Locked inside an Ed "Big Daddy" Roth hotrod with crucified Jesus as a hood ornament, a mobile prison, to a jazz seance? Is Ginsberg exploring cars as mobile church prisons, and jazz as some sort of occult practice?

A lot of conflicting elements here. Nothing can compare to blind streets of a metropolitan town, tucked away next to a larger metropolitan city, against the sprawling mixture of wilderness and urban development of Canada. Regardless of where you are the mind must feel cold, and be shocked, blind with anonymity, stuck in the pages of Time magazine (?) as current event intrigue.

Tracking a brilliant idealist through higher education and thought, old-school, small town values, and starry-eyed genius, forced to apply their gift for the purposes of death and destruction.

In this section the best mind of Ginsberg's generation is corrupted through the military-industrial complex. Their minds are abused, ideas pilfered for the benefit of plans and deeds they have no business being anywhere near. Here the infinite potential of enlightened minds, otherwise focused on peace and learning, are wasted, fed through a meat grinder.

For the first time the speaker introduces the horrors inflicted by the Waste Land. The speaker reminisces, fighting back his horrific reality to go back to a time of happiness, of hope. But the real world proves to be too much for the speaker to endure; reality becomes an abyss of suffering, fantasies dissolve, and the remaining desolation drives the speaker to madness.

The end comes at the beginning; it starts with a recoil. The hyacinth girl is only an echo of simpler and happier times. When the speaker attempts to communicate with her, the reality of the Waste Land floods in all at once. Memories of the hyacinth girl and the garden manage to push him forward. When he reaches the connecting point between the Thames and North Sea, all hope is extinguished: the speaker, “could not / Speak,” “[his] eyes failed” (38-9), as he witnesses the sea meeting the same fate as the river, and civilization around both. Amidst an endless nothingness, the very nature of life and death falters. The speaker is, “neither / Living nor dead,” and with a visual confirmation of the very basic elements of life unraveling before his eyes, the speaker, “knew nothing” (40). Without civilization, without the river, without the sea, there is no future for the speaker, only “Oed’ und leer das Meer,” or “waste and the empty sea” (42).

At this point the speaker can no longer live in the present, and can only look back. As Eliot navigates the speaker through the Waste Land, the poem slowly traces along the coast, retracing the speaker’s steps. The speaker’s journey takes him from the coast of Margate to the meeting point between the Thames and North Sea, into the middle of civilization, and back out to sea, the beginning of primordial life. The journey forces him to witness the desolation and hopelessness of the Waste land. He offers a brief reminiscence of his time in Margate in the Fire Sermon, where on the beach he, “can connect / Nothing with nothing,” desperately clawing at the sand, digging with, “The broken fingernails of dirty hands” (301-303), for something, anything to end his solitude. Not even a small beach crab or simple form of life is present to comfort him. Although he is before the vastness of the ocean, a worldly presence teeming with life, all that lies before the speaker is water and sand.

Despite living in a state of perpetual sorrow, the speaker chooses to travel east to Margate, rather than traveling south to the cliffs of Dover, a place where he could easily end his suffering. Perhaps Eliot suggests the speaker stays to the north because he knows suicide, or even rebirth at the cliffs is futile against the pain of the Waste Land. Exemplified by Edgar and Gloucester in King Lear, the cliffs of Dover, and death by water, represent a means of simultaneously changing identity and achieving absolution. Becoming someone new is not an acceptable way to escape the Waste Land; absolution through a watery plunge is equally not an option. Eliot’s speaker chooses unending torment instead. The speaker’s stays to the north, opting for the calm waters of Margate instead of the tumultuous cliffs of Dover, clinging to some kind of hope that maybe by persisting in life the madness will eventually come to an end.

Although this poem is about the struggle in the south, it reminds me of the ongoing problem between native Hawaiians and every other culture that has forced their way into the island cluster. Hawaii as it stands today is overrun by Pacific Islanders and white people, while native Hawaiians are systematically being driven from their homes due to rapidly rising housing costs, commercialized big box stores and culture, and rampant tourism culture.

