Reading this poem I have a hard time comprehending what exactly is going on my thought is after examining this poem is that a beautiful plant or flower is being eaten or just cut up by a person. Narcissus flower defined is any bulbous plant belonging to the genus narcissus. Of the amaryllis family, having showy yellow or white flowers with cupped shaped coronal. Defining this helped me understand that the flower would be beautiful and bright in color. Line one uses the word “frivolous slipper” I believe this represents the flowers leaves since the definition of narcissus flower said that they have cupped shaped leaves. I was confused by lines 3 and 4 because I am not sure why the blossom is being incinerated or destroyed by burning. Lines 7-9 give me the feel that the flower is being dissected and cut up by an in the flowers eyes an evil man because Rita used the words “adamant”, which means refusing to be persuaded and “plunge” which described the knife's movement. Also in line 9 I noticed what might be a paradox statement “ I found myself at the center of a calm so pure, it was hate”. What made me think that the flower was being eaten was in lines 10-11 because it says “ The mystery is, you can eat fear before fear eats you” repeating the word “eat” puts emphasis on it making the reader focus on that theme in the poem. Overall I am able to have a bleak understanding, but do think the flower is being eaten and that you are seeing this or reading this from the flowers perspective.
Your analysis was refreshing in that it was something I actually never really thought of when I read the poem. Like you, I was fairly confused as to what it meant, but I interpreted tone first, and the use of words like "frightened," "unzipped," "scream," "incinerated," and "knife" really carry that connotation of fear and vulnerability. I think that, contrasted with words like "slipper," "blossom," "pure," and "queen," which all have soft phonetics and gentle connotation, reveal the fragile nature of a flower like the narcissus. I'm still not sure about how it fits into the Demeter myth, as the only allusion I can see is the reference to Narcissus (I should probably look into this further).
Both of your interpretations were interesting but when I read the poem, I took it another way. I actually found a connection with the Persephone/Demeter myth. I made the connection that "this man" in line six was referencing Hades and that when Rita says "I" she's referring to Persephone, since Persephone is sometimes referred to as the Queen of the Underworld. That connection makes more sense to me as well because of the line before where Rita says "you can live beyond dying." I thought this was a kind of play on words since Persephone is taken to the Underworld, where she sort of lives beyond dying. Also, in the first line of the poem, she says "my foot" and I connected that to the poem Persephone, Falling where Rita says "this is how one foot sinks into the ground." The first part of The Narcissus Flower is referencing Persephone being stolen by Hades to the Underworld. The plunge could be taken to mean the plunge into the pit, and when she talks about the calm and hate, that was the turning point where she starts to just accept her fate and becomes a Queen instead.
This poem was extremely disturbing without context, which goes to show how important the mythological allusion to Demeter is in “Mother Love.” However, even without context, the obsessed tone is clearly communicated through the structure of the poem. I noticed that the indentation of the text every other line makes your eyes jump across the page frantically as you read the poem, and that gave the impression of a rambling stream of consciousness that was enforced by the use of enjambment. The beginning of the poem before the turn, a general statement about what it feels like to be a mother, has a proud tone that represents the standard of responsibility that mothers hold themselves to. The capitalization of words like “Love” and “Glory,” and the words of noble connotation like “duty bugles,” “rise,” and “primed” all contribute to this effect. However, after the physical break in the poem, the poem tells the story of Demeter encountering this baby boy and deciding that she will care for him as if she were his mother—that, of course, meant that she was going to make him immortal, as implied in “I decided to save him.” At the same time, comparing him to a piece of roasted meat, in “I laid him on the smoldering embers, / sealing his juices in slowly so he might / be cured to perfection. ...” (22-24) and “...sizzling on a spit / as neat as a Virginia ham” (26-27) reveals the obsessive, controlling attitude the speaker (presumably Demeter) has towards the infant. In the original mythology, Demeter had gone slightly mad after the kidnapping of Persephone, and this madness is the overall tone of the poem. The shift from the pride of being a mother to the controlling nature of a woman attempting to console the loss of her identity as a mother is clear in “Mother Love.”
I like how you broke the poem up into the different emotional stages Demeter is going through, it makes the poem more of a story and therefore more relatable. Your observation about how the structure of the poem makes for frantic eye movement is very interesting and something I hadn't noticed at first. The imagery of the baby boy being roasted alive is, like you said, extremely disturbing and I saw it as the representation of how far a mother will go to do what's best for her child. Here, Demeter has become obsessed with this baby boy even though he's not hers, but her instincts still drive her to do radical things, losing sight of what may be right and instead focusing too much on perfection.
In Rita Dove’s indefinable sonnet Breakfast of Champions, I found hints of humanity within a bowl of cereal. Mornings are fresh starts while nights are tiring and never quite long enough. The person in this poem is going through the change from night to morning where they “crossed a hemisphere, worked my way through petals and sunlight,” using hemisphere to display the sharp turn from dark to light and petals and sunlight to show the delicacy and brightness of the day that a person constantly sees until they can bask in the quiet of darkness at the end of the day (1-2). Once night has started, the person wants further escape from life’s worries, stress, and everything else, and does so with “I’ll dive into a grateful martini tonight, eye to eye with the olive adrift in cool ether,” where they can be appreciated and comforted by this martini, allowing them to become selfish for a short while and enjoy themselves (5-6). Ether is a liquid that burns easily and is used as an anesthetic, here relating to the alcohol in the martini, and both substances can be used to take away pain, further displaying this person’s need for freedom from daily life and all of its pressures. A later reference to hospital uses is “honking out of the mist, a sonic hospital graph announcing recovery,” where honking refers to the beep of an alarm clock that wakes a person up in the morning (11-12). This beep brings a person back from a restorative sleep, allowing them to go through another day and creating a cycle of constant weakness where a person is revived every morning so they can fulfill whatever tasks they are faced with everyday, such as school or work. Like every other person, they “pour myself the recommended bowlful,” so they have the right amount to make it through the day since too much or too little would upset the cycle (13). Finally, the “stones are what I sprinkle among the chaff,” represent this average person’s contribution to the ‘cereal bowl’ of life, where they put in plain, meaningless stones into the chaff, meaning trash and worthless things, like every other human being (14). The chaff is where people throw in the empty actions they do everyday, but these actions are apart of the cycle and are what make us so tired at the end of the day; they make us long for sleep so we can be rejuvenated. If every person puts in their ‘stone’, no one will outdo another and we will all be equal. Unhappy, but equal.
I agree with your statement on how the petals and sunlight are the delicate day. I didn't put that together like you did. I like how you said that the person goes into the quiet of darkness I think you don't see night as a good thing in most writings and it's interesting how you connected it and it completely makes sense. When you said that the chaft is the cycle of things people do every day that make us tired and long for sleep is a great description of how Rita is trying to describes people's lives.
The word “Wiederkehr” is a German nickname for someone who has returned to a place on more than one occasion. This can be directly linked to the Persephone myth since she had to return to the underworld every year for four months. Her nickname is wiederkehr because of her constant return. In the beginning of the poem, you immediately know that when the word “he” is used, Rita Dove is alluding to Hades. He was in love with Persephone and wanted her “for happiness”. She was opposed to this idea describing the underworld as a place of “darkness” where she “sat to hold the rain untouched”. Rain can be linked to sadness like it is in any other book, movie, or poem. The idea of rain leaves an even sadder tone to the poem than it already had since the beginning. You almost feel Persephone’s grieving and Hades’ happiness radiate off the page. Hades’ happiness is shown through the lines, “to watch the smile begun in his eyes end on the lips his eyes caressed”. This relationship can be compared to what people would consider an abusive relationship today. One person controls the other person and doesn’t allows them to live their lives. Hades is controlling Persephone and is not allowing her to go back to her mother and live the life she had before. The line “he never asked if I would stay” supports this idea of an abusive relationship because she doesn’t get to express her opinion. It’s as if Hades’ feelings are all that matter. Finally the last line of the poem, “Which is why, when the choice appeared, I reached for it.” expresses Persephone’s finally thoughts on the situation. When she was given the chance to “leave” the underworld and Hades, she immediately took it. But if you know the myth, she is forced to return four months every year. Returning to what tore her apart and made he life miserable.
I also did Wiederkehr and agree with all of your points however I said rain was related to how Demeter causes seasons because she is so upset and that rain is apart of winter when Persephone is in the underworld. When Rita Dove says "I sat to hold the rain untoched inside me" she is saying that Persephone cant be upset and angered when she is in the underworld because it is something she has to do
I analyzed Dove’s “Wiederkehr” in my blog post too and I agreed with a lot of your points about the allusions and symbolism. However, I think that rain doesn’t always have sad connotations. Rain gives and sustains life, allows plants and crops to grow, and can be a sign of sign of hope and life in a vast, dry place such as a desert or in a drought. After all, it was only with Persephone that Demeter was able to allow harvest and new growth. Without her by her side, the world was barren and infertile. Perhaps the “rain” inside of Persephone is her liveliness and hope, and Hades captured her in hopes of having his own happiness and hope in the Underworld, where there is nothing but hopelessness, darkness, and death. In lines 9-10, Dove writes “... and though he saw how still I sat to hold the rain untouched inside me…”. In this statement, Persephone may have been adamant to not let her inner hope and life be affected by the darkness of the Underworld and Hades.
