https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLwd_giY9dg

Cool word choice

An apparent shift from the female gaze to the male gaze

In the next linies, the speaker describes what men "still can't see"...why can't they see these seeminlgy apparent physical things? How/can men be better seers?

Hmm. It ought to make me proud?

As some of you know, you don't know an Angelou poem until you hear her read it. This recording has some small differences, but not key ones.

Consider tracking the characterization of the speaker--how/does it change/evolve?

Let's talk about love as instruction. Is it a lasting lesson? one that we need much instruction in?

You might notice that each stanza ends with a parenthetical statement. Track the effects or pattern of these statements.

The title is not a name or place, but the name of a strict closed form of poetry. You'll notice that the six words at the end of the first sestet (a six-line stanza) repeat in each of the subsequent sestets (in a different, but strict, order), and that they all are there in the closing three line stanza (known as the sestina's envoi).

This is a typo. It should be "mind"

There is no noticeable rhyme scheme for this poem, but these two lines and the very last two lines both rhyme, but I don't know if this is for a reason or it is just a coincidence.

The most regular of iambic lines of the poem. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called "blank verse", which you're familiar with due to your study of Shakespeare. Here, Heaney constructs a very regular ten-syllable line, but the monologue feels conversational rather than "poetic".

Click here for a reading of the poem by Greenhill School class of 2016's CL

Click here for Greenhill School's Flor Chavez reading the poem.

Check out this manuscript image hosted at Harvard's Emily Dickinson Archive! And click here to listen to Greenhill School's Kelly McCain read the poem.

Check out this manuscript image hosted at Harvard's Emily Dickinson Archive! And click here to listen to Greenhill School's Gillian Glengarry read the poem.

Click here for a reading by Greenhill's Assistant Head of School Tom Perryman.

Click here for a reading of the poem by Greenhill School's Genie Burke.

Click here to listen to Greenhill School's Scott Griggs read.

Greenhill School's Scott Cotton reads the poem here.

Greenhill School's Kindergarten teacher Rachel Baldwin reads the poem here.

Click here for Jenny Fisher's reading.

When taken out of the contraction, this would read "He is." Alexie subtly indicates the narrator's forgetfulness (that we're unaware of at this point), because the narrator refers to his/her father in the present tense. This, along with the casual language, gives this poem a sense of authenticity that is important when writing about grief.

Similarity to other poem

Repetition of other poem

Repetition of other poem

Repetition of other poem

Repetition of other poem (moved up and used almost as a joke)

Repetition of other poem

See line 2 of WIlbur's poem.

Alexie is either tipping his hat to this e.e. cummings love poem, or ... not tipping his hat to that poem.

Here is WIlbur's poem.

Click here for Jack Fisher's reading.

In general, I liked this poem because it is complicated but fun to read/flows well. I think this part represents that: In just four lines, he personifies the sky as trembling, compares the moon to a shell, describes the waning of the moon to waves, and incorporates time. However, even though he does so much in four lines, it is still easy to picture and therefore fun to read.

IMDB fans, any suggestions about which actors (or Greenhill folk) you would cast in the filming of this poem? Explain.

Believable/relatable claim? Relevance to poetry/manhood?

Now that you've read the whole thing, what is the relation between the speaker and the addressed "you" of the poem...husband and wife? friends? former lovers?

Yeats refers here to Genesis 3, when Adam eats the forbidden fruit and is punished by the Lord: "cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" Genesis 3:17-19.

Click here for Mel Girard's reading.

Earlier in the poem she said there wasn't any softness about her so does she mean softness in a different way or...?

When she says this does she mean there is nothing immature or childlike about her? Is she a structured woman now? Because when I think about softness I think of a baby or child, because they don't have any sharp bone structures.

I like that she uses pattern in a new way here, not to describe physical things like her dress or the garden paths, but to describe a concept like war.

I really like that this poem ends with a question, rather than beginning with one. The title of the poem seemed fitting during the first half of the poem, but there is a new significance to the title when the pattern the narrator envisioned is taken from her.

