what exactly is Kyria facing and why does she turn her back to these beautiful sights that would draw the attention of others.
When the speaker shifts to talking about the refugees and migrants surrounding Kyria, we begin to get the bigger picture of their existence in addition to their plight. We see the people trying to adapt to life away from their homeland, as time is “grating at their memories”, drawing them further away from their identities. Their focus has shifted to this struggle to survive, as they navigate their complex status as migrants in the EU and try to become the “model asylee”. Reading this leads me to believe that they have this feeling of helplessness as their identities and hopes are stripped away and narrowed, being forced into a box that they must be in to survive.

Paige Couture

3/5/2021 01:24:59 pm

My interpretation of “Milk” by Jane Hirshfield includes visualizing the back of a milk carton. Back in the day, they used to have pictures of missing people or current tragical events that have happened around the world. The first beginning lines give an imagery of these events: “earthquake, for instance--” (3). Earthquakes can cause permanent damage to households and Earth itself. A few lines under, Hirshfield includes another event: “the fire requires / its trees / the sea its hem of boulders” (48). Today, the world is sending thoughts or prayers to those fires in California. That type of news would definitely be written on a milk carton back then. In another perspective, some people take things for granted. When one drinks out of a milk carton, some don’t think twice about where it came from or how hard others had to work to obtain that liquid. Even the cow has to survive for us to survive: “It’s worth / The cow whose / Calf was taken / eats again--but do not guess”. It’s possible that the calf was taken to be used for meat, but the mother cow is surviving for milk. Rarely, one would think about how this mother cow is feeling when basically its child was taken away: “that we drink it without thinking” (49). In my opinion, the poem is a metaphor about taking things for granted. Not everyone realizes what they have until it is gone. When it comes to grammar, the author uses three-line stanzas that describe events around the world to descend into something less tragic: produce manufacturing. Hirshfield provides dashes at the end of the first two stanzas to indicate a pause or disconnection from ideas. It also enhances audience’s attention and helps with organization. The first two stanzas indicate that Hirshfield is projecting that the world is a cycle of survival. Only one other time is there a dash used on the second page. The cow “does not guess” (49) or wonder why things are happening around it. Even in danger, cows live freely without wondering what is going to happen to them or why farmers are getting milk from them. They do not know that their produce is being handled by manufacturers. Hirshfield describes her poem creations as what it means to be a human being.

Michael Wood

3/6/2021 03:43:44 pm

Very well said. I personally attributed the element of the loss to indicate personal bereavement as the author possibly had lost one of her own. I felt as if the poem was a way of understanding loss as a normal occurrence in life and how to appreciate the good things in life from the bad. I definitely like the idea of imagery through the milk carton as I totally didn't think about that.

3/6/2021 03:34:45 pm

After reading “Milk” by Jane Hirshfield, see that the strongest element is the author’s word choice. The word “placid” is used four times throughout which does give the element of tranquility through this repetition. Milk, being a pure and somewhat viscous fluid, is depicted as placid for its smooth and relaxed motions and attributes that element to nature. For everything that flares up, something lowers itself, digs in. The theme that this tries to present is a sense of equilibrium as every action has a corresponding reaction. In the context of milk as a product, I find that the emotional struggles one faces during the end of the previous day are offset by the following morning which would normally start with a glass of milk, thereby allowing a new sense of tranquility in the moment when someone is trying to forget last night’s affairs. The author emphasizes that these two emotions work hand in hand as one cannot know peace without hardship and vice versa. The poem uses three line stanzas throughout and utilizes prose which does not restrict it to a normal rhyme scheme. The use of punctuation and hyphenations help provide a few breaks while sentences often drag for several lines at a time while utilizing semicolons to provide additional length while not dragging out the flow. As the whole of the poem acts as a metaphor for life and loss as it appears clear that we learn that the author has recently experienced a loss of some kind and is most likely bereaved. Through this we learn that the author does understand why we need to experience loss and recovery as she attributes positive experiences that can come from the worst of situations.

3/29/2021 01:01:56 pm

"The Rules"

I feel like this poem is trying to show us the side of life that has consumed people for many years. The dark side that no one ever really talks about. Chatti writes the poem in a way where everything isn't just about sunshine and rainbows. It's about the hardships of reality and how every day people try to get through them. Chatti likes to space and indent a lot in her poem without making a lot of room for periods. There are some comma's and one or two periods either halfway through the sentence or at the end of the poem, but most of this is very my run on sentences and I feel that was done on purpose to get the flow and tone of the poem moving. I think Chatti want's to make her readers feel this sense of dread about life and how sometimes things never go your way. So, it's like everyone's life is flashing before there eyes and time it either moving way too fast or too slow. I think that's what Chattie is trying to implicate. That there are many boring and uneventful days and very few days during ones life that leave an impact. She talks about the poem having no children, but is trying to. I wonder if this implies that the writer is either single or, for whatever reason, is struggling to have children of her own. She uses language in a way to imply stuff that might or might not be happening in her life, but puts it into another form or context that might not feel so obvious. I think one of the things that stood out to me the most about this poem is the very last line.

"Something stops me-- I nearly wept on the sidewalk at the sight of them all."

This line is so broad that it can probably be interpreted into many things. Is she crying tears of joy or sorrow? Did she finally see something or someone that made her happy or saw something horrifying that made her fall to her knees. I noticed that she uses "them" here. When I read it, I took it as tears of joy. That maybe she has met a group of people, or maybe family, that finally made her happy for one in her life. I also thought about if maybe this line ties into the poem having no children line and maybe she saw her new kids that are adopted if it is possible for her to not have any on her own. Again, this is just spit balling, but I see this line being written more towards the "tears of joy" aspect. At least, that's what I want to believe while reading this.

ICRN#4 Poetry

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