Rita Dove’s sonnet Used envelops the pressure that is put on women by society. The imagery that is used in this poem, as well as the consonance and rhythm provides a creative flow that entices the reader to continue reading. The overall theme of the poem is established from the first few words of the poem and that is the uselessness of certain things that society believes people need. In the first stanza Rita Dove states, “Tabula rasa. No slate’s that clean--” (4). The philosophy of tabula rasa is that everyone is born with a blank slate and has no predetermined traits. This sonnet argues the exact opposite. The use of the word “man-child’s” when describing the predetermined attractions of humans presents the idea that certain characteristics are within from birth. The sonnet outlines the continuation of this predetermined trait because of the pressure from society. On line 4 the next statement is that no slate is clean, further proving the belief that Tabula Rasa is, in fact, an incorrect evaluation of human existence. In the third stanza the uselessness of certain societal expectations is further examined by the silk sheets that symbolize the over rated perception that people have. This brings the title into relevance because as people society has manipulated us to place value on useless things. Rhyming is used to emphasize specific words that influence the mood of the work. Rita dove writes, “to the floor and by morning the quilts had slid off, too. Enough of guilt--” (12-13). Emphasis is put on quilts and guilt to present the pointlessness of the expensive sheets, which are the over valued traits that existing in a society creates.
My first thought when reading the title of this poem was that it would be a coming of age story. The connotations that I associated with party dress are 21st birthdays or clubbing. When I first read first born, at first I thought of babies, but then my mind shifted to the eldest in a family. After reading the poem, I thought that my original thoughts were pretty accurate. In my mind, it’s about an ignorant girl with a protective mother, similarly to some of her other poems. The poem has a lot of literary features that add to this idea. For example, the first words, “headless girl” is a characterization of the “you” in the poem. It refers to a girl that’s ignorant, stupid and empty headed. This is perpetuated by the next two lines where Dove says, “ill at ease on the bed” and “I know, if you could, what you’re thinking of: nothing.” When she says ill at ease, she means that the girl is sort of uncomfortable, embarrassed or perhaps inexperienced, which could also be seen as ignorant and innocent. Even though Dove uses “you”, she’s not referring to the reader but actually to Rita’s own daughter, and then when she says “I”, she’s referring to herself and her own experiences with her own mother. Like when she says “I ran to my mother”, it shows how protective her own mother was in her life. She compares her to a cornstalk at the edge of the field. Corn can occasionally symbolize protectiveness or goodness, so comparing her mother to the cornstalk at the edge of a field is like saying that her mother was always standing at the edge of her life, watching protectively over her. In the sestet of the sonnet, it shows the clear reason as to why the protectiveness was such a big factor. It gives a hints towards sex culture and the predatory behavior of some men. She compares them to elegant scissors across the lawn compared the the women who are petals waiting to loosen. This is a metaphor to womens virginity which is often times compared to a flower. It shows the subtle behaviors in the line “they will nudge each other to get a peek and I will smile, all the while wishing them dead.” I think this shows how women are oftentimes forced to be quiet and just deal with uncomfortable situations.
The Narcissus Flower is a poem by Rita Dove and is an indefinable sonnet. There are 14 lines, but there is no fixed rhyme scheme or meter in the poem. There are many enjambments throughout the poem. This poem seemed more story-like, rather than poem-like. On line 4, "blossom incinerated" could be an oxymoron. There could be a caesura in line two, when it says ..."frightened bird...not the earth unzipped." A question that arose while reading this poem, was who "this man" in line six was. "This man" is apparently "adamant as a knife." Another interesting line was on line 12 when it says "you can live beyond dying." This is a paradox because it is a statement that seems contrary to common sense, however, could be true. I found the title "The Narcissus Flower" to be a sort of oxymoron because Narcissus is a self centered person, compared to a flower in which people may view as pure. I found line nine interesting, because "center of a calm so pure, it was hate" seem to contradict each other. I wonder if the "frightened bird" in line two symbolizes, or means something else, other than its literal meaning.
The poem Canary was written for Michael S. Harper who was an american poet and english professor at brown university. He also was the poet laureate of rhode island from 1988-1993. His poetry was influenced by jazz and history. This is important because it tells us what this poem is about partially. In line one Rita names a famous jazz singer named “Billie Holiday” whose nickname was “lady day”. Rita is writing a poem of a time period and topic that Michael was influenced by. This poem is about Billie Holiday and how she struggled in life. In line 2 Rita writes that she “had as many shadows as lights” this I believe is referring to Billie Holiday’s substance abuse, because though her caries was great her personal problems were just as great and followed every where she went like a “shadow” . Also in stanza one line 4 it says “Gardenia her signature under that ruined face” Gardenia is a tree or shrub of the bedstraw family with white or yellow flowers. Native to warm climate it is widely cultivated. Billie Holiday wear a gardenia in her hair a lot and that is why it is stated in this poem. The title of the poem Canary also is important to the poem because a canary is a mainly african finch with a melodious song, typically having yellowish-green plumage. One kind is popular as a pet bird and bred in a variety of colors, especially bright yellow. The canary is a symbol for Billie Holiday herself because of the signature song the bird has is the same as Billie Holiday’s signature voice. Finally in the last line of the poem “If you can’t be free, be a mystery” this is relating to Billie Holiday as a canary because they are common as pets so she can not be free because she is kept caged by mabey her reality or fame and is going to be a mystery or a unknown instead this might mean she is going to keep her substance abuse a secret from people because she can’t control it but that is just a guess.
The poem is about the famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. One of the features she is known for is her unibrow. You automatically know who is being talked about when reading line 1, “This is for the women with one black wing perched over her eyes”. The “one black wing” is, in fact, her eyebrows. In some Frida Kahlo’s paintings, she would paint herself, sitting up straight, with many parrots surrounding her. The quote, “erect among parrots” (line 2-3) alludes to her numerous paintings. Another thing that Frida Kahlo is known for is her horrific bus accident that injured her hip and spine. In line 5-6, Dove talks about this injury through the quote, “the plaster corset her spine resides”. Plaster is used for casts and if it is a “plaster corset” you can assume that Dove is talking about a full body cast used for spine injuries. This is also talking about her painting ‘The Broken Column” where it shows her in a body cast with a part of it cut down the middle where you can see her spine. Kahlo lived a life full of pain due to her injuries. Line 7 talks about this in the quote, “Each night she lay down in pain”. One of the reasons why she died is because her body was falling apart. She was bedridden for a large part of her life and she had to get her leg amputated to prevent an infection in her foot from spreading. In line 8, it talks about a “celluloid butterfly”. Celluloid is a transparent flammable plastics that is commonly used in cinematography. A butterfly is both a negative and positive symbol. The negative meaning for a butterfly is the spirit of death. When looking at the poem, you can tell that the negative meaning is used. Dove uses the words “celluloid butterfly” to talk about Kahlo’s death. It was transparent, or obvious, that her pain was going to lead to her death. Along with her husband, Diego Rivera, she was a communist. “Lenin and Marx, and Stalin” (line 9) are all famous figures in the world of Communism. Two of her paintings are talked about at the end when mentioning her husband. Those two paintings are ‘Thinking About Death’ and ‘Diego and I’. When looking at the title of the poem, you can assume that it is a sonnet. But when counting the lines, there are only 13. A sonnet consists of 14 lines. Why does the title have the word “sonnet” in it if it doesn’t even fit the general definition of a sonnet? The other part of the title is primary colors. The three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. Nothing can be mixed to make these colors. This can be compared to Frida’s life because she was her own person. She wasn’t a mix of other people. She was her own individual.
I remember learning about Frida Kahlo in Spanish 4, and so it's very rewarding to see the historical references in this particular poem. I do wonder about the structure, though—I wonder if the 13-line sonnet represents an unfinished quality, like an unfinished work of art, or her death at a relatively young age (47). By writing about her life and emphasizing the painful elements of that life, while contrasting those elements with words of positive and appreciative connotation like "this is for the woman...," "lovely," "romance," and "rose," I think Dove is showing how much she respects Frida's perseverance in a life that brought her suffering.
I thought your analysis was very interesting and I agreed with many of your points. I believed that the sonnet only contained 13 lines because it is a tribute to Frida's life which was cut short and so was the poem.