From the present "I walk" through the daydream/hopeful "I would" and finally to the bleak future "I shall"

In this stanza, Lowell's phrases become much shorter and more quickly paced than the longer, flowing phrases in the previous stanza. It seems like this is done on purpose to mimic the manner in which the speaker's passion has been abruptly interrupted by the cruelty and militance that killed her fiancee in war.

I'm really interested in how the speaker makes herself a subject, how she recharacterizes herself here.

This poem is published originally in 1916, FYI.

Before you read through the rest of the poem, consider this self-characterization. What might the speaker mean by this? Are you a rare pattern? a more common pattern?

Angelou uses ideal pairs, such as a caring nursery and a gentle kitchen, to show the contrast between how things should be and reality.

I'm not sure which poem was written first, but this is an obvious reference to "Still I Rise" (or if this poem was written first, possibly an inspiration?). From my reading of this poem I'm understanding that people tragically get a sense of unity from things that previously caused them to feel isolated.

Since we read J. Alfred Prufrock recently, I cannot help but notice how the speaker crafts immediately the horrors of slavery as a shared experience, how the speaker and the reader have a shared trauma.

Note the way Angelou moves from a nightmare topography here to, in subsequent lines, an actual domestic setting.

The third and last time Angelou summons this refrain.

I find it interesting that a demon appears at the end of the poem blocking the path to heaven. Through the poem it doesn't seem that there are any instances of sin or evildoing, only isolation. The narrator seems equally confused as earlier he says "The mystery which blinds me still". I wonder why the narrator suspects he is going to hell, or at least, sees apparitions of evil.

This seems to be yet another poem about isolation and feeling "alone". When thinking about the others poem we have read about feeling alone, this one is similar in the way that he feels as though he has nobody to understand him or to talk to him. I feel like a lot of us have felt like this at least some point in our life. The way to overcome this is to reach out to others, and find that "common spring".

Back to water imagery, imagery that is hinted at in the rain/storm of the poem's resolution.

Cool image. Sustaining, flowing, natural. This speaker does not bring his passions from the common spring. What, in your experiences, are the common springs from which one brings passions?

Click here to listen to Greenhill School Librarian Jenn Tirrell read the poem.

Reminds me, somehow, of that moment in Frost's "I'd like to get away from earth for a while" in Birches, how she shifts from the physical reality to her meditation.

I suppose you're supposed to read this one as if the title is the first line of the poem.

Click here to listen to Greenhill's Mary Tapia read the poem.

responsibility in friendships

It's interesting how the poet structures her poem in these one two and three line stanzas. One thing that's interesting is if you link all of the one line stanzas together you get a better understanding of what the poet is trying to say about the host's girlfriend

So he is now having a relationship with his past student? hmmm okay then

I'm going to do the lame thing and straight up attribute the dreamy and surreal nature of the poem to it literally being a dream. Sometimes you have dreams featuring the deceased and you wake up and there is no party. Just a weird interlude in life.

Since in the beginning she references the hosts girlfriend, I assume that the host is gay. I think it is interesting how a lot of the poems we have been reading a lot of same sex relationships have been presented. I wonder if this has anything to do with the authors background?

The way that this poem is structured is very intriguing. Why do you think different stanzas are indented in different places? Is there meant to be some sort of poem or meaning?

I like the proximity and distance that's suggested here. The speaker is, apparently, tight with the host but not the host's girlfriend.

"Heard" and "bird" and "Extremity" and "me" follow the ABBB rhyme scheme in the poem

This is the first time we see Dickinson uses the first person in this poem. It seems to be a turn from describing hope to explaining how hope is relevant to her life.

So... ''Hope'' = everlasting, sweetest/strongest, selfless? Each three stanzas seems to define hope as these three qualities.

In both poems Dickinson repeatedly uses this dash. I'm not not sure what her purpose is, but perhaps she is adding it at the end of each line to emphasize the end of the line, but not the thought (for example, a period would end the thought, where as a dash would make clear distinctions between each line, but keep her train of thought going). Also the dashes are very eye-catching, so it keeps the look of the poem very concise and clear (even if the words aren't doing the same).

