Seems like a long time
Since the waiter took my order.
Grimy little luncheonette,
The snow falling outside.
Seems like it has grown darker
Since I last heard the kitchen door
Behind my back
Since I last noticed
Anyone pass on the street.
A glass of ice-water
Keeps me company
At this table I chose myself
Upon entering.
And a longing,
Incredible longing
To eavesdrop
On the conversation
Of cooks.
I really don't know if my interpretation of this is what the poet really wanted it to be like, because all I can understand here is that the poet has been waiting for a long time for his food to come. Is there any deeper meaning? Because I can't really think of any haha.
So this restaurant the poet is in seems a bit run down and the service seems bad.
'Grimy little luncheonette'
'Grimy' makes me think of dirt and darkness- Probably what the restaurant was like, dark.
'A glass of ice- water/ Keeps me company'
Who serves ice cold water during winter (the writer says snow is falling outside)?
Apparently the cooks are talking ('the conversation/ Of cooks') and the poet has an 'Incredible longing/ To eavesdrop' on it. Probably he wants to know what they are doing taking so long to get his food done.
There is quite a lot of repetition in the poem: 'Seems', 'Since', 'longing'. The first line on stanza starts with a conjunction ('And'). I guess they all just kind of make it seem like the poet has been waiting for so long.
This poem is really different from some of the other poems that I've read before. It's more narrative, factual and straightforward and not many poetic/ literary techniques are used.
And I really can't think of anything more to say about the poem right now. Maybe I'll come up with something later and I'll update the post.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Trying
Currently trying to understand 'The Partial Explanation' by Charles Simic.
I guess it'll take a while though (no surprise- me and poetry don't mix) so might be updating later.
It's funny how I wanted to analyse a poem a day, but now it's more like a poem a month.
Oh well.
I guess it'll take a while though (no surprise- me and poetry don't mix) so might be updating later.
It's funny how I wanted to analyse a poem a day, but now it's more like a poem a month.
Oh well.
The Poet by Tom Wayman
Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbook
May speak much but makes little sense
Cannot give clear verbal instructions
Does not understand what he reads
Does not understand what he hears
Cannot handle “yes-no” questions
Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs
Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.
Cannot tell a story from a picture
Cannot recognize visual absurdities
Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
Has difficulty retaining such things as
addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables
May recognize a word one day and not the next
OK, so this poem is basically about what poets are like, I think. To be honest, I don't know, haha. This poem is kind of hard for me to understand, even though the content seems to be relatively straightforward...
OK, so the title 'The Poet' suggests that the poem is about what a typical poet is like.
There is no rhyme in the poem, maybe trying to show how spontaneous and random a poet is?
Quite a lot of repetition in the poem- 2 lines start with 'Does' in the first stanza, for instance, but it's not regular throughout the poem: Perhaps wanting to show how spontaneous poets can be again?
Because, throughout the whole poem, the poet seems to be saying that a typical poet just can't settle down, they kind of 'jump around' a lot (if you get what I mean) and they are quite into abstract things? As in, poets are kind of more abstract- minded? So they aren't really into concrete facts and things like that. I'm confusing myself actually haha.
So after a few days thinking about this poem (okay, maybe not a few, more like a week), I guess this poem is also about the feelings of the typical poet as well. 'May speak much but makes little sense'->maybe that's why the poet is into poetry? This poem may be about why poets write in the way they too ('Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs'- some poems use proverbs weirdly). The words 'difficulty' and 'cannot' which have negative connotations to them are repeated quite a lot, so perhaps the poem is explaining to us about the difficulties and challenges that poets encounter which make them write the way they do (eg. many poems are very long, but the message they are trying to convey may just be very short).
To be honest all of these difficulties that the poet in this poem experiences are not difficulties to normal people at all (eg. 'Cannot handle 'yes-no' questions'), so maybe the poet (Wayman) is poking fun and in a way mocking other poets in the fact that they can't really convey the message clearly to the reader and the reader ends up having to think a lot in order to understand the message (or maybe ending up not even knowing what the poem is talking about). Perhaps this poem is ironic in the way that it criticizes other poems for not having their messages conveyed clearly, when this poem itself does not exactly convey its message clearly (to me at least. I don't know about you, but I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what this poem is talking about. Maybe it's just me.)
But then again, in a way this poem is relatively straightforward, as in it doesn't use many literary techniques, because some poems use a bunch of literary techniques and some people like me end up never understanding what they are trying to say. Oh well.
May speak much but makes little sense
Cannot give clear verbal instructions
Does not understand what he reads
Does not understand what he hears
Cannot handle “yes-no” questions
Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs
Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.
Cannot tell a story from a picture
Cannot recognize visual absurdities
Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
Has difficulty retaining such things as
addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables
May recognize a word one day and not the next
OK, so this poem is basically about what poets are like, I think. To be honest, I don't know, haha. This poem is kind of hard for me to understand, even though the content seems to be relatively straightforward...
