The use of intense, heavy repetition in this poem is nearly overwhelming. It creates such a driving beat. The, "who," of section 1, the, "Moloch," and exclamation points of section 2, and the "I'm with you in Rockland," of section 3 are not like delicate reminders that we are reading a poem, they are like someone pounding a desk to drive a point home, or thumping you on the chest. It's hard to just sit and read this poem in the same quiet way that one traditionally thinks about poetry reading. I feel like I have been dragged across the country and back and now my eyes are open and I am angry and excited and a little out of breath.

The poem starts with, "I," but then the I disappears under a gush of images and it does not return until section III. Instead, for the rest of section I we have this mysterious, all encompassing, "who." In my mind's eye I see the narrator standing on some high point, looking out over all of America and seeing everything, all its sorrow and greatness. But in section III the, "I" narrator returns and is no longer an observer. This, "I," is resolutely present: "I'm with you in Rockland, I'm with you in Rockland, I'm with you in Rockland." And it ends at the, "door of my cottage in the Western night," which is such a soft, welcoming, rural, and romantic vision after so much pain and urban decay and raucous spinning. There is a journey in this poem.

I don't know much about Ginsberg's biography, but this poem strikes me as the ultimate coming-out announcement. Even from the permissive land of 21st century San Francisco these lines caught my attention. It's no wonder 1950s America was shocked.

So many of the images in the poem are of waste and loss and addiction and misery, but the pace and the energy of it speaks to me of a kind of electrified joy, as if even the misery is an overwhelming pleasure. I see raw horror, but I feel something vibrant and alive.

In early talkies and blackface performances that I have seen in old movies this kind of dialect speech is used to ridicule and lampoon black people. I was wondering if part of Brown's motivation in writing in dialect was to reclaim it and give it the respect it deserves. In his poetry he shows southern black dialect to be beautiful and insightful and valid as a form of English.

? Why, "SANDBURG" in all caps?

McKay's style is remarkably different from Langston Hughes. This poem's iambic pentameter gives it a traditional poetic formality and beauty that feels almost stately and elegant, if more reserved. It really stands out from the blues, gospel, and jazz infused work of Hughes.

All three poems in this selection of McKay's work have a first-person narrator. For me this balances, or maybe creates a conversation between the broad themes that they are addressing, (life, race, pain, poverty, beauty, nation), and the intensely personal lived experience of the narrator.

The thing I notice about this poem, as compared to the others in the selection, is how much later it was written. The other pieces are written by a much younger Langston Hughes during the hopeful and exciting Harlem Renaissance. This poem comes much later, after the Great Depression and the 2nd World War. Things did not turn out as anyone hoped or expected, but there is still potential and possibility. Also, with the other pieces I heard the music and rhythms of the blues and of spirituals, but in this piece I sense something harder and faster, like bebop maybe.

I feel every emotion in this poem. There is pain, longing, power, humor, strength, weariness, pride, etc. To me it feels like the longing that a child might feel for a father who will not acknowledge him. I too am your child. I like how this poem is essentially a short short story arranged in poetic form.

In America I think there has traditionally been a Northeastern-centrism where intellectual value is concerned. My guess is that the lived experiences, to include intellectual pursuits, art, music, etc. of African Americans did not primarily take place in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

This sentiment goes right to the heart of the pain of the American experience and the unbearable hypocricy of our professed ideals as opposed to our actual behavior that we see from the time of the American Revolution, right up to the treatment of detainees at the border today. I guess there is some, "comfortable feeling," in being on the right side of these ideals, but not much.

I wonder if artists and thinkers like Alain Locke and Langston Hughes felt the burden of having to represent and distill the entire black experience in their writing and work? How do you capture the experience of an enormous and diverse population in a single essay? Making blanket statements about an entire people is maybe partially to do with the writing style of the time, though I suppose we see a lot of those kinds of statements today as well, but it must have felt particularly weighty to African American intellectuals of the early 20th century when so few voices were getting through and being heard.

I wonder how African Americans were involved with the labor movement of the early 20th century. Unionization of factories in the northern cities was a big part of this time period, but I feel like most of the history books show a very white movement for labor justice. Have the history books neglected the African American experience in this regard?

I appreciate Hughes' use of the word, "Nordic," rather than white since it conjures up such a strong image of icy, Northern European whiteness. I think there is also a kind of imperious, inhospitable, aloof, Arctic quality to the word. I also can't help but think about our current president and his praise of Nordic peoples as ideal immigrants, rather than those who are trying to come in from the South.

The struggle to find and accept your own voice is one that everyone has to deal with at some point in their lives, but it is of course at the core of an artist's reason for existing. If the whole world is telling you that your very being is of no value, let alone your voice, how much more will you have to struggle just to hear and appreciate it yourself?

