Stop all clocks, cut off telephone

In “Stop all clocks, cut off telephone” the speaker seems to be mourning the loss of a man that they loved. The speaker I assumed to be a woman, possibly the widower of the man she speaks about losing. It is a very sad poem, you almost feel like you are inside her body and feeling the loss for yourself. She wants to turn the world off and believes that nothing good will ever come. The speaker doesn't want to be bothered with people from outside the walls of her home, she feels as though she will be alone forever and seems to want to be. I believe this poem is an elegy due to the mourning of the man’s death. It is dramatic and vivid, you are able to feel what the speaker feels and you feel as though you may have known the nameless man who died. I liked this poem because of its ability to grab you in and keep you interested throughout. The simple to the point nature of the poem allows the reader to understand what the poem is about without the possibility of missing the point, this is a nice change to some of the harder poems that we have read!

Sadie and Maud

In “Sadie and Maud” I really felt like I could completely relate with Sadie, scraping through life just as she has “With a fine-tooth comb.” (4). I have a very similar story as Sadie and it is quite ironic how this poem could almost describe my life compared with my brothers’. I feel as though Sadie isn’t given the benefit of the doubt and Maud is the child prodigy. Even though Sadie’s life isn’t as conventional as Maud’s, she seems to have a lot of knowledge and life experience over Maud. Some times in life things happen for a reason and things also follow a certain path, Sadie just seems to have a more difficult time finding her way, but seems to reach her goals anyway. Maud, who follows the path that people are suppose to politically correctly follow seems lacking, “Maud, who went to college, Is a thin brown mouse. She is living all alone” (17-19).

My Papa's Waltz

The title of the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” foreshadows and helps to bring understanding to what the speaker is saying. What strikes me about the title is the fact that is it the speaker’s papa’s waltz, not theirs but his. Don’t you need to work as partners in order to dance together? The creative language used by the speaker: romped, battered, scraped, beat, and clinging prove that this is no easy dance. Instead the dance the speaker and the father share is very rough and aggressive. The speaker is in the mercy of her fathers actions. The speaker has no part in this dance other than to be clumsily dragged around. I think that the title mimics the relationship the speaker has with his or her father. He is controlling, not sensitive to his child’s feelings, and is preoccupied drinking “The whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy” (1, 2), and work “With a palm caked hard by dirt” (14).
Emera Gould

mending wall

Why is the wall so significant/ important? Who are these two men who hold the responsibility of mending the wall each year? Why do they keep the wall in-between them as they mend it? What is the wall protecting? Keeping out? Is the wall keeping a secret? The neighbor makes the remark that “Good fences make good neighbors,” (27) is there not trust between neighbors? As I read on throughout the poem the wall represents the indifference between the two neighbors. The speaker describes his neighbor “like an old-stone savage armed” (40). By the speaker descriptively saying how he sees his neighbor, it shows that he does not seem him in a positive way. There is indifference there, as the speaker wonders why they have a fence in the first place and questions the motives of his neighbor. The neighbor has something that he is hiding. He has some reason for keeping his neighbor out.
Emera Gould

you fit into me

“You fit into me!” What a good and positive thing to say about someone! Wouldn’t you feel good if someone said that about you? The speaker does not say much but his words are painful and hurtful, “like a hook into an eye”(2). The speaker is able to accomplish this through the use of hyperbole. The exaggeration used helps the speaker to make a point and quickly. Because of the speakers frankness the audience gets a feel of this speaker. The speaker sets off a theme of extreme hate and dislike. He is serious about what he says and it is scary. Instead of rambling on and on about his dislike for this person the speaker is able to say it in four lines, which leaves the reader mystified and wondering who this speaker is.
Emera Gould

“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.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

I found this poem to be very moving. I interpreted this poem by someone who has lost somebody very special in their life. They feel like their life can't go on any more and may seem like there is nothing left to live for. There seems to be nothing good that can come in the future because somebody is dead. The use of the word aeroplane was used to mention a plane that is more heavier than a regular air plane and it has fixed wings. This represents the emotion of how the author was making us feel about the extent of the loss. This person that died meant the world to the mourner. I feel like I could relate to this person by loosing a mother, father, child, sibling or spouse. I have only lost my Grandfathers in the past year and they meant a lot to me, but not so much that I felt I couldn't live any more.

The weather as an excuse?

