Poetry Revisited

The 18th morning of October, in the year 2010 A.D.

Nearly a month ago, I began a poetry class which I had enrolled in the previous spring. Eagerly, I jumped right into the readings, and was instantly overcome with nostalgia. We convene in a circle to discuss “The Red Wheel Barrow,” “Metaphors,” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I couldn’t help but reminisce about days long past. And thus, I set out on a journey to visit the roots of my poetic education; the AP Literature blog.

It is empty. Once filled with the lively discussions of intelligent youths, the blog is abandoned. Massive cobwebs adorn each nook and cranny, and with every step I take, a plume of dust erupts around me. As my foot bumps a loose stone, echoes reverberate throughout the chamber, and for a moment I can close my eyes and image the multitudes of students, who once spent late nights and early mornings frantically typing up their latest posts.

All are gone now, moved on to new places, to experience new things. Alone, I brush the dust from the pages of past works. I reread “Valediction Forbidding Mourning” and “Spinster,” refreshing my memories. Oh, how the years seem to slip away! And, before I slip away, back to college, permitting the dust to erase my footprints, I would leave a poem. Something new, in a blog long abandoned.

Autumn-slain
A dense fog of billowing cold
Sweeps across a bed of gold.
Mounds of bodies with deaths unsaid;
The leaves which all the trees have shed.
Their ghosts still whisper in the wind;
Brittle voices confess to sins
From their youths when they were green;
That’s when I woke and saw the scene.

Chill air gusts through the window,
Crisp as golden-red apples
(their skin taut and swollen with sweet autumn nectar).
It’s tinged with the smell
of late blooming roses,
And filled with the scent of dead leaves.

Hash over your ideas with your fellow poetry aficionados

Here I invite you to discuss questions, ask questions, make comments and exchange ideas with your colleagues. For "Ulysses" especially I think you need to do this—it's a very dense poem that makes of the familiar figure of Ulysses a symbol…of what?

We'll discuss at the top of class and attempt to deepen and broaden your responses.

Questions for "Curiosity"

1. On the surface, this poem is a dissertation on cats. What deeper comments does the speaker make or imply? Of what are cats and dogs—in this poem at least—symbols?
2. In what different senses are the words death, die, and dying here used?
3. Compare and contrast this poem in meaning and manner with “Ulysses.”

On This Glorious Day...

Today is a day to remember. Today is a day all peoples should mark on their calenders. A day everyone should look forward to year-round. A day to count down to by making one of those paper chains where each link represents a day, and as you cut one link off every day, your excitement grows as the chain gets shorter and shorter. Would you like to know why? Do I really have to tell you why on this magnificent, wonderful, joyous day you should celebrate? Isn't it obvious? On this day, exactly 19 years ago, President Bush Sr. declared the end of the Gulf War, saying "Aggression is defeated. This war is over."

Indeed, the ending of any conflict is cause to celebrate. Let the revelries commence! I call upon all who read this to feast and be merry. As if that wasn't enough, Ghana celebrates their independence from Britain on this date! So three cheers for Ghana! Three cheers for the end of the Gulf War! That's six cheers (for those of you keeping score at home) for March 6th!

Claudius, Gertrude and King Hamlet

Hamlet draws his general condemnation of women's fidelity from his mother Gertrude's "incestuous" marriage with the despised Claudius. I think we can assume that the Prince never cared much for his uncle, but by now has grown to hate the man who replaced his idolized and adored father both as King and as husband to Gertrude.

The Ghost complains of "my most seeming-virtuous Queen," who fell for the blandishments of an "adulterate beast" of a brother whose "witchcraft of wit" and "traitorous gifts" stole her heart and loyalty away. Young Hamlet also takes a share in the Ghost's assessment of Claudius: a satyr in comparison with the Hyperion that was King Hamlet.

Let's examine the evidence in the play to build a character study of the late King of Denmark. Look at the Ghost's words, Horatio's dialogue with Marcellus, Hamlet's private thoughts in his first soliloquy and brief exchange with Horatio…etc. What sort of man, King, husband and father was King Hamlet?

Look then at what you know of Claudius beyond Hamlet's disdain and loathing: what qualities in him attracted Gertrude in the first place, and why? Why did she not adore King Hamlet as his son did?

This will take some thought. You might be smart to make a first entry assessing King Hamlet, then return a day later and post a comment on Gertrude and Claudius.

We'll have a lot to talk about on Wednesday.

