Forgiving My Father

The poem “Forgiving My Father” by Lucille Clifton tells of daughter who is resentful of her father who is dead.  In the first stanza the poet says “It is Friday. We have come to the paying of the bills.  All week you have stood in my dreams like a ghost, asking for more time but today is pay day, pay day old man”, she is resentful that her father is not there to help pay the bills.  Throughout the poem she speaks very unkindly about her father.  She calls him things such as old liar, old pauper, old prisoner, and old dead man.  She expresses that he did not treat her mother right.  She states in line 14-18 “You gave her all you had which was nothing.  You have already given her all you had.  You are the pocket that was going to open and come up empty any Friday.”  In these lines she is saying that her father was not giving her mother money to pay the bills.  Throughout the poem you are expecting the daughter to forgive the father but she never does.  She blames him for debts she has to pay and is not sympathetic even in his death. She blames him for the life she is living now and the terrible life her mother lead. This poem expresses a daughter’s feelings for a father she hated and how her unhappiness is a result of an unfeeling and penniless father that didn’t try to improve his life, his wife’s or hers.

Wild Nights-Wild Nights

The poem “Wild Nights-Wild Nights” by Emily Dickinson is about a women explaining a night where she just lets loose, leaving her problems and everything else behind her and just living in the moment.  She expresses a lot of feeling into this poem and makes the reader feel as if she has no cares or worries.  She mentions how being with someone during a wild night would be luxury.  In lines 7 and 8 when she says “Done with the Compass-Done with the Chart!” she rejects the conventional lifestyle and is done with routines and ordinary life.  Compasses and charts could be paralleled to chores and routines.  Her last stanza “Rowing in Eden- Ah, the Sea! Might I but moor-Tonight- In Thee” has us imagine that she gives herself to someone she loves.  The subject of this poem by Emily Dickinson is surprising because she was a reclusive spinster.  It really makes you wonder if it is a poem about a real sexual encounter.  The poet uses a lot of imagery of the ocean and the port.  Is she picturing a secluded spot when she describes this port? Is it a place where she can secretly meet a lover?  If she is not describing a sexual encounter then what could it be?  Perhaps her just enjoying a night without any worries with someone she loves. 

True Love

What is the meaning of True Love in the story?  I feel that Wislawa Szymborska is questioning love throughout this whole poem.  She keeps asking questions such as “True love. Is it normal, is it serious, is it practical?”  This makes me feel like she has an idea of what she thinks love is but truly she is looking for answers on what love is.  She makes it seem like she hasn’t felt love before so she is angry and upset when she views it in other people.  No one can know what love is by seeing it, love is a feeling that hits you and when it does you know it.  In my opinion everyone has their own perspective on love.  Some people’s views of love may match others and some may not, though no matter what, they have felt the feeling of it in some way.  In the poem, Wislawa mentions “Look at the happy couple. Couldn’t they at least try to hide it, fake a little depression for their friends’ sake!,” in my opinion i feel she is just being selfish herself and not wanting two people to be happy because it makes her sad.  To ask people to hide love is like asking people to hide their emotions and most people can’t.  The question is, “Is the author being ironic?” does true love not matter to her or is it important?  In her last line “Let the people who never find keep saying that there’s no such thing.  Their faith will make it easier for them to live or die.” I believe she thinks that people that don’t believe in true love will never find it.  So maybe she does believe in true love. 

"To My Dear and Loving Husband"

            The Poem, by Anne Bradstreet is about a Puritan wife who expresses her devotion and love to her husband.  This is not a typical behavior in most Puritan households where duty is usually placed above love.  Bradstreet uses figurative language to describe her love, such as “"I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the east doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench,..." (5-7)  She describes her union with her husband in the opening line, “If ever two were one than surly we”  She feels that their union has produced one soul and one purpose in life, to live as one person with the same feelings and hopes and dreams. The next line, “If ever man were loved by wife; than thee”, says that she loves him as much as any wife could love a husband.  She wants to express to her husband that no one could love him as much as she.  In her final lines, “Then when we live, in love let's so persever, That when we live no more we may live ever”, suggests that her love will travel into death.  This poem leads us to believe that the lifestyle of the Puritans wasn’t all obeying the husband and duty to the chores and household, but love was present in some families.  Anne Bradstreet certainly displays this feeling in her poem.  It is sweet and endearing and gives us envy for this Puritan wife’s husband.  He is truly a lucky man.

