The repetition of this says "we're all the same, we're all crazy, angry, and miserable." But he means the generation, not just the people mentioned in the poem. He means everyone. The creatives, the unconventionals, the beatniks, the youth were ready for change and revolution. No longer was society about decorum and the adults, but now it was about the youth. He embraces his crazy, and is right there with the others.

Time and space is a huge theme, plus they are capitalized, implying greater importance. Does he feel like he is running out of time, does he have infinite time, or is he stuck inbetween ("illuminating all the motionless world of Time between"). Perhaps that is what is fueling the angst he feels - neither here nor there. It's only a matter of time before his mind is destroyed as well as the others. The poem moves from place to place, with very specific descriptions of each - each stanza seems like a moment in time, suspended in his memory. No space (alleyway, bridge, city, country, coast) is safe from the madness, misery, and machinery.

Solipsism - The self is all that can be known to exist.

This poem is a journey, mostly around New York City, but also around the states. It's almost restless, how quickly it moves from very specific place to very specific place and paints a fantastically emotive picture. You get sucked into the movement, into the restless angst that ushered in the 60's.

The scene from Mad Men where Betty Draper goes to the Lower East Side to find one of Sally's friends just popped into my head... Sally's friend is a very gifted musician but has to live in the New York of which Ginsburg writes.

Machinery and machines are a bit theme within this poem. It reminds me of Henry Adams. The machines seem to be modernization that is the cause of their frustration, angst, and misery. And perhaps machines's also howl. Later in the poem, Moloch appears to be the machine that bashes their skulls and ate up their brains.

The country provides both hate and strength - you can't have love without hate, light without dark. Double consciousness perhaps? Despite the hate he still wants to stay. Vigor and erect make me think of virility and masculinity, and America is feminine. Life coming from women, and man conquering woman.

Sex workers - they are shadows and ghosts, crossing barriers and slipping through unseen, yet they have dropped from heaven and their sacred feet have to bend and barter at a desire's call. Prowling implies power and authority. My own biases and perceptions are clouding my thought process and yet I can't see past it. This poem is exhausting for me, possibly because the girls are half clad and weary, and possibly because it's another guy writing about sex workers in a slightly disdainful way.

Language is creating a barrier to entry, so to speak. The grammar and words are technically incorrect, yet his audience will understand it. There is also a rhythmic element to this piece, imitating the folk singer. I wonder what her music is like, and what she sang about? Did the author know her personally?

Separation from reality - past vs future, he is in the inbetween. He feels lonely and doesn't know where to go. He mentions many different cities and places implying that he is well traveled but still feels lonely.

This is written so much later than all the others works we've read, and has a distinctly different tone, almost one of defeat, like he has no more fight. First the dream is deferred, like it could still happen at a later point, then it has dried up, and festering, and then maybe running? Is it running or is it just thinking about running? The dreams don't know what to do, but is it heavy and overbearing. Finally, the dreams explode - important to note explode and not implode - Does that really mean the dream deferred then? I wonder what Harlem was like in the 1920's vs the 1950's when this was written.

Trying to transfer the shame he feels onto those that made him feel ashamed - lowkey revenge. He is just as American as others and wants them to admit it, wants to revel in his power, beauty, and true Americanism. He wants to be seen. It's a terrible thing to not be seen, and to be ignored and put down. He just wants to fit in.

Double consciousness! We all just want to be free, and he just wants black people to express themselves in all their glory!

Be complicit in your own oppression so that you fit in and can be successful! Sell out to be popular! What a terrible way to feel - no wonder there is anger in this piece! This makes me very sad and tired. It's exhausting how artists are asked to dilute their work for the pleasure of others. I wonder if in previous drafts of this piece author expressed more anger that was then edited out?

There's a lot of disdain and anger in the way he describes the middle class. It's actually pretty surprising, and encourages a have vs have-nots mentality. It's almost as if he is more angry at middle class blacks than at any whites.

Industry and technology is encouraging this change... The Way of life is changing so the people must adapt. Cities have more options, more people, more diversity, and are thus more encouraging of progressive thought and not as tied to the past. Cities are less isolated and encourage intermingling of thoughts of peoples.