Reading Some Good ol Books

Nooo, I didn't steal your guys idea Matt. I just thought of it way before you kids did and kept it in a corner in my mind until it was the right time. I don't think you ever told me that you and Michael were planning on rewriting in the blog.

But since we have a group going here, why not bring in some of the good ol AP Lit into us because apparently Matt here wants to get that good feeling back yea?

So what would we like to analyze nowadays? The leaves are beginning to change colors and everything, it's almost time for fall. How about a poem by Robert Frost called After Apple Picking:

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still.

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.

I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and reappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin

That rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking; I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

mm.. Well, I like analyzing poetry, but maybe this one time we could all just read and enjoy its meaning to ourselves unless you feel like sharing some thoughts :] bring on the nostalgia

HELLO FROM THANH!

Hello old friends! Long time no post yea? I wonder if anyone else comes onto this blog anymore, probably one of the reasons why I'm coming on and saying, heeelllllooooo.

How's everyone doing though? Is your summer coming along well? Getting ready for a whole new year? I bet.. yea, just saying hello, dang, just writing in here makes me feel all emotional. I miss our long blog posts. haha, our class had the longest blog post in all of the classes. We had insane ones. I loved it when people came on at 6 in the morning just to post a blog. I loved it when people would make insightful movie comments, or music relations with the book. It was my escape from school. I'll probably reread some of the things that we all wrote before. I don't think I've ever actually read every single post on here. I'll learn a lot :] Yea, everyone is going to do amazing this year, wherever you're heading off to. I'll talk to everyone later.

Thanks to everyone who left comments!

aka THE GRAND FINALE

So in the wake of our beloved teacher's departure, Anna and I are writing a heartfelt article in the Prowl about J.D. and his various trials in this past year.
So... say something!

How did you feel when he left and we had to go on without him?
How do you feel about him leaving—and having to finish without him?
How awesome of a teacher was he?

This is probably the last thing that'll be on this blog, so let's make it good, shall we?

Thanks for your help, guys. You can read the article in the May issue of the Prowl, if you'd like.

Getting ready for Friday's essay

Assembly schedule Friday will make for a shorter period than I'd hoped for. Still, you'll have the entire time to plan and write your essay. Review your notes and bring them with you—you'll turn them in with your essay. Besides that, I recommend you re-read the last chapter of Part 6 (chapter 8) as well as the epilogue. And don't forget to bring your book!

Prompt for Monday, 4/27 — Deadline 8 p.m. Tuesday

In Heart of Darkness, Marlow's descriptions of Kurtz include the following: “a wandering and tormented thing”, someone whose words were like “phrases spoken in nightmares”, someone who “had no restraint, no faith”, whose “soul was mad”, someone who “struggled, struggled”. Think back to the nightmare-like atmosphere that suffused Heart of Darkness, then read again the description of Rodya's last dream (6 pages from the end of the novel, p. 547 P/V version, paragraph beginning “He lay in the hospital all through the end of Lent…” and ending with “…had heard their words or voices.” Both Rodion and Kurtz engage in interior battles fought between their inner goodness and their desire to “step over”, to be “supermen”. Crime and Punishment, however, ends with a powerful feeling of hope and redemption, whereas Heart of Darkness ends with impenetrable darkness. How can we better understand Raskolnikov's redemption through the tragedy of Kurtz? (As always,  support your opinions.)

Prompt and homework 4/23 — Deadline 8 pm Sunday

Homework: With the exception of Luzhin, most of the characters in the novel in one way or another are drawn to Raskolnikov. Some, like Razumikhin, Sonya, Dunya and Pulcheria, are devoted to him. Svidrigailov is fascinated by, and in his turn fascinates, Raskolnikov. Porfiry suspends his sardonic manner and professes a desire to help, even save, the young man.

Choose two characters and ascertain what it is that draws them to him. Come prepared with notes and marked passages to support your analysis.

Prompt:  Why does Raskolnikov reject his family's and Razumikhin's attempts to solace and comfort him? Why, when they are at their most loving, does he express his most virulent feelings of hatred for them? Support your opinion with specific examples/quotes.

Deadline for blog: Wednesday, 7:30 pm

Dear students,

So that I can read your comments before class, I'm setting the deadline you see above. I'll also be checking to see that you come to Thursday's class well-prepared for discussion. Crime & Punishment is just too big a novel for you to find passages on the fly during class. So, as I said in the earlier post, come to class with your notes along with marked passages. We'll have a much better time of it if you do. 

