“Mending Wall”

I agree with the line that says “Good fences make good neighbors” (Line 27). Sometimes you can be friends with someone as long as they don’t see everything that is going on. What I mean is if you have a neighbor that is always letting their animals go to the bathroom in your yard and/or they leave their toys and garbage out and it blows into your yard, you could get very upset and then the two of your could start feuding. If you have a fence up than these things will be prevented and you can get past the little things and become neighbors that respect each other.
What I don’t understand is if the wall is on their property why do they not see or hear the ball being taken down in spots? They could definitely hear the dogs barking if they are hunting rabbit. If they hunters make the holes why don’t they put the rocks back? It would just be out of respect for the owner of the property, if you break something you fix it.

“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”

This poem by Dylan Thomas to me is a person’s prayer to a dying father. The speaker doesn’t want his/her father to die, so they are saying even though wise men, good men, wild men, grave men have gone into the light, they are not ready or their father to go. Each stanza alternates its ending, it goes from “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” which to me sounds like they want him to fight and not give up and then the line “Do not go gentle into the good night” is their glimpse into reality and realizing that they may not make it no matter how hard they try.
The line “Do not go gentle into the good night” is a very popular phrase. I have heard it many places, before I knew it was from this poem. I must say that I enjoy this phrase better now that I know the rest of the poem and what the meaning is behind it.

“Photograph of my Father in his Twenty-second year”

This poem by Raymond Carver is about a child looking at old pictures of his father. I get a sense that it is a son even though there is no proof in the poem. I believe that the “unfamiliar kitchen” is because they might have had a falling out with each other so the son/daughter maybe came back for a funeral or an occasion that they couldn’t miss.
This poem also gives me the sense that the child knows that their father tried really hard to do well in life and “be bold”, but no matter what he did the liquor kept him down. Also the last three lines that say “…Father, I love you, / yet how can I say thank you, I who can’t hold my liquor either, / and don’t even know the places to fish?” Means to me that they don’t blame him but they cannot thank him either because that is all that they saw growing up so that is what they are doing also. This goes to show that no matter what you say your actions always speak louder to children. You cannot tell them to do one thing and then do something different yourself. They learn by your actions.

This poem reminds me of another poem that I have up on my wall at work. The poem is called “When you thought I wasn’t looking” by Mary Rita Schilke Korzanut it talks about all the little things a parent does that they my not think matters to a child, but it teaches them life long skills in the end.

My Papa's Waltz

This poem is about a young boy who learns from his papa how to waltz. I think the whiskey on his breath plays an important role in this poem because the papa may have been drunk when he taught the boy and that was why he was so firm with his movements. The tone in this poem is very strong as I can see the pans falling from the shelf. I remember my first waltz lesson from my uncle at my grandpa's birthday party. It was a fast paced waltz and I can recall holding on for dear life also. The boy must have been young for his ear to be at the height of papa's belt buckle. The papa then waltz the boy to bed and I think the boy was happy to be there. Still feeling as if he was holding onto his papa's shirt. The memory of this little boy's first waltz is something he will carry with him for the rest of his life as mine!

Oh, my love is like a red, red rose

In this poem I think the speaker is comparing themselves to a rose for the fact that roses grow every year. They don't last long, but they do come up again. The love that the speaker has is so unconditional. The speaker uses the saying "Till a' the seas gang dry." To me this means that the love will never end. Because the odds of a sea going dry are very slim. I really enjoyed this poem and it did have a lot of simile in it. The author related the speakers life to many different things about nature. I feel as though the speaker had lost someone very close and when the speaker dies she will reunite with that loved one even if she has to go then thousand miles!

Stop all the Clocks, Cut off the Telephone

This was kind of a sad poem. I understood it as a woman who has just lost her husband or lover. If I am understanding the poem correctly according to this line "For nothing now can ever come to any good" to me is stating that life for her will no longer be happy. I believe this woman is stating that this now deceased loved one was everything to her as Auden writes, "He was my North, my South, my East, and West" he seemed to be her everything. This woman appears to be in mourning over someone she loved deeply. It seems she believes time and everyone should stop and pay respects to this man with silence. The saddest line I think is "Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun..." she does not seem to think she will find joy again.

JenN

We Real Cool

This poem makes me think of a group of school rebels. Proud that they dropped out of school to live it up. A poem about a group of kids who think they are too cool for school. Out drinking "Thin Gin", dancing "Jazz June", and staying out late "Lurk late". This lifestyle of sinful living leads to early death possibly "Die Soon"? This poem has meaning no matter what decade. Today it makes a lot of sense when I think about gang life.

JenN

"The Man He Killed"

I liked this poem because there are so many people coming back from war right now that this is a simple little poem that reminds you about what is going on with them. I think the quotation marks are at the beginning of the stanza’s, because it seems to me that he is having a conversation with someone, but then ends up talking to himself more. Like he is reliving a memory and is talking out loud. He starts by saying that they could have been friends if they had met under different circumstances, but since it was the war he had to kill or he would have been killed himself.
The phrase “I shot him dead because- because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was” He is telling himself that it was ok that he had to kill this other man it was what he was enlisted to do. This is what many people are running through their head when they have to shoot someone during a war.

"Stop all the Clocks"

I felt the image of silencing the dog with a “juicy” bone was out of place. Everything is sad and to add juicy is something nice and happy. Speaker is the made to sound to be the widow of the deceased. I assume that it is a woman, but there is nothing to suggest that it couldn’t be a male widow, now days you cannot assume anything. What you can tell is that the widow is now missing their “everything”. It is clear in the last stanza that they don’t want the world to continue they would rather just lay down and die also. They say “For nothing now can ever come to any good”. They are saying that they can never be happy again, and there are no gimps of hope.
The phrase, “I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.” Everyone thinks this when they are in love. That is why you need to live each day to its fullest and not take it for granted. Love is something that stays with you forever, even if the person does go away. You will always have feeling for them and sometimes they are strong enough that you don’t think you can go on with your life.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

I thought that this poem had a lot of imagery of how he feels about someone close to him passing. It shows that he felt a lot for the person because he doesn't want the love to go away. The person was everything thick or thin. I liked it for what it tells with the imagery because i can see what is going on in my mind and it have great detail of how you should feel when a loved dies and show that you want to be with that person. The last sentence of the poem states that "For nothing good can ever come to any good." Shows that the person will probably never marry or find another soul mate until he passes to find the one that did.