Yusef Komunyakaa, "Facing It"

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.


http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15830
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusef_Komunyakaa


A man is standing in front of the wall at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial that lists all the soldiers' names who have died. He is looking in, seeing his reflection, and feeling the swell of sadness "I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears." He feels this rush of emotion because the narrator toured in Vietnam.

There is a lot of imagery in the poem, mainly focusing around what the narrator physically sees inside the stone wall. Reflections of a woman's blouse and a woman brushing a boy's hair are some. Also, the narrator recieves images in his thoughts of some of the soldiers. He touches the name Andrew Johnson and sees him caught in a flash and boobytrap, most likely an explosion, and also a white vet appears to him without an arm. He feels like he is a window to these spirits. Both of these views in the wall halp to emphasize the narrator being trapped in it.

There is a large feeling of fearful compassion in this poem. One example is the narrator and his connection to the other names. Another would be the view of the woman brushing a boy's hair. The narrator at first thinks she is trying to erase names, possibly out of disbelief, as if she will not accept the fact that someone is not coming home.

Gwendolyn Brooks, "The Mother"

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?--
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Brooks
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15829

The narrator, a woman against abortion, is speaking ironically of why she should feel sorry for an aborted baby ("though why should I whine" L22) when she generally stands in opposition to abortion. The first three quarters describe everything missed after an abortion by the baby (like no birth, no childhood, no crying, no laughing, etc.)in intense feeling. It brings a very dismal mood with words such as "if I poisoned the beginnings of your breath", "you were never made", and "the damp small pulps with little or with no hair". I feel like her mood and tone help in an effort to shun abortion in its entirety because it is "murder", and also because countless details of life are left out and never created. There is also a feeling of remorse for the unborn children in the last two lines, supporting both the narrator's stand against it, and her emotional connection to the topic.

William Butler Yeats, "The Magi"

Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=2095
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Butler_Yeats


This poem is generally about the subhuman side of man. Yeats describes how he can see the animosity of man through the mind's eye. "Their stiff, painted clothes" represents the false image that the mind can lay out for others to see. Beastly traits of mankind have been around forever, and Yeats also refers to this with "all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones". Here, Yeats is talking about how old this characteristic of humans has been around for a very long time, like that of an ancient statue or effigy eroded from rain and age.

Walt Whitman, "A Noiseless Patient Spider"

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16158
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_whitman

This poem is about a man and his soul. After reading it a few times, I see that he is searching within himself in his soul for purpose, for a reason. He refers to his soul as a spider, patient and quite, waiting for a catch to come along. This "catch" would be the reason or purpose in his life. The man is alone in a vast surrounding of nothing as symbolized as the spider on the isolated promontory (a.k.a. a projecting piece of land), meaning his soul is in a lonesome, quiet state, waiting for something to come along patiently. The young man is fervently searching for this idea of a purpose (Line 8 "Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them...") until his "gossamer thread" (thin or flimsy outreach) connects with whatever his soul may need.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "How Do I Love Thee?"

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15384
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning

In this poem a woman is expressing her deep love for a man, and I pick up a strong sense of romanticism. I like this because much of my own writing is based upon love, so I can relate to many of the lines. There is a repitition of "I love thee..." several times throughout, emphasizing the woman's love. Also all the ways she does love him are extended to cover many different reasons and situations. She loves him with feelings of freedom, purity, and wholeness, yet also with the idea that she needs his love - a love the woman had lost internally before, but feels that he can revive.

John Keats, "When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be"

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19378
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats


The speaker in this poem is Keats, reflecting on his thoughts about the end of his life.

Basically, Keats is expressing his thoughts of the end of his life. He thinks about before his "pen has gleaned [his] teeming brain" (before he can write or express everything his mind can create - L2) and how he may never look upon nature and the night sky. Keats comes to realize that in the end, love and fame "to nothingness do sink" (L 14), or in other words mean nothing in relation to life's beauties (like creation/expression and the stars) and life itself.

Keats uses imagery to describe the nature he may never again look upon. In lines 5-6, Keats talks about the night sky, personifying night with its "starred face". Keats also references the supernatural power of love in nature (being spontaneous, adventurous, and free-spirited). Ending the poem standing alone on "the shore of the wide world", Keats emphasizes his feeling of solitude in a pensive mood. This strengthens the effect of the possible end to one's life both for the narrator and the reader, and also hels support Keats' claim that love and fame is very small when compared to the overall greatness of being alive.

William Wordsworth, "The World Is Too Much With Us"

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15878
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordsworth

The speaker of this poem is Wordsworth, talking about materialism.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers" is basically saying lately no one has payed attention to anything except for money and greed, using their (industrial revolutionaries/citizens of London) power to gain more power. In line 8, Wordsworth speaks of being "out of tune", meaning the people are not doing as nature intended; greed and control is taking over everyone's life course.

There is a reference to three religions at the end of the poem ("Great God!" - Christianity, "a pagan suckled..." - Paganism, and "Proteus... Old Triton" - Greek Mythology). As the greater majority of people in London at this time were Christians (or catholic), the way Wordsworth says he'd rather be a Pagan (or his sight and sound of the Greek Gods) shows how disgusted he is in the demoralization of ideals at this time (further emphasizing the materialism at the time).

William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16084
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth


The speaker in the poem is Wordsworth, thinking about being happy throughout his life.

Basically, Wordsworth is saying he becomes very happy when he sees a simple sight in nature (the "rainbow in the sky"). He was this happy as both a child ("So was is when my life began") and now as an adult ("so is it now I am a man"). Also, he wishes to remain as awestruck with nature as he grows much older ("so be it when I shall grow old").

I find that there is a use of allusion at the end of the poem, referencing Mother Nature. The text "natural piety" refers to the divinity and spirit of nature, like that of Mother Nature. Nature is the reason for Wordsworth's joy. and he hopes to continue loving it as he has since his childhood.

William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud"

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15925
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth

The speaker in this poem is a man in a ruminative mood, describing a most inspiring scene of daffodils that he saw.

This poem is about a man who thinks of a beautiful landscape he had once come upon, when he is in empty, or pensive thought. A picturesque view of daffodils fills his mind and places him in a merry and cheerful mood. The view of the sparkling waves and bay are also beautiful, yet still unable to match the daffodils.

Wordsworth's choice of words throughout the poem intensify the mood felt from this poem. A happy, carefree, cheerful feeling is expressed in several lines. The daffodils are personified by "flutteting and dancing" (L6) and "tossing their heads in sprightly dance" (L12). This along with line 13-14's "but they... out-did the sparkling waves in glee" gives the daffodils a more vivid and lively image, adding to the overall warmth picked up.

Imagery is also present throughout much of the poem. "golden daffodils, beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering..." (L4-6) paints a scene of ardor and beauty. Words in the second stanza such as "shine", "twinkle", and "sprightly" all help to give a bright and happy view in mind.