Easily my favorite of the three poems, Douglas' "The Marvel" has this kind of grotesque majesty that I love, gritty yet grand and full of paradoxes. He depicts a tragic scene of a once beautiful creature slaughtered, "spreadeagled" in a mockery of it's former grace. In contrast to the fish, which Douglas calls a "strong traveller", "lord" of the dark reaches of the sea where it once ruled, the sailors seem low, so greedy that even their boat is described as "thirsty", as its deck soaks up the fish's blood. They take out the noble swordfish's eye - once the tool of a hunter - and desecrating it from its intended purpose, using it to write the name of a prostitute in the wood.
Yet, by the end, the poet seems to tell us what the eye itself has seen, countless sailors just like these, "rotted into ghosts/digested by the gluttonous tides" in "their forgotten ships/with fishes going over the tall masts" - which gives me the impression that though the sailors may steal from the sea, in retribution the ocean takes even more in return. My favorite line: "Let them be your hosts". Simple, yet ominous, it gives a strong implication that the sailor - or maybe even the reader - will be the next to succumb to those "gluttonous tides"
"The Tempest" took me a couple of readings to begin to grasp, and even now I'm not sure what exactly is happening, but I know how it makes me feel. Everything about it seems distressed, almost painful. The imagery is disjointed, yet also alludes to some very specific things - the husks of last seasons' lilacs, the shore of the Mississippi, "exercise books" like the kind you used in grade school, the 'knife on the balustrade", a green sweater. These specifics are contrasted with intentional vagueness, including a vagueness felt by the speaker about the environment, as the poem opens with her trying to make out the shape of a building through the "shimmer", what I interpreted as an early morning fog, as well as the nebulous "The private acts become strange/when subjected to inquiry." - What private acts? Do they imply some sort of intimate relationship, or something mundane, which nonetheless you wouldn't do if you knew someone was watching?
The sudden shift in person in the next stanza emphasizes the abruptness of the action - leaving on a bus, and in turn the scenery we just experienced. The setting seems to jump around a bit, giving a sense of confusion. The "last cigarette/that must last a lifetime" implies to me worry, stress, anxiety - how to make it last? The person who picks up the telephone seems at ease, but whoever is on the other end is almost desperate for their voice, longing for them to "say,/so sweetly"
"The Snowman" at first reading did not capture me, as I was a bit surprised at the tone of it in relation to something as jolly as a snowman. It seems almost cynical, the way Stevens describes the trees "shagged" or "crusted", "rough" with frost, harsh, cacophonous words that don't quite conjure up the image of a winter wonderland. Neither does the "misery in the sound of the wind" which is blowing the land bare. Eventually I realized, the speaker implies that to be able to "behold the junipers shagged with ice" or "not think/Of any misery in the sound of the wind" that one must have "a mind of winter" and have "been cold a long time"; meaning of course, the only person admiring the harsh landscape is the snowman itself, unperturbed by the cold because he is made of it, smiling because that is how his face was made. A snowman listens, and watches, but "beholds/Nothing that is not there and nothing that is".
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
The Tempest (Please help me with this!!!)
Even after reading through 'The Tempest' several times, I still cannot manage to derive any meaning- I tried to Google it but couldn't find anything. There were several lines that really captured my interest, but just added to my frustration when I couldn't make sense of it! "The rapture was over." (stanza 1 line 8). The word rapture evokes images of total destruction, apocalypse. That being said, I'm struggling to find any other evidence to support the occurrence of such an event, so I have to assume that it's metaphorical. The description of the woman in stanza 1 really illustrates despair and grieving, but this person seems so disconnected from the rest of the poem...in the second stanza, the pronoun switches from 'she' to 'you'. I cannot even attempt to analyze the second stanza, as it left me completely bewildered. I'd be very interested to hear what others have to say.
week 2 "The Snow Man", "The Tempest" and "The Marvel"
"The Tempest" intrigues me because I do not quite understand some parts. "The rapture was over"- can this be referring to the world coming to an end? If this really is set in the in mid west like Mississippi is this a religious woman is consumed with faith and god but harshly meeting reality? The break between stanzas, to me, simulates a change in time, sort of like moving from one scene to a later one. As is some woman has pulled her self together (from crying and grieving tragedy) and is moving onto a new phase of her life. I would love some input into others' ideas of this reading.
For me, "The Snow Man" was a very structured poem, five stanzas, three lines in each and the line breaks as well as the punctuation correlate to how I would construct a poem. The imagery and words used to describe winter are pleasant ( I wish it would cool down already) like frost, shagged with ice, and glitter. This was easy to my eye and very descriptive.
