17 December 2006

Poetry Sound and Sense posting #2

This blog posting is due before class starts Wednesday, Dec. 20. Good luck...

What is your favorite poem from the packet? Was it the simplistic visual imagery of "The Red Wheelbarrow?" Or Poe's "The Bells," with its emphasis on sounds and rhythm? Share your thoughts on which poem you enjoyed the most and make sure you share exactly why. Use specific reasons, which means pointing out specific lines and/or examples of literary or sound devices. As in past posts, this should be about 150 to 200 words.

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since i forgot my packet at school i can't really give specific examples and i can't remember the name of it but my favorite poem was the one that describes a car accident. I really liked this poem because it had a lot of things to figure out. For me at least, I didn't get all of the symbolism used my first time reading it. Only after we discussed and disected it as a class did i understand what it really meant. I remember in the poem it refered an IV pouch on its pole to an empty locust shell hanging from a metal pole or something like that. At first I had no clue what that meant but after thinking about it i understood. There were many instances where this happened throughout the poem. I also think this was my favorite poem because I was interested in it and as I was reading it I wanted to know what was going to happen to the victims and witnesses of the car accident. Another reason I liked this poem was the use of words in it. They flowed very well and it just sounded good to the ear.

James
Period 1

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem from the packet was “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe because I understood the symbolism and the meaning of the poem more than all the other ones. I’ve read most of his poems already, but I haven’t read this one before. I liked the images it gave me because I could picture each stanza by either a movie I saw, or by a personal incident like the third stanza. Because the third stanza is about an accident and I can visualize a car accident I was in when I was younger. I really liked how the poem was the same foundation, like they were all about bells, but they we’re all at different times and their tones all gave a different feeling. In the lines “What a tale their terror tells” and “How the danger sinks and swells” both gave me a feeling that I only get when something serious happens like when my grandpa went into the hospital and they told us he was going to die, or the time I was waiting for my x-rays to get back in for hitting my head on the dashboard. I didn’t like being reminded of something dark like that, but at the same time I really liked the poem because it had an impact on me, and didn’t just bore me with a image of a wet wheelbarrow in my head.

Brandon
Period 1

Anonymous said...

After looking at all the poems I would have to say my favorite poem is “I like to see it lap the miles”. I like how they are both short and easy to understand. Its one of those poems that you have to read a couple times to understand the purpose. It is just like “The Red Wheelbarrow” because that is short but, I had to read that one more then once to understand it. The first time I read it, it had a lot of things to figure out. For me at least, I didn't get all of the symbolism when I was reading it. I almost had to take it word for word to really get it. My favorite part in the poem is “And neigh like Boanerges; Then, punctual as a star. I thought that was a good image to picture in my head. I also understood it better because “Docile” and “omnipotent” was in there and that was apart of are vocabulary words which really made me know what the poem was about.

Anonymous said...

My favortie poem was Auto Wreck by Karl Shapiro.I liked this one because you knew in the beginning of the poem what he was writing about. There were also alot of interesting images. A couple were "tight as tourniquets" and "simple as a flower." I also loved how he compared an injured person in an ambulance as "terrible cargo." I loved how he turned simple words into something more. He made an auto wreck seem like so much more. It was interesting to read and questions popped up in my head. He also talks about death and the way he describes it is amazing. I think that is a good poet. A person who can make something as scary and sad as an auto wreck into something beautiful and interesting to read.

Anonymous said...

Between "The Red Wheelbarrow” and "The Bells", my favorite poem is "The Bells". I think that this poem is a well detailed and described poem. It has one single subject also. Although this poem is a bit lengthy, it is much better written then "The Red Wheelbarrow". In my opinion “The Red Wheelbarrow" is horribly written. It doesn't really have a purpose in my mind. On the other hand "The Bells" is a great poem that is descriptive to the point that I can actually picture and hear the bell sounds that it describes. For example, "Bells, bells, bells- To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!" I know exactly what that sounds like in my head, and I like being able to relate to the poem in the sense that I know what’s going on and what it is talking about.

Anonymous said...

