Learning--the Everlasting Journey

I found "The Idea" by Mark Strand to be about one attempting to get out of where they were and getting to another place, obtaining knowledge and experience he/she didn't have. The poem starts with these lines: "For us, too, there was a wish to possess / Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves, / Beyond our power to imagine..." (Strand 1-3). The "us" in the poem wanted to go beyond the world they know to possess something out there--to obtain more than what they have. The poem continues: "...something nevertheless / In which we might see ourselves; and this desire / Came always in passing, in waning light..." (Strand 3-5). By attaining another perspective, they would be able to look at themselves from that other perspective, being able to see what they haven't seen before, another side of them. Also, that desire they had came in vagueness. They may not have been sure about the emerging desire, being so dismal; and/or they may have been trying to hold it back--knowingly or incautiously. Although they finally find another place, they didn't step out of the liminal place and step in there:

And there appeared, with its windows glowing, small,
In the distance, in the frozen reaches, a cabin;
And we stood before it, amazed at its being there,
And would have gone forward and opened the door,
And stepped into the glow and warmed ourselves there,
But that it was ours by not being ours,
And should remain empty. That was the idea. (Strand 14-20)

Although the place looked much comforting and warm compared to the coldness they had came through, they decided not to go in there. They say that the "cabin" was theirs by not being theirs. Even though they don't own the place, they know it from their perspective. It was something in their perspective at that point since they are looking at it from the outside. However, if they enter the cabin, they have a whole new perspective, and even if they settle down after the bewilderment and come up with another stable perspective, it will be different from what they had before, and that perspective would not have been the one of the past them. What was the purpose of the idea? By stating that it shall remain empty by not going in there, however, they are saying that they had come all the way through the liminal space to not go where they had planned to. Are they afraid of going in there--afraid at what may be in there? They could find something completely different and new...but they could find the things that they know of. Are they afraid of finding out that the suffering they went through to get here was meaningless? Or, have they attained what they wanted from the traveling and therefore seek no more? Was the step in solving the one that was the most meaningful and not the results?

The Building of Power

In “Power” by Adrienne Rich, the fact that the present is made up of the past is described. How our “now” is built by the events in the past. For an example, Marie Curie died from getting exposed to radiation. I thought it was also interesting how the poem expressed, “she suffered from radiation sickness / her body bombarded for years by the element / she had purified” (Rich 7-9). Curie cleansed the element by becoming the container of the plague. She was the scapegoat of the terrible affects of radiation. At the end of the poem, it is written, “her wounds came from the same source as her power” (Rich 17). Power is something obtained by building confidence, the building of past events, which also creates wounds.

The title of the poem is “Power.” The lines in this poem sometimes have unusual breaks, with more than one space between words. In her first stanza, the first word broke off unusually, is the word “in.” In the second stanza, it’s “out”; in the third stanza, it’s “from”; in the last stanza, it’s “a.” I interpreted this as a transition of the speaker consisting of power: one goes in and out of the state containing power, one obtains something from power, and one becomes a power. Therefore, one becomes power after playing with it and practicing it through time.