Ghosts! He is preoccupied by the past and who he used to be than who he can be. There is a big Us vs Them theme in this paragraph, and this piece as a whole, and this paragraph highlights the past vs the future.

The progression of Lenin in his marble tomb... high, alive, honored, and finally rises. It reminds me of the Christian resurrection story. It's interesting that it specifies a marble tomb, implying he is above the others when communism allegedly has no one better than the others.

This poem makes me sad. Dempsey is the "failure king of the USA," yet everyone uses and abuses him for his own gain. He is a veteran, and now beats people up for a living. Is this how we treat veterans? Like they are toys - That's arguably how we treat soldiers. Is this how we treat the common man? While the modernists were preoccupied with identity and knowledge, these radical poets are just focused on survival. These poems are simple and to the point, and not caught up in proving anything, just sharing their experiences.

What a way to start a poem! I see why this is a "radical" piece... Be proud because one day this will be your grave.... These monuments that we all go to commemorate the dead - how tragic is that. Ghosts... immortalized but not really for anything other than dying for someone else's glory.

"Implicit anguish of the poor" - what an angry line. This is filled with rage and revolution. The final lines imply that revolution (and death by default) will lead to a new birth and hope.

Us vs Them - The language makes it very clear that This Poem is Not For You unless you can understand it. The author is not apologizing for his background and his identity. And there's a rhythm almost like a song, with every other line in each stanza rhyming. It's fantastic - he is playing the form game but also giving a giant Fuck You to white grammar rules. TS Elliot would probably not approve.

After a poem filled with sweetness and violence, here is empathy and sadness. This is the first time the mother is mentioned. It's almost as if the father does not want the daughter to grow up in a traditional female role - he wants her to fight and embrace her (his, their) anger and not cry.

The sucking it in from me part is strange though... It leaves a bad taste in my mouth but I can't quite place why...

Even in some of the oldest, most ancient parts of nature there is death. Even mother nature can't help us now - civilization is just that far gone. After talking about London and cities so much it is interesting that he brings up nature and the Himalayas - using local terminology to show off/make the reader feel stupid.

The end of civilization as we know it! These cities were all major, but now only London is really a world player. Later he repeats the London bridge is falling down. Is he lamenting the end of civilization as we know it? Why does he care so much? Does he throw in all these high culture references to make the reader feel stupid and to illustrate the terrible direction the world is headed?

Ghosts in the water... I don't know if I'm supposed to know who Phlebas the Phoenician is, but I refuse to find out just to spite the author. This is a very elitist section. Is the whirlpool that he enters meant to be Charybdis - in which case there would be infinite ghosts in the water? But that makes no sense with the Gentile or Jew - or is he saying that no matter what religion we will all end up dying?

Where did this voice come from? Most of the rest of the piece is very disjointed, but this snippet is like a moment in time - succinct yet poignant. It suggests her double-conscious with the glass - perhaps the half of her that cares about the departed lover is in the glass, visible but not real.

High/low culture. Does the author condone this mixing of high and low culture - the general workers going to upscale places, or does he have disdain for it? I can't quite tell, but my instinct is disdain. With all the "high culture" references I can't believe him to be ok wth an unshaven merchant lunching at a nice hotel in the financial center? And once again, he mentions places that only someone familiar with London would know - the haves vs the have nots

This is such a meta line... and I can't help but sense mockery from the author. The piece is filled with literary, mythic, and overall high classical references that why would he put this line in there if not to mock the reader? Especially because the next lines "What shall I do now" repeats several times. Is the author trying to play a game with the reader?

This whole section seems to be about games, but not chess... the expectations of life and the various roles one can play. The first character's vanity is described as a sort of demented throne room, filled with constant reminders that she has to wear all these things and do all these things as if it were a game, except that it's her life. There's violent language sprinkled throughout, and the final words "savagely still" suggest defeat, like the game beat her in the end.

A place that is non existent - perhaps it is the Burial of the Dead? Or perhaps it is the various scenarios that the clairvoyant's cards represent. The reader must be familiar with London to really understand the geography of this section. Is the reader meant to feel like an outsider, like this is an unreal city?

Memory makes me think of ghosts, and in conjunction with desire makes me think of what could have been - various paths one can take. Why is this section called "Burial of the Dead"? Definitely makes me think of ghosts, and is almost redundant. Perhaps the various places mentioned are symbolic burials for the first voice?