Prompt and homework -- 4/20

1. For class on Thursday: We will focus on the theories debated in the novel. Review the discussion between Porfiry and Raskolnikov about Rodya’s article (Part 3, ch. 5, 258-265 in Pevear/Volkonsky) as well as the conversation between Lebeziatnikov & Luzhin (Part 5, ch. 1, 363-371 P/V) and Raskolnikov's interior dialogue (near the end of part three, ch. 6, right before his dream about the old crone, 274-275 P/V).  Come to class with notes and passages marked.

 

2. Prompt: From the murders forward, Raskolnikov spins a web in which he is himself trapped. And he is, in his more lucid moments, well aware of the trap: he even says that he "turned spiteful . . . Then I hid in my corner like a spider."

Yet of all the characters, Porfiry is the one who seems most "spiderlike" as he skillfully maneuvers Raskolnikov during their encounters. Nevertheless, Porfiry also has keen insight into Raskolnikov. When he finally confronts the young man in part six, chapter 2, Porfiry tells Rodya: "Do you know how I regard you? I regard you as one of those men who could have their guts cut out, and would stand and look at his torturers with a smile -- provided he's found faith, or God"

Discuss what Porfiry means by these words. Notice that he does not say "faith in God", but "faith, or God" (part 6, ch. 2, 3 pages from the end of the chapter, 460 in P/V).

Prepare Yourself for the In-Class Essay on Monday

No blog prompt this weekend. Enjoy your time whatever you do, but don't completely neglect your thematic study of Crime & Punishment. Polish up your notes, too.  We're going to write an essay Monday, and notes are not only allowed but encouraged!

C & P prompt #4 & homework assignment

1. For the next class we will be focusing on Dostoevsky's treatment of women, particularly Sonya & Dunya. Come prepared with specific passages marked that shed light on these women.

2. Go to Part Three, Chapter One, about six pages in (202 in Pevear/Volkonsky) and find the paragraph that begins, "What do you think?" Razumikhin shouted, raising his voice even more. "You think it's because they are lying?" Read from the line, "I like it when people lie!" through about a page and a half, ending with "Pyotr Petrovich . . . is not on a noble path."

Deceit abounds in C & P, and Rodya seems to have more than a little Hamlet in him. What do you make of this dialogue with Razumikhin? How does lying lead to truth in this novel? Cite specific passages/details to support your ideas.

C & P prompt #3 & homework assignment

1. WELCOME BACK MR. DUNCAN!

2. For the next two or three discussions the focus will be on characters who serve as foils/doubles to Raskolnikov and/or as representatives of particular "types" or "theories". Without running to Google or Cliff's Notes or whatever your crutch of choice might be, choose a character who you think serves as a double or foil to Raskolnikov. Find a list of passages that reveal that character and be ready to support your reasoning (FYI: I have 17 just for Svidrigailov). Be sure to take down these notes and be ready for the discussion. As you will recall, Mr. Duncan will be collecting all your notes at the end of the unit for a truckload of points (no, we haven't decided how many) and evaulating your blog responses as well as your in-class participation.

3. For the blog: Discuss Marmeladov. Some critics say he serves as a type of foil to Raskolnikov, others that he is a representative of a "type", others that he represents a major theme of the novel. What do YOU think? Look again at the discussion with Raskolnikov in the tavern (ch. 2), beginning with paragraph 7: "My dear sir," he began almost solemnly, "poverty is no vice . . . " on through the point where they leave the tavern. As always, support your ideas -- don't make Mr. Duncan get out his hip boots to wade through your post.

4. p.s. For those of you out there who haven't finished reading the book and are winging it: Be scholars. You will discover great joy and form all kinds of powerful synapses in those massive brains by sinking your teeth into a novel with this depth. You short-change yourself, your classmates, and Mr. Duncan when you phone it in. This is our last big unit--be with us fully by Tuesday!

5. How about sending Mr. Puterbaugh a thank-you note for all the time he has devoted to you!

6. I'm sorry about Mr. Duncan's knees, but glad I had a chance to get to know you, if ever so slightly. -- Mrs. M

Crime & Punishment blog prompt #2 April 7

Why did Raskolnikov murder the pawnbroker? Support your responses with evidence from the novel please.