This poem is about the Catholic patron saint of Italy, Catherine of Siena, and her fateful balance of struggle and success throughout her life. Even though Catherine lived during the 1300s, the poem is speaking to the reader by repeating “You” so they can see the inner Catherine in themselves and how all people will face similar difficulties and triumphs. Catherine traveled to Avignon, Tuscany, and many other places so as to bring the pope back to Rome, since he was in France, and to reorganize the Roman Catholic Church. Dove uses the hyperbole “You walked the length of Italy,” to describe this aspect of her journey, and shows how sometimes a person must go to great lengths to achieve their goal (1). Every road has bumps in its path, displayed through “You struck the boulder at the roadside since fate has doors everywhere,” giving hope to anyone who has been halted by failure that it will only lead to success (3-4). Additionally, ‘doors’ symbolizes that everything creates opportunity for something else, that there is always more to a path, and that fate is found in every step of life. This relates to Catherine because her failure at Avignon where she was ignored by the Pope allowed her to keep striving forward to attain her goal. To further emphasize how good goes hand in hand with bad, Dove uses the antithesis “of heaven, warm and dark,” to show that even a place as pure as heaven will have its comforts and its secrets (6). Through the imagery “the woolens stacked on cedar shelves back home in your father’s shop,” using ‘woolens’ instead of clothes to give off a warmer tone so as to support the familiarity of home to the reader and how they can find release at the beginning of their journey (7-9). Also, cedar symbolizes ritual cleansing in the Old Testament and here is used to represent the preserved, clean state of person’s home, allowing it to stand out and always have special meaning in their heart. Dove then adds the beautiful imagery “you prayed until tears streaked the sky,” to prove how deep prayer or belief and hope is always acknowledged, and how there will always be someone listening (9-10). Tears are never wasted and help with going through the bad in life, aiding a person in the transition from one experience to the next. By the end, the poem is reflecting on Catherine’s journey, on every person’s journey, with “No one stumbled across your path,” to state how no one got in Catherine’s way; everything that happened to her was fate (11). Catherine could not be disrupted during her quest and this is shown through “No one unpried your fists as you slept,” where ‘fists’ symbolize her unbreakable passion which enabled her to constantly have strength and hope (12). Every aspect of Catherine’s experiences were fateful, even her death, which even though was full of suffering still had meaning and allowed her to reach her goal. Portraying Catherine of Siena’s experiences lets the reader see the universal struggles and successes that come with life. A person must go through light and dark to be able to enact the change they want. During her time period, Catherine substantially changed the state of the Roman Catholic Church and Italy itself, proving that anyone, especially a woman, can achieve great things as long as they are determined and find fate in the failures as well as the victories.
Jeremy- I agree with all the points you make about the poem Catherine of Siena by Rita Dove. Without researching, one could assume this poem would be story-like, centered around a "Catherine of Siena". As I was reading this poem, I also noticed how Rita Dove used "you" to speak to the reader, even though Catherine of Siena lived in the 1300's. Without using the word "you" to connect with the reader, i think Rita Dove also successfully connects with the reader based on the message of the poem, which is a message that many people can relate to. As you said, the message of this poem was that anyone can achieve great things as long as they are determined.
“Tou Wan Speaks to Her Husband, Liu Sheng” The story told in the poem clearly demonstrates a level of devotion or submissiveness that Tou Wan displays towards Liu Sheng. At the same time, however, it shows that there is a distance between them, by using “my only conqueror” and “my constant emperor” to refer to Liu Sheng, instead of something more personal like referring to him as her husband. She is only able to love him from this distance, while he gives her no affection in return; regardless, she feels obligated to give him the appreciation she thinks he deserves, saying that she will place “a statue / of the palace girl you most / frequently coveted” (37-39) in his tomb. Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan was known for spending time with multiple women (as well as using drugs), and despite his careless behavior Tou Wan (who became a widow after his death) is willing to make his tomb rich and extravagant. Raising Liu Sheng to a godly level, by describing him as “long light and clouds / over the earth, just as the legends prophesy” (46-47) is almost ironic considering the historical context and the detail in lines 37-39, as he was very interested in wordly pleasures that are not characteristic of a heavenly image. The structure of the poem, long stanzas of short lines with limited punctuation, gives it the feeling of reading off a long list, which emphasizes the level of detail Tou Wan delves into in planning her husband’s tomb. Both of these details about the description of his grand burial chamber represent how much Tou Wan worships Liu Sheng, at the same time highlighting why Liu Sheng may not be so deserving of this love and devotion.
The sonnet ,Catherine of Alexandria, is a reminiscence of Catherine’s short life from the point of view of Catherine herself. Rita Dove uses imagery to relay the possible feelings that Catherine has. The poem has a tone of regret and gives off a depressing mood. In order to understand the significance of this poem, you have to know that Catherine was a saint and virgin in the 4th century. At the age of fourteen, she became a Christian and took part in converting others around her. By 18 she was martyred at the hands of the pagan emperor. Catherine had made a vow to stay a virgin and in this literature, it is portrayed that she regrets this lackluster life, but also believes the pain is necessary. The last stanza describes the importance of this promise she has made, the imagery used is, “a kept promise, a ring of milk” (15-16). The poem has a tone of innocence and purity. The symbolism of a flower is used in line 10, which is commonly used to symbolize virginity. In the bible the lilies beauty and fragrance shadow forth the preciousness of Christ. In this poem, it also symbolizes purity and preciousness. The secret nature of this poem is exemplified by the lines, “each night was fit for nobody’s ears” (7-8). In this poem, night shows a huge significance in half of the stanzas because of her choice to stay a virgin. In the last stanza Dove writes, “the nightshirt bunched above your waist-” (13-14). This shows her temptation to break the vow, but in the next two lines, it returns to the significance of her promise.
I after with your analysis and was interested in how you described the poem as a promise she was fighting to not break. I also agree how night plays a huge role in this poem towards her promise to stay a virgin. I like how you related the flower symbols to the Bible it gave a more in depth meaning and understanding to the poem.
“Sonnet in Primary Colors” intrigued me in many ways. This poem is about Frida Kahlo who was a Mexican painter than was known for her various self portraits as mentioned in line two “lovely Frida”. First off, in the title Rita Dove mentions that this is a sonnet but it only has 13 lines instead of the traditional 14 lines. The absence of one line made me think that this represents the absence of the life that Frida would have had if she had not died so young. This poem is a tribute to Frida’s life and how it was cut short just like the poem was cut short. This sonnet is incomplete just like Frida’s life was incomplete and there was so much more than could have been added but never was. Another part that stood out to me was when Rita Dove states “This is for the woman with one black wing perched over her eyes: lovely Frida” (lines 1&2). At first I honestly didn't think much of this line and somewhat thought it was funny that Rita was referencing the unibrow that was once above Frida’s eyes, but then I decided to think a bit deeper. Birds usually represent freedom but in this case the bird she is referencing only has one wing and therefore it cannot fly, and it is the color black which usually has a negative connotation connected to it. The allusion of the bird in this poem does not represent freedom but it shows how close Frida was but could not reach it without her lover which represents the other wing.
The House slave is a poem by Rita Dove, and is not a sonnet like the previous set of poems we read and analysed. This poem has five triplet stanzas, which translates to 15 lines, and is told from the point of view of a house slave. The house slave is watching field slaves work from "before-dawn". In the second stanza, there is a simile, "their mistress sleeps like an ivory toothpick", to contrast how comfortably the slave owner lives, to the stressful and painful lives of the field slaves. The house slave watches "whip curls across the backs of the laggards". The house slave watches the slaves in the field getting whipped. On line 14, it says "fat flowers". "Fat flowers" is an alliteration, however i wonder why Rita Dove describes the flowers as "fat". In this line is also a simile: "they spill like bees among the fat flowers". I wonder why the house slave weeps, when he/she is not the one in the field working day to night and getting whipped. Rita Dove creates a very sad tone when the House Slave describes how he/she can sometime hear his/her sister's voice in the field getting whipped. On those days, the House Slave sits on the cot, "shivering in the early heat".
The poem Rosa by Rita Dove is a 12 line poem, with four triplet stanza. This poem is a part of the Civil Rights set of poems. This poem is about Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist, who was most known by her actions on a bus. She refused to stand up and give her seat up to a white person. In the first stanza of the poem Rosa, Dove gives some historical background of the situation. The first line is very dramatic, although it is only four lines. Everyone knows that Rosa Parks sat on the bus, however Dove adds this line to create a dramatic tone. In the third stanza, “doing nothing was the doing” shows the unequal rights for African Americans. As I read the poem, I noticed that “Her sensible coat” was not a sentence. It makes me wonder why Dove would add an incomplete sentence to her poem. The “camera flash” in line 9 shows that film crews and photographers are coming to document this moment. This also helps explain how this event has become so well known. The last stanza in this poem explains the aftermath of this situation. I wonder who is the person that “bent down to retrieve her purse”.
I agree I think the person who picked up her perse was the cops arresting her because in line ten it uses the word "stoop" which means to bend ones head forward and down as if she were getting arrested and in line 12 Rita used the word "courtesy" which can be seen as sarcasm because they are arresting her for staying seated on a bus but at least they grabbed her perce. Also in line 8 "the clean flame of her gaze carved by a camera flash" demonstrates just how determined rosa was and how passionate she was about her actions to end segragation.
I like your analysis of Dove's unorthodox approach to the famous story of Rosa Parks on the bus. Like many of the Civil Rights poems, this one references a bus, but this one relates more to the reader since it's a well-known event that we learn about from a young age. I also want to add how simplistic and ordinary Dove made Rosa appear by not giving her a flashy appearance of a stereotypical hero and instead showing her as "sensible". This shows how the most ordinary of people can make extraordinary impacts if they simply have a "flame" or passion for what they stand for.
This poem is about a slave woman named belinda who was born in africa. Kidnapped and brought to america. She was a slave for 12 years then petitioned the massachusetts legislature in 1783 for her freedom. LIne one says “To the honorable Senate house of representatives of this country” This makes me think that the poem is written in Belinda’s perspective of giving the reasons why she should be free or testifying in court. Rita uses the word “Pitiable” in line six to show how little Belinda thinks of her life or how she sees her life in its current state of slavery. I the second stanza Rita says that “your countrymen have severed the binds of tyranny” which means that the slaves owners have been granting them freedom in some areas. Along with stating how she would “hope” for them to consider the same thing for her so she can boast or talk with excessive pride about. The last stanza talks about how the Senate argues that she is ignorant and how she “recieved existence on the banks of the rio de Valta” She then starts to argue her part and starts to say how she really feels stating “ how might I have known of men with faces like the moon who would ride toward me steadily for twelve years?” Rita uses imagery of the moon to represent white people’s skin color and the fact that they had controlled her for twelve years. She ends with a question making you think that Belinda had said her piece and left the Senate with a lingering question. This poem shows slaves starting to fight for freedom through appealing to the culture of their kidnappers.