"The Marvel", however, grabbed me like neither of the first two poems did. In the first stanza we read about a swordfish being killed. I think it is clever how the word "marvel" sounds like marble because I know taxidermists use marbles for eyes of things like ducks and deer and big fish because obviously eyes won't stay clean and out together like fur or feathers do. This poem uses a lot of powerful and grotesque words and phrases to describe a swordfish with a gouged out eye like sharp enquiring blade, corpse, rotted, digested, burning eye and engrave.
For me, "The Snow Man" was a very structured poem, five stanzas, three lines in each and the line breaks as well as the punctuation correlate to how I would construct a poem. The imagery and words used to describe winter are pleasant ( I wish it would cool down already) like frost, shagged with ice, and glitter. This was easy to my eye and very descriptive.
"The Marvel", however, grabbed me like neither of the first two poems did. In the first stanza we read about a swordfish being killed. I think it is clever how the word "marvel" sounds like marble because I know taxidermists use marbles for eyes of things like ducks and deer and big fish because obviously eyes won't stay clean and out together like fur or feathers do. This poem uses a lot of powerful and grotesque words and phrases to describe a swordfish with a gouged out eye like sharp enquiring blade, corpse, rotted, digested, burning eye and engrave.
THE MARVEL(?) // Week Two
I think poetic analysis was easily my favorite part of any high school English class. Analyzing novels and writing papers on those novels was entertaining and challenging, but each paper that I wrote would leave me feeling drained while poems solicited the opposite effect. Each poem I read through invigorated me, and each paper was fuel on the fire. I've been able to enjoy nearly every poem that I read in a classroom setting - even the ones that I had no hope of fully understanding - but for me "The Marvel", by Keith Douglas, fell far short of its name. I guess I'm not exactly a hardy seafarer, but the images described often failed to take me anywhere and when they did I found myself too hung up on the other aspects of the poem to fully appreciate them. The form that Douglas used was easily the poem's biggest detractor.
I can appreciate the skill it takes to craft a poem with true rhyme, and I can appreciate the beauty in a poem altogether without. But half rhyme, which is employed for the first five of the eight stanzas in "The Marvel", completely takes me out of the immersion that most poems provide. It probably stems from the fact that to me, when I read the work out loud in my head, a half rhyme sounds like it's clearly been forced. In fact, it sounds like a mistake on the part of the author and that also completely ruins my poetic experience. The rhyme scheme is also unintelligible throughout the poem. Instead of struggling to come up with a halfhearted terza rima or his own homebrew pattern, I think it would have improved my reading experience if Douglas had done away with rhyme entirely and flaunted his free verse proudly.
I can appreciate the skill it takes to craft a poem with true rhyme, and I can appreciate the beauty in a poem altogether without. But half rhyme, which is employed for the first five of the eight stanzas in "The Marvel", completely takes me out of the immersion that most poems provide. It probably stems from the fact that to me, when I read the work out loud in my head, a half rhyme sounds like it's clearly been forced. In fact, it sounds like a mistake on the part of the author and that also completely ruins my poetic experience. The rhyme scheme is also unintelligible throughout the poem. Instead of struggling to come up with a halfhearted terza rima or his own homebrew pattern, I think it would have improved my reading experience if Douglas had done away with rhyme entirely and flaunted his free verse proudly.
"The Snow Man", "The Tempest", and "The Marvel" reading response
The imagery in "The Snow Man" really captured me, as it painted a winter scene through the eyes of the snowman. The poet highlights the beauty of winter through the descriptions "the frost and the boughs" and "distant glitter." However, the poet's diction later on in the poem depicts a much different scene; namely, one of barren land and loneliness, as the he describes, "Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is". The speaker seems wistful. Furthermore, I really enjoyed "The Marvel" by Keith Douglas. Douglas' imagery conjures intense images, particularly when he mentions "the burning eye." His other descriptions also help paint vivid images, such as "sharp enquiring blade", "unusual sun's heat", and "gluttonous tides". I also enjoyed "The Tempest." As I read it, I couldn't help but feel as if the speaker has this immense dread of what is to come. It seems that the speaker knows something is inevitable and time passes slowly waiting for it happen.
Response to the Reading
I think my favorite out of all of them is The Snow Man. For one thing, I love winter. I love to go skiing, I love the quiet tranquility of walking through the woods, watching the snow float down and catch on the tree branches, and I think this poem captures that perfectly. I'm going to reserve judgement on the Tempest. It's quite interesting, but I want to hear everybody else's opinion before I venture my own. As for the Marvel, I like the way it starts out, introducing the death of a magnificent fish, then moves on to discuss the deaths of the sailors who catch the fish.
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