This poem is filled with some of my favorite lines in all of poetry, and this stanza is one of them. Ginsberg wrecks a lot of poetic conventions, and creates a whole new style of poem. This run-on hyper manic style of writing inspired many, but is arguably at its best here.

Ah, Ginsberg’s obscenity trial. This is just the start before it really gets graphic. I’m still grateful for this poem and what it did in overturning obscenity laws.

These bright minds are not meant for academia, are expelled from it. This and the previous stanza are the beginning of this poem’s torturous relationship with academia.

She can’t let herself have a child, because she’s scared of what will happen to them. While the result is different, this reminds me of the premise of Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

Comparison to Jesus, and the crucifixion.

She’s in love with another woman. The imagery here is imagery normally associated with women, and also, Inez is a woman’s name.

It sounds like she’s describing Biblical hell, but you can tell from context she’s not. Fierce imagery on her part creates this vision of horror.

This parallels her later comparison between the dancing man and the way the crowd mocks him and laughs at him.

They took him from where he’s originally from and put him in a place where he’s mocked for being who he is, much like she mocks the little bottle of sand in the beginning.

The changes in voice are really interesting. I wonder why he didn’t write the entire piece in the style of the singing men, because it’s their point of view he seems to be trying to convey.

The hypocrisy and utter ignorance toward the religion these very men preached.

I remember learning about Ma Rainey in one of my classes, The History of Rock. She was known as the Mother of Blues, and a contemporary of hers, Bessie Smith, was known as the Empress of Blues.

Obviously, this is a much prettier picture than what’s actually happening. Nevertheless, I wonder if the old man imagines himself here, or if he has played in a place like this before.

The imagery here is striking.

These lines remind me of Adams' "The Dynamo and the Virgin"; of the confusion at the core at the piece, the sense of rushing time, a feeling of impending doom.

I remember reading that part of this poem was inspired by Eliot's wife, who was mentally unwell (and had to be committed to a mental institution multiple times, if I remember correctly?). The chaos these lines imply, and the image offered by these lines in particular, remind me of Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase".

These lines always stood out to me. They're so direct, because they directly address the reader (or, the reader through the narrator) and make the goth, macabre part of my soul very happy. There's a song called Memory Eternal (or Vichnaya Pamyat) that is performed in traditionally Eastern Orthodox churches, often during funeral ceremonies. A recording of it is also part of HBO's Chernobyl soundtrack. It reminds me of these lines, through its directness about death, its slow, sad melody. This recording is also dramatic, much like this poem. If you haven't seen the show, I highly recommend it.

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

“I think we are in rats’ alley / where dead men lost their bones.”

I know that this a reference to what pubs in England say when they are closing, but this unequivocally one of my favorite lines in a poem ever. It works so well with what he’s trying to say (or, at least, what I think he’s trying to say).

Reference to the Greek myth

A) This line is really metal.

B) I’m sure everyone and their mom knows this, but this is a reference to Plato’s (was it Plato?) dust thing.

What an opening line! What a statement!

I always wondered who Marie is. Nevertheless, this has always been one of my favorite parts of the poem.

Not to get fake deep or overshare or anything, but this poem reminds me of some of my thought processes back when I had a psychotic break in high school. Stein, you're a fucking delight.

Nothing really of note here except that this line seems oddly powerful to me.

Parts of this poem remind me of some of ee cumming's more experimental work.

The repetition here emphasizes this point, as it does throughout the poem. What is she begging to state alright? Why is it so important?

I love the sudden command in these lines. Inside all of this, there's a moment of clarity, something to inspire its audience to keep reading, to keep searching for that meaning.

I realize this is probably a reference to her working as a maid, but it initially made me think of child brides, and her being sold off at sixteen to become a wife, and therefore mother and housekeeper.

This ending kills me. All of this to say that she is on her own, and the narrator can do nothing for her, and this really drives the point home.

The title of this poem gives it its meaning, its setting. Without it, there is an image evoked, but it is untethered, floating in space, an abstraction.

And thus, she lays him to rest, by reassuring him she knows—knows why he has been forgotten, as well as reassuring him that she won’t forget him, for as long as she exists, and when she ceases to exist, she’ll understand then, too.

Continuing on the metaphor of earlier, the narrator makes the argument that despite of the risks and downsides associated with it, the mind will be stronger—or, rather, will have an easier way through life—once it has made its own defense mechanisms

The narrator stands by their morals, and their critique of love as an all-encompassing Everything. Even at the risk of their own comfort and safety, they won’t sell someone something they don’t believe in.

The narrator is talking about the many men who risk their lives, if not kill themselves, over the lack of love in their lives.

His listing here to redescribe the earlier elements like ingredients in a witch’s brew is really interesting! I like how he describes the moth as “dead wings”.

Whenever I read this poem, I’m reminded of the seemingly-eternal debate over meaning in this poem, and whether any specific meanings can be found in a poem in general without reducing it to something that doesn’t take into account its temporal nature, and doesn’t risk pulling it into separate parts at the expense of its existence as a work of art (thanks, Cleanth Brooks). Anyways, the language here sounds so warm and inviting, and I’m always interested to hear what people have to say when they argue whether or not the narrator in this poem has a death wish, based on these two lines. (It’s also intriguing to hear what people think “sleep” means—if it means to actually sleep, or is Frost’s metaphor for death, in keeping with his soft descriptions of the snow.)

This is the inciting incident—there is already strife hinted at between the neighbors, through the images of blood and hunters, but this is what forces the narrator to confront his problem with his neighbors

The narrator has spent his life trying to impress the importance of duality, and learning beyond yourself, to the people in his village. Here, he summarizes why: he believes that without outside help, anyone who knows one thing inherently cannot know or recognize the other.

He’s surprised to find them there, as he wasn’t expecting it. This leads to him thinking about the nature of clerks, and time—of course they’re still there, much the same time will (arguably) always be there and never change.

Her husband consistently gaslights her, making her believe she has no issue with things she’s only just said she has issues with. It’s creating a sort of duality within her—the truth of what she is actually thinking and experiencing, and what her husband believes (and wants her to believe) she is thinking and experiencing.

The wording here calls back to the poem at the beginning of the chapter. The imagery of both evokes the sea, and draws a connection between a stormy sea and the hardships faced by the authors.

Racism and classism are inherently intertwined in America, as Du Bois points out here. People of color, and especially Black people, have been deliberately excluded from institutions traditionally associated with raising one's economic status; homeownership, higher education, etc. There is not a single factor of modern american life that does not have something to due with racism, that doesn't have a past (and often present) stake in deliberately holding people of color from the same benefits that white people enjoy.

knowledge isn't helpful unless someone knows how to apply it

again, highlighting his feelings of being lost and helpless in the face of this new technology; he has lost any old way of measuring the universe, and now things that should (in his mind) be impossible are possible

and thus begins the comparison between modern technological advances and religion; adams, having no background in this, wants desperately to understand it, but the education system has failed him so that he instead ponders on something else that feels massive, and infinte, and undefinable: namely, religion

The poem starts off with descriptions of traditionally inexpensive food before moving to these decidedly non-food objects–telling the reader within the first stanza that the lion is a metaphor for something much, much darker

The language in this reminds me of Yeats' "The Second Coming"; I think there's definitely thematic similarities between the two