Crime & Punishment Prompt 1-- April 3

Use your computer skills and do some research about the history, design, climate, and topography of St. Petersburg. Why do you think Dostoevsky set this novel in this particular city?

March 30

Study for the poetry unit test on Wednesday. While you are reviewing, check out the glossary at the back of the book -- you should know all the terms. If you haven't already done so, finish Crime & Punishment by Friday. We like to keep it light.

AP Lit Survey

Hey, guys. I'm doing the AP classes page for yearbook and I need quotes from students taking AP classes. To make things nice and easy, I thought it'd be cool to post it on the blog, plus I thought it might give everyone a quick break from homework.

Just fill out whichever questions strike your fancy and post them back as comments to this post.

If you are in more than one AP class, PLEASE fill out more than one survey to post! I would really appreciate it. Though I'm sure the caustic witty comments in this class could fill up an entire spread, I would love some other perspectives as well.

Thank you guys so much! This really helps me out.


<3 Kenzie

Name:
Grade:

Class:

1. What is your favorite color?


2. Favorite pair of shoes?


3. What do you eat for breakfast every morning?


4. Coffee or tea?


5. Pet zebra or dolphin?


6. Breathing underwater or flying?


7. What has been your favorite book this year?


8. Why do you like this class?


9. Why did you choose to take an AP class?


10. What is your favorite part of the AP experience?


11. How do AP classes differ from other classes you've taken on the same subject matter?


12. What are some interesting/funny things that have happened in this class?


13. Any other random comments? Anything else I should know?

Prompt - March 17

1. Mr. Duncan plans to return to begin Crime and Punishment with you on April 3. Plan on a "Did you read it?" quiz that day. And now, for the last blog poem of the week . . .
2. The following poem is by a famous Portland writer, Ursula Le Guin, and was republished in last Sunday's Oregonian. Consider how Le Guin uses sound, rhythm, imagery, and symbolism to serve her purpose.

The Cactus Wren

In this great silence, to sit still
and listen till I hear the wren
is to draw free from wish and will.
She flits to perch; her slender bill
spouts a thin jet of music, then
in the great silence she falls still.
Wind nods the short-stemmed flowers that fill
the sandy wash. She sings again
her song devoid of wish or will.
The hummingbird's quick drum and thrill
is gone just as I hear it, when
in this great silence all holds still.
The granite sand, the barren hill,
the dry, vast, rigorous terrain
answer no human wish or will.
Again, the small quicksilver trill
that has no messages for men.
In the great silence she sings still
of pure need free from wish or will.


"The Cactus Wren" is from Incredible Good Fortune,
Shambhala, 2006, © 2006 by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Prompt 3/12

1. Look at the last entry in yesterday's discussion -- it is from J.D. Also, did you know that J.D. has actually been to Coole?

2. I will be passing back all your essays on Tuesday. I still am missing MANY. Don't send J.D. back to the hospital with a heart attack after he sees your grades. During the break I will give him all these scores and a check sheet of your blog entries and he will add it all to his gradebook. Right now that looks rather ugly. I will stop in on Tuesday with my chart and talk to each of you to ascertain that it is all accurate. Also, if you wish to revise either of the essays, get those to me by Thursday, if possible. If that is not possible, give the revisions, stapled to the original, to J.D. after the break.

3. I forgot to give Mr. P the prompt for the weekend, so here it is. Read the poem that follows: Consider all the elements of poetry that we have studied thus far. How does the poet use these poetic elements to give the poem meaning?


Hope -- Lisel Mueller

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
it lives in each earthworm segment
surviving cruelty,
it is the motion that runs the tail of a dog,
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.

~ Lisel Mueller ~

4. You need to register and pay for your AP tests by Friday!

"The Wild Swans at Coole" Blog Assignment

Read this poem, paying special attention to sound, rhythm, and meter.  I'll do you the favor of pointing out that the author's use of rhyme, line breaks and enjambment help to reinforce his purpose.  Please remember to read each other's posts and comment on each other's ideas--don't monologue.

Also, please read the previous post from Mrs. Minor about getting your essays scored and back to you.

Grading your essays, etc.

In an effort to get your papers graded and all your scores up to date, I need the following on Thursday:

(a)  from everyone EXCEPT Hari and Austin:  a new hard copy of your 

"Valediction" essay.           

