Outside
I long to enjoy outside
To live in air so fresh;
For natures gentle friendship
But the plague
I long to escape my prison
To feel the warmth of natural light;
For an energetic life outside this room
But the plague
I long for the reality of my dreams
To have a life fulfilled by my hopes;
For the ruthless relinquishment of disease
When the plague lifts
Beauty of Life
Glory be to God for beautiful life’s-
For smiles on unique features;
For special characteristics inside and out;
Untampered life’s; untouched by greater forces;
Free to live- Free to celebrate;
To love, to hate, to love.
Our ability to give thanks;
Decorated behind a meager holiday,
Insufficiently granting our appreciation;
Please accept our gratitude for life:
Praise me.
Dying
By Emily Dickinson
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable, —and then
There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
could not see to see.
A lyric poem expresses the author’s emotions and personal feelings. Also, a typical lyric poem is written in first person, which grants the author the ability to make a genuine connection with the reader. Dickinson uses dark diction to tell a supernatural tale of her life during death. Dickinson expresses the placid characteristics of the absence of life, “The stillness round my form.” She commentates on the human flaw of focusing on digressive minuscule details; in this case, a buzzing fly. Her point is emphasized by fabricating an important situation, and instead of concentrating on the dramatic events presently occurring, an insignificant insect captures the interest of her fleeting life.
A Mother’s Love
The sound of beat
From the tiny heart
A message so sweet
For a child’s fresh start
A mother with love
Enjoys it’s new glow
Feeling so proud of
The child starting to grow
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806 – 1861
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Browning is able to express the most complicated human emotion in poetry's most restricted form, the sonnet. Her expression of love as became a blueprint for how love is expressed in the present day. She speaks of how all her past negative experiences are overshadowed by her present passionate love for her husband. Love is the reason she exists. An important element within her poem is reference to her “old griefs”. The allusion acts as a tool to provide a stark contrast between her present state of complacency and the darkness of her past.
Carl Sandburg’s definitions of poetry:
1. Poetry is an art practiced with the terribly plastic material of human language.
2. Poetry is an exhibit of one pendulum connecting with other and unseen pendulums inside and
outside the one seen.
3. Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break that silence with definite
intentions of echoes, syllables, wave lengths.
My own definitions of poetry:
1.Poetry is the comprehension of human emotions through unconventional text.
2.Poetry is the highest literary form of expression
3.Poetry is the walk across a lonely canyon, filled with shadows of the past.
The introductory material gives the reader background knowledge of the translation of the poem. It describes the history of the particular document used for the translation, and its miraculous recovery from history. The introduction provides several important social context of the setting, such as the religious issues of the time and the presence/significance of slavery. This information allows the reader to better appreciate the artifact and story.
The foreword emphasized the ideal of bravery in Norse culture, claiming that the preservation of life is useless without fame from courageous escapades. These values are consistently seen in history and in future works of literature. The elimination of one’s life to complete gallant quests is often interpreted on the surface as selfless, due to the fact that the task is usually an attempt to help others. However, I believe that heroes often perform the strenuous journey as a plea for fame and hope for future endorsement to be an acclaimed name spoken across whole civilizations.
I do believe true heroes do exist in history, but I argue that characters are often seeking ulterior motives when performing brave acts. Why is the illusion of selfless bravery, so well hidden behind promotion of reputation?
Work Cited:
Raffel, Burton. “Introduction.” Beowulf. New York: Signet Classic, 1999. N. pag. Print.
Richard Wilbur in his poem “Junk”, creates a strict social commentary of the folly of modern human nature and our tendency to wastefully discard. Wilbur’s abstract format resembles the style of Beowulf; both utilizing caesura. The presences of consistent spacing between lines, adds a sense of rhythm and slows down the reader, forcing them to fully grasp the information. Wilbur fully enhances the idea of wastefulness, comparing the thrown away items with / hell’s handiwork /, as if to put full blame on the wasteful neighbor. The items itself in Wilbur’s belief, are unfortunate casualties of bad habits and neglect from it’s owner. One technical technique present in both poems is alliteration. Wilbur adds a rhythmic flair to “Junk” with incorporating a combination of pauses from the caesura and flowing diction to provide eloquent reading. The alliteration heightens this effect, and leads the reader to finish the full thought and description of the imagery, by completing the pattern of three word alliteration. Wilbur also utilizes allusions, similar to some found in Beowulf . Both poems allude back to their roots of Greek mythology, the conception of the epic poem. Wilbur includes the quote / Hephaestus keeps his hammer / to provide a stark contrast between the change in values from Greece to modern day. Hephaestus is the Greek god of the forge and creation. Wilbur believes that the distant past placed more emphasize on creation and their choice of gods was an effect of this value. He also places in great detail the horrific wastefulness of today and our focus on decay rather than creation. Wilbur effectively conveys his theme with his literary techniques.
jonahbethune 