All the sights are the same, just in a different location. Just like Slim, hell is Hawaii as a part of the United States for native Hawaiians. Their culture commercialized, their values subjugated. But, just as tourists and outsides view it, Native Hawaiians are supposed to look at Hawaii like the paradise it's been manufactured to be.

Hi'ilawe Lyrics and translation

While white society claims ownership over the country, Brown asserts a sense of true accomplishment through the efforts of slaves and forced labor. White society can boast of progress, but in reality they must live vicariously through the labors of an entire people they subjugated.

This is the reverse of Hughes' black persona living through white standards. The high society and culture white people live in were never dictated by them; it was the result of elbow grease of the eye, or watching others do the hard work and reaping all the benefits.

Ma Rainey instills a spirituality in those who bother to listen. When she belts her tune, the church of Rainey is in session. Her Voice has the power to connect with her people in a way nothing else can. And all she does is sing her song, and be herself.

By embracing her identity, and singing in a manner true to herself and her culture, Ma Rainey epitomizes the beauty Hughes speaks of. Her songs are on her terms, styled according to her, and not modified according to what "greater" society deems acceptable.

Inspiring through song

Is Eliot unable to see a change in poetic perspective as he's writing a poem with significantly altered poetic perspective? Is this something Eliot can't see irony?

Is this advice to look away from books and texts, to take in the world? To look away from fleeting memories of plots and stories in favor of something greater?

Given Eliot's liberal use of classical literary references, could the title itself be commentary on literature as a whole? Is the waste land a place one goes when they have explored a significant portion of the classics? Is Eliot saying those who dwell in the classics are doomed to a landscape of never-ending waste in their own minds?

There is no agency in American womanhood? The state must intervene with a woman in trouble, surrounded by the blights of society, that she may find peace or absolution?

Is Williams suggesting nature breeds promiscuity, the malformations, and the evils of society? Or that specifically the American definition of nature is what produces these elements? What is it about American valleys, Jersey and the like that would even suggest such a thing?

Is this poem about the evils of American democracy? The "stifling heat of September" as the wind down from a heated election cycle, candidates attacking each other and their values, passive-aggressively passed onto the American public. Are we "destroy[ed]" through the fallout of the idealism motivated by political gain?

Why is this journey that needs to happen under the cover of darkness? Is the darkness a means to conceal himself from himself?

Is his invisibility intentional? What would happen to him were he visible?

But is this a positive change? Is the change of paths made from a sense of fear or resolute decision making?

Is his uncertainty really the basis for him changing his path?

Are the qualities of this new path really enough to settle his mind and accept the change?

Did the speaker look down the path and see something he didn't want or intend to see?

What is it in the undergrowth that prevents him from taking that path?

Does the initial decision of this path instill a sense of fear that forces him to change his decision?

Blatant irony. While countless poems written by pens talented and untalented may excite readers, when one reads enough, it eventually fails to achieve that basic goal. At this point reading poetry becomes a mechanical exercise devoid of the out-of-body experience which enables us to see the world and humanity through fresh eyes.

Vanishing roses is an analogy for poetic love fading due to lack of proper watering and stagnation. At the time Masters wrote this poem love has been explored from the same perspectives, in the same ways for centuries, so how can it be a new and fresh experience? Masters wants us to understand love as a spontaneous burst of expression, not a carbon copy with rearranged words and a bit of white out for polish.

Masters repeats these classical poetic structures to reinforce the idea that structures like these exist for others to follow, abide by, and never to break. An irony exists in this repetition: it is not eight lines, does not have any sort of rhyming structure, and does not conform to iambic tetrameter; it is more than nineteen lines, with no tercets (again no rhymes), and no isolated quatrain; it is longer than fourteen lines, and although I could make an argument for a repeating refrain it does not conform to the necessary format; and it has no sort of musical element. The repetition of these formats accentuates the need to break from conventional standards to create something new, different, exciting. If all poets adhere to the tried and true standards poetry will be stuck in a vacuum of redundancy. Since poetry flourishes through adaptation and experimentation. Masters wants us to recognize this fallacy and rebel against an art form collapsing in on itself.

