The Coming Of Wisdom with Time

This poem is very unique because it only has four lines, and yet it expresses so much. The way i was this poem was that "the leaves were many. the root is one", was easily related to high school because there are a lot of students, but you are only one person amongst all the others. and the second line kind of says how "the lying days of my youth" is how these four years of being portrayed was who everyone else wants me to be, maybe isn't the truth. And throughout the growth and years it becomes easier to be yourself. In the last line, it kind of relates to as graduation gets closer with everyday, the truth of who we truly are starts to show. And as the years pass we become more comfortable with who we are. We no longer care to be who everyone else wants us to be.

The Possibility

James Fenton: english poet, journalist, and literacy critic. Son of a Biblical scholar.


The poem:
The first line, "The lizard on the wall, engrossed" reminds me of Florida when the lizards would climb all over the house and onto the windows. The seemed to think that we couldn't see them, like they were blending into the background. Even though we saw them, they believed the were invisible. When you take something for granted, or forget the importance of something, you may lose the "good" in that object. The flower that was once so beautiful, he didn't find beautiful at first. Maybe with the first inpression it wasn't as great. Work is beautiful because it is an art, and states the independence of a person. Work may also show pride for some people. He also states, "my solitude was beautiful" was, so now he doesn't think it is beautiful? Maybe the author feels guilt for signs he didn't see earlier. He thought he could handle all of his flaws, but maybe he couldn't handle anything after all. Maybe with time pain may heel, but in this poem i think the poet is trying to express how hardship can be overcome with the simple understandings of life.

Ethics

The poem Ethics discribes the authors memory from school, and the importance of one teachers question. This poem actually made me wonder to myself, whether or not i'd save a human or a painting? Common sense would be to save the lady, but if the lady was bound to die soon, wouldn't you want to save the painting that could live forever? Although many people would have different answers to this question, there really is no right or wrong answer. Even the poet ponders the question over to herself, but in all opinion i believe the old lady should be saved from a fire whether or not she is going to die soon. A painting is juts a painting, and a person is something that you can never replace, nor get back. Ethics are what you believe they should be, fire is mostly named for power and overcoming strength. Maybe with just these two key words the author was trying to get a simple point across that as humans, sometimes we make the wrong decisions daily. Also, maybe our ethics and values are prioritized correctly.

Wallflowers

Wallflowers-"flowering plant cultivated in gardens." -a person wo, cause of shyness, unpopularity, or a lack of a partner, remains at the side at a party or dance.


The poem Wallflowers, was not my first choice of a poem to blog about, for some reason I did not like this poem... i found it rather pointless. but after they taught this poem as a class, reading the poem later on made a lot more sense to me. I believe that Donna wrote this poem meaning Wallflowers was the word she had descovered, and throughout the poem talked about. Wallflowers, just like a lot of other words, was maybe comminly used but know one actually understood the meaning. Its very true with a lot of words that people seem to hear a word then use it a lot in their conversations and soon it becomes a part of who that person is. Sometimes it's the actual meaning of the word, or it is just the reputition of using the word that makes the word "owned" by someone. She is inviting unknown, or uncommon words into her poem, or into her life.

To myself

A little background of knowing, W.S. Merwin is an American poet and was writing during the anti-war movement and studied buddhism. The poem was W.S. notiong to himself all the thoughts going on in his head. "I am sure you were here a moment before..." This quote to me represents when you lose someone, it is kind of hard to understand that they are really gone. All you can think about is that they were there before and you just cannot believe that they are gone. Also this poem comes across as someone just trying to recognize themselves. They were someone, and throughout all the changes life can bring they completely changed so he tries to remember who he was. If he could just remember what it was like before losing himself then maybe he could be happier again.

Inoculation

The Inoculation was actually one of the first poems i read throughout our packet. I never wanted to blog about this poem because i found it so confusing. This poem seemed to be about a slave and the disease holding down his freedom even more. I believed the poem was once again a poem about freedom and all the different ways that it was possibly taken away in the time of slavery. Once i heard Jeff talk about the poem to the class i completely understood the poem when spoken to me. The entire class saw it from the eyes of the bible, and slaves. They saw it in the way i did when i first read the peom. Obviously for me not to write about the poem it wasnt because i didnt like it, but because i knew there was more meaning behind the Inoculation. Inoculation means to affect or treat in the medical world. As being a student devoted to learning more about medicine, i realized that this poem about small pox was not only relating to freedom, but also the way the disease was becoming controlled. Small Pox was around for many years killing people of all ages, as the poem was saying, people would find someone already infected with the disease and try to scratch a part of their skin to inject the infectious disease. Although this theory of treatment seemed a little extreme it was rather an experiement that would change the way we control diseases for the rest of our lives. This poem was talking about the beginning fight for freedom amongst slaves, as much as the fight for freedom against killing diseases. Vaccinations was the thought i got out of this poem the more i began to read between the lines. This is my favorite poem it is something that im completely interested in, and its something that most poets dont want to write about. If you dont know the history, most readers wont understand the point of the poem. I think more poems should be history related, rather than love or life or death.

The Halo That Would Not Light

The Halo That Would Not Light, was a brilliantly written poem, but it was hard to understand why she structured the poem the way she did. Some of the sentences were aligned differently than others. Im not sure if there was any significance to the structure but it was something that I noticed. Also it really helped once Elena talked about how the author wrote this poem, she wrote it in memory of a young child that had past away. When i read this story i viewed it as a child who was abused, i thought that the "halo that would not light" was the child that couldn't smile, or "live". i didnt view it as someone who past away i thought it was someone being robbed of her childhood in conclusion to the abuse. Either way it was viewed i thought it was the best poem within our packet. Not because it was sad or anything but it had more meaning, and not so many pointless metaphors like the others.