I like your analysis of this poem, and the points you make are good. This poem was an empowering poem by Rita Dove which she wrote in a story like way, rather than a like a poem. I liked how Rita Dove asked a question in the end to include the reader in this poem, which is about, like you said: slaves starting to fight for their freedom.
“Lady Freedom Among Us” Dove’s poem about the Statue of Liberty serves as an urgent reminder of the statue’s real meaning. Lady Freedom, in this poem, has a haggard appearance that is in no way reminiscent of her glamorous real-life image, with her “oldfashioned sandals / with her leaden skirts / with her stained cheeks…” (8-10) The anaphora used in this description emphasizes the imagery, making the reader think of a homeless or poor woman without the resources to care for her appearance. This image is reinforced in “don’t mutter oh no / not another one / get a job fly a kite / go bury a bone,” (4-7) which reflects the dismissive public attitude towards the so-called undesirables of society. By painting Lady Freedom in this gritty kind of way, Dove uses her to represent the hidden lower class of society, struggling under oppression and apathy towards their lives. I think that the theme of this poem is interesting considering this was one of the poems Dove wrote as a Poet Laureate to commemorate the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. It seems that Dove is rejecting the festivities surrounding the event to remind people, in her own way, that we should all remember why the statue even exists. “[D]on’t think another item to fit on a tourist’s agenda” (18) is speaking out directly to those who view the real statue of liberty in this way, forgetting the values for which it stands. It might even be referring to the crowds of people present at the reopening event or watching it at home, and the irony is extremely amusing to me.
Rita Dove’s poem Climbing In displays a 1st person view of a person getting onto a bus. Buses used to be segregated where people of color would have to give up their seats to whites, and because of this it made buses an intimidating and almost scary experience for them. When you get on you are greeted with “Teeth / Metallic / Lie-gapped,” which I interpreted as the steps, showing how the vehicle itself is terrifying and not just the people inside (1-2). After going up the steps, this person has to pay the bus fee with “the dime / cutting my palm” where they seem to be sacrificing a part of themselves every time they ride, giving up a piece of their freedom as well as their money (4-5). Using the allusion “these are big teeth / teeth of the wolf / under Grandmother’s cap,” from the story Little Red Riding Hood, Dove portrays the bus driver as the Big Bad Wolf, a person who feeds off of other’s hurt but is kept safe under the security of a disguise (9-11). This enables them to get away with their judgement and victimizing, giving them the appearance of a good samaritan who transports everyone, even people of color, and therefore should be thanked for their service, allowing for their mistreatment to be overlooked. The dime is referenced again through “head over tail / down the clinking gullet,” where ‘head over tail’ depicts the two sides of a coin which travels down the ‘clinking gullet’, or metal mouth of the bus (15-16). On a single bus ride a colored person could lose a part of their confidence, freedom, and wealth, all of which are swallowed up by this metal beast that was created to benefit whites and abuse people of color.
I agree with your analysis. It's amazing how strong and heavily used the figurative language is in this poem, and it creates a powerful emotional effect. However, I think structure is also very important here, as the enjambment and short lines give me the feeling of climbing up steps, creating a suspenseful tone. Dove sure uses enjambment a lot, but what poet doesn't, I suppose!
This poem is based off a true story about a black man named Solomon Northrup who was a free man in the north. When you first read the poem, you immediately know that it is the same man from the movie 12 Years A Slave. Since I have seen this movie, I was able to understand the poem a lot more. The two men, “Brown and Hamilton” (line 5), are the ones who got Solomon drunk and then enslaved him. He originally went to work for the two men since he had the gift of playing the violin. He was then taken advantage of and abducted from his home to the south thus no longer being free. In the third stanza, the simile, “Then the wine, like a pink lake” (line 12) is used to describe the alcohol and how much of an effect it had on the whole outcome of his life. Without alcohol, there would have been a smaller chance of this happening to him. The poem is from the point of view of Solomon which allows you to get into his head and understand what he was thinking and feeling during the time of his abduction. The line, “I floated on water” (line 14) describes the feeling of being drunk and just feeling free; like you are having an out of body experience. Solomon floating there allows a calm tone to present itself which is then shut down by the last line, “I woke and found myself alone, in the darkness and in chains” (line 16).
In this poem, Rita Dove describes the Statue of Liberty as a person that we can relate to. When describing her appearance, she uses the words, “ old fashioned...stained..sunscorch..” to present her as a normal “person” or figure. At the same time though, she talks about how important she is and how she should be honored in the lines, “don’t think you can ever forget her” and “crown her with sky”. These two lines are used to portray Lady Liberty as this mighty figure that is above all and who stands for our freedom. The beginning starts off describing her as a normal “person” and by the end she is this powerful figure who “will not retire politely to the potter’s field”. A potter’s field is a burial ground for paupers and strangers. Dove uses this comparison to emphasize the point that Lady Liberty is the powerful figure that we should look up to and always honor what she stands for. Another thing to point out is the lack of capitalization. In the entire poem, there is not one capital letter and there is not one punctuation mark. I believe the reason for not using capital letters was to try and compare Lady Liberty with us. Capital letters are seen as these big things that are “above all letters”. So by using lowercase, it can be seen as one community of the same type of people who are all equal. The overall message of this poem is that the Statue of Liberty stands for our freedom and we should never forget that when looking up at the copper statue.
This poem is about slavery and civil rights for African Americans and how their lives were during this time period. First of all, I wanted to address the title and what insight that might give to the rest of the poem. The title is referring to an African American person “climbing” on the bus and what the situation was like for them. It doesn't just refer to physically going onto the bus but it refers to the struggle and the “climb” it was for African Americans to do anything during this time period. When this poem states “Not a friendly shine like the dime cutting my palm as i clutch the silver pole” (lines 3-6) Dove is referencing the bus ride and how it used to cost a dime around the 1950’s and how they clutched it so tight because of the fear that was within them. The silver pole refers to the actual pole to get up into the bus.
This poem is also a metaphor for Little Red Riding hood and her experience with the wolf and her grandmother. It starts off with the imagery of “Teeth. Metallic. Lie-gapped. Not a friendly shine” (lines 1-3) which are characteristics of the wolf as well as the world in 1950 and the people that it was composed off. Later in the poem it flat out states “these are big teeth, teeth of the wolf under Grandmother’s cap.” (lines 9-11) which are directly referencing Little Red Riding hood and it is a metaphor for the awful people that attack the innocent and the weak just like the wolf attacked the grandmother. At the end Dove states “as the bright lady tumbles head over tail down the clinking gullet” (lines 14-16) she is talking about the very end when the wolf swallows the grandma and when society “swallows” African American people.
The poem The Abduction, by Rita Dove, is about the tragedy a famous American abolitionist named Solomon Northup from Saratoga Springs faces.In the poems first stanza a feeling of hope and joy is created. This mood is especially established by the last two lines of the stanza, “free papers in my pocket, violin under my arm, my new friends Brown and Hamilton by my side” (4-5). If you have been informed of his story possibly from the famous literature of 12 years a slave then you are aware of the false hope that Solomon has. The reality is that Brown and Hamilton aren't entertainers that will offer him a generous wage. Their real motive is to take him and make a profit by selling him as a slave. Their task is aided by the fact that Solomon is slightly drunk and blinded by the excitement of supposedly having a well paid job. The transition of moods is represented as a break between the first and second stanzas.The imagery used in this stanza is very vivid. “Pigs squealed invisibly from the bleachers and I fiddled” (9). The use of imagery intensifies the oblivion that he is experiencing. The poem is structured so that the last line stands alone and is very abrupt. Dove writes,”I woke and found myself alone, in darkness and in chains” (15). The mood of the poem has completely changed from hope to depression and darkness. The structure and enjambment further intensifies the harsh reality that he has to face. The last line is very abrupt and precise portraying the permanent effects of his illusion of freedom.
In the Poem Parsley by Rita Dove it speaks about a general or generalissimo in his perspective. The poem talks about how cane workers were being mistreated and even killed. The title parsley comes from the act of the soldiers shoving the very common parsley into their mouths. I believe the “parrot” is possibly the generals conscious reminding him of his and his soldiers actions to support this statement in line 2 it says “ It’s feathers parsley green, out of the swamp the cane appears to haunt us”. In the second stanza it says “ we cannot speak an R out of the swamp” this is relating to the fact that the sugar cane workers could not say some r’s in their words. Stanza five Rita says “ El general has found his word: perejil which means parsley putting emphasis on the general being an evil person. The parrot could also represent the souls of the dead workers in stanza 6 line 17 Rita says “ For every drop of blood there is a parrot imitating spring”. The day of the dead is mentioned in stanza nine making me think that maybe the general is remembering his dead mother through this holiday and this is why he is seen as such an evil person because he might have had something to do with it. The last sentence of the poem is a bit confusing because it says “for a single, beautiful word” i'm not sure if it is referring to the generals word parsley. Reading this poem overall I am still confused on some things it is saying.