somewhere i have never travelled

The poem, “Somewhere I have never traveled”, is about a man who is expressing his love for a woman.  Cummings used lots of imagery in this poem.  When he says “your eyes have their silence,” we imagine that he cannot read how she feels about him.  She is a mystery to him.  Perhaps he means her eyes and feelings are somewhere he has never traveled.  In the second stanza when he says “your slightest look easily will unclose me” means that all she has to do is look at him and he will open up his feelings to her.  Again he is using imagery to get us to feel what he feels.  In the poem Cummings is describing how he wants to know what his lover is feeling.  He tries to read her feelings through her eyes and her actions but she is still a mystery to him.  He describes how she can open and close his feelings with a glance, and he hopes that her feelings are the same as his.  In the last stanza he wants his lover to know that she has power over him and when he says, “the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses” he expresses just how much she means to him.  He uses imagery throughout the poem which helps interprets his feelings in a meaningful way.  We feel the emotion he has for the women and know how much he must love her.

Elegy for Alfred Hubbard

The poem Elegy for Alfred Hubbard is about a person who is eulogizing an old plumber.  He starts out by praising him for his abilities as a plumber but then quickly starts to point out his faults.  When he states “that his rule of thumb, which were often wrong”, he starts to show the plumbers flaws.  The poet goes on to say that he heard a lot of gossip and knew the streets well but didn’t know much about plumbing.  There is a lot of irony throughout the poem where the poet shifts from reverence to sarcasm.  He presents many sarcastic references to his wrong doing, such as in the lines “for much he never got round to doing, but meant to, when weather bucked up, or worsened, or when his pipe was drawing, or when he’d finished his cup.  I thought time, he forgot so often had forgotten him”.  (Lines 25-30)  The poem was actually funny in its irony because this was a person who was supposed to be saying nice things about this dead plumber.  In the end the poet talks of the plumber’s wife, waiting by a gate that he promised to mend. The last line "and the housewife banging his front-door knocker is not surprised to find him gone,and runs for Thwaite, who's a better worker" could be a great standup comic routine.   In the end the reader realizes that Hubbard is a human being with many flaws just like a lot of us. 

Still I Rise, a poem by Maya Angelou

The poem, “Still I Rise”, by Maya Angelou is a poem about self-confidence and self esteem.  It is about overcoming adversity under any circumstances.  The poet is a black writer who is viewed differently because of her color but won’t let others views on her lower her spirits and break her.  You can tell by the way she writes in her poem that she has suffered through discrimination of others lines 17-20 “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.” shows her determination to overcome.

“Still I Rise”, what do these words mean? I feel that through this women’s words that each and every comment against her or the way she is treated or looked at makes her grow more and more stronger as a person, knowing that what these people do or say doesn’t make me or break me and that in the end I will feel how I want to feel. When she uses the words, “You may shoot me with your words, You May cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with you hatefulness”, she is comparing nonphysical violence with physical violence.  She thinks that there is really no difference.  No matter whether its words or actions it’s still discrimination and it hurts just as much.  She remembers the past and how hard it was on blacks.  Her phrase, “Out of the huts of history’s shame, Up from a past that’s rooted in pain”, means that she learns that the past is behind her but she will remember the struggles the people of her race had and will rise above her roots to survive.  I believe she is not only speaking for herself, but for her race in general and how much they have overcome.  This poem is inspirational not only for blacks but for anyone overcoming extreme adversity.  It lifts your spirits and lets you know that nothing is impossible and we can all rise above anything is we have the desire.