I am sure there is a reason it is in Italian, but in Eliot's biography it doesn't say anything about him being able to speak Italian, so that means he is going out of his way to write it in Italian. Here is a rough (google) translation: If I believed that my reply was A person who never returned to the world, This flame (staria) no longer shock. But because of this never end I do not return alive any, (s'i'odo) true, Without fear of infamy I answer .

I noticed that several times in the poem he comments on his clothing—later he says that when he is old he will roll his pant legs—and this seems to be a way for him to describe how he perceives himself in the world. Though he is insecure about his balding and his thinness, he can use clothes, in this circumstance to help him feel more confident, but not too confident, as he only has a "simple pin."

The poem's structure is unlike any form we've seen before, it's very interesting to read and hear the pauses in every sentence because of the dashes and the random capitalization of certain words

I did my imitation on another one of Dickinson's poems and noticed her interesting use of capitalization there too. In that poem, it seems that she capitalized action words. In this poem, it seems that she capitalizes a number of words like the main characters in the poem as well as references to nature, but not all of her capitalizations fall into these categories.

I like that he describes the action of getting out of bed as a song as I would think to describe it either with visual descriptions or descriptions of feelings. This unique description made me try to picture it more.

Nearly every single line ends in an exclamation point or has multiple embedded within the line. This really makes it feel like he is trying to spread the word of G-d, but instead he is the G-d like figure.

When the child first asks Whitman about what grass is, he does not know how to answer. However, he quickly finds underlying meaning in it, using the grass to question the possibility of death's existence and praising its universal qualities. This unique perspective that common objects can be divine or immortal is explored throughout the entire poem.

Voices of is the example in this poem of words repeating.

Check out this guy who performs Whitman as a temple cantor might.

...

A kind of flirtation: A young woman would accidentally drop a handkerchief so that a young man could pick it up, give it to her, and talk to her. In polite society, this kind of elaborate play would be necessary because young women simply did not go up and talk to young men.

Is this a kind of dialogue between soul and body? A recollection of an erotic encounter? A metaphor for the relationship between the reader and the poet? Something else?

In our class, be prepared to discuss parts 1, 5, 6, 11, 24, and 52.

It makes little sense to say "the speaker" when talking about this poem, huh? : )

I was actually rather confused here, especially by the contrast in the Angels and the fearful portrayal of them. I really don't know what to make of it at all. At first I thought it was trying to convey the holiness of angels, but all of the frightful word choice makes me second that.

Both "Grief Calls us to the Things of This World" and "Love Calls us to the Things of This World" use balance however in "Things" Alexie uses unbalance.

Both "Grief Calls us to the Things of This World" and "Love Calls us to the Things of This World" used blessed however in this poem a stress is added

Both "Grief Calls us to the Things of This World" and "Love Calls us to the Things of This World" use the soul

Both "Grief Calls us to the Things of This World" and "Love Calls us to the Things of This World" talk about angels and in "Grief" it is used multiple times

Both "Grief Calls us to the Things of This World" and "Love Calls us to the Things of This World" use the word astounded

Both "Grief Calls us to the Things of This World" and "Love Calls us to the Things of This World" start with "the eyes open to a"

Okay, is Wilbur's soul saying it's a difficult balance for the nuns alone, or for thieves, lovers, nuns...that is, a difficult balance for all people?

The title is a kind of paraphrase/riff on Augustine's discovery late in his Confessions that God is in the world, not in some distant place. Here is a link to how some critics have responded to this poem.

I guess in terms of structure, here is a volta, right?

literally and figuratively!

Wilbur appeals to our ear most often by means of alliteration and consonance (w's and k's in this line) rather than by means of rhyme.

Wilbur uses ‘the’ as a pronoun, which implies a sense of depersonalization. The use of ‘the’ distances the speaker from the actions of the eye, soul, or window, etc. However, Wilbur could also use ‘the’ as a pronoun to create a narrative tone; it makes the speaker in the poem sound like a narrator to a story, rather than a speaker in a poem.

Heaven is mentioned twice in this poem and from the rest of the poem it may be trying to show that this action, this moment in time of playing with the birch trees and seeing the beauty that comes with them is the closest thing to perfection that the poet has ever come to.

This reminds me of reincarnation.

The closest that we get to a joke in just about any poem we've read.