I would have to say that my favorite poem from the packet so far is “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Many people do not like this poem at all, but I feel that short poems like this one do, indeed, have deeper meaning. Even though not much alliteration, consonance, or assonance is used, I tend to like the simplicity of the poem. The simplicity is what gives it its “spark”, leaving people wondering what the author is trying to portray to the reader. Basically, I like poems that make people think, and ones that are not extremely easy to figure out. I especially like poems that I can read and actually picture the specific setting in my mind. For example, the first line break consists of, “so much depends upon”, and then the second line break consists of, “a red wheel barrow.” The first line makes me picture exactly what the author is saying. If the setting is clearly visible, it is sometimes easier for me to distinguish the author’s message. To me, the line breaks that the author included in this poem help make the poem seem much more interesting. In my opinion, poems don’t necessarily have to be long for the reader to understand what they mean. Even though this poem has a lack of words, the words that are written make for a descriptive setting. I think that setting has a lot to do with a poem, if the author is describing a particular place or an object. Therefore, I enjoyed this poem the most.

Period 1

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem from the packet was "The Bells" because I liked the poem because of the use of alliteration. The sounds and rhythms of "The Bells" made the poem different from others. I like the first stanza the most. This stanza is about soft sounds that bells make. The first line in the poem is “Hear the sledges with the bells- Silver bells.” This line describes bells you hear on a sleigh or sled. I could picture horses pulling a sleigh with tiny bells ringing. I also like how the poem repeatedly said “Of the bells, bells, bells, bells.” This reminded me of hearing the sound of bells because bells repeat the same sound. The poem used alliteration, consonance, and assonance. These things made the poem stand out from others. For example, in the poem it says “How it swells! How it dwells!” The sound of these lines stood out to me. All of these things made the poem interesting to me.

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem from the poem is “Ars Poetics” by Archibald MacLeish. This is my favorite poem because I feel that the author gets his point across in a humorous way. Such as the funny use of assonance; “Dumb As old medallions to the thumb”. The author says the poem shouldn’t really mean anything, but a poem should just be a poem. Throughout the poem, the author uses a lot of metaphors and similes to describe how a poem should be. But the author jumps around a lot. Sometimes the similes relate, and other times they don’t make sense. However, that was the point of the poem. To say that a poem doesn’t need to make sense, it’s just a poem. The poem has a lot of random lines such as, “For all the history of grief An empty doorway and a maple leaf.” This doesn’t really make any sense, but that’s the whole beauty of it. It doesn’t make sense, but it sounds good because of the use of consonance. And it proves that poetry doesn’t have to make sense, but just be a poem.

Anonymous said...

Out of all the poems in the packet I think “I like to see it lap the miles…,” by Emily Dickinson was my favorite. The poem was written in a way that makes it into a sort of mystery. Throughout the poem the use of certain details like “and stop to feed itself at tanks, and its own stable door,” lead the reader to think the poem could possibly be about a horse. But, when examined closer “It,” most closely relates to having the characteristics of a train. This mystery is not answered in the text, making the poem more interesting and causes the reader to think of a deeper meaning. The text is very interesting and uses great descriptions and details of “It,” such as “and lick the valleys up, In a horrid shooting stanza, and then chase itself down hill.” Emily Dickenson’s use of detail and mystery makes her poem my favorite out of the packet.

Anonymous said...

After reading both poems, I feel that "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams my favorite poem in the packet. "The Red Wheelbarrow was my favorite poem in the packet becauseof the simplicity it displayed grammatically and the complexed meaning. At first, i had no idea what this poem meant. After reading it several times over and over, I figured out that there was no point. What was being displayed in the poem were four two-lined stanzas. The first line consisting of four syllables and the second line consisting of two. So overall, this poem really has no meaning but keeping the stanzas in the same format. Other poems can be four or five stanzas and have ten lines in each and still wont have the same value or meaning as does a "nonsense" or shorter poem like "The Red Wheelbarrow." This is why my favorite poem in the packet is "The Red Wheelbarrow."

-Zack
Period 6

Anonymous said...

