poem 9

Seasons of Love
It’s funny how you can be lying next to someone but still feel
Alone.
 I ponder this as I toss curtains of rain outside. This
Is how we’re the same as the people; we can detect
When love wanes.
But when we cry, the whole world cries
With us.  I hate making the world cry.
It sticks my leaves to the pavement, or washes
Them away. But that’s what you’re doing.
You take my reds, my yellows, my browns, my oranges
And wisp them away with the white of your frost.
You glaze my grass with icy diamonds and stain my autumn air
With your frigid, falling stars.
On the bed you swimming in solitary subconscious,
As I drip in loneliness.
And much like the ocean of white sheets that blankets
The space between us, your falling flakes tell me
There is no ‘us’ anymore.

critical 8

I got a lot of good feedback for my paper last Wednesday. The main thing I need to work on is how my philosophy of poetry is shown/relates to the poems I am writing about. I can do this by looking into the essays and deciding which one(s) fit. The other thing I need to work on is clarification with some of the quotes I used.

poem 8b

Child of Rage- Dramatic monologue

When I found the baby birds, my new mommy told me

Not to play with them, because their mama wouldn’t

Want the babies if they were touched by somebody else.

Sometimes I think I’m like that. Like nobody wants me

Because Daddy touched me until I bled.

I still have those nightmares of me when I was one

Year old and Daddy falling on me and hurting me with

A part of himself.

And even though my new mommy and daddy tell me they

Love me, I don’t care. ‘Cause I know it’s all about being strongest.

Daddy was the strongest. That’s why he hurt me.

If you want to be the strongest you have to know

How to get rid of everybody that stands in your way. That’s why

I’m going to kill Jon.

I know he’s my brother but I’m the strongest so he has to die. Plus

He’s annoying. Mommy and Daddy are annoying too. They always

Tell me what to do, and I don’t like it, so

I’m going to kill them.

At bedtime they lock my door shut tight. They’re afraid

I’ll get out and hurt them and Jon. They know I want to kill them

At nighttime because I don’t like them seein’ me do it

But they can feel me do it.

My mommy and daddy are always making me

Mad. Like that one time when I was hitting Jon’s head

On the concrete floor in the basement.

I heard Mommy’s footsteps in the kitchen. Coming

To stop me. I couldn’t hide it ‘cause both me and Jon had blood

On us. Mommy is always stopping me from doing stuff.

She yells at me when I take her pins and poke

Jon and the dogs and kitties. I always poke a lot

Not a little bit.

There was one time I stole the knives from the kitchen. I was talking

To Mommy about them. “I don’t know where they are”,

I said with a smile. But I had them. I needed them so I could kill

Jon and Mommy with them.

And daddy.

They make me so mad.

That’s why when she wasn’t paying

Attention to me I went back to that bird’s nest. And I snap snap snapped

Their necks.

Critical 7

Death and losing a person to death is a reoccurring theme in several of the poems we have read this quarter. For my final paper I would like to focus on different views of death. I will be addressing a few poems we have read. Firstly I will be addressing A.E. Housman's "To An Athlete Dying Young". In this poem Housman suggests that it is better for a young athlete to die in their prime instead of aging and watching their accomplishments become insignificant. The next poem I would like to look at is "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas. Unlike Housman, Thomas expresses that people (specifically his father) should fight to stay alive. I will also be looking at "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay who expresses similar ideals to Thomas. The final poem I will be addressing is "Moonprint" by Denise Duhamel. This poem discusses the acceptance of death.

poem 8a

The Crowd -poem 1

It’s Wednesday night at Lucky’s Sports Tavern, which means

$5 liquor pitchers. My eyes trail through the endless, wall to wall

Crowd as the Lucky’s Lemonade blankets my brain with a drowsy

Fog. My gaze is fastened to the sea of heels, halter tops, tight skirts,

And the testosterone stares attached to them.   

Suddenly I’m winding my way through the crowd, stumbling

Through the masses to my destination: the jukebox.

I push through my inebriated haze and select a song before returning

To my friends. The music begins to fill the room and there is a pause when everyone hears,

“I threw a wish in the well; don’t ask me I’ll never tell…”

And then the bar erupts.