One of the few sentences in the poem that isn't enjambed, plus it's regularly iambic.

Notice how it's a fanciful vision, a deliberate early move away from physical truth.

I like the multitude of commas here forcing the reader to take breaks after every description of a feature. To me it made me read it in a softer tone just as the woman's face is described.

Throughout the poem there are pairings like this, usually combining to adjectives to further emphasize something. Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells, Thy hair soft-lifted. Maybe

Here is the poem.

The narrator has been picking apples for so long that he is not only tired of it, but beginning to question the system. He wonders why all apples that fall, no matter what happens to them, become worthless. This wisdom can be related to some things other than apple picking.

It's also interesting that the narrator begins to notice the flaws in the system after so much time. It seems like time should make him numb to the flaws, not the opposite.

This image seems to play on the speaker's fatigue. When someone looks through a sheet of ice, they can see through it, however, their vision is somewhat warped. This also happens when someone is extremely tired.

He's speaking, of course, about a sheet of ice atop the water in the trough.

If you want a challenge, track the rhyme and see if any patterns or curiosities emerge.

This sudden halt within the poem's rhyme scheme stresses the importance of "his" experience with the snow.

Maybe it's nothing, but I'm love how Wilbur flips the meter at the beginning of lines like these. We need to ask Mr Worcester (tomorrow's reader) about the effects of this poem's shifting meter--sometimes iambic (the RAtion STACKS are MILky DOMES), but not exclusively so (BURNED on the MOON, COVered the TOWN)

Wilbur writes this in 1947. Alsace was "the epicenter of [Germany's] last major offensive of World War II. In December 1944 Hitler had ordered a last-ditch operation, code-named Nordwind, against the thinly stretched lines of the U.S. Seventh Army and the French First Army in the Vosges Mountains, in the west of the region. The Alsatian people, their homes, and their land were now in the middle of the Nazis’ final, desperate attempt to stave off the Allies" (link).

Keep an eye on the rhyme here. It's called terza rima, and Wilbur borrows this interlocking method from Dante's Divine Comedy: ABA BCB CDC...

This is a temporary shift in emotion. It's hopeful, but is preceded and followed by only negative points.

I think it is interesting how Owen uses the thick green light in his poem. We saw this light in Gatsby and it mainly symbolized what Gatsby could never have- Daisy. So I wonder if the green light symbolizes something about war here.

It ironic yet positive the way it is said

It sounds as if they are retreating or returning from a defeat of war. Broken and without dignity.

I like that the word Lie is capitalized and that the saying is referred to as The old Lie. Using the word The and capitalizing the word Lie emphasizes that the author thinks that this is an established, untruth. When the saying is contrasted with the sickening descriptions prior to it, it does seem like a Lie.

Literally, it is sweet and glorious to die for one's country.

Although it seems as if the speaker has moved off of the battlefield, the scenes he subsequently describes in his nightmares are as vivid as those he experienced in reality. The clever writing technique that blurs the lines between dreams and actuality helps drive home the author's point that the death and atrocities experienced during war are never worth the glory, before or after the fact.

that is, the lenses of a gas mask

Does memory exist in body or soul?

It would be interesting to pull up the idea of human nature when trying to analyze a certain and uncertain scenario. If you are certain that life is enjoyable in the now, then why does one then head for the uncertain? Often times humans, at least, might gamble for something greater because the now does not satisfy their greed, posing an interesting statement towards some aspects of religion.

It is interesting that the author personifies the soul (and the body as the body is speaking to "you," the soul) because it seems like the soul is on the edge of alive or not. Some people might perceive the soul as a living thing only while the body is alive. Other people might think of the soul as always alive. Some people might not even think of the soul as having life.

It's interesting that first the narrator uses the word "prisoner," but then later uses the word "shelter," which has a safer and more positive connotation.

It's interesting to note the stylistic differences to a similar theme. In Marvell's it's a dialogue, two different elements talking to each other. Body and soul criticizing each other. But even though there are separate stanza's and speakers, the entire poem is made cohesive by the AABBCCDD rhyme scheme. Within the stanza's, the lines often times end in some form of punctuation.