(b)  A new hard copy of the "Siren Song"/"Barbie Doll" essay from the following: 

 Lisa, Michelle, Sam, John, Shea, Kensey, Thanh, Matt, Austin, Hannah, 

Roopa, Chelsea

(c)  New hard copies of the questions from "Ulysses" & "Curiosity" from: 

 Lisa, Michael, Sam, Alex, Mohanika, Scott, Shea, Kensey, Thanh, Matt, Austin,

 Hannah,  Roopa

(d)  New hard copies of the questions from "Church Going" and "Dover Beach" from:

Aditya, Grace, Lisa, Sam, Alex, Mohanika David, Shea, Kensey, Matt, Hannah, Roopa

(e)  Hannah -- you need to stop by my desk and write the last timed essay.  You have 50 minutes to write it once you get settled with paper out.  Be sure to attach the prompt to the essay and leave it on my desk.  Be sure to get this done this week.

Anything acquired after Thursday will be marked as late.  If for some reason you cannot print or cannot get a hard copy to me Thursday (you are absent, f. i.), please email it to me at nancy.minor@comcast.net or nancy_minor@beavton.k12.or.us

You should also have turned in your "Snowstorm" essays with marked poems attached to Mr. Puterbaugh.  

 

HEY MATT. Today's Important!

Today is your 18th birthday and you're spending it at home. Sick. Unable to leave your house. Burdened by missed homework and tests. Constantly coughing and blowing your nose. Weak. Kept away from the general public.

Well then, here's to adulthood!
:)

I personally expected credit card companies to hound me. Surveyors of things I have no relation to. Spontaneous lottery buying. Trips to restricted places and purchases of restricted things.
But nope! Nothing.

Nothing except the sweet feeling of knowing, "Hey. I'm older than you and that makes me soo much cooler. Plus I don't have curfew or the THIS RESIDENT TURNS 18 ON (DATE) message on my ID card. I can vote and carry out the Second Amendment. My parents don't need to be with me when I get prescriptions. I can sign documents on my own. If I wanted to own my property I could. Could get as many body piercings and tattoos as I want. Not need a stinkin' permit. Hell, I'm 18! 18! 18! 18! 18! 18!"

18 is definitely better than 17 or 19. They're super lame prime numbers. Multiples of 2, 3, 4, 6, 9 screams awesome.

Just like how you scream awesome Matt. Happy happy birthday!


[It's about time Julian Bartholomew Chau-Putnam's father reached a proper, respectable age. jeeeeeez]

Homework for 3/2

Yes, Mrs. Minor, I can boogie, but I choose not to display that particular gift. I feel the repercussions would be disastrous.
Like we discussed today, your homework is to work "Snowstorm" and mark any and all musical devices you can find. This is preparation for an upcoming paper, or so I am told.
For the blog, you are directed to respond to Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay:" Now I know that you may have read or studied this poem before, but let's not phone this one in. Mrs. Minor strongly advises you all to "stay literal"--let's not drape this one with a bunch of metaphorical meaning before we have looked closely at the literal content and of course, those pesky musical devices.

Your sub can blog!

Hello folks,

Just thought that I would provide proof that I can use the blog.  Remember that the homework is to read and work "Dover Beach" and "Church Going" and answer the questions that follow each of them.  Be ready to spend a lot of time reading and rereading if you want to get the most out of these poems, not to mention answer the questions successfully.  

I can't promise I'll always use this blog consistently and effectively, but I will do my best.  

Homework?

1. Read chapter 8 on allusions. Answer the questions following Milton's poem "On His Blindness" (135/127/140/140) and turn them in on Thursday.

2. Read "Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins" (355/295/365/369) and join in a discussion on the blog.

is the homework from Ms. Minor's blog, since ours is blank I'm assuming its supposed to be the same.

My take on Sylvia Plath's "Spinster"

This is, to me, a funny poem about an imperious, rigid girl who decides she prefers a sort of wintry order, as she sees it, to spring and all it traditionally stands for: love, music, "burgeoning" growth of new life (look that word "burgeoning" up, and you'll see why it's perfect), renewal, fertility, etc., etc.

Now I'd never read this poem before Mrs. Minor chose it from the newest collection. But the first thing I want to sense about it, besides the experience that it contains or relates, is its tone. So I read it through several times, which even done carefully takes just a few minutes. And I find the tone to be rather mocking. The speaker is not peddling her subject's philosophy -- she's creating an ironic portrait that somehow gives us and her particular enjoyment.