The Seeds of Tears

In "Sestina" by Elizabeth Bishop, the terms such as rain, tears, stove and almanac are repeteadly applied. Since I could go on and on about the terms, I will focus on the rain and the tears. The grandmother's tears are equinoctial--pertaining to a state of equal day and night (Oxford English Dictionary). The tears she tries to hide are balanced, probably meaning to have both happy and sad purposes for them. Although they are balanced in a sense, it is the inbetween liminal state. She is stuck in liminality. Since she hides the tears, the sky is crying, as the "September rain falls on the house" (Bishop 1). Even "the teakettle's small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house" (Bishop 14-6). The tears dancing like mad gives me a vision of someone dancing a "Waltz of Sorrow" if there was such thing, or even kind of acting or overaction of madness. It reminds me of Hamlet when he appears in front of Ophelia like a ghost, and of Ophelia when she is driven mad after finding out about her father's death in Hamlet. There is a theatric-like nuance to this line. I could envision the grandmother's sorrow dancing furiously inside her. The balance may be applied to the dance in a very interesting way. The dance, is sort of controlled because of the balance. Since there is the day and the night part to her tears, she can't go on about one, and has to balance them out, which turns out to balance the dance, giving it a kind of a control. Therefore, the dance is not simply of madness but is of a controlled madness--something far more dangerous than just a madness since now the person has time to think, to use the intelligence to create something horrible out of it. Another important aspect of this part is that the "rain must dance on the house" (Bishop 16). It does say that the tears and the rain "were both foretold by the almanac" (Bishop 9). But does the rain "must dance" or "must dance on the house"? Does it have to dance on the house, or can it be anywhere else? The house is a very important property of people. It gives them shelter and security, and is a device to express themselves. Since it is raining on the house, the house may be in a danger in a way. Even if they are small drops of water, if it keeps on pecking the same place over and over, they make a hole. If so, the shelter now has a small fault--a small hole--in the roof which makes it imperfect and less secure. But also, since it is raining outside, the people in the house probably would not go out unless it is necessary. The rain keeps the people in the house, giving more security to them: making them more safe but less active. Maybe the grandmother is afraid to go out and experience the world where, although good things occur, bad things may occur as well. The rain must dance--why? Dancing is an art form. She may be trying to express her tears beautifully. However, dancing is also a kind of ritual as well. It may be implying that she has to let her tears come out in order for her to move on--to escape the liminal status she is in. Then her teacup is "full of dark brown tears" (Bishop 22). Since the teacup has tea in it, it should be hot. Either she doesn't drink it or it doesn't help, "she shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove" (Bishop 23-4). That happens right after the teacup is introduced. Have the tea cooled down by the time it was referred to in the poem? Is it because of the "tears" that fills the cup and not "tea"? The house also fails to give her shelter as she shivers. Is this because she doesn't let go of her tears and keep them in? As I have mentioned before, she probably has to let her feelings rule her for a moment and let things go out in order to escape the instability. Then the buttons of the man the child draws are tears as well. Usually children's pictures are heart-warming and makes people smile. Now the grandmother can't help but see the buttons as her tears. But this doesn't make her feel better because the picture is not really crying for her: they are buttons drawn by the child. Buttons hold the clothes together and usually helps straighten oneself. The grandmother is straigtening herself up by containing her tears. Although it is orderly, people sometimes need to let him/herself out. She won't be able to escape her status forever if she keeps hiding her tears. Now the "little moons fall down like tears" (Bishop 29). She is also "in the failing light" (Bishop 2). The light--clarity, hope, warmth--is failing and falling, and if she doesn't stop that, she would slip into darkness, with much difficulties to find the way out. At the end, the almanac says, "Time to plant tears" (Bishop 37). In order to plant them, she has to let them out of her. What grows from the seed of tears? Is it a refreshing happiness or an outraging sorrow? Is it the path out of liminality?

Ancient Yet Still Powerful

In "The Colossus," Sylvia Plath refers her father to the large, powerful, artifact of the past. For an example, she refers to his lips as "great lips" (line 4). She also speaks about something similar to wanting to kill him, even after he had died: "Thirty years now I have labored / To dredge the silt from your throat" (lines 8-9). Although, his physical presence in her world had ceased, he still exists in her, taking a large part of her, since she refers to an object--the Colossus of Rhodes, which I have assumed from her mentioning of the sun--which is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was actually destroyed by an earthquake after 54 years of standing, which is the age her father was at when he passed away. Even after it's wreckage, the Colossus is still alive, intriguing people with wonders. In a sense, one doesn't die out until he/she is completely forgotten. Since not only can't she forget her father, but she is still struggling with the memories of him inside her, he is not completely dead. This poem extravagantly portrays his strong existence in her.
What is interesting in her poem is the fact that she includes a lot of Greek elements but not only so, mentioning the Roman Forums. She actually directly relates him to the Roman Forum in line 18. While Greek mythology acknowledges lying as a source of winning, Roman mythology doesn't. I am not sure yet why she included a mixture of the two ancient societies, but I think there is something to it. I think it is interesting to do more research on this topic and get more insights about this poem.

