Poetry

The poem this week is "The Hat Lady." Although I found this poem sad and dark I really love this poem! It was eloquently written and compared people to hats and not like typical baseball hats like everyone seems to think of. Hats that a Hat lady makes especially for that person. I believe the hats describe who the people are like the uncle wearing "homburgs" (which I totally looked up because the name gives no hint as to what it looks like) that make him cool and slick for wearing a hat like that or the grandfather wearing a "yarmulke" the Jewish hat men wear. It shows the grandfather is old fashion and religious, but then the author even goes on to describe how the hat was "like the palm of a hand cradling the back of his head..." Shows how he could be caring and loving at the same time. The whole third stanza is the one that describes his mother (whom the poem is about). Describing hats the hat lady had made for her. The hats were beautiful and made his mother beautiful like the actress Myrna Loy. Each hat represents a different aspect of his beloved mother the one that's like a birds nest shows she's a great mother like a bird with a nest of hatching's, the next hat that made her look like the actress shows how beautiful she was, the last hat with cherries shows she loved kids and was a great mother. The hats made up who the mother was. Then the last stanza is the sad one. It's the one that says the mother had cancer and had wrapped her bald head with a towel. Then the Hat lady came back and instead of making a new hat for the mom she had a hat with death. The mom died of cancer and it's representative how in the last "scene" of the poem death is the only one with a hat. He's the only one that has power and the hat represents that making him higher than everyone else that didn't have a hat. The poem is a four stanza poem with no rhyme scheme it was more like a small story with some symbolism.

New poetry semester

This week the poem I'm doing is "Sort of a Song." This poem is suppose to sound like the structure of a song. Like it's quick and quick like the form of staccato in music which I thought was a cool tie in with the title. The poem looks like a one stanza poem but the Dash breaks the poem into two sets of six lines free verse poetry. The author is talking about an idea in writing and he is comparing it to the snake. The author is waiting to expose it just like a snake does it waits and is smooth and quiet but then strikes quick. The second set of lines is this idea in the form of a flower a gentle innocent flower that splits a rock something that's solid and thought of as impenetrable. On a structural note the word "splits" ends the fifth line breaking the sixth line off even though it was only two words. He's using all this imagery to talk about an idea he has invented is like a snake and will strike quickly while at the same time in will penetrate the must sound of believers.

This week I'm doing "it was a dream." The first thing I noticed was the uncapatilized I's in the poem. After reading the poem it shows how she's upset with herself and demeaning all the bad she's done by putting herself down and uncapitilizing the one letter we all use and capitalize that represtens us. The cool structure peice i notcied was she wanted it to look like a two stanza poem when really it's a one stanza free verse poem. The small line with "what" breaks the two different thoughts in the stanza. The whole poem is about how she is unhappy and the "greater self" is ashamed because she will never be like her greater self. Even the second little half is begging to be greater but the beautiful perfect half is angry and won't allow it. "and screamed as long as i could hear her This. This. This" I don't know what "this" is but the author does. She knows what it is she can do but believes she can't do it. She turned away and walked until she couldn't hear the hatred anymore.

New semester poetry

The poem I'm doing this week is "The Book." I thought some of the other things we've read were dark but this one was REALLY dark and gross. It's about how a soldier finds this blank book in a bunker (I'm not sure what war it is either) and keeps it as a diary. Later on in his life after the war he's taken it back to a book binder who told him it was bound in human skin. Someone had killed someone and used their skin to bound a book. an opposing soldier did this to someone. I think this poem is mainly about how gruesome and gross and cruel war truly is. Like I'm not sure if they were desperate for supplies or someone but I don't believe they were driven to the limits and needed to use human skin. someone just plain out used it. This book that had meant so much to the soldier that had found it, probably helped keep his sanity, is now repulsive to him. "I stared at the changing book and a horror grew, I stared a horror grew, which was, which is, how beautiful is was until I knew." This book was a personal journal about what happened to him during a cruel war and now he realizes how he carried someones skin around with him and it could've been a child, a woman, or a fellow soldier.