I like the poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost the best out of the packet.I like it the best because I think the poem means that this man had two a choice he could go down 2 different roads in life. The author of this poem was tyrign to explain how this man had to make a decision and a tough desicion may I add. But the man made a desicion and went down a road which he thought was just as good as the other.The man took a road that most people don't dare to take , he took a road that he ended up gald to take. And hes glad that someday in the future he'll be able to tell people how he traveled down a road msot people haven't traveled.

-Liz Pirrone

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem from the packet was by Robert Frost and entitled, "The Road Not Taken".I chose this poem because of its simplistic meaning and how it's expressed. Frost wrote about a descion that one makes in their life that could go either way, and in his descion he is saying that he took the road less travelled. I picture this desicion that he had to make was what he wanted to do with his life, and the "road less travelled," was a metaphor for what one needs to do in life. Many people take the road most travelled , which is to say, they live their life in the most common of ways. Rather, Frost is saying that he took a path that led him to do different things, and he was forced to think like an individual. I think that this poem also calls out to people, encouraging them to live life by their own means. Also, the author incorporated his life experiences in this poems. I think that the poem was symplistic and visual since the poem was very desciptive but not hard to interperate. Frost was successful in creating a very good poem.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion i loved the poem "the bells" over "the Red Wheelbarrow". I liked "the bells" better because the description of the bells just caught my attention and i wasn't bored reading the poem. Also this poem reminded me of christmas. the poem almost sounded like a song if you read it in a certain way. Overall the way the poem was put together was interesting and fun to read. Also to the fact that the poem was long and descriptive was a plus. Unlike some poems that are maybe five or six lines long that have no meaning or make you have to think about what the poem means is not a poem i would like to read.

Anonymous said...

Out of the packet we received my favorite poem happened to be Auto Wreck by Karl Shapiro. I believed that this poem was by far the poem with the best imagery. It told his story from a very different point of view. In the poem it uses words such as deranged and illuminated. I liked how this poem really made me think about how tragedies such as a car crash can devastate a family. This poem used great descriptions to amplify this such as "our throats were tight as tourniquets.” I thought that I could really picture the scene of the crash and feel the pain of the family. As the author describes how the cops are taking notes and cleaning I felt that I was there. Karl Shapiro really used great language in his poem and that is why I thought it was the best.

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem from the packet was "Auto Wreck" by Karl Shapiro. This poem has a lot of description and the sound devices that we have learned during class. In this poem, the author starts off by making you actually wonder what has happened since all he says is that there is an ambulance coming with alliteration like when he says, "soft silver bell beating, beating" (can also be consonance) and a simile when describing the ambulance lights saying, "dark one ruby flare pulsing out red light like an artery". He also describes the ambulance as a "little hospital" and the stuff in it as "terrible cargo" which is good phrasing. There is also consonance when he says "tight as tourniquets" (also alliteration). This poem is very realistic and could really happen to someone. The author makes the reader visualize what is being read. It made me do that and also think about what is going to happen next.

Anonymous said...

I like "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams. It's very short, but easy to interpret. For instance he says,"so much depends upon.... a red wheelbarrow." which means it is used alot, without it the work couldnt get done. Most people wouldnt like this poem cause its short and seems dumb... but it stick out to me more than the others.

Anonymous said...

I liked the poem "Auto Wreck." It is simply, there is no coding that makes you think, and it isn't something that makes you feel like the author is trying to seem smart by putting it into something where everyone is asking "What do you think it means." It's probably my favorite because I don't like poetry to begin with, and if I have to read one, why read something complicated? I like listening to rap, which is probably as close as I'll get to liking poetry.

Joe Sierejko

Anonymous said...

my faverite poam was the red weelbarel.becasue it have good amount of imformation but not long. it show how some people are not realeased to some people when they do alot for people. William Carlos is a good poem wright like he show all the rythem.

Anonymous said...

i read those winter sundays. it was a ok poem but it was a litle confusing with some of the line like " i woke up and i wis talked to my father." but i liked how the righter talked about how the father was a hard worker. that remided me about my father because he work realy hard also. this poem told me alot about how i am with my dad

Anonymous said...