This is totally different. When it's just body, there's no set pattern, no stanza, and many of the lines are enjambed. Perhaps even when body and soul are pushing against each other, their more organized and uniform together? Or maybe it's that structure is rigid when accusing the other of imprisonment while when the body is defending it's freedom, the structure is more free form.

The third (?) time that the body reproaches the soul for forgetting.

Again, keep Marvell's poem in mind.

Read between the lines. Why might the body panic, according to Solly?

How do you think that Marvell decided who had the first word and who got the last? Is it even important?

It is amusing to me that this is considered a dialogue due to the fact that neither of the two lecturers are truly engaging in conversation. Instead they are almost preaching their own thoughts and ideas without listening to their opponent.

Warning, wall of text incoming. You have been warned.

There's a lot of things here in this poem and I think lots of people will see this poem differently. At a surface level the poem is about the two parts of one's being; I am assuming the existence of a soul for the purpose of this conversation. The soul and the body do not see eye to eye, they do not understand each other and wish to part. They believe they have it harder than the other having to endure the consequences the presence of other generates. As Elise noted, the body feels the pulls of the soul's emotion, and the soul feels controlled by the body, afflicted by it's humanly diseases. Thinking deeper though, it seems the both want the same thing: death. Not only do these two elements want to part, but they wish for the death of themselves. Here, the body, questionably, suggests that without the presence of the soul, it would be able to peacefully die. The body states that it doesn't want to live in the first place. Later down where I highlighted the lines "only to endure... the cure", the soul echoes this desire, stating that the pain from being afflicted by disease is no comparison to the pain of knowing it must go on living, as the body produces a cure. Why can't these two get along and mutually kill themselves? If they hate it so much, why not end it as they very blatantly want to do. Slight tangent to this, the body asserts that without the soul it would die, saying the soul "MADE me live". Assuming that the soul is the source of emotion as asserted in the last stanza, the body contradicts itself slightly, as it says without the soul's emotion, it would never exist. I personally believe it is possible to live without feeling emotion, and might even be better, so it surprises me that the body claims it's existence is only relevant because of the soul's presence. Maybe the intent all along was to question the notion of existence in the first place, and the inherent contradictions that accompany it.

But then again... that's all speculation.

The AA, BB, CC, etc. rhyme scheme, almost made this conversation between body and soul sound a little bit like a song.

See my other comment on the lines "Has made me live to... it posessed."

Is the soul maybe suggesting a two-sided person, with the words double-heart? Because vanity could also help insinuate that idea. Also, there seems to be content between the soul and body, so perhaps the soul is using the words double heart to represent the split between the body and soul.

I find it interesting how Marvell talks about how the body can deal and overcome physical pain however, emotional pain is much more severe and there is not some type of medicine you can take to "cure" it. Emotional pain is something that has to be fixed over time.

It is strange to think of the body feeling confined by the soul as opposed to the other way around. I usually think of a soul as existing without a body and throughout time, so the body feeling confined by the soul is a new idea for me.

Note the Rhyme Scheme in each of these stanzas. This poem differs than most poems we have read because it has an AABBCCDD... Rhyme scheme that we don't see too often.

The poem is shot through with (rhetorical?) questions

Consider carefully the symbolic terms that ground each part of the dialogue--here, slavery/imprisonment and sensory deprivation.

Maybe it's worth noticing that the body gets the last word.

Is this "somebody" a reference to God (or to a god)? Is this ambiguous, extemporaneous bringing of things into existence a reference to Genesis (which describes the making of order out of chaos)? The doily and the plants and the arrangement of the cans into rows are the lone ordered things in the world Bishop creates, full of extraneous, dim, oil-soaked things. All the order that exists in this world is thanks to the "somebody."

These questions remain unanswered in the poem. What is the purpose of posing a question without a resolution? I think perhaps Bishop intends for the reader to introspectively decide the purpose of these stereotypically feminine objects in a primarily manly environment.

Although Bishop has described griminess of the gas station in depth, the repetition in this stanza emphasizes another aspect of the place. She senses effort and love that someone put into making the station feel like home. The reiteration of this idea with the word "somebody" helps Bishop arrive at her final point: that, "somebody loves us all."