Jeremy- The points you make completely make sense, and I understand where a lot of the poem can be confusing. I think the overall summary of this poem is about the General's willing to kill based on a sort of segregation. He thinks about how his mother and even his parrot could say the word "parsley", but the Haitian sugar cane field workers could not. When the general thinks back to the moment his mother died, it is the moment he began to hate sugar. This could be another reason he targets sugar cane workers.
I found your analysis very intriguing and insightful. I found it interesting that you connected the parrot to the souls of the dead workers because in most pieces of literature it represents freedom and happiness. In a way this is their freedom from from the intensive work, but it is a grim existence. This use of imagery with the bird is interesting because it seems to contrast the most common symbolism of a bird.
Jeremy- In the poem Parsley by Rita Dove, General Trujillo orders the Haitian sugar cane workers to be killed. The immediate question comes from the title “Parsley”. What is the significance of the word parsley in this poem? The significance of the word parsley can be found in the first part of the poem. The haitians “cannot speak an R”, and General Trujillo claims “who says it, lives.” The haitians can not say the word parsley because they cannot speak an R, and are ordered to be killed. In the second part of the poem, the general recalls his mother’s death. His mother “collapsed in the kitchen while baking skull-shaped candies for the Day of the Dead, the general has hated sweets.” This may be another explanation for why the General orders the death of the sugar cane workers. The general begins to think how his mother could roll an R “like a queen”, and how even a parrot could roll an R. He hears a voice that sounds like his mother’s and he sheds a tear. His sadness quickly becomes anger, and orders anyone who cannot say parsley to be killed. This poem is very much like a story, rather than a poem. It has no rhyme scheme. Throughout the story, there are many enjambments. In the second part of the poem, the General thinks to himself “who can i kill today.” This characterization of General Trujillo shows how he is a ruthless and emotionless killer. A reason the final line: “for a single, beautiful word.” is a separate line completely could be to place emphasis on the significance of the word parsley. Parsley is, after all, the major symbol in the book. It represents death, and the anger and ruthlessness of the General.
I completely agree with you the general is shown as a ruthless killer throughout this poem. I found it interesting how you connected his mother baking skull shaped cookies for the day of the dead and him hating sweets to be a reason why he killed the sugar cane workers. I wondered why he would compare how his mother rolled her R’s to how the worker did ending in the end of their lives. I also agree with how you say this poem is like a story reading this poem again makes that clear with its beginning middle and end. This poem to me seemed very dark and sad from the generals point of view.
Parsley Immediately, I knew that the way the poem was broken up into two distinct parts marked with numbers and separate titles indicated a stark shift in the poem’s meaning; in reading the poem, the nature of the shift became immediately clear to me, and I noticed an additional shift within one of the two sections. In “The Cane Fields,” the point of view of the Haitians is emphasized by the plural first person and the violent imagery with words like “screaming,” “rain punches through,” “gnaw their teeth into arrowheads,” “teeth shining,” and “blood.” However, at “The Palace,” there is a tone shift that is indicated by the change in setting in the title. This part of the poem does not actually take place at a palace, but instead represents the privileged position of General Trujillo and the Dominicans. The diction is geared towards making the tone of this part of the poem as sugarcoated (no pun intended) as possible, with words like “love,” “mother,” “four-star blossoms,” “coy as a widow,” “candies,” and “sweets.” Interestingly, the tone of “The Cane Fields” return in the fifth stanza of “The Palace,” reintroducing “rain” and “teeth,” “gnawed to arrowheads,” and the Haitian’s chanting of “Katalina.” The tone has shifted within this poem, once Trujillo remembers the death of a soldier and of his mother in the fourth stanza. His view of the world has changed with war and the death of his mother, and the mixture of anger towards the Haitians and the fading nostalgia towards his culturally Dominican childhood is depicted in the final stanzas.
I actually had an entirely different theory for the parrot, but it got ruined by one random line. Let me explain. I thought that the parrot symbolized the Dominican people who were turning a blind eye to this genocide and enjoying the fruits of the Haitian's labor (the sugar). My reasoning for that was that the parrot is treated like a pet-like figure under the general in "The Palace," who eats sugar and pastries (again, from the labor of the Haitian sugarcane harvesters) who can pronounce the r in the proper Spanish way (which is referenced in 'even a parrot can roll an R!') In addition, the parrot is mentioned repeatedly in "The Cane Fields," depicted as singing and accompanied with the beautiful imagery of spring juxtaposed with all the bloodshed in that first part of the poem. While the Dominicans were comfortably enjoying their lives, the Haitians were suffering under Trujillo's sadistic orders, and the parrot represented this.
Or so I'd thought.
"The parrot, who has traveled / all the way from Australia in an ivory / cage" (35-37) ruins it all. Australia. Who would have thought. Does anyone know how Australia fits into any of this? Or is Rita Dove being fickle for the purpose of adding extra colorful imagery? If anyone has insight on this it'd be lovely; I already hate seeing my good theory go to waste.
The poem “Parsley”, by Rita Dove, refers to October 1937 when Rafael Trujillo, military dictator of the Dominican Republic, ordered nearly 20,000 migrant workers from Haiti to be killed because they could not pronounce the Spanish word for "parsley" correctly. They could not pronounce the letter "r", "parsley" in Spanish is "perejil", so their pronunciation came out as "perejil," so the speaker was condemned to death for having a Haitian accent and not pronouncing things correctly. This poem has a negative tone to it throughout the entire thing due to the tragic event that it is talking about. In the first few stanzas, Dove is using imagery to talk about the setting of where this all took place. Lines three and four state, “Out of the swamp the cane appears to haunt us, and we cut it down.” This is referencing “el general” or Rafael Trujillo who appeared to haunt them as they worked in the fields. Another part that stood out to me is when Dove states, “Like a parrot imitating spring, we lie down screaming as rain punches through and we come up green” (6-8), like we have previously talked about in class, rain never just means rain. In this part of the poem rain represents sadness and pain for the Haitians. To them rain is awful and represents the Dominican Republic going to kill them. The use of a parrot is repeated multiple times throughout this poem. Parrots are often known for repeating whatever they hear, just like how things in this poem are repeated in every stanza. Parrots are also birds and birds usually represent freedom which also applies to this poem and how the Haitians are trying to be free from the Dominican Republic. In "the Palace" Dove states "the parrot, who has traveled all the way from Australia in an ivory cage, is, coy as a widow, practising spring". This is referring to a parrot that was once caged was freed just like they were freed in the poem.
The poem “Parsley”, by Rita Dove, portrays the lives of both the dictator of the Dominican Republic and the Haitian laborers. The first stanza begins the poem with a contrasting tone. This implication of the difference between the two groups can immediately be concluded. Within the next stanza the conflict is given a purpose, presenting El General, who is the dictator. The contrasting classes causes tension within the lines of the poem. The hardships of these workers and brutality of the dictator is exemplified by the dark diction used throughout the poem like “haunt”, “screaming”, and “punches”. This poem begins with a vague statement, “There is a parrot imitating spring” (line 1). This same line is repeated throughout the rest of the poem and represents the luxuries and wealth compared to the Haitian workers. The motif is persistent in the stanzas describing the dire existence of these workers that are being killed. The parrot itself is a paradoxical symbol of not only the wealth of the general, but the caged existence of the Haitian workers. The parrot also represents the irony of beauty because it can be found in even the darkest places . The parrot is described as imitating Spring. What can be taken from this season is growth, rebirth, and light. The act of imitating Spring is fraudulent because the dictators’ true intentions are the death of the Haitian laborers. Just as there is growth in spring, plants sprout from the decomposed bodies in the soil. Rita then reveals that the Haitians death relates to their inability to pronounce the letter “R”. By this point in the poem the General has not killed the Haitians, but it can be inferred that it is approaching because of the violent diction used. The workers are then calling to the Mountains, which are misrepresented by the missing letter R in Katalina. The workers cannot get to the mountains because they are trapped in the fields. This line has a ghost-like feel to it. Rita then redirects the topic to their children. She writes, “The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads” (line 11). The utter grief that the children are experiencing is causing them to clench their teeth together into “weapons”, foreshadowing the fate of their parents. The poem then returns to motif the about the parrot. This time the parrot is oddly peaceful, offsetting the dictator with the soon to be killed Haitian workers. Rita Dove gives the parrot serenity, intending to relate that to Trujillo. This causes unease because a person that is the source of so much tragedy is compared to a peace and calmness.
I agree with your analysis and like how you focus on the dark diction that's very present in the first section. The parrot motif I also saw as a constant reminder to Trujillo of all the grief and death he has caused and how it impacts all aspects of his life but can either be in a sense of guilt or a sense of comfort. I like how you connected the children gnawing on the arrowheads to foreshadowing of the death of their parents, giving further horror to how Trujillo could ruin so many lives and on the outside seem completely unaffected by the results of his actions.