One of my favotire poems from this packet was "Those Winter Sundays," by Robert Hayden. The poem seems somewhat sad because it talks of how the father gets up early everyday and does lots of things but no one ever thanks him for it. But even though the author knew that his father was doing all these things, he didn't even think of thanking him. I like the quote "What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?" There's something about this quote that makes me think that the author now knows that he should have been very thankful, but at the time that this happened he wasn't. He wasn't aware of his father's love for him and everything he would do for him. I have trouble understanding that because how is it hard to recognize someone that's doing things for you? Unless you take everything for granted, it would be impossible to not see it. Overall, it seems to be a lonely kind of poem.

Mike
Period 6

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem in this packet was "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden. This poem was my favorite because it made me realize how much a parent does for their child without the child ever realizing it. Also i realized that this poem reminds me to say thank you for the little things because in life, the most important things are the little things with mean the most. This poem also states that the simple act of love goes on with out even being realized when it should be every single time somebody does some, even something little, for you. After reading this poem it made me think to not take things for granted that my parents, friends or families do for me. It also made me realize to thank the people who do the most for me without me even having to ask because they, especially my parents, want me to live my life to the fullest.

Anonymous said...

The poem that I like the best is "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. This poem to me is the most east to interpret. The poem is basically just talking about how a person came to a point in his/her life when a decision had to be made. The decision was like the fork in the road. There were two different ways the person could have went with his/her life but he choose the one that was possibly the hardest. I think that the "road" that the person in this poem took was the hardest because it says that the road was less traveled by. I think that many people when they come to the point in their life that Robert Frost came to would have chosen the road that was traveled by the most. People tend to "go with the flow." But Robert Frost is talking about how he wanted to do his own thing with his life... do something different. I think that Robert Frost took the road less traveled by because he wanted to live his life to the fullest.

Anonymous said...

I think my favorite poem from the packet is 'AutoWreck'. I probably wouldn't have really understood it as much if we didn't go over it in class. I think one of the reasons I liked it so much better than the others was because I knew what it was about, and the use of figurative language was used throughout the poem, and the images were really good. I could picture all these different images in my mind, even if I didn't know exactly what I was reading about. That is a sign of good poetry. Autowreck was my favorite poem because of the imagery the author used. They were very unique, yet the imagery worked very well. "OUr throats were as tight as tourniquets;, I don't know what a tournaquet is, but it still gets the point across.

Anonymous said...

I think that my favorite poem in the packet was " Those Winter Sundays." It was my favorite because it was one of the poems which I understood the most. Another reason why I liked it was because the phrases were very discriptive and I could picture the scene in my head clearly. Out of the the two poems "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "The Bells," my favorite would have to be " The Red Wheelbarrow." This is because it is short and to the point. When I first read it I had an idea of what it would be about and i had the scene in my head. But after going over it in class I found the deeper meaning ( which i now forgot.) My favorite line in this poem is " glazed with rain water," beacuse to me it is very soft and nice and easy to remember and picture.

Jessica Marino
period 4

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem that is in the packet is called "Starlight" by Phillip Levine. The author connects two completely different subjects just like we did in class on dysfunctional families and gamma rays; she uses stars and her father. These two topics are more understandable though, since there are many ways to relate one another. She compares the stars to the glow of her father's cigarette. Also, the poem expresses her feelings among her father and tells you to spend time with your father and remember the good moments you've had together. Another aspect of the poem that I liked was that the author made you look further into the poem, because she said that he father had passed away without actually saying it. "...until the boy slept, never to waken in that world again" is a quote that tells you that the father died. Overall, I'd rate this poem a 7 out of 10 for descriptive detail and use of relating topics.

