Poem Response #4

Linda Pastan, “Pass/Fail” 

"Pass/ Fail" by Linda Pastan 
you will never graduate 
from this dream                             
of blue books. 
no matter how 
you succeed awake, 
asleep there is a test 
waiting to be failed. 
the dream beckons with two dull pencils, 
but you haven't even 
taken the course; 
when you reach for a book-- 
it closes its door 
in your face; when 
you conjugate a verb-- 
it is in the wrong 
language. 

now the pillow becomes 
a blank page. turn it 
to the cool side; 
you will still mother 
in all of the feathers 
and have to be learned 
by heart.

TPCASTT: 

Title: I would say the title of this poem relates to a person who can't come to a conclusion if he/she passed of failed something in a certain situation. 

Paraphrase: This poem is basically in terms of the speaker's inner self and how they feel an anxiety that they will never escape but they can heal it. The speaker is scared that he/she won't ever succeed. The speaker also has an nightmare for test taking and they are scared. 

The view from the speaker vs the author is needed to understand in any poem, but also they way it sounds and looks. In this poem, the author and the speaker are two separate people. The speaker in this poem is the voice inside someone's mind that is making the anxiety and the stress worse. This is a man vs man scenario. The person taking the exam is nervous about what success they will end up having and the speaker is basically saying that they will most likely fail. 

"You will never graduate/from this dream/of books" (Pastan, 1-3). In this line, Linda Pastan uses a tone that shows patronizing. I like that this poem is also more relatable to people my age because I go through the same thing sometimes and I'm pretty sure other high schoolers do too. Another important thing about this poem is that the sounds are effective because of the way the lines are paused. One line will be stopped and then another line would be continued without a pause. The lines go back and forth and this constant was consistent throughout the poem. This could most likely represent how the test taker is not sure whether they will pass or fail. 

 

Poem Response #3

Anne Bradstreet, “To My Dear and Loving Husband”

It is obvious that the speaker in this poem is speaking to her husband, because the poem is obviously called, "To My Dear and Loving Husband". She is basically saying to him that she and him need to stay together forever and there's no one else she feels can love her more. She says that she values her husband's love more than gold or the riches of the east. She is very grateful for him because of his love and she can never really repay him for that. She is convinced that they should love each other forever so that when they die, it still lives within them. She feels that the only way she can repay her husband for this is to turn her sights heavenward. When they finally unite in heaven, that's how their love will continue.
I feel like this poem is very powerful. Because it shows a perspective of a woman who is happy in her marriage. This poem also made me feel happy, because when I tend to read poetry I put myself in the shoes of the speaker and that is exactly what I did for "To My Dear and Loving Husband"

Poem Response #2

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The first thing that came to my mind while reading this poem for the first time was the this poem was speaking about the world or society and how corrupt it is. After reading this a second and third time, I was able to realize more of what the poem is actually saying. It's describing the features of nature that we take that for granted every day.  We ignore the wonderful breezes and the winds that are provided to us everyday. We don't appreciate the sea and all the power and beauty that it contains. And because of this he says, "we are out of tune; it moves us not."  Most people just don't "get it."
Basically what I got out of it is that the speaker is complaining that the world is so overwhelming and we as people don't appreciate it as we should. We are so concerned about the little things such as money and time that we use up most to all of our energy. People, or should I rather say humans are loosing their connection to nature. The themes that are present in this poem are Man and Nature, Sadness, and development. The speaker is also criticizing people that don't deserve this world. It explains how people get wealthy, work and earn money and spend. And after a while, we as humans loose our youth and we take it for granted. 

After reading this poem, it left a positive feeling on my chest. It made me think of how we all need to live life like its our last day everyday and don't take life for granted. This poem is great because it opens the readers eyes to things we may not pay attention to in life 

Poem Reflection

Reflection to "Since there's no help"

The first time while reading this poem, I really did not know what was going on in this poem nor did I understand what the title had to do with it either. But after reading it a second time, I actually got a gist of what the poem was about. After breaking it down, I came to a realization that the poem was about a couple breaking up. 
When it came to the questions, any question that asked for the theme or for some sort, I found that it was easier to answer. But the questions where you had to refer back to the lines in the poem because they asked for things that should be obvious but for me it wasn't.

Poem response to "This is just to say"

This Is Just To Say

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

This poem was a very interesting one. The first thing that stood out to me is the length. The poem so short yet still has a hidden meaning to it. When first reading the title, the first thing that came across my mind is that maybe this poem was not really written for a reason and so it was written for no reason at all. It is simply saying that the speaker in the poem ate the plums and someone who lives with the speaker (could maybe be his wife) was saying the plums for breakfast. The speaker as for this person to forgive them and he explains that they were so good that he just could not resist.
When reading this poem, I felt like I was reading a poem that a elementary school student wrote. But to be honest, even as a child I would of never wrote a poem as simple as this. I feel like these are one of the poems that just comes to you when it comes. This is the sort of poem that you just write whatever comes to your head, and there it is. You don't force it to have a particular form. You just want it to sound pleasing to the ear and what it was really meant to be which is a response that comes from total honest to a moment in time.
However, this poem does set a theme of choices in which he has a choice to make and he knew what was right or wrong. The fruit that he ate did not belong to him but he ate it anyway and he basically followed his conscience. He felt guilty for eating the plum which is why he feels the need to explain why he ate it.

Poem interpretation

- "Margaret are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving?" 

-this line simply means that a young girl named Margaret is being questioned about whether or not she feel sad about the leaves falling off the trees in the forest supposedly called Goldengrove 

"Leaves like two things of man, you with your fresh thoughts care for, can you?"

-Margaret is really young and innocent therefore she is able to care for the leaves

"Ah! As the heat grows older. It will come to such sites colder. By and by, nor spare a sigh."

-Margaret won't show the same type of sympathy that she would if or will or when she was/is older

"The worlds of wanwood leaf meal lie; And yet you will weep and knows 

why"

-Margaret won't cry over big pile of dead leaves when she grows older , She was still crying in the future but instead she'll know why

"Now no matter, child the name: sorrow springs are the same."

-The references of sadness are the same even if his younger old and it doesn't really matter what we call them

"normal head, no nor mind, expressed. What heart heard of , Ghost guessed."

- The references of sadness are hard to express even if it's for the young people or the old people

"it's the blight man was born for, it is Margaret you mourn for."

-The references of sadness happens to everyone

What are 2 new skills you feel you still need to learn? What is 1 skill you can teach others?

1. Identifying the mood/tone in the beginning (ex. prompt header)

2. Structuring my sentences with surface phenomena & structure



1. Predicating subjects, words objects