Poetry Response #9

Merrell Pressley

Mrs. Jernigan

English Lit AP

28 March 2011

Poetry Response #9

            The poem “Sestina” was written by Elizabeth Bishop, first published in 1956. Like the traditional sestina, it has thirty-nine lines, ending with a tercet that contains the overall meaning. It is a narrative poem, telling the story of a grandmother and her granddaughter in the kitchen. The day seems ordinary, but the reader can tell that the grandmother is attempting to cover up her hurt with the routines of the day. On the other hand, the child is residing in this world of pain and loss as she draws “half-moon tears” in her drawing.

            The poem is written with an almost playful, trivial tone of voice. For example, the grandma “[reads] jokes from the almanac,” something that is quite mundane and of no importance. In the following stanza, the tea kettle “sings on the stove.” In addition, the child is merely sitting and talking with her grandmother, drawing with crayons. These images draw a picture of a not-so-sad day in the life of any human being.

            However, there is more than meets the eye in this poem, as is very obvious through the grandma’s futile attempts to “[laugh] and [talk] to hide her tears.” In addition, several things in the kitchen are referred to or seen as tears. The tea kettle is full of tears, the grandma’s “teacup is full of dark brown tears,” and the child draws tears in her painting. While the grandmother tries to hide the pain from the child, the child is not afraid to admit or express the pain or sorrow she must obviously feel.

            The grandmother’s actions are very telling of how adults attempt to create a utopia for their children or for young people around them, not believing that they are old enough to handle the truth. However, their denial usually causes more trauma, fear of problems, or a tendency to always feel like the victim. Bishop’s seemingly surface level poem speaks more deeply to all humans, saying that there needs to be an acknowledgement of trouble and painful circumstances, despite the initial reaction.

Poetry Response #8

Merrell Pressley

Mrs. Jernigan

English Lit AP

21 March 2011

Poetry Response #8

            Theodore Roethke’s poem “The Waking” is a romantic villanelle. It is separated into five tercets and one quatrain, with the rhyme scheme of a villanelle as well. Roethke’s tone in this poem is extremely romantic, given that he exalts nature, “[thinking] by feeling,” and takes every day as it comes. The romanticist highly praises and almost worships nature, believing that god can be found within nature itself. Everything is worthy of worship in the romanticist’s world.

            Roethke repeats the line “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow” in four of the six stanzas. He also constantly mentions that all humans learn as we go. I think that Roethke wants the readers of his poem to understand that the most important things have to be experienced and learned through life. He doesn’t want anyone (or himself) to take life too quickly and miss the important things and lessons in life. And these lessons cannot merely be taught, as he writes we “think by feeling.” He believes that only true thought is stimulated by emotions.

            Also, Roethke deals with the idea of fate in the second line of the poem; he writes, “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.” Roethke is wise in knowing that he cannot control the fate that governs the universe. No matter what, fate has predetermined his life, and he is not going to waste time fretting over it. Roethke “[learns] by going where [he] has to go.” In other words, he continues on with life, no matter what, because he knows that experience and the things around him will teach him infinitely more than observation.

            In addition to experience producing knowledge, Roethke talks of struggle in life in his reference to the “lowly worm [climbing] up a winding stair.” Climbing stairs would be a nearly impossible act for a worm; his statement is that everyone should keep pushing onward, pursuing wisdom through life’s experiences, despite the closed doors and hard circumstances.

(As you said, its hard to write about villanelles without sounding trite or repetitive. Ha!)

Poetry Response #7

Merrell Pressley

Mrs. Jernigan

English Lit AP

8 March 2011

Poetry Response #7

            “Ode to a Grecian Urn” is written by the romantic poet John Keats. Obviously, this poem is an ode, which is defined as a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion. Keats dedicates this particular poem to a Grecian urn. He describes the paintings on the urn throughout the poem, and the pictures on the urn represent years of Grecian history.

            The entire poem culminates in the romantic lines of the very last stanza in which Keats writes, “’Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’” These last two lines reveal the commonly held beliefs of the romanticist: everything in nature holds truth, everything is beautiful. The romantic time period was full of elaborative language, flowery images, and the worship of everything beautiful, for beauty’s sake. The Grecian urn’s history, whether a good memory or mournful war, is beautiful, according to Keats.

            Keats also expresses the idea that while everything is beautiful, sometimes words cannot begin to express the full meaning they are supposed to illicit. For example, In the first stanza, he writes, “Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, / Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, / Sylvan historian, who canst thus express / A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme.” In these lines, he tells the reader that the beautiful inscriptions of history on the urn tell the story of life better than anyone could. The art on the urn is timeless. It will never disappear, and it will always remain the same, as is shown when he writes, “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss.” It is more capable of expressing the beauty and importance of history than even Keats is.

            From these themes, it is fitting that Keats should entitle his poem “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” because he exalts and praises its function throughout the poem. The asthetically pleasing urn represents history and the value and importance than can be found in the memories of ancestors.