While repetition is rampant throughout the whole poem, this is the only section where one word is repeated individually for this long (7x). Is there any relevance with the word and with the number? What is pale? Why is it pale 7 times? There is clearly a form to this poem but I can't follow and don't understand the relevance.

Stream of consciousness... Repetition, and changing the order of words to change the meaning ever so subtly. This seems like forgiveness for their sake.

It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission... Did he think that he would not be allowed to eat the plums? He is clearly not sorry for eating them, and seeks forgiveness for eating them. But it's not even about the plums, but I don't know what it is about. "Delicious," "sweet," and "cold," - positive, positive, negative.

Stream of conscious... No one to drive the car... The language ebbs and flows with a certain rhythm, but the form breaks it up in a jerky start-and-stop sort of way - but that just reflects what content. There is loneliness sprinkled throughout, and amplified in these final words - no one to see what is happening to the people, and no order.

It seems rather self indulgent that he writes about a movement that he created... Actually, this whole piece comes across self indulgent and self important - Or am I missing the point?

I keep coming back to this sentence, but I'm not sure why. Isn't writing (and anything artistic) inherently abstract? And why is he so focused on rules for writing? I'm very confused by what he is trying to accomplish. He breaks his own don't-use-superfluous-words rule countless times - Is that the point and I'm just not getting it? What am I missing?

Repetition... of her 96 years in Spoon River. She has lived quite the life and never got bored. She watched 8 of her children die, and her husband, and still kept going. This is a strong woman. She clearly loves the little things in life - she must to have endured what she did. She is not sad to go, or regretful, she just wants the future "degenerate sons and daughters" to really live so that they can love her life. She is speaking from experience and not regret. I wish I had an aunt like her - or rather she is the aunt that I hope to be (except not from Spoon River).

Immortality is a lie - They are destroying what makes him immortal. Once the library is gone there won't be anything to remember him by - he won't have anywhere to haunt. He is angry at the townsfolk for destroying the library (knowledge) and for not appreciating his contribution to the the them. He speaks more directly to the reader than the other Spoon River characters that we've read. He knows that power is derived from knowledge - Is he really from a small town in middle America? His emphasis on knowledge and knowing things and the disdain he seems to have for the townsfolk makes me think that has lived elsewhere or is from elsewhere.

The middle of the road, implying he has choices - "the road not taken." Of course we don't know if he has taken the road less taken, not that it really matters in the end because by the end he has given up. But at this point he is on a road and sees the town below him (the past and the phantom salutations of the dead), and the future (his death).

Drinking himself to death... He just seems like an alcoholic who is essentially already dead. "Light" implies truth, so he is finally looking at his life for the first time, and reluctantly accepts his fate. He seems full of regret, like his life faded away into nothingness. At the end he even says that there is nothing in the town below. He has already separated himself and is looking at the village in almost an otherworldly way.

"He loves me he loves me not..." The repetition and never really knowing that comes with love, both in a singular relationship and in one's love life as a whole. Very melodic and melancholic - making me despondent with love. She ends the line with the negative.

The pain of love... Sometimes love does not conquer all. This is a very sad poem. I always have a soft spot for Millay, and this poem really speaks to me. It is full of love's lost and love's that could have been. The pain in these two lines is visceral. Feeling the pain of love and how you can't escape... Moaning is sexual and implies passion - passion so intense it hurts. "Resolution's power" is almost an oxymoron. Power does not usually have a resolution. Power's resolution is dominance, but that isn't really a resolution.

Promises and miles are almost at odds with each other... It makes me think of the "The Road Not Taken" - stopping is one road and continuing on is another, and continuing is arguably the road less taken because it is to easy to stop. All of these poems are very sing-songy, and almost melancholic. They make me think of all the what-could-have-beens, ghosts of paths we could have taken. Are they all written later in the author's life? Repeating the final line really gives the impression both of ghosts but also of never ending miles. And sleep - sleep is frequently synonymous with death... Is the author just continuing on life out of obligation ("promises to keep") though he foresees his death? Almost like it is written from across the grave like the Spoon River Anthology.