The Use of Repetition

Langston Hughes’ poems have a lot of repetition. If the repetition is of a whole line, it usually repeats itself only once. In “Hard Daddy,” he also has a lot of repetition, especially of whole lines. In the first stanza, the girl reports to her father, “I have got the blues,” two times (Hughes 2-4). Although it may be that the line was repeated just for emphasis, her statement is simply waved off when her father replies, “Honey / Can’t you bring better news?” (Hughes 5-6). In the next stanza, the lines “…cried on his shoulder but / He turned his back on me” is repeated (Hughes 7-10). It could be that the girl tried two times and her father rejected her for both, but it also could be that it was a flashback, as to emphasize his action. Either way, it is true that the repeated lines are emphasized. In the last stanza, the lines “…wish I had wings to / Fly like de eagle flies” is repeated (Hughes 13-6). A lot of the readers may believe that the girl wants to be free of sorrows, soaring through the sky carelessly or some other ideas of flying and/or freedom. However, the poem ends with the surprising idea that she wants to “scratch out both his [i.e. her father] eyes” (Hughes 17-8). The emphasis that she wants wings before the last two lines helped build up the wrong images in my mind, which grabbed my heart with surprise. Langston Hughes’ use of repetition is very deep and there seems to be multiple reasons for them. It is a difficult item to decipher, but I find it one of the most interesting and intriguing elements of his poems.

Too Much Liminality

In "A Grave" by Marianne Moore, the speaker is dying, standing in the sea. She describes that "it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing" (3). In other words, people tend to go into liminal status. However, one cannot stay there forever because it is unstable. Although one need to experience liminality a lot during one's lifetime, it is impossible to stay liminal forever. It is crucial to find a way to get out of it. For an example, one cannot stay between sky and water forever with nothing to stand on; one will drown. Too much liminality may drive one into death of any kind, just like the speaker in the poem.

Don't Jump at Conclusions

In "Dust of Snow" by Robert Frost, the dust of snow saves the speaker's "some part / Of a day [he] had rued" (7-8). Dust and crow are usually referred to something not so pleasant. A hemlock is actually poisonous, and therefore, has more negative connotation. The black crow, however, shakes the hemlock tree, showering the speaker with the dust of snow, which he gives a positive feedback. A crow, from above him, shakes down the dust, as if shaking him to say "wake up"!! The "dust" of snow falls from the hemlock tree, which has white flowers. Although poisonous, it attains white flowers, as if to show it's pureness, adding on to the snow that gives the speaker's heart "a change of mood" (5-6). The dust the speaker is showered with actually helps him. Frost plays with words, expressing the possibility of the things with negative connotations to have positive impact. This poem also shows how one could get moved by something trivial. Small happiness is happiness and always helps the person. Also it is important to find the happiness and let the small happiness reach oneself: be open for it. It is much ignorant to assume something. The openness is the key to success.

The History is Now and the Now is History

In Wallace Stevens' "A Postcard from the Volcano," he wrote:
"And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt

At what we saw." (7-10)
He expresses how the present is made up of the past, and even though one may not notice, without the past there is no present. What people left before are important, and how they come out to appear in the present is intriguing. However, a thing cannot be described by the past only. It includes its past, its present, its potential future, the different opinions about, the different sides of it, and its opinion. It may be that, to completely understand the object, one have to take account of every single piece--not leaving out anything. Even though everybody have different views and opinions, none of them are solely wrong. But may does not mean that everything is right. Then what is right and what is wrong? If one thinks tomatoes are nasty and one thinks they're great, which is right? Can both be right? Are there such things as right and wrong? Everything has pros and cons. Is anything really good or bad? Is it possible to categorize everything in the two groups or would they all come out neutral overall? Is it possible to find out every single thing about a thing? Humans only have limited knowledge and limited space to use it. One may not know, for an example, why their house was built, why the house is of that appearance, what had happened in the house before, the significance of the material, the place, etc, who built it, etc...but he/she still lives in it. Does it matter to know every single aspect of something? How much do we have to know in order to live in this world? To what extent of knowledge do we not have to acquire so we would not be "ignorant"? We only have limited knowledge and we have to work with it. There should be a meaning and some kind of essence in the limit. However, it is important to remember how the present is nonexistent without the past...and that is one of the reasons we learn history in school!!!

