Love After Love by Derek Walcott

"Love After Love" struck me as a sort of self-help poem about recovering after a relationship. It talks about loving yourself after all the drama that has passed. Often, after a messy break-up, people tend to go into a spiral of self-destruction. The poem talks about the opposite of that: taking care of yourself after a time of constantly giving to someone else. In order to move on and fall in love with another, we first have to learn how to love ourselves.

Pigtail by Tadeusz Rózewicz

I can gather from the poem that it is a sort of retelling of the tragedy of the Holocaust, only this time, focusing on the women's hair. It is as if it is told in a museum, the persona speculating about perhaps, the past life of the hair he/she is staring at in a museum. The last line tells of a "pigtail with a ribbon pulled at school by naughty boys." The Holocaust is often just a tragic incident in history, to be mourned and learned from. Sometimes, however, I forget that the Holocaust is not just a statistic. The mention of the pigatil at the end reminds me that all of the people in the concentration camps were very real, with very real experiences, and very real lives that were as real as I am now, writing this paragraph.

Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall

This is a poem that encapsulates one of the painful ironies of life. Reading it filled me with a sense of sadness, and I remembered all the stories I heard about people involved in bombings, accidents, fires and the like. Afterwards, there would always be stories about the last time the person saw his/her family or friends, last glances and last words. It is ironic how sometimes, the things we try to run from find us in the places we think we are safest. An interesting touch also, is the seemingly casual and storytelling tone of the poem while retelling a tragic and devastating event.

Myth by Muriel Rukeyser

The conversation between Oedipus and the Sphinx reveals that the Sphinx has, in a way, tricked Oedipus. Reading the poem, I got a sort of sexist vibe from it. The Sphinx seems to have taken offense at Oedipus' answer of "Man", and his assumption that this already included women. It was as if there was some resentment from the Sphinx at Oedipus' insensitive answer. It was clever and I found it quite funny, too.

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

I think the part I liked best in the poem was the last few lines, which reflected a sort of regret that I was all too familiar with. The poem made me sad. Very often we take things for granted and it is only at the end that we realize how much those things made a difference. It seems like those typical relationships between a father and a son, and their not being able to be open with each other. Although at first, it doesn't seem like a very good tribute, towards the end, we see how much the persona valued his father, elevating his ordinary chores to "offices".

My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke

I read this poem and I wondered, "Is this about child abuse?"

If it were, I found it a bit strange for the writer to be comparing it to a dance, what more a waltz. Either he was glamorizing his father too much that he couldn't--or wouldn't?--see his flaws, or he was being sarcastic. I'm more inclined towards the latter. Reading the poem, I couldn't really tell anymore which side the persona was on. The language was neutral, and he described everything as he would a regular waltz, minus the violence.

But then, it could also NOT be about child abuse, but something else. As I said...The poem is quite enigmatic.

The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden

As was discussed in class, I agree that it seems as if the poem is talking about some fictitious "model citizen". He exactly that--a model citizen, a figment of the imagination created for society to emulate. At the end of the day, however, he is still very unreal. It is our flaws that make us human, and a person like this would have been like a robot, an alien or a Stepford wife. This poem seemed so conspiracy theory type, the kind they make into movies, starring Tom Cruise as a man living in a fictitious society.....

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

There was a point in the poem where I was wondering if Lewis Carroll just made up most of the words. Whatever he did, it worked. The tone seemed like the storytelling type, and it just engages you. This is another one of those poems that are just really entertaining. It's light, sounds great and seems like an enjoyable poem. It paints a colorful image in my mind of a very fantastic world.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

While Robert Frost is best known (at least to me) as the man who wrote "The Road Not Taken", I like this poem best. It conjures to my mind a very vivid mental image of the snowy woods, with the horseman cloaked in the night. I have no idea why, but the poem gave me a sort of ominous feeling, as if the night was filled with mysterious occurrences and devious strangers. I especially love the last four lines of the poem,

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

It sounds great and has a kind of lulling quality to it that makes you feel as if you are being lured to the woods as well.