The repetition of the the, "If..." sentences at the end of the essay conjures the power of the blues.

Using a light-hearted tone, or a playful form to tackle overwhelmingly painful and terrifying problems. In, "Death House Blues," and "Southern Lullaby," the use of these forms that have a nursery-rhyme quality to them makes the message even more mesmerizing and upsetting than some of the earlier poems we read that are more overtly sharp and depressing in their language and form.

I register a lot of feelings when I read this poem, especially by the end. It's impossible not to hear the light, gentle sounds of a lullaby playing in my memory as I read, which creates a confused, somewhat ironic tone. There is so much menace in the words of this poem, menace and hatred, and a rising power. Combined with the gentle swing of a lullaby I register a dark humor, as well as something like the trailer for a horror movie.

I feel that there is some echo here of earlier works we looked at where modern science, technology and mechanization meets with the lived human experience. Here however the issue is less about the sense of confusion and more about poverty and perhaps how the promises of modernization have not brought wealth for all, but just the opposite.

The, "private," life mentioned in previous lines is reinforced with the repetition of the word, "one," here. Perhaps this is a commentary on the romanticized, very American notion of self sufficiency. Here we see how little doing things all one's own can get you.

The juxtaposition of sunlit banners with dark hearts feels especially powerful. There is both a proud and upright hope, and a more base fury that combines to give a sense of being unstoppable. However, in just the next line this energy has been frozen by a child's grave.

There is so much hope in this poem, especially as opposed to, "Dempsey, Dempsey." Langston Hughes paints a picture of workers from around the world and the promise that was felt to be on the verge of fulfillment.

This is a painful and heart-heavy poem. The people want a hero, but no amount of punching is going to heal all of the pain that these boys are suffering.

The poem starts out in the gardens and down in the soil with death and rebirth and a certain fertility. Then it moves into these different indoor landscapes of humans. Then it moves to the riverside. Next there is the short section about the sea. Now we find ourselves on the dry mountain tops, far away from all of the water and fertility of the first four sections... but quickly we return to the sea. Does Eliot long for these clean heights even while realizing that life takes place down in the muck?

This first part of section V feels like a summary of everything that came before. Eliot lets us know that we have come to the final chapter of the poem, almost like the opening line of the concluding paragraph of a five-paragraph essay.

Eliot returns to death. What matters when everything will be taken away in death? Can memory survive death? Do the things that matter in life matter afterwards? What is the sea here? Does Phlebas forget everything as he is washed clean?

Is Eliot trying to weave together his romantic notions of Greek mythology and his classical learning with his life in London? He draws on Ancient Greece to understand contemporary England? Maybe he hopes that each can give life and meaning to each.

The sound of the nightingale singing returns. Melancholic beauty born of sorrow and rape. Maybe Eliot wants to show that much of what we find beautiful and valuable is born of horror.

What starts out as an uncomfortably silent scene with the narrator observing, or sitting across from a woman surrounded by carvings of life, with the stench of unpleasant incense, ends in a kind of folksy gathering with hot ham and an almost forced feeling of colloquial ("goonight") pleasantry. The arch of this section goes from a kind of cold aristocratic throne room feeling, with its carvings and candelabra, all the way to a homey dinner gathering. Inbetween however there are these commentaries on relationships between men and women. The couple playing chess who can not seem to speak to each other. The reference to Philomel. The making of children and the not making of children. There are so many different ways to be a couple or not be a couple in this section.

From The Tempest: Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.

I feel like there is a juxtaposition between memories of life and growth in continental Europe and death and burial in London. The flowers and sledding and summertime of youth on the continent as well as the mystery and romance of the gypsy tarot reader is followed by a kind of grey adulthood the, "Unreal City," of London.

Is April the cruelest month because the dead can not stay buried? Those thoughts and memories that were comfortably covered in Winter force their way to the surface in Spring. Throughout this section (The Burial of the Dead) there seems to be a battle between the author's desire to remember and his desire to keep things hidden. The repeated image of hyacinths which are bulbs that get planted in the Fall only to emerge in the Spring is an element of this. But there are worse, more frightening things that have been buried and threaten to come up. April is the time of Easter and the resurrection, so maybe there is also hope alongside the horror of corpses rising from the ground.

As someone else mentioned, there are a lot of names in this poem. Who do they belong to? Does it matter? Is this whole poem an inside joke? Would CBD gummies help?

I found this poem to be easy to ready, difficult to enjoy, and hard, if not impossible, to understand.

I sense a stripped-down echo of Whitman in this poem, but negative, as if all the joy and beauty that Whitman feels about America has been turned on its head.

I was thinking that it is no coincidence that these William Carlos Williams pieces followed Ezra Pound's treatise (is that the right word?) on Imagism. There is nothing superfluous in Williams' verses, and talk about presenting, "an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time." Then I looked up WCW via magical Google and discovered that he was part of Pound's Imagist crew.

