Oxen Schmoxen.

It seems to me that "The Oxen" is about Jesus, or it is at least supposed to remind us of Jesus. It is on Christmas Eve, involves a flock, straw, kneeling, and oxen. I think that it might be an allusion to Jesus. The speaker seems to be doubting his faith, or the truths behind it. He doubts whether the shepherds or folks like that actually came to see Jesus. He does say, however, that if he was told to go see some kneeling oxen, he would follow. The message and point of this poem isn't that clear. There are multiple ways that the poem can be interpreted. However, it is making me think, and that was the goal of the poet. This poem was not exactly one of my favorites.

What is a Dover Beach?

The beginning of the poem "Dover Beach" had some rather nice imagery in it. The calm sea and moon-blanched land has a very tranquil feel to it. It calms the reader down to where the speaker wants him to be, allowing him to get the full effect of the poem. It also sets a tone of calmness that has that same effect. I reminds me of a time in Sedona when I was sitting on my balcony of my hotel looking out over the area, and I felt a real, true calmness. Thought this poem deals with oceans and not red mountains, it did have that same effect on me.
The rest of the poem after the first stanza have a different effect. It compares faith to that ocean, but it has a negative connotation, because that faith has been lost. The speaker forces the reader to feel calm, then shoots him down by telling him that that calmness is gone. That is cruel yet effective.

Crossing the Bar

This guy has a pretty good message in his poem. In the poem, he wishes for a death without sadness. He understands that death is going to happen, so he doesn't want to feel sad himself and he doesn't want others to feel sad either. He wants to go in a peaceful way and know that he is going to be going to a better place. This is a good message for anyone in any time period to listen to. We are all going to die at some point, so why be sad while doing it? He also wants no sadness of farewell, so he doesn't want those around him to mourn either. That is the most difficult part. Most people have trouble dealing with the loss of a loved one, so being happy when someone dies is not a very easy task. And though it isn't easy, it will ease the pain in the end. This is a timeless message that everyone can relate to at some point in their lives.

This isn't a play.....

My mistress' eyes is one of the few that actually make sense this week. The tone makes a hard shift towards the end. It starts as almost a negative tone towards his lover. He says everything that is better than her. It sounds like he is just bashing her for no reason. He then gets to the point of the poem. He switches to a loving tone that says that he loves her despite all of the things he mentioned.
I think that this is a really true poem that has a timeless message. Most people have friends or girlfriends or parents that they get mad at sometimes, but love them despite that. Shakespeare writes about a topic that is easy to relate to. I know I have felt that tone shift and I'm sure most people are in that boat with me.

APO 96225 phone home.

I loved this poem. The point of the poem just smacks you in the face as soon as you read it, and after reading The Things They Carried, I am able to understand the poem quite well. The mom says that she wants to know what is really going on with her son. He keeps trying to sugar-coat his situation for her, but she insists that he tell the truth. Once he does, she gets upset and he starts to lie again. This is rather ironic. She thinks that she wants to know, but I think she really wants him to say that he isn't lying and that it actually isn't that bad where he is. The boy should understand this, and he does at the beginning, but he eventually gives in.
This poem uses that irony to show the disconnection between the families of soldiers and the soldiers themselves. The soldiers were experiencing things that they never thought were possible, and the families had no idea how truly bad it was. This poem shows that they didn't want to know either.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense.

Ms. Dickinson, you never disappoint. This poem made absolutely no sense to me. She seems to think that being mad is perfect or even divine. With how she writes, this doesn't surprise me. She also thinks that having sense makes a person mad. Obviously she is trying to be tricky here, and it's working. I think that she is trying to say that if a person thinks outside of the box, they are good thinkers, so they have divine sense. That kind of makes sense. If a person thinks like everyone else, then they don't think well, so they are "mad." She thinks that the brilliant people are the ones that think crazy yet genius thoughts. Maybe this is why she writes like she does?
Despite all of that, she uses a paradox of sanity and insanity to make the reader think. She obviously achieved that goal with me.
I didn't like this poem very much, but it was humorous to read, as most Dickinson poems are.

...in a barbie world

The poem "Barbie Doll," though written a while ago, couldn't be more relevant in today's world. It is a poem that uses irony to point out society's flawed picture of what beauty is. The girl, because she is seen as being fat and having a big nose, is told she needs to be funny to make up for her bad looks. Though the girl is healthy, she sees a need to change herself in order to fit other people's idea of healthy. She does something to herself that "kills" her previous self but makes her "pretty." Ironically, after she had died, everyone finally says how pretty that new body she has is. Though this sounds ridiculous, the author is showing society that this is what they do to girls today. Girls often feel forced to change themselves to become more acceptable in society. The same happens to boys, but it usually isn't with looks, but with some action or behavior. No matter what it is or to what extent, society is pushing people into doing things that they do not need to do. I like to think that I don't care what others think of me, so this doesn't apply to me, but I'm sure I have done something to please others. No matter if it applies to me or not, it is still a valuable message that society should listen to.

