Archive for April 2009
“The Garden of Love” Blog #15
My very last poetry blog EVER was, “The Garden of Love” by William Blake. I chose this one as my last one because I wanted to do an author that I really liked. Throughout the course of this year I have grown very fond of William Blake because he writes to dramatically, but it is put to where you can understand what he’s saying and feeling. “The Garden of Love” started out very sweet toned and reminded me of “The Secret Garden.” Two lines in the stanza followed a masculine rhyme scheme, however, the last stanza did not have any rhyme. I felt like this might have been a sonnet…because to me, it sounded much like how a sonnet is written. It was sweet in the beginning and then all of a sudden turned dark and evil. I felt as though this poem represented things in our lives changing drastically. At the start of the poem, he was describing this beautiful place he went when he was a child. Then it changed to him returning to this place, but it being full of dark robes and graves. The last couple of lines make me think that someones life might have been ended. Perhaps this person was elderly and when he went back to a place he loved, it was a sign it was his time to go. This poem ended with a very chilling tone, but yet I loved it so much. It made me think about how some things might be when I return somewhere a long time from now. Very sad…
Add a comment April 28, 2009
“She Walks in Beauty” Blog #14
This week’s poem is, “She walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron. This poem caught my eye because it reminded me of one of the poems we analyzed in class. It is very classic and plain. The voice is that of a lord and seems to be very proper. This first thing I noticed was that it was written with a feminine rhyme scheme and each stanza included six lines. This is actually the first poem I have analyzed that contained six lines and I really liked the organization of this poem. It was neat to see how the length and arrangement affects how the poem is understood. I feel as though each stanza described a different aspect of the woman and that kept my attention. After each line, there was a comma. I thought this was a little bit different because I didn’t necessarily feel like a pause was needed after every line. So I had to wonder why the author chose to organize the punctuation in that way. I loved this poem because it is very romantic and you can really picture this eighteenth century woman and man madly in love. This poem contained a lot of unusual description and seemed as thought it was written more as a personal letter to someone. The last thing I wanted to analyze about this poem was the title. “She walks in Beauty” sounds almost like the beginning line of the actual poem. I know that a lot of these poems didn’t really have actual titles back then, so people just took the first line of the poem and stuck it in as the title. I wonder if this poem was like that, but I’m not sure. It really catches a person’s eye, and makes it seem so interesting. I love the zest in the poem and the personality. This was a really neat choice for this week.
Add a comment April 15, 2009
“The Land of Dreams” Blog #13
“The Land of Dreams,” by William Blake was this week’s poem of choice. I chose this poem because it struck home of feeling like someone you know is has passed on to a better world. When I first read this poem, I began to think of a child sleeping and dreaming. I felt that it was more of a poem from the inside of a child’s head. However, I read it again and felt something completely different. I realized that it was talking about heaven and using “the land of dreams” as a symbol to represent heaven. It had quite a sad ring to it because it discussed how someone could not pass through to the “other side” to get to a mother and child in heaven. On most of the lines, the first two sentences end with masculine rhyme scheme, but on other lines, there is no rhyme scheme. I really love Blake’s writing because it always has such a sweet tone to it. It is really the type of poetry that a person can connect to and understand on a personal level. This particular poem used the most beautiful phrases such as, “Above the light of the Morning Star.” This poem also contains some end stops. I feel that technique is critical in a poem like this because it helps the reader to actually stop, look over the line, and make that personal connection. William Blake is one of those poets who speak to the heart of everyone. The words are elegant but also to where people can understand what he is trying to say. I love his poetry!!
Add a comment April 8, 2009
“A Grace Before Dinner” Blog #12
For this weeks poetry entry I chose to analyze “A Grace Before Dinner” by Robert Burns. I chose this poem because first of all, I love reading different dinner prayers. I write my families prayers every year for dinnertime and I thoroughly enjoy it. I was very interested to see how a dinner prayer might be arranged during the eighteenth century. I was quite surprised to notice how short the prayer actually was! It followed a feminine rhyme scheme but was only consistent every other line. I feel that this might have been a standard scheme during this time because pretty much every poem I have read rarely keeps the rhyme scheme throughout the whole poem. The second thing I noticed was how certain words were capitalized. The words that were capitalized seemed to be all different words used to name God. For example, “Heavenly Guide” and “God of Nature.” I feel this was done in order to bring a little more life into the poem/prayer. Also, I’m wondering if most prayers were written using that technique just because prayers are full of praise and glory and thanks and they use so many different names for God. There were also quite a few end stops used. This is used in order to bring to life the pause that most people hear in real prayers. When you include that type of technique, it makes the poem so much more powerful and meaningful. This poem really stuck out at me as a true representation of eighteenth century prayer. I also feel that it reflects modern prayer as well because it fits in as being pretty standard prayer.
Add a comment April 2, 2009
Blondie :D 