In the short story, The Storm, the weather puts in motion a series of events that leads to a man and woman to cheat on their spouses. Some may say that the storm is to blame. I think that blaming the storm for the behavior of these characters is quite the far fetched excuse. I believe that the characters in this story, as well as anyone else who choses to commit adultery is responsible for there own choice. However, the storm does parallel the events that occur in the story very well. The calms and the fury of the storm helps the reader get a feel for the story and stay interested.

The Lottery

The significance of the following in ‘The Lottery’:
Village Square – that is the meeting place, and usually a lively one, for the towns people in a community; usually a happy and social gathering.
Mrs. Hutchinson’s apron – showed her as a working woman; she even managed to forget what day it amidst her daily tasks in the home.
Old Man Warner – oldest man in the community; describes giving up the lottery like going back in time, like living in caves. It is almost as we would describe giving up computers, air travel, automobiles, etc. if we were to “go back in time”.
Slips of paper – originally used wood, but now too heavy due to the population, so slips of paper was an okay sacrifice of change.
The black spot – black always signifies the dark side; black spot becomes a “blot” which is a negative. The black spot signifies the person who wins the lottery and must be stoned.

The names Graves, Adams, Summers and Delacroix signify upstanding and old names. Graves might refer to death as graves in a graveyard; Adam(s) goes back to Adam and Eve and original sin; Summer is when all things should be happy and bright, yet the 27th of June, which appears all normal and bright to the towns people, is when one of their own is doomed to death; Delacroix has no meaning to me. I believe these names have significance in that they all move toward sin and that we must all die, even though Christ died and saved us from sin. It appears they are ‘hanging’ an individual each year to pay for the sins of the others in this essay.

Doe Season

The conflicts that arise when a child has experiences that initiates her into adulthood, or at least toward that end, can be both a growing and learning process, and it can reveal that the individual is not willing or able to follow that path toward an identity that they initially thought they would embrace. In ‘Doe Season’ David Michael Kaplan describes Andy (real name is Andrea) as somewhat tomboyish. She may want to go hunting with her father because she is close to her father and wants to enhance that bond, or she may just want to experience that first deer kill, which is a rite of passage for male or female in modern days.
There seems to be a back and forth play between the ocean scenes, where her mother is very comfortable and carefree, and the woods, where Andy’s father is at ease. It is now the time to try her hand at deer hunting, and Andy goes through the motions of drinking coffee and sleeping in the tent that all go along with being out in the woods. She has to deal with Charlie Spoon and his son, Mac, who try to act macho at times, including making fun of her boyish nickname (109) and Mac talking about male body parts (90), but Andy is able to keep up with them all in spirit. She prays she will get a doe (96), most likely just to prove herself more than anything.
Andy finally gets her doe, but it runs off as if just maimed. Andy is upset because “I don’t like to think of it suffering” (180). She dreamed she saw the deer and actually caressed its heart. When they found the deer in the woods and the men started to gut it, Andy came to reality that she did not like the killing. At that point her mind retreated to the ocean where her mother could find peace. It became a character building at the least.

Chrysanthemums

John Steinbeck wrote about Elisa Allen and her natural planting hands in the short story, “The Chrysanthemums”. The overall theme of this story seemed to center around her ability, as a woman, to do work as meaningful as a man’s work. Her big, beautiful chrysanthemums that she had nurtured and cared for were to grow beautifully as she prepared them for the season. Her husband, Henry, observed “you’ve got a gift with things” (12), and said she might try her hand in the orchard and raise big apples. Henry had just sold steers for close to his asking price, so he was likely feeling successful at that point, and asked Elisa to celebrate with dinner and a movie in town.
The peddler comes along as she finishes her transplanting that afternoon. At first, Elisa appears to try to avoid prolonging his visit as he is asking for work at fixing pans, etc. The man obviously knows how to reach her heart by asking about the ‘mums. Her excitement is apparent as she pulls out plants for him to take to one of his customers on his route. Elisa becomes transcended as she tells the man how he should inform the customer about the plants care and nurturing. As she talks about how “you can feel how it is” (71), she wells up with passion for her work.When Henry arrives home, after Elisa has cleaned up for their outing, the passion and glint is still in her eyes as she looks strong and happy (101). When they pass by the chrysanthemums that the peddler has thrown away, she knows that she has been taken advantage of. She is saddened that he did not really want the ‘mums after all. The peddler had known her weakness and enthusiasm for her flowers, and she had given in to allow him to make money from fixing pans that she did not care about. He had preyed on her weakness. Her sadness seemed to lie in that her interpretation of the peddler and what he stood for was false and that he was not real and genuine