Dana Gioia’s “Money”

Money, the long green,
cash, stash, rhino, jack
or just plain dough.

Chock it up, fork it over,
shell it out. Watch it
burn holes through pockets.

To be made of it! To have it
to burn! Greenbacks, double eagles,
megabucks and Ginnie Maes.

It greases the palm, feathers a nest,
holds heads above water,
makes both ends meet.

Money breeds money.
Gathering interest, compounding daily.
Always in circulation.

Money. You don’t know where it’s been,
but you put it where your mouth is.
And it talks.

-         no rhyme scheme

-         “cash stash”-> internal rhymes

-         Lots of line breaks after commas

-         Six stanzas

-         Three lines per stanza

-         No syllabic rhythm

-         Ironic poem-> sarcasm? “To be made of it! To have it/ to burn!”

-         Blunt-> lists slang terms for money in first stanza-> “the long green,/ cash, stash, rhino, jack/ or just plain dough”

-         Second stanza-> hash consonant sounds-> “CHoCK iT uP, fork iT over,/ SHeLL iT ouT. waTCH iT/ burn holes through pockets”

-         Also in second stanza there is assonance of the “O” soundà chOck, Over, OUt, hOles, through, pOckets

-         Third stanza is more words that mean money-> “Greenbacks, double eagles,/ megabucks and Ginnie Maes”

-         Fourth stanza is sarcastic-> says that money can do all sorts of things like how it “holds heads above water”

-         Fifth stanza is about how money reproduces and is in a circulation-> contrast of truth with sarcasm

-         Sixth stanza implies that money is unsanitary (“You don’t know where its been,/ but you put it where you mouth is”)-> plays with the saying put your money where you mouth is-> last line “And it talks” implies that your money tells something about you

Jennifer Reeser’s “Winter-proof”

• rhyme scheme: a-b-c-b, d-e-a-e
• 8-7 syllable pattern if you used “blessed” as one syllable (not BLESSed)
• alleteration: “Blessed be,” “gaze from the grave yard”
• assonance: “sweet pea, calendula, pink”
• hyphen after first line of each stanza
• two stanzas
• four lines per stanza
• “Blessed be the winter-proof blossoms” is capitalized both times
• beginning sentences of stanzas are capitalized
• first stanza is all one sentence
• second stanza has three sentences

In her poem, Reeser writes about certain flowers, such as “sweet pea, calendula,” “violet, camellia and rose” that she describes as “winter-proof.” This implies that these flowers grow during the winter months and that there is “nothing of fester or stink” in them, meaning that they won’t go bad or die. This is a strong contrast against the setting of this poem, which is a graveyard that the narrator is “Drawing my (her) gaze from.”

Chryss Yost “Lai with Sounds of Skin”

- Lai is a type of French poem

- Aabaabaa rhyme scheme

- Reverse role of linen and skin–> “Shall we dress in skin/ our living linen?”–> dressing linen in skin rather than dressing skin in linen

- Linen–> reference to bed sheets

- weftà cloth or textile–> “bone weft”–> cloth of bone

- Linen/skin and bone weft–> both are connecting human body to fabric

- “pull of masculine/ into feminine”–> refers to sex–> woman is linen/skin and man is bone weft?

- “the heft”–> bulk/ bolt of fabric–> bolt of linen

- Weaving fabric is being compared to sex-> “the warp, weave, and spin/ of carded days in/ tightly twisted thin/ yarns that we begin-”

- “skin to skein to skin”–> human skin to a spool of thread–> skein also means series of like things–> skin and skein are pronounced the same way

- Alliterations: “living linen”, “tightly twisted thin”, “like wool/ like will”, “spoken to silken”, “skin to skein to skin”

- Overall–> author is comparing sex to fabric/ making fabric

T.S. Eliot’s “Virginia”

Red river, red river,
Slow flow heat is silence
No will is still as a river
Still. Will heat move
Only through the mocking-bird
Heard once? Still hills
Wait. Gates wait. Purple trees,
White trees, wait, wait,
Delay, decay. Living, living,
Never moving. Ever moving
Iron thoughts came with me
And go with me:
Red river, river, river.

(___= alliteration)

Although Eliot does not make the end words of his poem rhyme, he uses alliteration to make his poem flow and have musical elements. He uses words that start with a letter (“Red river, red river,”) to produce that kind of alliteration as well as using a rhyming alliteration within the lines such as “No will is still” and “Wait. Gates wait.” In doing this he creates a rhythm in his poem that makes up for its lack of ending rhymes.

Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow”

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

- Narrator is under hemlock tree

- “From a hemlock tree”

- It is winter and there is snow on the tree

-”The dust of snow”

- While under the tree, a crow takes off and snow falls on the narrator

-first stanza

- because the snow falls on him, the narrator goes from a bad mood into a good mood

-”A change of mood…/ From a day I had rued”

The overall mood of this poem in somewhat enlightening. It talks about a man whose mood had been changed for the better because of a simple thing. It gives the reader a sense of happiness.