Zachary F.
Period 6

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem was "The Red Wheelbarrow." This is because it was extremely simple, yet had much more of a meaning to it. The some 20 words that create the poem can cause 1,000 words worth of imagery. The author says,"so much depends upon.... a red wheelbarrow." He then follows it up with "glazed with rain water.... beside the white
chickens." This makes people wonder...is the wheelbarrow used for carrying the chickens, their food, etc. It is a poem that is open to many interperatations. This is why I like it the most. It's purpose depends entirely upon the person reading it.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Bells,” is most interesting poem in the packet. In comparison to the simplistic and straightforward poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow,” Poe’s poem has a much deeper meaning. The figurative language and excessive use of descriptive visuals in “The Bells” are what give the reader a much more open-ended interpretation. Every individual that has read this poem has most definitely gained their own unique perspective of what this poem really is. Aside from the clever imagery, “The Bells” also contains several auditory devices. The most prevalent aural devices in this poem are most definitely repetition, assonance, and consonance. Poe must have used the word, “bells” a minimum of fifty times in this poem. This repetition gives the reader this important sense of rhythm and beat. Assonance can be found in the line, “From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells,” and also “To the swinging and the ringing of the bells…” One example of consonance in this poem is, “At the melancholy menace of their tone.”

matt r / per. #1

Anonymous said...

I think the best poem in the packet would have to be Those Winter Sundays. I liked this poem because it was straightforward and i could comprehend and understand it the best out of any of the poems in the packet. The author set a sad tone throughout the poem and also with the line i didnt even think of thanking him. I think the author did a good job describing everything he talked about which helped me imagine it and make it more interesting. The poem also sounds good and it flows because it seems the line breaks area all in the right spots and the words sound good together.

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem from the packet was "Auto Wreck" by Karl Sharpiro. I liked this poem because it was very easy to understand. There wasn't a lot of symbolism in it, and I understood what was going on. It was very straightforward, and it was easy for me to read. It also made me think about getting in a car accident, and how bad it would be. It would be hard to be the family member of someone who was in an accident if you don't know if they're going to be okay. The poem made me think about things like that.

Anonymous said...

MMmmyeah....that would have to be The Bells, by Poe...I enjoyed the different voices and tones that were in the verses, and the line breaks really separated and showed the differences between the four kinds of bells. The word choices, like tintinabulation, among others, were also very aesthetically pleasing, both on paper and read aloud.

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem was “the Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe. I liked it because you could almost feel the character slowly being driven to insanity because of the ringer of these bells. At first he/she almost likes the sound and then slowly but surly the tolling makes him crazy. He sees ghouls in the ringing of the bells. Poe description of how this person went crazy is so well written that you feel yourself almost going crazy with them, you start to read the poem faster and you heart beat jumps a beat. Poe has mastered the art of suspense and he uses it through most of the poem.

Anonymous said...

My favorite poem from the packet was "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams. The poem doesn't have any really long, confusing words, it's very simple, and it leaves a lot of room for thought.
No one except the poet knows whether or not the shapes of the lines combined were purposely arranged to make wheelbarrows, I like the fact that the reader can decide for his or herself. Also, the poem doesn't appear to have any real meaning or symbol, so I enjoy it's lack of complications.

Bekah
Period 6

Anonymous said...

I read poems in the packets. All of them were good but I found "Those Winter Sundays" the best. It basically talks about the relationship of father who works all days in the weekday and the daughter who seems so innocent in the poem. Beside this, it is simple easy to understand and picture it. "Red wheelbarrow" made me so mad when i first read it. Before reading Red Wheelbarrow, I used to think that poem should be more than one sentences but its not. I found it totally unique and amazing poem I ever read. I liked the way poet arranged the words pattern in the shape of wheelbarrow which was outstanding. 'glazed with rain' was good line from the wheelbarrow.

Anonymous said...

The "Red Wheel Barrow" was my favorite because it was simple and you could see the image it was talking about easily. It was a very simple image, so that made it easier to picture. The poem itself is written in a very unusual pattern and could have been made to look like a wheel barrow.

Anonymous said...

"Auto Wreck" By Paul Shapiro was my favorite poem that I read in this packet. I like this poem the most because he touched such a soft spot. He talked about death, tragic death at that, and told all the gory details along with beautiful yet disturbing words. "Suicide has cause, and stillbirth logic." and "And cancer, simple as a flower, blooms." Quotes like this make you think. They make you feel emotion. I love that when I read. I absolutly cannot stand sugar coated stuff. Thats what most books & poems are today. But this one, this one gives me a taste or harsh reality, that the ones I love can be gone within the time i'm done typing this sentence.