GIlman attempts to romanticize the house she's confined to, even make up stories about its origins, but she is forbidden from doing so. Without the ability to interpret her surroundings as she chooses, Gilman fixates on the horrific wallpaper of her room.

But is her fixation necessarily a bad thing? If her mind were allowed to wander, and she explored the true origins of the house, would she come to the conclusion that it previously served as a mental institution. Given her brief, ghastly, horrific descriptions the leap to a decommissioned asylum is not a stretch of the imagination. And especially since the attitudes towards mental illness were lacking in sympathy (among other things) when this was written, to realize you're confined to a place that once housed people in similar conditions, it might be enough to drive one further down the path of darkness.

Gilman assumes this was a home and room which housed children. But are the children she refers to actual children, or is this just a diplomatic way for Gilman to talk about mental patients? Are these references to children just a product of denial? Would Gilman prefer this to be a place where children lived rather than people in a similar situation to her own?

Does the woman on the outside, and those Gilman sees in the wallpaper represent her ideal self? Or merely a self without some form of illness, mental or otherwise?

If the woman is Gilman's ideal "other", this section contradicts the other self's true identity. The other self has no maladies, is not confined to a place against her will, and is able to go about her business as she likes. But here the other assumes a sinister role: if Gilman becomes the healthy other her current existence, and the hatred she holds for this state will come to an end. So does Gilman truly want to get better? Is there something about her "sickness" and confinement that she actually likes?

Here Adams plays some role reversal with the concept of faith deconstructed through reason, science, and logic. He asserts that the foundations of science are a means to provide concrete evidence for something humans have accepted as truth without hard fact. But as scientific advancement continues, and the ability to see without theory is blurred, scientists themselves have to resort to faith to discover only what their imagination can fathom.

It's interesting that Adam evokes the Christian shame and guilt passed down from the Puritans as a unique American quality. This piece falls roughly within the time frame of the outrageously repressed, "temperate", Victorian England. Not to mention the fact that Puritans came to America to escape religious persecution in England. In a sense the idea of sexual repression is a derivation and extension of English influence. Regardless of the influence, Adam ties the idea of sexual repression to the expansion of scientific thought. As we explore the minutiae of our universe, beauty and sexual freedom, extensions of the most basic human impulses, are forced to suffer, diminish, metamorphosized into an unrecognizable phantom.

Here Adams explores the death of wonder and imagination as supplanted by the cold hard facts of science. Where Wordsworth looked to nature as an extension of human imagination and the soul, Adams views scientific innovation as the deconstruction of the foundations of romanticism. Science can prove the existence of particles, lay the groundwork to an invention that makes life easier. But the mere fact that it obliterates those wonders explored by Wordsworth and the romantics make these discoveries and inventions meaningless, even harmful to the overall human experience.

We consume, mindlessly. We ravage the earth; we ignore the call of the earth to reform. Consumption is a siren, and we are helpless against its call. We become fat, all the fatter to feed the beast.

No matter where we come from or where we go our past haunts us. Unless we can break the cycle it continues in an infinite loop, and if we insert our anger and disgust for fellow man into the circle, it, too spins.

Industry and hive-minded work feed the beast. We don't question why we do this, we proceed regardless of concern for our own well being.

Consuming man-made conveniences.

Consuming natural resources.

Confinement, containment, the idea that someone is confined to their small world/work station/status, has no room to grow and relieve their stress.

The need to become hardened to a point; a sharp body to endure the struggles and suffering of life.

A generational struggle: legacy that turns people into a society of malcontents.

An inability to change, and society suffers because of it.

Anaphora becomes mixture of marching order and anaphora

Basic decency abandoned for unbridled anger and resentment; hardened or corrupted through life experience.

Corrosion of society: civility leading to hostility through just a change of scenery.

Marching order ends

Anaphora ends

Anaphora begins

Hills laid barren by human activity. Suburbs? Cities?

Rage as an element of deconstruction, a substance able to break down serenity and peace.

Viscous bonding agent as a symbol of truth and honesty?

Chemical used to preserve wood and food depending on its chemical composition. Given it is mentioned with other elements of food preservation creosote this reference is likely to the latter.