"Ozymandias"..."God Bless You."

The central theme of this poem is "it isn't your actions that people remember, it is your reputation." The poem is about a person saying that they were told a story about two legs in a desert that were accompanied by a head. These were of a dead king whose head was depicted as mean, strict, tyrannous, etc. Though the head's plaque spoke of his great powers and great deeds, all that remained of him that is focused on is his head. This shows that the author is warning the reader that all people will remember about us is how they see us in their minds, which usually comes from our reputations. The person that put that head in the desert only remembered the king's mean nature. Though the king may have done great things, we don't know that. The message is for people with authority, or people in general, to treat everyone so that they will be remembered in a positive light. This may be hard, considering we cannot control what people think of us, but we must try.
I'm not sure if I agree with this message or not. I like the idea of being nice to people, but it seems to put a lot of emphasis on what other people think about you, which I don't see as important. What do y'all (most likely Mr. Costello) think?

Bright Star.

The poem "Bright Star" has some odd imagery in it. The speaker wants to be like the star in that it can see everything and is alive eternally, but he also has reasons that he doesn't want to be like the star. He realizes that the star is alone and that is not what he wants. The speaker wants to be with his love forever, which describes his motivations for wanting to be like the star. In my opinion, I wouldn't want to be like that star. I don't think that being alive forever sounds that good.
I also think that the image of a star laying next to some pretty woman is a funny one. I personally think that the speaker needs to focus more attention on his love and less attention on being a star. Despite that, the poem does have some good imagery and use of apostrophe.

More of Emily.

"I taste a liquor never brewed" is pretty surprising coming from Emily Dickinson. She usually writes these sullen poems about death, but this one is rather happy. It talks about how she feels intoxicated by the beauty of nature. This is an interesting imagery that the reader can easily relate to. Most people have seen some sort of scene in nature that they would consider beautiful. For me, that scene was in Hawaii. One night on the beach, I saw a sunset that was so beautiful, I would consider it intoxicating. I can relate to the feeling that the speaker is talking about, and I'm sure that most people can too. The imagery that Emily uses, "pearls," "butterflies," and "saints," creates an image of the intoxicating beauty that the speaker sees. It creates a wonderful image of nature that the reader is also intoxicated by.

Ribbit.

"Toads," in my opinion, has a pretty good message. It speaks about the angers of bad jobs and how people want to get away from those jobs. The speaker is frustrated with the job that he has, and he wants to as happy as the other people that he sees in the world. He wants to stand up to the man and speak out against his oppressive hand that forces people into these jobs. This is a pretty easy poem to apply to today. With the economy the way it is, people have to take jobs that they do not enjoy. This poem speaks about those people's wanting to get out of those jobs. Despite the poem's persistence, I don't think it is a reasonable message. People cannot just go have whatever job they want, just because they don't enjoy their current one. That may be why the poem doesn't really mention any serious action to change the speaker's circumstance. He realizes that he may be stuck in his current situation. He has a sort of "oh well" mentality. Though that isn't very optimistic, it is rather realistic.

She is miffed....miffed off.

The poem "February" has a rather odd tone. The closest word I could come up with was miffed. I could picture her yelling the entire poem at her cat in a very angry way. The poet shows a sinister attitude towards the cat, men, and all people in love on Valentine's Day. She seems to be angry throughout the entire poem, but it's not a crazy, mad angry, it's more of a sarcastic angry. If the tone was mad, the reader would feel that same anger, but I don't; I laughed when I read it. That is why "miffed" fits. It implies that she is annoyed, and that is why she speaks sarcastically. There is a humorous aspect to the novel that makes the reader agree with the speaker, because she is understandable.
I would also like to add that, though I do not like poetry, this is my favorite poem I have ever read.

Full of similes.

"Dream Deferred" is made almost entirely of similes. It uses these to show what could happen to a dream that is deferred. The function of these similes is to create a vivid image of what could happen to the dream. The reader gets a clear image of a dream shriveling up like a raisin into something that cannot be attained. Each simile creates a worse image of what could happen to the dream, and no one wants their dreams to become those images. What person wants their dream to seep puss? This creates a desire to follow ones dreams, which is what the author is trying to cause through his poem.
The last simile creates my favorite image. An exploding dream almost seems dangerous. This forces the reader to think that they could be harmed by their deferred dream. Though the author doesn't specifically state which simile describes what happens when a dream is deferred, he makes the author think of possibilities, none of which sound pleasant.

not about a spider.....

The poem "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" is obviously about a sad widow, so I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to focus on the springtime part of the title. A widow can easily be sad in winter or summer or fall, so why make the poem take place in the spring? Spring is characterized by flowers, and it is these flowers that set off her sadness. She used to see beauty in the flowers, but now she forgets their true beauty. She now sees her dead husband in them. Maybe she thinks of the flowers at his funeral, or maybe they just remind her of him, but either way, it is the flowers of spring that amplify her sadness. Her son sees happiness in the distant, free field of flowers, but the widow is hesitant to see the happiness there. She wants to go to that place and sink into the marsh near the flowers, but for some reason she doesn't. I see that reason as one of her not being comfortable leaving her yard. Though it makes her sad, it reminds her of her husband. She doesn't want to leave a place that brings him to her mind. Though it would benefit her to leave, and she knows that it would, she can't bring herself to doing it.