In her poem “Parsley”, Rita Dove depicts the reasoning of General Trujillo’s murdering through the need of death and destruction to attain rebirth. The poem is split into two sections, the first describing a cane field where Trujillo kills workers, and a second showing the impact his past, especially the death of his mother, has on his decisions as a powerful and wealthy man. In the first part, “out of the swamp the cane appears,” repeats to emphasize how something as dark and disgusting as swamp can produce riches, here cane, giving a typically terrible thing more meaning (3). Trujillo takes this idea to an extreme, justifying his killing as a way to cleanse society so as then to become better, a thing of riches. These descriptions of people working in fear and death are interspersed with the word “green” to symbolize life and growth among the decaying. In the second section, Dove portrays Trujillo’s constant remembrance and struggle with his mother’s death. After she died, “he planted her walking cane at the grave / and it flowered,” again showing how where death ends life can begin (24-25). The death that occurs, especially when done personally, sticks with a person and give them constant guilt, and only briefly will “the little knot of screams / is still,” but those screams of the dead are a burden and here they almost haunted Trujillo (32-33). Not only does Trujillo remember all the lives he has taken, but he also remembers the experiences before his power, when he first saw death in war. His boots from “the first day in battle / splashed with mud and urine,” symbolize how coated in death and guilt a person gets when engaged in warfare, and how it affects you externally and internally (44-45). War placed the first screams in Trujillo’s head, and after that he began to accept them instead of fear them, allowing for killing to become easier since it would only add to the noise: nothing could take it away. His “boots” were even damaged before his time in war when his mother died, “a startled tear / splashes the tip of his right boot,” which marks the beginning to his relationship with death and how it brings sorrow, fear, victory, and life (65-66).
The poem “Parsley” is about a Caribbean massacre headed by General Rafael Trujillo in the 1930s. In part one of the poem titled “The Cane Fields”, the massacre is told in the perspective of the Haitian slaves working in the cane fields for General Trujillo. They see the cane fields as a place of murder and tragedy. The word “spring” is repeated multiple times throughout this section of the poem. Spring can be compared to new beginnings. Along with the word spring, “parrot” is also repeated multiple times. Parrots allude to truth telling and repetition. With the line, “a parrot imitating spring” is repeated multiple times throughout section one of the poem. Each time someone dies in the poem, this line is repeated as if there will be a new beginning each time someone dies. In section two, “The Palace”, the reader is introduced El General and his life in the palace. Throughout this section of the poem, words such as “death” and “kill” are used multiple times showing what Trujillo’s intentions were when it came to removing the Haitian people who inhabited the Caribbean island. HIs mother is also talked about quite a bit showing that he had a close relationship with her when she was alive. The overall title of this poem, “Parsley”, is translated to perejil; which is the spanish translation. In the line, “My mother, my love in death. The general remembers the tiny green sprigs men of his village wore in their capes to honor the birth of a son”, you see that parsley had almost a positive connotation in the past. Also in the beginning of the poem, you see that El General found pleasure in the fact that the Haitian people could not pronounce the word, therefore not taking away what el general found so beautiful about it.
“Quick” by Rita Dove portrays a man looking for someone to dance with after a night of going back and forth before seeing a woman that is all too perfect, but who vanishes before he can meet her. This poem is in the style of a foxtrot dance, separated into 8 couplets and ending in a single stanza, mimicking the 1-2 step of the dancer’s feet and ending in one ‘final’ move, giving the poem rhythm and a continuous flow. In the beginning, a man symbolized as a gray fox is a “Wink of fuzz / in the headlights,” making his shy but mysterious entrance into the setting where he is a newcomer and novice. (1-2). Entering the dance floor, he “peers from the culvert, / all bobble and twitch, vacant eyes,” using “culvert” which is a tunnel carrying a stream under a road to show his emergence into a place full of vigor and excitement, making his curious eyes soak it all in (3-4). He dances with people who leave to dance with another, going “through this bait and switch / all night,” a cycle where he can’t seem to find the perfect partner (5-6). Dove uses a dash to show his pause and astonished stare as he sees her “crested / in moonshine and fabled silhouette,” using mystical imagery to make this woman stand out from everyone else in a mysterious and breathtaking way, proving her to be the one he’s been searching for all night (7-8). This woman is also symbolized as a fox with a “tail / waving its flamboyant / afterthought,” further describing her attractive and lively presence, using “waving” to display her taunting beauty which adds to her grandeur (9-11). As quickly as she is seen “she disappears: / red swish / or gray, too quick to tell,” portraying the man’s short but sweet encounter with this woman who at first he sees as “red”, a person more grand and special than the others but after she leaves she might be “gray”, just like everyone else (11-13). Even though he is sad that she disappeared, “no grief nor thought / of love一” is used with a dash to depict his sigh or realization that he shouldn’t be heartbroken because she was just a person and one that he didn’t even know (15-17). The alliteration “pure purpose / poured into flight,” further expresses his realization that her leaving was more important to him than if she had stayed, making their encounter destiny (16-17). If the man would have met the woman her mystery would dissolve and she would not longer be “red”: she would become the same “gray” as every other person he danced with. Because of this, he finds comfort in curiosity and better understands fate.
Jeremy- Your analysis of the poem "Quick" by Rita Dove, from the American Smooth section of the packet is a very good analysis. At first, I was confused about the overall idea of the poem. In the first couplet, "Wink of fuzz in the headlights, and gray at that" completely threw me off from understanding what this poem was about. With your analysis, I now understand this poem.
Jeremy- The poem “Fox” by Rita Dove is a poem in the American Smooth section. This poem is not about a fox, as the title would suggest. The speaker of this poem is a woman. The speaker of this poem seems to be very self-centered. This self-centered personality can be seen through the quote on the last lines, “which was more than any man could handle.” The speaker of this poem seems to love herself more than anything else. The quote “she loved what she was” and “she loved nothing more than what she had, which was enough for her” supports the idea the the woman in the poem loves herself more than anything else. The title “fox” leads me to believe that the woman in the poem is “foxy” which means attractive. This woman most likely thinks of herself as attractive, and believes that there is no man that could handle her attractiveness. The poem has many enjambments. Something I noticed with this poem was that anytime the word “she” was present, it was always the first word of the line. This was obviously done on purpose, perhaps to emphasize that this woman always comes first, however the reason behind this could be debated. This poem seems very random, and makes me wonder how this poem was thought of. The title “fox” was very misleading until I read the poem.
I found it interesting to how you related the title to the woman being self centered. I agree I found this poem very confusing and random I personally had no idea what it was talking about at first. I am a little confused on how the poem is structured I'm not sure why it is in two separate parts and why the poem is so skinny and straight. The word imagine is repeated a lot in this poem so I'm wondering if this might mean this poem is all in her head or beyond comprehension but that's just a guess.
I also found it interesting that you decided to portray the main character in a negative, self centered light because she may have been difficult to handle. When I read this poem I thought of her as confident and driven, but I see how this poem could go both ways due to the confusion it cause for the readers.
Rita names this poem after a ballroom dance in 4/4 time with alternation of two quick steps which originated in 1914. This poem in my opinion is told from the perspective of someone describing the dance and the it gives them. The first stanza demonstrates how they can’t wait for the night so they can go dancing through the lines “Thank the stars there’s a day each week to tuck in”. Tis sentence also emphasises their only being one day each week friday like it says in the title. In stanza four rita mention Nat King Cole who was a american singer who started out as a jazz pianist and his “satin smile” he was known for his baritone voice. In the lines 13-14 where it says “ rib to rib with no heartbreak in sight” I think is referencing to the dance it self because of how it is performed. Finally I noticed how the lines are in pairs of two in each stanza I think this is also to reference the dance itself because of its quick two step pace.
Although much of “Foxtrot Fridays” depicts the dance, and the rhythm of the poem emphasizes the movements made, I disagree that the stanza “rib to rib / with no heartbreak in sight” are just referencing the dance and its performance. Instead, it’s one of the few Biblical allusions in the poem. Two more Biblical allusions are present in “Foxtrot Fridays”, in the couplet stanzas before and after. “one man and / one woman” represent both Adam and Eve, and Adam’s rib that Eve was created from is described in the next stanza. This creates an intimate and close mood, as they are physically close and within each other's comfort. Another Biblical allusion made by Rita Dove is in the eighth stanza, “just the sweep of Paradise / and the space of the song”. “Paradise” portrays Heaven, and gives the couplet a whimsical tone, as if the heavenly feeling from the dance is fleeting and fairytale-like.
In the poem “American Smooth”, by Rita Dove, I was able to gather the information that the perspective is coming from a woman. This woman is partaking in a dance that is “American Smooth”. The authors use of enjambment, hyperbole, and imagery, really bring this poem to life. The poem is set through the wonderful mesmerization of a woman and her partner in the movement of dance. The rhythm and flow allow for the perspective to take shape as a graceful dance between two partners intoxicated by each other’s presence. The beginning of the poem starts the reader out mid dance. The story develops into that of anguish and beauty. The strain shared by the partners withstanding the urge to break their smooth movements into fragmented faults. The dance continues. Move after move the smiles radiating from the partners fade into confusion amongst the woman. As she traced back to where she was, there was a sense of freedom given by the author as the woman was hoisted into the air “achieved flight, that swift serene magnificence.” (lines 26-28). She is brought back down to earth with a sense of relief as she was able to recover her movement and grace once again. In lines 6 and 7 the use of enjambment makes you wonder if she was talking about precision movements or moving into the next song with precision. The use of commas are present throughout the poem creating an ongoing sentence. Dove chose to use commas instead of periods to make the poem continuously flow imitating the way that this woman danced, “as we moved into the next dance without stopping,” (lines 6-8).