OK, so the title 'The Poet' suggests that the poem is about what a typical poet is like.
There is no rhyme in the poem, maybe trying to show how spontaneous and random a poet is?
Quite a lot of repetition in the poem- 2 lines start with 'Does' in the first stanza, for instance, but it's not regular throughout the poem: Perhaps wanting to show how spontaneous poets can be again?
Because, throughout the whole poem, the poet seems to be saying that a typical poet just can't settle down, they kind of 'jump around' a lot (if you get what I mean) and they are quite into abstract things? As in, poets are kind of more abstract- minded? So they aren't really into concrete facts and things like that. I'm confusing myself actually haha.
So after a few days thinking about this poem (okay, maybe not a few, more like a week), I guess this poem is also about the feelings of the typical poet as well. 'May speak much but makes little sense'->maybe that's why the poet is into poetry? This poem may be about why poets write in the way they too ('Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs'- some poems use proverbs weirdly). The words 'difficulty' and 'cannot' which have negative connotations to them are repeated quite a lot, so perhaps the poem is explaining to us about the difficulties and challenges that poets encounter which make them write the way they do (eg. many poems are very long, but the message they are trying to convey may just be very short).
To be honest all of these difficulties that the poet in this poem experiences are not difficulties to normal people at all (eg. 'Cannot handle 'yes-no' questions'), so maybe the poet (Wayman) is poking fun and in a way mocking other poets in the fact that they can't really convey the message clearly to the reader and the reader ends up having to think a lot in order to understand the message (or maybe ending up not even knowing what the poem is talking about). Perhaps this poem is ironic in the way that it criticizes other poems for not having their messages conveyed clearly, when this poem itself does not exactly convey its message clearly (to me at least. I don't know about you, but I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what this poem is talking about. Maybe it's just me.)
But then again, in a way this poem is relatively straightforward, as in it doesn't use many literary techniques, because some poems use a bunch of literary techniques and some people like me end up never understanding what they are trying to say. Oh well.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
The Cockroach by Kevin Halligan
I watched a giant cockroach start to pace,
Skirting a ball of dust that road the floor.
At first he seemed quite satisfied to trace
A path between the wainscot and the door,
But soon he turned to jog in crooked rings,
Circling the rusty table leg and back,
And flipping right over to scratch his wings-
As if the victim of a mild attack
Of restlessness that worsened over time.
After a while, he climbed an open shelf
And stopped. He looked uncertain where to go.
Was this due payment for some vicious crime
A former life had led to? I don’t know
Except I thought I recognised myself.
This poem was okay...
So when I first looked at it, it seemed like the whole poem was just about the poet watching a cockroach move around, which is weird. The last sentence is really shocking (I can't really think of a better word other than this) compared to the rest of the poem, as the poet seems to be downgrading himself to a cockroach, which is often seen as a disgusting, ugly and annoying pest.
At first the cockroach knows where its going, then it gets 'nervous' and seems lost. The poet suggests reasons for this 'Was this due payment for some vicious crime/ A former life had led to?' and then lastly says that he sees himself in the cockroach- so he's comparing his life to how the cockroach is acting? So, it's an extended metaphor as the cockroach's actions are a metaphor for the poet's life?
To be honest I do not know what this poem is exactly talking about. In my view, I think the poet is comparing his life to the cockroach's actions- So when he was a child, he had his parents: They would care for him, teach him and guide him in life, the poet was happy with life, as it was simple?
'At first he seemed quite satisfied to trace/ A path between the wainscot and the door'
This gave me that idea, because compared to the later paths/ actions the cockroach does, tracing 'a path' seems relatively simple and straightforward, and the cockroach was 'quite satisfied' with it.
Then, the poet grows up and enters adulthood, where everything is so much more complicated and difficult- Nothing is straightforward about it.
'jog in crooked rings,/ Circling'
These are more complicated actions compared to the 'path' that the cockroach took earlier.
Another way that I got this idea is because of the rhyme scheme. When the poem was talking about how the cockroach was following its simple 'path' with a 'quite satisfied' feeling, the rhyme scheme is regular. When the poem starts talking about the cockroach getting more 'nervous' and 'lost', there is no rhyme scheme anymore. Does this mean that when the poet was a child, everything was laid in front of him, things were easy and straightforward? When he grows up, he sees that life is actually very complicated.
'Of restlessness that worsened over time'
The 'worsened over time' part convinced me to think that this poem is talking about the poet's life. This 'restlessness'- Does it mean the poet's uncertainty and nervousness towards life? Maybe.
'And stopped. He looked uncertain where to go.'
Here, I think it shows that the poet is kind of lost in life. He has been through so much, just as the cockroach has been to so many places (eg. the door, table leg, shelf) and has done so many different actions ('trace', 'jog', 'circling'). Maybe he has seen so much, experienced so much that he does not know what to think anymore and is a bit lost?
To be honest, that's all I can write about this poem right now, and I don't even know if my interpretation of it is ok. Poetry can really be hard sometimes, but I guess I'll keep trying...
