BA #7

B. This is from "The Ledge" by Lawrence Hall

"The boy did for the fisherman the greatest thing that can be done. He may have been too young for perfect terror, but he was old enough to know there were things beyond the power of man. All he could do he did, by trusting his father to do all he could, and asking nothing more."(383)

The fisherman's son is realizing that his father had no control over the skiff's disappearance, and while his father is carrying him across the water, he is thinking this. Even though his father is always in control over things, and always careful, he is not perfect. The son's tone went from excitement to seriousness when he found out the boat was not there. The fisherman's tone was always serious, but the young boy's new that they were in a jam, and so their thoughts changed. Sometimes it is better to just "ask nothing more". The fisherman is always careful, and the one time he slipped, his life falls into danger. It is very ironic that that happens.

BA#7

I read, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," by William Butler Yeats. I chose this poem from a book called, Western Wind on page 128. This poem's repetition, parallelism, and meter create significance by re-instating the speakers love for adventure, and his reasoning in enlisting in the military.

"Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight,
drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death." (Lines 9-16)

In lines 9 and 10 of "An Irish Airman," several examples of repetition show how law, duty, and glory, did not persuade the speaker to join the military. Yeats wrote this poem in the early twentieth century, so the speaker probably was an airman in World War I. The poet's use of repetition establishes the speaker's enlistment in the military, which was solely for the adventure of flying an aircraft. The words "balance" and "breath" (Lines 13-16) are seen twice in this poem which shows how the speaker found his balance in life to be in the sky. It also demonstrates how his passion for adventure was his "breath", oxygen, and lifeline.

Parallelism is used in lines 13-16. Lines 13 and 16 are parallel because they both show how the speaker found solace in life and death in flying an aircraft. Lines 14 and 15 are parallel because they demonstrate how his life before flying or without flying would be a waste of breath and he might as well be dead if he couldn't explore his love of adventure.

The poems meter is iambic tetrameter. This is meaningful because the poem is about balance, and if the poem was written in free verse, it would detract from it's meaning, as free verse is without balance and consistency.

BA #7

C. After discussing in class today the conflict within Eudora Welty’s “The Hitch-Hikers”, I am still left wondering about Tom Harris’ overall detachment from the events in the story. We addressed several conflicts, most notably helplessness/control, friendship/anonymity, no connection/connection. There was also the conflict of silence/noise that was present between Sobby and Sanford, which was concretely shown by Sanford’s insistent plucking of the guitar. But what is hidden in Tom that is the root of his conflicts? Is he doomed to forever be disconnected—and if so, why? He has the opportunity to be with Carol, to blend into the town and finally become connected, but why does he resist it?

BA #6

I read "Perfect Dress" by Marisa de los Santos. The poem can be found on page 444 of our Intro to Poetry book. This poem is full of both tropes and schemes to help create meaning.

"the girl in the photograph, cobalt-eyed, hair puddling
like cognac, or the one stretched at the ocean's edge,
curved and light-drenched, more like a beach than
the beach. I confess I have longed to stalk runways,
leggy, otherworldly as a mantis, to balance a head
like a Faberge egg on the longest, most elegant neck" (lines 5-10)

The rest of the poem is about a teenaged girls diary entry where she wishes she could just wake up beautiful, super-model beautiful, the girls in the magazines beautiful. She seems to have an unrealistic view that somehow the perfect dress would reveal her inner, hidden beauty.
The author, Marisa de los Santos uses a rhetorical question, at the beginning of the poem to get us thinking, she also uses a similie in lines 7-8 and 9-10 above; comparing the body to a beach, and her head to a Faberge egg. Santos also uses imagery when describing the fabric of and the dresses the speaker tries on and looks at at the time she wishes she would just step into her "perfect evening".