There is an "Ozymandias" quality to this poem.

Why a, "scattered," mouth? The beginning of the poem reads like an epitaph on a tombstone, but by the end the narrator seems to be in the presence of someone who is wounded and dying. Perhaps a grave's mouth?

I wonder how much world affairs, in this case the build-up to war in Europe, influenced Millay's work?

I wonder if this poem was inspired by specific historical events, or is it just a commentary on a failure of humanity in general? 1934 was a big year for fascism. Maybe news from the Continent was disturbing Millay's faith in humanity.

Has any write ever said, "Pay close attention to what the critics are saying and adjust your work accordingly"? Lol. Talk about a superfluous sentence.

Did Pound have a sense of humor about this, "LIST OF DON'TS?"

Is this in reference to the metronome-like quality of iambic phrases?

I can see the pale faces of passengers, emerging from their somber, rain-sodden clothing.

Was Pound influenced by haiku in this poem? It does not follow the traditional 5,7,5 format, but it feels like a haiku.

Heal-all is a herbaceous perennial herb.

"Mending Wall," has 10 syllables per line. "The Road Not Taken," has 9 syllables per line. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," has 8 syllables per line. I'm not sure if there is an accepted numerological implication chart for poetry, but I feel like the pace of each poem seems to match the atmosphere that the poet is trying to convey: the slow movement of the men mending a wall, the thoughtfulness and forward progress of the narrator in "The Road Not Taken," and the brief stop followed by a return to the trotting of the horse in, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Interestingly, the title of each of these poems grows in length even as the number of syllables per line decreases.

I believe this poem is written in iambic pentameter, except for the two lines that end in, "Good fences make good neighbors," which are 11 syllables rather than 10. For me, I got in a rhythm reading this poem that was lightly derailed both times I hit these 11 syllable lines, forcing me to pause for a beat on each of them.

I love all the short declarations of action in this poem. "I WENT to the dances, I spun, I wove, I kept the house, ..." I can feel the energy of this woman who filled her life with life.

I enjoyed reading "Lucinda Matlock" after the first two selections about people who's lives seemed so full of disappointment and regret.

From what I can find, "snap-out" is either a card game or a kind of children's game.

I am thinking about words like, "climbing, over, below, and upland." There is a lot going on with up and down and high and low and ebb and flow in this poem. The town is below, but the hermitage is up high. Mr. Flood is careful to set the jug down on the earth, but quickly raises it up again. The moon is full, which means it will soon start to wane. Maybe there is something to do with the sacrifices, loneliness, and isolation that come with being an artist. One has the company of the moon and of oneself, and gets to occupy the heights, along with the cold moon, but loses the warmth and company of the people below in the town. I don't know.

Is the second moon a reflection of the first, or are there two because he is seeing double from his inebriation? Or are there two moon because Mr. Flood is having a conversation with himself and it is as if there is one moon for each of the two Mr. Floods present?

The desire for immortality through art is something that comes up a lot in poetry, literature, art, etc. In this poem, art makes a poor companion for someone who has outlived everyone who knows and cares about him.

It's terrifying to realize how vast that prejudice is... watching the news broadcast of a sea of MAGA hats at a Trump rally in 2019.

That the author should perceive a, "dawn," at all, despite so much bewildering oppression, is amazing.

It is remarkable how much hope and positivity this piece ends with.

In a way, all three of the pieces we had to read for today, (Adams, Gilman, and Du Bois), are about people who feel like strangers in their own houses.

The tone of this piece is interesting... and enjoyable. The author at various points comes across as bemused, desperate, resigned, self-effacing, and determined. I think that in the end, despite feeling that his life had not prepared him for the new, "force," he is ultimately at peace with his place in this new world.

Henry Adams is as much of a WASP as the US can possibly produce so it must be particularly important that he feels so drawn to the Virgin, representative of all that Protestant, Puritanical, witch-burning, upper-class Boston is not.

I sense a desperation from the author as he tries to understand this new force by drawing on all of the powers of his education and background. He references so many events, intellectuals, and eras, but ends up in the hands of religious epiphany and the most early human conjurings of the mysterious.

Most of the sentences in this story are fairly short, like this one. This story was published in 1892 and I tend to think of Victorian era writing as having long, flowery sentences, but this story has all of these short sentences that drive it forward. It feels very modern.

The word, "try," is used eight times in the story (that I could find). To me, it lends to the sense of resignation, desperation, and burden that comes across throughout.

A large, old building in the countryside with a top-floor gymnasium that has barred windows makes me think of a prison or asylum rather than a home.

There is a strong sense of imprisonment throughout the story. The later line, "for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls," and others give the impression of the narrator being an inmate with a warden for a husband.