I find it interesting that Elizabeth Bishop uses polysyndeton within the poem. Using 'and' frequently instead of the use of commas. Normally we are taught to not use connecting words frequently and so close together so I always find it fascinating when poets use polysyndeton within their writing.

I'd love to hear your ideas about how you react to these meter and vowel sounds

How many times does this word get repeated? :)

The rhyme scheme the poet uses in this poem is one we haven't seen in a poem all year. We see a very consistent "ABABAB" rhyme scheme throughout all three stanzas.

It's very interesting how Byron uses contrasting adjectives to convey the different aspects of beauty that "She" represents.

I really enjoy the alliteration in this poem- it flows very well and has a musical tone to it

Though I understand that the word nameless is important here because it shows that her grace is too amazing to describe, it seems out of place when every element of her before and after this mention is perfectly described by comparing her beauty to nature's beauty.

Doty may be putting a spin on the new use of this word that has a painful past.

The italicization of the slur really makes it stand out. It disassociates the feeling from that of the other words. Almost making the word seem unfitting and as if it does not belong in the poem/the english language.

The way I perceived this makes me kind of sad. Since he is a homosexual and he is called all types of names he has accepted and assumed that those names describe him so he settles within them and considers himself a "faggot" or "queer". He gives into the stereotype instead of breaking free of it.

In tragedy, maybe y'all talked about the dramatic function of peripety (reversal). Here, Doty constructs an imaginative rewind of the tragedy.

Remind me to tell you what Doty told my students about homophobic slurs years ago when we Skyped.

I'm really taken by how Doty bravely includes this pejorative stereotype--that homosexual men have limp wrists.

You'll notice that this poem is written in quatrains and ends in a couplet. You're familiar with how both function in Shakespeare's sonnets--how do they function here?

During this poem, it is hard to tell if he is being respectful and complimentary of the woman's beauty or if he is being shallow and focused only on her outer beauty. This last line, however, seems a little vulgar, taking away the sweet, complimentary parts of the poem.

The rhyme scheme in this stanza is abcdeee, while in the other stanzas it is ababccc. Interesting how the rhyme scheme becomes more regular as the poem continues, perhaps mimicking the increasing comfort and depth that the man and woman share during their relationship.

Look again at the title: From what you can tell, what happened to this relationship? Was the love reciprocated?

A caesura, that is, a pause within a line of poetry. This poem has (from what I can tell) no enjambment. A very deliberate, patient (?) rhythm and pace.

The woman's effects are described first on nature, then on the speaker.

Each stanza resolves by means of three successive rhymes and a parenthetical statement.

This "naked support" justifies the unique beauty presented to us a line later. Doty seems to make beauty the product of passion.

Doty oddly rhymes "name" and "frame" here, but chooses not to explicitly rhyme anywhere else.

These unusual line breaks give the poem a new aspect of physical appeal.

Everyone else seems to have a sense of "nervous energy" when they try drawing in a particular way but with Brian we see throughout the poem that he lacks this "energy" and draws whatever he so desires.

Interesting to discuss the idea that art can be a median for which we can take away a story rather than simply appreciating a work at face value. As well as the idea that overthinking or overanalyzing a work is not a bad thing, but rather good that you can reflect and take meaning from something meaningless.

Interesting choice of stanza break here, seeing as it's the middle of a sentence. Perhaps this nonsensical, random split mimics the "impossible" and peculiar yet intriguing nature of Brian's drawing?

This is a very relevant line because as a society, we tend to look for a reason for not just beauty, but for many things in life. Humans like having some sort of organization/order, and the poet argues that no having these things is what beauty is truly made up of.

Remember the speaker here--a poet, a person who make a living bringing life to the page.

The only eight-line stanza--all the others are nine lines long.

I find it odd that the narrator is asking about the songs of spring then reassures himself in the next line. It sounds as if the narrator is having an internal conversation? To be honest I have absolutely no idea what to make of this. The narrator adresses whomever he is speaking to in both the 4th line of the 2nd stanza, and its seems here as if he is a human figure, and again here, where it sounds as if the narrator is speaking to the Autumn. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

I found it interesting that "Autumn" is being described with physical features such as her "soft-lifted" hair.