After reading through the “American Smooth” poems by Rita Dove, it was evident the amount of passion and emotion she had towards dance. The work that stood out to me the most was “Fox Trot Fridays” because of the rhythmic nature of the poem as well as the structure and alliteration. The first thing I noticed about the piece is that every stanza is written in couplets except the last one, which is just one line. This relates to the premise of the topic of the poem which is about the fox trot. The foxtrot is a ballroom dance with an alteration of two slow and two quick steps, which relates to the specific enjambment and structure of the stanzas. In the title, Friday is very important because it is the end of the work week. It can be interpreted that Dove is greatly affected by the pressures of society and the hardships of living. It is not at first easy to come to this conclusion because of the joyful, upbeat rhythm of this poem. In the second stanza Dove writes, “the grief, lift your pearls, and stride brush stride”(line 3,4). This line references pearls, as in a necklace that she is taking off at the end of the week. The pearls symbolize stereotypical femininity and the social pressure that is put on women. The couplet suggests that dancing is the only form of existing that she can be completely freed from the confinements of society and be herself. The next stanza transitions into the movements made when dancing. The lines are rhythmic like the taping of dancing shoes because most of the words are only one syllable. In the next stanza Nat King Cole’s smile is referenced. He is significant to this poem because he was a professional musician who was a jazz pianist and also spent years in pop. In the next line alliteration is used to describe his smile. The use of alliteration further enhances the rhythmic nature and creates imagery. In the seventh stanza Rita writes, “rib to rib, with no heartbreak in sight-”(line 13,14). This explains the proximity and intimacy of dancing, yet the ease of knowing that nothing is expected or taken from dancing with another person. Rita Dove in her lifetime experienced a lot of pain and this is revealed through her resistance towards feeling for another person. Her passion for music and dance is given purpose in this poem.
In the poem “American Smooth”, Rita Dove compares the various dances under the American smooth category to the idea of escaping your surroundings and all the troubles that you face. She talks about being “distracted” by the dancing and not being aware of her surroundings because of how engrossed she was in the movements. Later, Dove alludes to the idea of the troubles that African American people faced in the line “before the earth remembered who we were and brought us down to earth” showing that the way African Americans were treated was much different compared to a white person. The line “smiling,smiling” leaves this idea that Dove is reminding herself to smile; even when it might be hard to. The use of the comma allows for a pause in the sentence leaving that feeling of being reminded of something. The use of oxymorons throughout the poem such as “perfect agony” show the positives and negatives of the dancing compared to the lives of African Americans. She also mentions a phrase, “sine que non” which means to absolutely need. This can be taken in the sense that in order for these dance moves to be complete, these moves are essential when executing them. This idea is also compared to African Americans in the sense that their role in history is absolutely essential to what our world is today. They play an important role when it comes to equality and the advancement of it.
I agree with you analysis and how Rita Dove felt that dancing was a way to escape reality. I found this to be true in all of the American Smooth poems. This reflects back on Rita because in these sets of poems she is not telling the story of someone else. What can be inferred by these pieces is that she went through many hardships which can be backed by the information about her life. When I first read through this poem I didn't catch the allusion to African American struggles with the line referencing earth.
This poem is in the perspective a slave from the civil rights movement era. The first stanza seems to have a mocking tone to it. The last three sentences of the first stanza say “a righteous sword advancing onto the field of battle in the name of the Lord….” The … makes me think that the person saying this is mocking a script of what he or she is supposed to say. I also think that this could represent the civil war itself and its beginning showing what side this person would be on freedom. The second stanza seems like the war itself and how soldiers keep quiet while they look over their terrain. You get a different tone to this stanza it is more of a quiet like if you move you could be in trouble feel. The third stanza seems like he is concluding his thoughts by saying “ So what if we were born up a creek” this makes the reader feel like he was ranting throughout this poem about his hardships and how maybe he would like to see change. The poem ends with what I think is a sarcastic sentence “ Oh yes oh mercy on our souls” this sentence can also be taken as real worry for the future as well.
* I blogged about slavery on accident when we were supposed to blog about civil rights. The poem on slavery I blogged about was belinda's petition.
This poem is based off a true story about a black man named Solomon Northrup who was a free man in the north. When you first read the poem, you immediately know that it is the same man from the movie 12 Years A Slave. Since I have seen this movie, I was able to understand the poem a lot more. The two men, “Brown and Hamilton” (line 5), are the ones who got Solomon drunk and then enslaved him. He originally went to work for the two men since he had the gift of playing the violin. He was then taken advantage of and abducted from his home to the south thus no longer being free. In the third stanza, the simile, “Then the wine, like a pink lake” (line 12) is used to describe the alcohol and how much of an effect it had on the whole outcome of his life. Without alcohol, there would have been a smaller chance of this happening to him. The poem is from the point of view of Solomon which allows you to get into his head and understand what he was thinking and feeling during the time of his abduction. The line, “I floated on water” (line 14) describes the feeling of being drunk and just feeling free; like you are having an out of body experience. Solomon floating there allows a calm tone to present itself which is then shut down by the last line, “I woke and found myself alone, in the darkness and in chains” (line 16).
Jeremy- I understood the poem "The Abduction" better as well because I had seen the movie 12 Years a Slave. Watching the movie adds another level of emotion to this poem and creates a very sad tone. Watching the movie can create another visual of this already sad poem. This poem by itself however, is still very emotional and can create a visual in your mind of this depressing moment in history, and how a person's life can be taken away so quickly through abduction.
I have never seen this movie that was made about Solomon Northrup, but the poem still emotionally influenced me by the diction and contrast in tones from calm to when he realizes he has been enslaved. The specific diction Rita uses to describe Solomon's drunkenness seems to focus the blame solely on the alcohol, which I found interesting coming from her perspective.
Jeremy- The poem “Belinda’s Petition” by Rita Dove is spoken from the point of view of an African slave named Belinda. Belinda was born in Africa, but was kidnapped, and brought into America as a slave. In 1783, Belinda petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature for her freedom. In this poem, Belinda is portrayed as a very humble but angry. This can be seen in the line “I will not take too much of your Time.” In this line, I noticed that the word Time was capitalized, as well as many other words in this poem where it seems unnecessary to capitalize the words. The unnecessary capitalization of many words in this poem creates an angry tone, as if the speaker is screaming. In the final line of the poem, when the question is asked, it includes the audience into the poem. This creates a visual in the reader’s mind of actually being there as Belinda is petitioning. Rita Dove’s style in this poem is an older style. Many poets nowadays write in more modern English, however, this poem seems to be written in a style a person would write in hundreds of years ago. Throughout this poem, there are many enjambments, as if she was trying to get her point across as quickly as possible.
I noticed the irregular capitalization as well, and Dove's intent with this capitalization becomes a lot more clearer if you read this poem out loud or pretending to read it out loud in your head. The capitalized words are given natural emphasis, and even if the natural emphasis wouldn't be there, the capitalization makes you feel compelled to give it more emphasis. This contributes to rhythm, which in turn I think creates a tone of eloquence that was surely important to Belinda as she wanted to appear credible and intelligent before the government for her petition. Her anger seems to be more of an undertone, supporting the volume of the piece under a blanket of proper words and the aforementioned eloquent rhythm.
The House Slave The thing I noticed most about this poem was the imagery in it, which Dove really brings attention to through local color and the inclusion of specific details. The lines “children are bundled into aprons, cornbread / and water gourds grabbed, a salt pork breakfast taken” (3-4) paint a picture of the slave quarters through the food that they are given to eat. The passive voice also puts emphasis on this food, some of the elements of the daily routine of these slaves. Using “Massa” to refer to the master of the house is also an intentional choice to bring realism to the environment of a property run by slaves. The house slave in this poem, presumably the speaker, is removed from the suffering, so most of the imagery is auditory: “The first horn lifts its arm over the dew-lit grass,” (1) “At the second horn, / the whip curls across the backs of the laggards— / sometimes my sister’s voice, unmistaken, among them” (8-10). At the same time, Dove uses diction to communicate a different tone through imagery. The house slave’s isolated position communicates a sense of helplessness, and this can be seen in words of weak, diluted connotation, such as “vague before-dawn,” “lie on my cot, shivering,” “whiteness,” “spill,” and “weep.” This imagery is distinct from the rest of the poem, which uses rougher words like “rustling,” “asses, rum and slave-funk,” “the whip curls,” and“laggards.” This makes me think that there is a juxtaposition between the experiences of the field slaves and the house slaves that Dove wants us to see, which goes back to the house slave’s helplessness in witnessing the other slaves’ suffering.
In the Lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.
A poem that grabbed my attention from Rita Dove’s civil right collection was “In the Lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.” The poem describes in detail an event that alludes to the premiere of Amistad in 1977, the main focus being Rosa Parks. At this time Rosa Parks gained massive media attention, and in 1977 Amnesty international launched a campaign to have protesters declared “political prisoners”. In 1980 a federal court reversed the verdicts after covering that the prosecutor's tactics had worked hand in glove with the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation to shut down the black freedom movement. Rosa Parks as we all know from history books is a strong women who fought for African American rights. This poem presents her not as an icon, but a person who is brought alive through the lines of this poem. Rita writes, “that the smile was not practiced at all” (line 19). This expresses that Rosa Parks was truly overjoyed by the progress they had made and takes the reader away from her being the symbol of the fight for African American rights. Dove also personifies her by including details that relate her to any normal person. Just as Rita Dove makes Rosa Parks relatable she illustrates the importance of her role by posing a question that is answered in the stanza after the question is asked. Rita writes, “but it was only right (wasn't it?) that she be where ever history was being made-after all,” (lines 7,8). The importance of Rosa Parks in emphasized by posing a question with an obvious answer. It is interesting that Dove never included Rosa Park’s name in this poem because the entire piece of work revolves around her. Dove personifies her as more than a symbol and possibly further showed this point by not including her name. As a reader when you see the name Rosa Parks you immediately think of her as the mother of the freedom movement, but the purpose was to see her beyond those boundaries and as a person, not a symbol. The vantage point from which this event is told is most likely from one of the audience members. The purpose of this is to capture the event as it was viewed by the part of society supporting the movement.