So how about this "particular girl"? She's not looking for romance; others are looking for romance from her -- a whole string of them is hinted at by "latest suitor." Suitors are those who go down on one knee to ask for the hand of their adored one. But this "particular" girl (and that word has at least two meanings: one out of a group of girls, or a girl who insists that everything around her must be correct in every detail) finds something disconcerting in the "irregular babel" of birdsong and the leaves' litter (nice a-litter-ation, eh?). When arrogant humans attempted to construct a "Tower of Babel" to reach the heavens, the Biblical God sent the language of the builders into confusion to thwart their ambition. Maybe this arrogant girl simply fails to understand the birdsong that is the one of the primary languages of spring, as she rejects everything about the season that she doesn't understand or finds disorderly, or is afraid of.

(By the way: I don't know how she'd feel about the order of this poem, because its rhythm is often irregular; most regular, perhaps, in the stanza in which "she longed for winter then!" There's a rhyme pattern, but the rhymes are often of the type known as "slant", or inexact rhymes: "wits" & "idiots" is an example of that; so is "weather" and "either" in the last stanza. But we haven't gotten to pattern yet.)

Going through the poem a few times more, I notice that our girl is a queenly sort of person on "a ceremonious April walk" who "judged petals in disarray" and compares the season of spring to a slob ("sloven"). She's afraid of the unpredictability of spring, which could unsettle her "five wits" (a very old, even medieval expression covering common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory) and thus reverse her standing in her own royal court from queen to jester (a "vulgar" one who wears "motley"). Such an idiot can "Reel giddy in bedlam spring" and make quite a fool of her/himself.

"Bedlam", I find, is a word that denotes a scene of mad confusion and comes from the insane asylum in old London known as "Bedlam." The allusions to ancient or medieval things somehow reinforces the image I get of a queen in royal surroundings with courtiers in attendance and a jester, or professional fool, on call at his station at foot of the throne. Part of the order of her universe are her five wits, which she keeps in check lest they get out of control -- especially imagination and fantasy. Those are too free-flowing and adventurous. And how did I learn about the five wits? I looked the term up until I found what I sort of remembered from my own reading.

That brings me to her suitor. I think suitor is a good word for him, because he's a wannabe on his way out, and Bedlam might just be the place for the likes of him.  He's the jester, idiot sort. I like Hari's idea of a dog, even if he got stuck on the literal notion of one. This guy is sawing the air with romantic enthusiasm as he gestures and talks and bounds along and off the path like a happy dog -- doing everything but pee on the bushes before he puts his pair of muddy paws on her shoulders and gives her a couple of doggy licks on her puss. But the particular girl doesn't appreciate the dog-boy's Keatsian appreciation of nature and love together in bloom. To her it's all "a rank wilderness of fern and flower."

It's probably just a coincidence, but I can't help but picture this particular girl doing what's known as "playing Hamlet" (she could be an English major, after all, and she does like black!), putting on airs of sophisticated disillusionment while she mutters haughtily to herself:

Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

Uh uh. Not for her. She's a sharp-edged perfect snowflake, with a taste for "ice and rock". That third stanza is a marvel of hard-edged, astringent words and phrases (Scrupulously austere, frosty discipline, exact -- these are words that could give you paper cuts, and wow would those cuts ever smart in that ice-cold air!). And as I said, this one stanza really stands out for its greater order of rhythm, especially if read aloud after second,  which contains such unruly, rambling lines as "Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air" and "Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower." In fact, stanza one was pacing along in pretty good order until line four threw everything literally and figuratively off-balance: "Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck".

She's shaken by the sheer uncontained fertility of it all. And so she withdraws "neatly" (in what other way could she withdraw?). She's the sort of princess who enchants herself within her own chosen castle, surrounded by thorns ("barricade of barb and check") with a moat full of sharks and the drawbridge up at all times (okay, some of this is my imagery, but I think it fits). The adjectives "mutinous" and "insurgent" are appropriate for our queenly girl who will maintain the picturesque (nicely framed, of course) order of her life at all costs, including love. No revolt by an excitable, overly romantic young man could possibly succeed in dethroning this snow queen to bring the unrestricted freedom of love and the rest of that burgeoning stuff into her realm.