We all want to feel like we are the only one to take a certain path, the past that "wanted wear," but every path has been born to death. The desire to feel special and unique is universal, and at a certain age no one wants to be like everyone else. But uniqueness is all an illusion - no path and no person is any more unique than the rest. "Wanted wear" makes me think of domination and the act of conquering. Is he trying to conquer his destiny, have more control than he feels he has? The fact that he has to choose a path means he can't have it all. None of us are that special and none of us can have it all. And yet his famous lines ate the end ("I took the ones less traveled by, and that has made all the difference") say the opposite. Even though both roads were equally traveled, the one that was allegedly less traveled made all the difference in his life. I can't help but side-eye this poem...

The ghost of an education, of living free, of the arts, of power. If he feels the weight of his ignorance in all theses places, then he is not as ignorant as he thinks. He has at least achieved his first goal of self reflection.

It's almost as if he is suggesting that democracy = war. He realizes how much power there is in voting - it emancipated millions and also killed hundreds of thousands. There is incredible power in democracy that can be used both for good and bad.

Many biblical references throughout the text, but it is interesting that goad had to buy their liberty. If god were indeed all powerful, then why would he need to buy anything. But then again, buying could relate to slaves being literally bought and sold, and some could and did buy their way out of slavery. Money is power, afterall.

She is ready to take action! After being so passive and belittling herself and her needs, she is doing something. She is angry and wants to do something desperate. But it is clearly very well thought out because she can't/won't jump out the window (it would be "improper" and "misconstrued") and she knows she couldn't open the bars anyways. She knows what she can and cannot do and is actually quite capable - despite what she and John said previously.

Really the first mention of violence - from the wallpaper. "Like a bad dream" - Well she is in a bad dream, except that it's reality. You can escape a bad dream, but you can't escape reality, or this hideous, unreliable, infuriating, and torturous wallpaper. She can't stop indulging in the wallpaper, immersing herself in the violence of her surroundings.

In the next paragraph she likens an arabesque to a fungus, which is nature, except not the pretty romantic nature that is stereotypically healing. In the beginning she looked out the window to see nature (roses, lanes, trees) and now she is talking about fungus and toadstools - nature, but a distorted nature, like her supposed mental state. Towards the end of the story she says, "For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow." Yellow is dying nature, she is slowly dying. She recognizes that she isn't living anymore, and if she isn't yet dead then she must be dying.

NEVER trust someone who asks you to trust them... John is manipulative and abusive, and this annotation is more because I had a visceral reaction to this sentence than anything else. He is totally Stockholm Syndrome-ing and gaslighting her. I'm not sure if I could read it, but it would be interesting to read his version of events.

This is life - we all follow pointless patterns and hope it leads to some sort of conclusion, and the ultimate conclusion is death. She is allowed to do so little in her marriage and in her life that everything must seem pointless. But also a pattern implies form, a path, a sequence that leads somewhere - basically the opposite of pointless. The pattern or path that she was meant to be on (marriage, kids, wife) obviously isn't making her happy, and what she really wants is to visit friends and write and escape - escape the path that she is on. Ultimately she has a breakdown and goes crazy potentially because of cognitive dissonance or because her mind is the only thing she has control over. John is basically gaslighting her and telling her what she is feeling/going through, and undermining everything she says. She basically has Stockholm Syndrome with her life.

This guy (the author or the character) really seems to have a Madonna/whore complex. Bringing up women and sex a couple paragraphs up really came out of nowhere, and he seems to place a lot of emphasis on the difference between both the virgin and the venus, and the American vs European virgin/venus. In the paragraph before the translation, he actively fetishizes the dynamo ("she was the animated dynamo," "reproduction - the greatest and most mysterious of all the energies."). From the same passage, "she was a true force, she was ignorant of fig-leaves" is quite biblical, and suggests that real goddesses (unlike the women in America) have eaten the apple and know their force and power - and he is Adam, suggesting that he needs a goddess (sex) to invite him to eat the apple and have true knowledge.

"Sequences" is such a scientific way for a historian to look at the world, especially when he says "sequence of human movement" and "same unit of measure." This whole passage (and almost the whole text) is devoid of human emotion, and like he is trying to link the entirety of human history to the dynamo. The final words, "his historical neck broken by the sudden interruption of forces totally new" is violent and suggests that the force of time (history and progress) is violent.