Suddenly the frat boys and the swim team girls, the broadcast kids and the

Weather geeks are one. Lucky’s explodes with one phrase: “HEY, I JUST MET YOU,

AND THIS IS CRAZY, BUT HERE’S MY NUMBER, SO CALL ME MAYBE!”

And now we’re not college students, but one entity who can do nothing but

Sacrifice everything to make sure every word of this song is as loud as possible.

And as every girl in the bar jumps and sways to the music, I know

That there are days where every girl here thinks “I’d trade my soul for a wish,

Pennies and dimes for a kiss”. And sometimes on nights like tonight

When a summer breeze teases us outside, we meet that guy

With the Cleveland baseball cap but the jukebox and yearn to say,

“Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so

Call me maybe”.

critical 6

Denise Duhamel uses several different forms in her book “Ka-Ching”. She wrote a few sestinas in her book. Specifically in the poem “Delta Flight 659” Duhamel ended each line with a word that has ‘pen’ in it. This gave the poem a sort of obsessive feel to it. It made it obvious that the poem was directed at Sean Penn, and made it seem like she was accusing him in a way. The poem showed that her political beliefs differed from his. This form also makes some of lines seem forced. For example, at the end of the forth stanza Duhamel says, “…poets who waddle toward your icy peninsula of glamour like so many menacing penguins”. This seems forced because ‘menacing penguins’ seem so random. Duhamel is limiting herself by making each line ending with the word ‘pen’.  This can also confuse the reader and take away from the meaning of the poem. For example, “Delta Flight 659” is about the war in Iraq, but the ‘menacing penguins’ might distract the reader.

Unlike “Delta Flight 659” Duhamel uses a different form in her poem “Hurricane Katrina”. Instead of a sestina she took two quotes and mixes their words into a few different, disjointed phrases. The quotes are “I used to think maybe you loved me, now baby I’m sure…” said by Katrina and the Waves. The second quote is, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” said by Kanye West. Her first choice in quotes alludes to Hurricane Katrina because of the band title. The second one was said in reference to President George Bush’s response after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. By just using these words Duhamel is greatly limiting what she can say. The difficulty of this is shown in her poem. Specifically when she says, “Babies care about babies”. It seems like all of the lines are supposed to relate to Hurricane Katrina in some way, but this one doesn’t seem to. However, this form does allow Duhamel to use language creatively. For example, she uses the word ‘wave’ in two different ways. She says, “The black waves didn’t care and went west.” This alludes to the waves caused by the hurricane. She also says, “George Bush doesn’t wave.” Here she uses waves like a person waving.

Another form Denise Duhamel uses is a villanelle. She uses one in her poem “Please Don’t Sit Like a Frog, Sit Like a Queen.” This poem is based off some graffiti she found in a bathroom. In this poem the lines she repeats are “Remember to pamper, remember to preen” and “Don’t sit like a frog, sit like a queen”.  While this helps her promote self pride in women and poke fun at what society things women should be like, the rhyming limits how and what she can say. She is limited to words that rhyme with ‘queen’ and ‘preen’. She also limited herself to only using words that rhyme with ‘girl’ and ‘earl’. The rhyming and line repeating force her to say things that don’t seem to go together. An example is in the forth stanza. Duhamel says, “Smile, especially when you’re feeling mean. Keep your top down when you take your car for a whirl.” These lines have different topics. In one she is talking about hiding true feelings and/or being the bigger person in a bad situation. In the other she is talking about driving. In a way these lines contradict each other. In the first line she is suggesting that women should put on a happy face and put aside what could be bothering them. In the other, Duhamel is suggesting that women show off.  

poem 6

I Think I Killed Hammer Time

“Stop! Hammer time!”

The foreman called my way.

I turned to the crazed housewife

And said “I’m sorry I can’t stay.

My boss says we have to build your deck

Or else we won’t get paid”.

She replies, “I know you want money,

But don’t you wanna get laid?”

She reaches for my belt and I block her as I say,

“You can’t touch this”.

She said,” Every time you see me that Hammer’s just so hype”.

I said,” Ma’am that’s not true. You’re really not my type.”

I move to the door as she emits a cat-like hiss.

I say,” Get me outta here! You can’t touch this!”