The "Kathleen"

In "Danse Russe" by William Carlos Williams, the speaker of the poem adresses almost everything in a personal sense: "my wife," "my north room," "my mirror, "my shirt," "my arms" etc. There is a lot of "I" as well: seven in all. In the second line, however, there is "the baby and Kathleen." He does not refer to the baby as his own. The baby may not be his. If it was his baby, however, why would he refer to him/her as "the baby"? This poem is quite like the speaker escaping, at least in a mental way, his own life--being "lonely" without the others intruding in his life. It may be that the baby was impersonal for that reason. Same could be said for "Kathleen" too. The one thing that makes peculiar about "Kathleen" is that, that is the only proper noun written in this poem. The speaker, his wife, nor the baby had been identified with names. If she was his daughter, he could have written "my daughter." If it was a servant, he could have written "the servant." If it was his dog, he could have written "my dog." What was the meaning of this queer creativity? Although the speaker does say that he is "best so" at being "lonely," he could possibly be reaching out for someone to grasp his hand and tell him "no." He may be pointing out that something that one may think is the "best" may not be, and the person may be longing something else--something else that he/she may not have noticed--reaching out for it unconsciously.

The "Lala"s and "Lulu"s of Our Mind

Gertrude Stein plays with the readers' mind in a queer way and, because of that, some may find her poems quite confusing and indecisive. She very well portrays people's mind activities and the ambiguities in our everyday life--the reality some may find to not want to touch and/or accept. Ambiguity and the incomprehensive part of our world is frightening and a lot tend to not want too much of those. For an example, some, including myself, are afraid of ghosts. Ghosts are invisible and not scientifically decipherable, and because of that, it contains power. The ambiguous power makes people feel insecure and unstable. Another example is the fear of earthquakes and other natural disasters. Although technology have advanced quite a lot and a lot of machines can catch the sign before the occurance, the strength of the disasters can still not be absolutely predictable. Also, even if some may feel they have the control over nature, that is impossible because the power of nature is ambiguous and gives it power.

Stein's poems possibly give readers some kind of uncomfortableness or unstableness. She repeats a lot of words, exhausting them as she uses them in various ways. In "Sacred Emily," she repeats a lot as well, giving some readers a headache and insecureness because the poem seems unable to be controlled. The readers cannot wrap their hands around the poem and cuddle it in their arms. Instead, the poem slips, drips, flies, and teleports out, dancing, running, skipping, cartwheeling and doing everything imaginable making the readers baffled and uncomfortable. But if one stops and thinks--thinks about it for a moment--one may be able to realize how the poem is just like our state of mind when we space out during class, when we are trying to get to sleep, when we are walking, when we are not thinking about thinking. I could be thinking about pigeons while someone is talking about calendars. Our mind is incontrollable. We start thinking about one thing, ending up with something completely different. An easier example: we start talking about one thing, ending with something absolutely different. Our mind exercises--either on its own or not. Our mind is incontrollable, indecisive, a trickster, a necessity, dancing and jumping and cartwheeling a lot of the time, unnoticed. We may be quite uneasy and alarmed by it, but our mind is a necissity. It is nice to remember that a lot of things are not in our hands but slips out and twists around continuously.

Our minds do work that way oftenly--start thinking about one thing and the mind works out like crazy! In the poem, for an example, Stein writes:
Ethel.
Ethel.
Ethel.
Next to barber.
Next to barber bury.
Next to barber bury china.
Next to barber bury china glass.
Next to barber china and glass.
Next to barber and china.
Next to barber and hurry.
Next to hurry.
Next to hurry and glass and china.
Next to hurry and glass and hurry.
Next to hurry and hurry.
Next to hurry and hurry.
Plain cases for see. (96-111)
How often do people do this in their brain? Do we even know? Our minds are fantastic: too wonderful that it can think on and on about peculiar "stuff." The ability of our minds are unknown and people are therefore awed and tickled by it, making them quite uncomfortable at times. It is nice, however, to acknowledge it and feel the tink, which Stein helps to sparkle on us.