BA 6

I chose the two poems "A Route of Evanescence," by Emily Dickinson, and "Reapers," by Jean Toomer to look at for the sixth blog assignment. The first poem describes a "resonance" and "rush" of colors as flowers die, signifying death. The first line, "A route of evanescence (line 1)," is a reference to the path of dying, with evanescence meaning "soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing (American Heritage)." The symbolism all involves the end of something, flowers wilting, colors reaching the end of a resonance, except the spinning wheel, which symbolizes the circle of life. Because of all of these things, I believe this poem is about the path of death, and how it is natural and a part of existence. The second poem, "Reapers," Addresses death through metaphors, telling the story of "reapers" who sharpen their scythes to begin "their silent swinging (line 4)." While cutting grass, they hit a field rat and continue, ignoring it and moving on. This poem describes death as a way of making the earth cleaner. The poem is different from the first because it does not describe death as a path, instead as an action. You do not journey to death, you just die by the hands of another. These poems compare different beliefs on dying.

 Dickinson's poem: http://www.earlywomenmasters.net/dickinson/ed_1463/index.htm

Toomer's poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/reapers/

BA # 6

I read the poem "A Different Image" by Dudely Randall (page 499 of IP). It pertains to re-shaping the image of the black community during the Civil Rights Era, as it was written in 1968. The first stanza talks about shedding the past image that the black community had; "This age/requires this task;/create/a different image;/re-animate/the mask." (lines 1-6). I believe the last two lines in particular advocate acticvism in creating a new image and identity, for 'animate' is an active rather than a passive word. The second stanza talks about letting go of the standards, practices and sterotypes born during slavery, and replacing it with black pride and nationalism; "Replace/the leer-/of the minstrel's burnt-cork face/with a proud, serene/and classic bronze of Benin" (lines 8-12). Here, Randall is stating that the beliefe that blacks are subnordinate must be shed by its own people first and foremost, and replaced with a proud image of Benin, a southern Nigerian people known for their craftsmanship with bronze and ivory. This last line of the poem suggests a rediscovering of African roots, as Harlem Renaissance pioneer Marcus Garvy introduced to black Americans in the 1920's. In short, the basic message of the poem is that black people must let go of the negitive social sterotypes and images they are labeled as and gain a sense of pride, worth, value and community by rediscovering their African roots.

I read Emily Dickison's "Hope is a Thing with Feathers"(http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/hope.html). The poem is about the emotion of hope and comparing it to a small bird, which in literary terms is called allteration;"Hope is a thing with feathers/That perches in the soul" (lines 1 and 2). The first stanza states that hope lives inside the human sole and although it doesn't tell one what to do, it guides one's conscience in a benefical way. The second stanza states that it would take a lot of bad occurances or something really tramatic to shatter this hope that dwells in the human soul, and how it provides solice for so many people; "And sore must be the storm/ That could abash the little bird/ That kept so many warm"(lines 6-8). The last stanza says that no matter what the situation, there is always hope, and it doesn't ask for anything back, although it gives much; "Yet, never, in extremity,/It asked a crumb of me" (lines 11-12).

BA #5

Jack Kerouac: "The Railroad Earth"

“It was the fantastic drowse and drum hum of lum mum afternoon nathin’ to do, ole Frisco with end of land sadness—the people—the alley full of trucks and cars of businesses nearabouts and nobody knew or far from cared who I was all my life three thousand five hundred miles from birth O opened up and at last belonged to me in Great America.” (Kerouac 38)

This passage comes from a collection of short prose works describing Kerouac’s life in San Francisco as a writer. I’ve always enjoyed “The Railroad Earth” because of Jack’s cunning use of language and sound and the way he swam through made it poetic beyond prose. Within the first line, Jack uses first alliteration with “drowse” and “drum”, then switching to assonance with “hum” and “lum mum”—only to then be topped by creating a slant rhyme to “afternoon” with three words, “nathin’ to do”. All of this happens in a beat and may go unnoticed or appear disorderly to the untrained eye. The whole “nathin’ to do” bit really gets me, as I struggle to recall any other writer using such creative authorial intuition to complete the machine-gun effect in line one with a slew of well rehearsed rhymes. Kerouac, having learned English as a second language, had the ability to step back from words and use them in such a way that made each one a key on a piano. His vision of an alley “full of trucks and cars of businesses nearabouts” is enhanced linguistically by the use of cacophony to create the sense of visual raucous with verbal raucous. This passage is just Jack having fun with language, not caring to stick to any poetic form.

Kerouac, Jack. “The Railroad Earth”. The Lonesome Traveler. New York: Grove Press, 1988.

The Railroad Earth