Interesting that the first two stanzas are set up very similarly but have completely different tones and emotions.

I know I commented about this in class, but I had (wrongfully) assumed that we were reading more poetry for today and would annotate those poems. I feel the argument holds water that the rhyme scheme is representative of the freedom of the bird, and it's free form stanzas, and the caged bird, and it's stanzas with AA BB type rhyme scheme, breaking on the last line to show a longing for freedom. I am confused, however, here, where the free bird has a rhyming couplet before breaking a rhyme, similar to that rhyme of the caged bird stanzas. I don't really know what to make of this. Perhaps that even "free birds" are caged to an extent?

Throughout this sonnet we see a structure like this where he repeats one word but uses another to describe it. We see this with "bone-house, mean house" and "own nest, wild nest" I think this is meant to really show the importance of the words nest, house, and fowl

Note the Alliteration in these first two lines with the consonant s and the consonance in the last line with wring, barriers, fear, rage. That Alliteration in the third to last line of the stanza highlights the important of one of the only positive moments of the poem.

The point of the poem goes beyond recognizing the effects of literature and it's purpose. It also pushes the reader to recognize their purpose and the purpose of the world.

I often feel this thought in my own life. I feel like I want to be going in "my own direction" and not the direction that people want me to go in.

So, did you strategically introduce the idea of "poetry about poetry" for Wallace Stevens?

To me, this is a poem a comparison, between the physicality of a mountain and a poem as well as a meditation on the creating of fiction

I mean it's all about a poem that takes the place of a mountain i.e something spiritual and literary taking the place of an actual physical option. I think the third stanza is about poetry, namely the effect of poetry. I also think the 5th and the 7th stanza talk about the place poetry gets you. (where he could be complete/his unique and solitary home)

On the nature of creation: the dude is literally living in the literature, even when the book is covered in dust he's breathing it in. (Does he need this oxygen to sustain himself?) The fourth stanza is pretty clearly talking about the nature of editing a work and how something as monumental (clearly Steven's believes that poetry can take the place of even a mountain) can just change. When you believe literature to be transcendent, the act of honing and editing takes on a new meaning. Dude's literally playing G-d in these passages. Although in a personal sense. There's no plurality in these poems. No viewer besides himself. He's looking for a place where he would be complete in the unexplained. He's looking for his "solitary home"

I find it interesting how this poem is made up of 7 stanza's (bibilcally, it took 7 days to create the Earth) and 14 lines (like a sonnet). So another possible intersection between poetry and creation? A comparison between literally creating something physical i.e the mountain like G-d and creating something transcendent i.e a poem like Stevens.

I like how the poet is using a book as a symbol in the poem. It reminds me of what we talked about in class of how all poetry represents poetry.

The quiet in the house, and the quiet in the readers mind, lets the reader have absolute access to every word on the page. It lets the reader have absolute focus to a point where the reader can envision themselves as the scholar it wants to be so ‘‘much most.‘‘

There's an effective use of assonance in this poem, look how many words have quiet, low vowels (house, was, world, calm, etc) in comparison to how few high action vowels there are ("ae" "ay" etc). Not a huge stretch thematically that a poem about quietness and calm when reading deliberately chooses quieter an calmer vowels.

Interesting how the poem's sentences continue while being split between stanzas

Hmm. What's the qualitative difference between reading and studying a book you love?

Not sure why I love this reassertion, but I do.

I'd love to hear your opinions about the syntax (word order) here.

What is the effect of the repeated line in this poem?

Interesting how the poem doesn't contain any breaks or any rhyme scheme..

Ha! The neighbor speaks in aphorisms.

Interesting observation that really drives the inquiry of the poem--why do we need walls?

Though this poem does not rhyme, it sometimes rings out in a strict metrical pattern--black verse, that is, unrhymed iambic pentameter. And SPILLS the UPper BOULders IN the SUN

Graves uses polysyndetons within the poem by repeating the words 'enclosed by'

For me I read this (maybe not as the main point but I still found it relevant) about the power of both literature and knowledge and how we can only debate who we are as individuals and who others are in society after gaining knowledge and immersing oneself in a different world to acquire a better sense of who you, yourself, is as a person.