Skirting a ball of dust that road the floor.
At first he seemed quite satisfied to trace
A path between the wainscot and the door,
But soon he turned to jog in crooked rings,
Circling the rusty table leg and back,
And flipping right over to scratch his wings-
As if the victim of a mild attack
Of restlessness that worsened over time.
After a while, he climbed an open shelf
And stopped. He looked uncertain where to go.
Was this due payment for some vicious crime
A former life had led to? I don’t know
Except I thought I recognised myself.
This poem was okay...
So when I first looked at it, it seemed like the whole poem was just about the poet watching a cockroach move around, which is weird. The last sentence is really shocking (I can't really think of a better word other than this) compared to the rest of the poem, as the poet seems to be downgrading himself to a cockroach, which is often seen as a disgusting, ugly and annoying pest.
At first the cockroach knows where its going, then it gets 'nervous' and seems lost. The poet suggests reasons for this 'Was this due payment for some vicious crime/ A former life had led to?' and then lastly says that he sees himself in the cockroach- so he's comparing his life to how the cockroach is acting? So, it's an extended metaphor as the cockroach's actions are a metaphor for the poet's life?
To be honest I do not know what this poem is exactly talking about. In my view, I think the poet is comparing his life to the cockroach's actions- So when he was a child, he had his parents: They would care for him, teach him and guide him in life, the poet was happy with life, as it was simple?
'At first he seemed quite satisfied to trace/ A path between the wainscot and the door'
This gave me that idea, because compared to the later paths/ actions the cockroach does, tracing 'a path' seems relatively simple and straightforward, and the cockroach was 'quite satisfied' with it.
Then, the poet grows up and enters adulthood, where everything is so much more complicated and difficult- Nothing is straightforward about it.
'jog in crooked rings,/ Circling'
These are more complicated actions compared to the 'path' that the cockroach took earlier.
Another way that I got this idea is because of the rhyme scheme. When the poem was talking about how the cockroach was following its simple 'path' with a 'quite satisfied' feeling, the rhyme scheme is regular. When the poem starts talking about the cockroach getting more 'nervous' and 'lost', there is no rhyme scheme anymore. Does this mean that when the poet was a child, everything was laid in front of him, things were easy and straightforward? When he grows up, he sees that life is actually very complicated.
'Of restlessness that worsened over time'
The 'worsened over time' part convinced me to think that this poem is talking about the poet's life. This 'restlessness'- Does it mean the poet's uncertainty and nervousness towards life? Maybe.
'And stopped. He looked uncertain where to go.'
Here, I think it shows that the poet is kind of lost in life. He has been through so much, just as the cockroach has been to so many places (eg. the door, table leg, shelf) and has done so many different actions ('trace', 'jog', 'circling'). Maybe he has seen so much, experienced so much that he does not know what to think anymore and is a bit lost?
To be honest, that's all I can write about this poem right now, and I don't even know if my interpretation of it is ok. Poetry can really be hard sometimes, but I guess I'll keep trying...
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
'The Planners' by Boey Kim Cheng- Elson
They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,
filled with permutations of possibilities.
The buildings are in alignment with the roads
which meet at desired points
linked by bridges all hang
in the grace of mathematics.
They build and will not stop.
Even the sea draws back and the skies surrender.
They erase the flaws,
the blemishes of the past, knock off
useless blocks with dental dexterity.
All gaps are plugged
with gleaming gold.
The country wears perfect rows
of shining teeth.
Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
They all have the means.
They have it all so it will not hurt,
so history is new again.
The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century.
But my heart would not bleed
poetry. Not a single drop to stain the blueprint
of our past's tomorrow.
I found this poem okay (which is good). I think it is about development and modernisation, how boring it can be because the buildings and structures are so ordered and organised in such a repetitive fashion ('in the grace of mathematics', 'perfect rows/ of shining teeth'), personally I feel that the poet is, by not giving the poem a definite structure, challenging the dull perfection of how everything is put together so neatly.
However, the poet probably doesn't think that development is completely boring and bad, because he uses a lot of positive adjectives to describe the buildings ('with gleaming gold'- alliteration, maybe to really emphasise how neat and ordered the buildings are?)
Personification is used ('Even the sea draws back and the skies surrender') to show how rapidly the city/area is developing and that this development is against nature, it seems to suggest that even nature is afraid of this rapid non-stop development.
I don't really understand the last bit, but whatever. I think it's comparing art ('poetry') which is really free and expressive, to the buildings which are kind of the opposite of art, as they are all very perfectly organised in a way that it is boring and not very expressive? A blueprint is a design plan, so by saying that his heart 'would not bleed/ poetry. Not a single drop to stain the blueprint' of the future, I'm guessing he's saying that 1) art will not really have a place in the future? 2) he, who is a poet- an artist, will not do anything to stop this non-stop boring development? I don't really know :)
By the way, 'past's tomorrow' is an oxymoron, I think.
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