Emily, you worry me.

Emily Dickinson's "I felt a funeral, in my Brain" is disturbing. If taken literally, it is about a person who is dead and writing about witnessing their own funeral from inside the casket. Why on earth would a person want to write that? I just don't get it.
Now that that's off my chest, I can do some analyzing. The fact that she says she feel a funeral in her brain, not her head, makes me think that there isn't any physical pain, just emotional pain. She seems to be having some sort of mental troubles that cause her to feel like she is dying, not physically, but mentally. She is wearing "boots of lead" that are weighing her down and hindering her progression out of her troubles. Some think that it has to do with her having an emotional breakdown, which I can see, but I think she is just depressed. She is still sane enough to understand what is happening, so she is only thinking, or maybe hoping, that this funeral would happen to her. No matter what is happening to her, it isn't good and she realizes that. She needs help. Or maybe she just shoulda had a V8.

And the twains converge.

The point of "The convergence of the Twains" is to show appreciation for the Titanic, yet mourn for its loss. It speaks of the "jewels in joy designed" and how the ship was beautifully designed. It speaks of how it had noble goals and had wonderful "structure, grace, and hue." It then compares the growing of the ship to the growing of the iceberg that ended it. The iceberg and the ship were both of grand size and beauty. They were two separate beings that coincidentally crossed paths and one ended the other. The poem, though about a sad topic, does not focus on a sad message. It focuses on the slender that was in the wreck and the beauty that remained afterwards. It gives the reader a different perspective on the wreck. Though it is an unusual one, I like it better than a sad perspective.

I don't remember it looking like this.....

The poem "London" has an extremely melancholy tone. Every line speaks of people's sadness and crying and sighs and blood. It is just terrible. I have been to London and I thought it was a pretty happy place, but I'm sure the writer was speaking of a time other than 2009. However, if the goal of the poet was to create the melancholy tone, he was very successful. The first three stanzas are all about the people. Their sadness, their children's sadness, and their blood. The reader gets a very sad feeling after reading the poem, because every word has a sad feeling to it. The line that really shows this is "the hapless soldier's sigh runs in blood down the Palace walls." An image of soldier's blood on a castle is about as gruesome and sad as it gets. The word "cry" is also repeated in multiple stanzas which adds to the tone. Though I like happy poems, I can definitely see that the poems tone is conveyed very well.

Oh the poems.

Well the poem "To Autumn" really confuses me. With poems, I want them to have some secret meaning, but this one doesn't seem to have that. I am going to focus on its imagery though. The fruits such as grapes and apples that it focuses on help bring the season of autumn to life. It also appeals to the sense of touch. The first line mentions the "season of mists," which I imagined on my skin after I read that. One can hear the "wailful choir" of gnats and see the "barred clouds" in the sky. Though the poem isn't that exciting, it is a wonderful example of effective imagery. The author, John Keats, uses this imagery to make his view of the season of fall come to life in the readers mind. The reader remembers and experiences the senses that the writer appeals to. The tone of the poem is a happy one due to the enhanced images of autumn. They bring to mind bright colors, good tastes, and pleasant smells that create that happy tone. The theme of the beauty of autumn is also brought out through the vivid imagery.

If his head got any bigger...

When I read the poems that Perrine references, I interpretted them as his students did. After he explains his thoughts on them, his way of seeing them makes sense too, but why would a poet write a poem that needs a secret formula for interpretation? Literature is one of those subjects that has no specific formula for success. It is not an exact science, but rather an art, so it cannot be treated like a science. I'm sure that Perrinne has many papers that say he knows a lot more about literature than I do, but that doesn't mean he can make some law for correct reading of poetry. I think that he wants to make it easier for him to grade his students' papers by giving all poems a right and wrong meaning. Yes, I can't make every poem on earth mean whatever I want, but if a poem says "Daffodil" in it, it isn't a stretch to say it's about flowers. I don't like that Perrinne has a very arrogant tone in this essay and tries to make all of us seem like fools for thinking the logical thing about a poem. He needs to get a grip and realize that he sounds rather ridiculous.
On a more academic note, there were some things that he said that made sense to me. He talks about not making assumptions, and I like that. Certain words like "Daffodil" can have more than one implication and forcing one definition to fit the rest of the poem is probably not the best way to go about interpretting poems. I also like that he says that all of the details need to work together. The poet has very few words to express their thoughts, so each word is chosen carefully. Each detail centers around a specific theme and if one detail does not fit one's interpretation, they probably have some flaw in it. Despite that, there still can be multiple interpretations that can fit a poem. I realize that poets write poems with one interpretation in mind, but poets as well as Mr. Perrinne need to realize that most poems can be seen in more than one way.