The Blue Bowl

Jane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.

• narrator’s cat died, they bury it with its blue bowl–> “buried the cat/ With its bowl”
• cat had caught a white bird earlier–> “the white feathers/ between his toes”
• Narrator thinks that he should not be so sad–> “There are sorrows keener than these”
• robin’s song is irritatingly happy to narrator, does not compliment his sad feelings–> “like a neighbor who means well/ But always says the wrong thing”

This poem is about a family that has just buried their cat with its blue bowl, and the family is upset about it. They put the “sand and gravel” on top of the cat, and are somewhat haunted for the rest of the day with thoughts of it (”Silence the rest of the day..”). They are almost numb because of the cat’s death, yet they seem to think that they should not be too sad about it.

 William Yeat’s “When You Are Old”

This poem has a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a. The audience of this poem is brought to the reader’s attention  until the seventh line when Yeats says “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you.” This tells us that the narrator is talking to a woman that he used to love. The poem tells a story in a way that is talking about the woman when she is old. Yeats makes that known by the title of the poem. When this woman is old, the narrator tells her to “take down this book/ And slowly read, and dream of the soft look/ Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep,” which refers to the book that this poem is in. Yeats is also saying that the old woman should look back on her life while reading this poem and remember when she was young and when the narrator was in love with her. We get the feeling that this love was lost when Yeats writes “Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled.” It seems as though the narrator of this poem mainly wanted to help the old, tired, woman remember a time when she was happy and loved.

The first poem is written in iams, with two per line that creates a fast pace with an almost galloping rhythm whereas the second poem is written in an unstressed/unstressed/ stressed/ stressed pattern. This applies to all but the sixth and last line. The sixth line is an unstressed/unstressed/ stressed pattern and the last is a stressed/ unstressed/ unstressed/ unstressed/ stressed pattern. The second poem, unlike the first, creates natural pauses that allow the reader to catch their breath while reading aloud while the first is very fast and continuous.

James Joyce “All Day I Hear”

This poem has a rhyme scheme of a-b-c-b-a-b-c-b-a-b-c-b. In this poem, Joyce creates a mood that is mundane and gray. He does so by using phrases that represent repetition. For instance, he says “All day I hear the noise of waters” which is him referring to the crashing of the waves, which repeatedly occurs. He also makes the reader feel as though they are stuck in a boring and gray atmosphere by using the word, “Monotone,” as the sixth line. This is going back to the repetition of the waves crashing. Another reference to the repetition of the waves is when Joyce says in his last four lines “I hear the noise of many waters/ Far below./ All day, all night, I hear them flowing/ To and fro.” There Joyce is talking about how no matter when it is, he always hears the waves going back and forth, therefore making it an everyday occurrence and somewhat dull and ordinary. Also, Joyce creates the feeling that a certain sadness is looming over his head wheverever he goes by saying “The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing/ Where I go.” The wind is a symbol of his sadness and it does not seem to go away and it ties in with the continuity of the waves. It seems as though there is a link between the permanent wind (sadness) and the repetitive waves in that they both never seem able to stop or go away.

Arthur Guiterman “On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness”- title: taking things for granted

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
–> elephant tusks are now pool balls–> ivory
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.
–> sword that is supposed to have symbolic meaning is just rusty iron
The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
–> grizzly that was once feared is now simply decoration
Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,–> caesar dressing?
And I don’t feel so well myself.
–> author angry at present day economy–> no respect for history or creatures
main message: things are not what they appear because economy twists them into materialized objects from what they really are

“Love” by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,-love: welcoming, warm; narrator:hesitant
Guilty of dust and sin.-he has a bad soul
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack- love knows he is doubtful
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning- magnetic
If I lack’d anything.- love thinks narrator should have no doubts

“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;- temporary?
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”- narrator is ashamed to look at love
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”- love made his eyes, so he can look at love

“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”- narrator has been ashamed of his eyes
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”- narrator gives into love, but only as a servant
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”- love wants narrator to be equal
So I did sit and eat.- narrator finally gives into love and “eats’

In his poem “Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red, Rose,” Robert Burns speaks in the first person, using the pronoun “I” and the possessive pronoun “my” frequently. His audience is the person that he is in love with, and the reader can figure this out because of the first line in the second stanza, which says, “So fair art thou, my bonny lass.” The use of the phrase “art thou” is like saying “are you,” which therefore lets the reader know that he is speaking directly to someone.

Burns uses lots of similes and metaphors in his poem. The first two lines, (the first line also being the title) “Oh my love is like a red, red, rose/ That’s newly sprung in June,” is a simile that compares his love for the person to whom he is speaking to a rose. Roses are commonly used when talking about or showing love for someone, so this simile is very simple to understand.