As far as symbols go, I think I previously noted what spring often stands for, while all the time remaining the season of spring. That symbol she rejects, and substitutes clean and orderly winder for spring's rank and gross confusion (thanks, O Prince of Denmark. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. None of ghat crummy bird babel for you). Winter as a symbol of order and discipline is more of a personal symbol for our heroine. Others might see winter as symbolic of death and also of disorder -- storms and wild weather that could rip a roof off, or send the queen skidding down a sleety path. The house of the final stanza we could take as a metaphor for her chosen isolation from the impetuous and uncontrollable change that spring symbolizers. I know a lot of you found symbols like that. If I were you, I wouldn't be content to simply identify a symbol or two, then re-pack the poem and turn in your puny paragraph of pathetic prose.

The cool thing is that something so compact and brief as this little poem can contain so much in it that magnifies, extends and enriches meaning. All I'm doing is looking at the "how" before I decide (if I ever do such a thing) the "what" of the poem. How did Hari imagine that dog? Well, now I understand a little better, and for me how Sylvia Plath planted the seed that made the dog grow in Hari's brain makes the poem better and more vivid than it was before.

(By the way, Hari: you really need to see a doctor sometime soon.)

Exploring the connations and multiple denotations, noting the echoes thrown off by the allusions -- these things bring me to greater comprehension.

Gee this has been fun! Really! -- So much so that I got carried away and now everything I unpacked is strewn across the floor of the room and all over the bed, too. I haven't got time to get everything back into Sylvia's suitcase and unpack those other two. No, I have to go see the nurse instead to have the staples pulled from my knee.

What? You don't like that kind of kinesthetic/organic imagery?

Sorry. 

If I have time and energy enough when I get back, I'll take much briefer looks at "Barbie Doll" and "Siren Song". But I don't know. I tire very easily these days, and maybe what I did with this poem is enough.

Poetically and analytically yours,

JD

HOW does a poem mean?

I'm going to relay a little advice from poet John Ciardi and then, in a further post, take a stroll through a few of the assigned poems as a way of, if possible, altering and enriching the way you read poetry. Too many of you tend to, in the immortal words of Billy Collins: "…tie the poem to a chair with rope / and torture a confession out of it." 

That way lies madness and, probably, an abiding hatred for all things poetical. I'm asking you to take an approach that is gentler on the poem and yourself. And to begin with, I'm going to cite these words of John Ciardi's from chapter one of How Does A Poem Mean?, his wonderful guide to poetry (alas, no longer in print):

"What greater violence can be done to the poet’s experience than to drag it into an early morning classroom and to go after it as an item on its way to a Final Examination? The apology must at least be made. It is the experience, not the Final Examination, that counts. Though one must note with care…that passionate learning is full of very technical stuff…
"And in poetry there is the step beyond: once one has learned to experience the poem as a poem, there inevitably arrives a sense that one is also experiencing himself as a human being…
W. H. Auden was once asked what advice he would give a young man who wished to become a poet. Auden replied that he would ask the young man why he wanted to write poetry. If the answer was 'because I have something important to say,' Auden would conclude that there was no hope for that young man as a poet. If on the other hand the answer was something like 'because I like to hang around words and overhear them talking to one another,' then that young man was at least interested in a fundamental part of the poetic process and there was hope for him.
"When one 'message-hunts' a poem (i.e., goes through the poem with no interest except in its paraphraseable content) he is approaching the writing as did the young man with 'something important to say'…The common question from which such an approach begins is “WHAT Does the Poem Mean?” His mind closed on that point of view, the reader tends to 'interpret' the poem rather than to experience it, seeking only what he can make over from it into a prose statement (or Examination answer) and forgetting in the process that it was originally a poem.…
"For WHAT DOES THE POEM MEAN? is too often a self-destroying approach to poetry. A more useful way of asking the question is HOW DOES A POEM MEAN? Why does it build itself into a form out of images, ideas, rhythms? How do these elements become the meaning? How are they inseparable from the meaning? As Yeats wrote:
O body swayed to music, o quickening glance,
How shall I tell the dancer from the dance?
"What the poem is, is inseparable from its own performance of itself. The dance is in the dancer and the dancer is in the dance. Or put in another way: where is the 'dance' when no one is dancing it? and what man is a 'dancer' except when he is dancing?"

From How Does A Poem Mean, The Riverside Press Cambridge, Houghton Mifflin Company

Okay. That's all I'm going to quote from Ciardi, although there are times I wish his was our textbook rather than stodgy old Sound and Senselessness. Tomorrow I'll take my own look at "Spinster", "Barbie Doll" and "Siren Song" in a way that I hope will be helpful to you in completing your essays.

Stay well,

JD