The poem “Belinda’s Petition”, by Rita Dove, captures the journey of Belinda, an African Slave that was brought to America as a child, and her petitioning the Massachusetts Legislature in 1782 to gain freedom. This poem is written in a format to resemble a letter from the perspective of Belinda that is along the lines of what she said to the Senate and the House of Representatives. One thing that stood out to me in this poem is the random capitalization of letters throughout the poem without any punctuation. The use of capitalization in this poem helps emphasize certain words that you would otherwise look over as not very important, “I would hope you would consider the Same for me” (lines 9 and 10). In this case the use of the capital ‘S’ in “Same” helps the reader understand that there is an emphasis on the word and help understand that being treated equal and the same as everyone else is extremely important for Belinda. When Dove states, “I have known Men with Faces like the Moon, who would ride toward me steadily for twelve Years” (lines 19 and 20) she capitalized the ‘Y’ in “Years” to help emphasize how long it has been and how painful those years have been for her. Capitalizing certain words also helps create rhythm in this poem just like a lot of Rita Dove’s poems include, for example, “All my Childhood I expected nothing, if that be Ignorance” (lines 15 and 16) the words “childhood”, “expected”, and “ignorance” are all stressed syllables that help create rhythm in this poem. The use of rhythm and emphasizing certain words are significant because they help the reader understand the tone that this poem has and helps the reader think of this poem as a speech or a letter coming from Belinda, instead of just being a poem.
I agree with your analysis and like your connection between the poem and her statements to the Senate and House of Representatives. I hadn't explored all of the capitalization, but your descriptions of what she capitalized Years and Same were something I hadn't thought of but it makes much more sense. I also saw how the poem was structured more as a speech and thought that it gave the reader a more confident and strong depiction of Belinda and gave off the tone that all of our voices are valid and respected and to express your voice is more beneficial than to keep silent.
When I read this poem the first time it was very evident that she capitalized certain words and structured it like a speech, but I hadn't made connections to the reason for this choice in structure and capitalization. I agree with your statement that she capitalized the words that meant the most to her and had the most emotion from them even though they were simple, otherwise overlooked words as I reread the poem. I also took from the tone a very empowering message.
The Transport of Slaves From Maryland to Mississippi
In the poem “The Transport of Slaves From Maryland to Mississippi”, Rita Dove depicts different people’s perspectives of the event of a wagon of slaves breaking free, killing two white men, and the slave woman who helped a driver get on his horse to find help. The first section is told from the slave woman’s view as she contemplates the murders. When she notices the bodies, the simile “like a screen of mosquitoes / shimmering in the hushed light,” displays the heavenly glow around them and uses “mosquitoes”, which are annoying, to symbolize the constant reminder that the two white men were good people and not entirely evil (5-6). At the time, slavery was so terrible, blacks would not admit this because of the all the horrors the whites had inflicted upon their race. This woman, though, sees through that with “his eyes were my eyes in a yellower face,” allowing her to realize that her and the white man are the same; even though they have different colored skin, they are both humans and have the same “eyes”, meaning at heart they are good and are connected (10). Her perspective ends with “I am no brute. I got feelings. / He might have been a son of mine,” to justify for herself that she is not bad for getting help to stop the freed slaves, she is a person and not a monster, but her choice still comes with remorse and guilt because she also feels connected the slaves that she just put in danger (12-13). Dove adds a break with the symbol “≈” which reminds me of the approximate symbol used in math, explaining how the next section is of the same event (equal to the first) but is not quite the same. For this quintet, it is being told from a white man who is then telling other whites of this happening. Because of this, he takes the side of the white men and portrays them as the victims like in “ ‘barely escaping with his life...just as his pursuers came into sight,’ ” labeling the slaves as the monsters even though whites had done much worse to them (14-15). His ‘retelling’ concludes with “ ‘ending this most shocking affray and murder,’ “ making it sound terrible even though there were only two deaths, but does so to further take the blame off of whites and pin it on the slaves (18). The third section describes the even right before it happened. First, the “last handcuff / broke clean from the skin,” using “clean” to represent a clean slate or freedom that the slaves felt when the shackles were off, despite the fact that handcuffs leave a mark (19-20). The white driver was then hit from behind as “Sixty slaves / poured off the wagon, smelly, half-numb, free,” utilizing “poured” to show their overwhelming force like they had been waiting to break free at every second of their lives (22-23). Also, the slaves are described like degraded beings, but it didn’t matter if they were disgusting because all they desired was freedom, even though it displayed how they were different people once they attained it. The last section is from another white man who punishes the slaves once they do break free. He recalls how “not even the wenches stopped,” to show how all of the slaves were strong and fighting, giving them unity and further power and giving fright to the whites seeing them work together (27). Suddenly, he realizes that they are humans so used to pain, they don’t even react to his whip and how it will take something larger to stop them. He becomes surprised and scared with “Wait. You ain’t supposed to act this way,” telling how blacks are not supposed to rise and attack, they are meant to behave to the word of the whites (29). It allows this man to become terrified of their power and makes him ask himself: What else can they do?
The Narcissus Flower
ReplyDeleteReading this poem I have a hard time comprehending what exactly is going on my thought is after examining this poem is that a beautiful plant or flower is being eaten or just cut up by a person. Narcissus flower defined is any bulbous plant belonging to the genus narcissus. Of the amaryllis family, having showy yellow or white flowers with cupped shaped coronal. Defining this helped me understand that the flower would be beautiful and bright in color. Line one uses the word “frivolous slipper” I believe this represents the flowers leaves since the definition of narcissus flower said that they have cupped shaped leaves. I was confused by lines 3 and 4 because I am not sure why the blossom is being incinerated or destroyed by burning. Lines 7-9 give me the feel that the flower is being dissected and cut up by an in the flowers eyes an evil man because Rita used the words “adamant”, which means refusing to be persuaded and “plunge” which described the knife's movement. Also in line 9 I noticed what might be a paradox statement “ I found myself at the center of a calm so pure, it was hate”. What made me think that the flower was being eaten was in lines 10-11 because it says “ The mystery is, you can eat fear before fear eats you” repeating the word “eat” puts emphasis on it making the reader focus on that theme in the poem. Overall I am able to have a bleak understanding, but do think the flower is being eaten and that you are seeing this or reading this from the flowers perspective.
Your analysis was refreshing in that it was something I actually never really thought of when I read the poem. Like you, I was fairly confused as to what it meant, but I interpreted tone first, and the use of words like "frightened," "unzipped," "scream," "incinerated," and "knife" really carry that connotation of fear and vulnerability. I think that, contrasted with words like "slipper," "blossom," "pure," and "queen," which all have soft phonetics and gentle connotation, reveal the fragile nature of a flower like the narcissus. I'm still not sure about how it fits into the Demeter myth, as the only allusion I can see is the reference to Narcissus (I should probably look into this further).
DeleteBoth of your interpretations were interesting but when I read the poem, I took it another way. I actually found a connection with the Persephone/Demeter myth. I made the connection that "this man" in line six was referencing Hades and that when Rita says "I" she's referring to Persephone, since Persephone is sometimes referred to as the Queen of the Underworld. That connection makes more sense to me as well because of the line before where Rita says "you can live beyond dying." I thought this was a kind of play on words since Persephone is taken to the Underworld, where she sort of lives beyond dying. Also, in the first line of the poem, she says "my foot" and I connected that to the poem Persephone, Falling where Rita says "this is how one foot sinks into the ground." The first part of The Narcissus Flower is referencing Persephone being stolen by Hades to the Underworld. The plunge could be taken to mean the plunge into the pit, and when she talks about the calm and hate, that was the turning point where she starts to just accept her fate and becomes a Queen instead.
DeleteMother Love
ReplyDeleteThis poem was extremely disturbing without context, which goes to show how important the mythological allusion to Demeter is in “Mother Love.” However, even without context, the obsessed tone is clearly communicated through the structure of the poem. I noticed that the indentation of the text every other line makes your eyes jump across the page frantically as you read the poem, and that gave the impression of a rambling stream of consciousness that was enforced by the use of enjambment. The beginning of the poem before the turn, a general statement about what it feels like to be a mother, has a proud tone that represents the standard of responsibility that mothers hold themselves to. The capitalization of words like “Love” and “Glory,” and the words of noble connotation like “duty bugles,” “rise,” and “primed” all contribute to this effect. However, after the physical break in the poem, the poem tells the story of Demeter encountering this baby boy and deciding that she will care for him as if she were his mother—that, of course, meant that she was going to make him immortal, as implied in “I decided to save him.” At the same time, comparing him to a piece of roasted meat, in “I laid him on the smoldering embers, / sealing his juices in slowly so he might / be cured to perfection. ...” (22-24) and “...sizzling on a spit / as neat as a Virginia ham” (26-27) reveals the obsessive, controlling attitude the speaker (presumably Demeter) has towards the infant. In the original mythology, Demeter had gone slightly mad after the kidnapping of Persephone, and this madness is the overall tone of the poem. The shift from the pride of being a mother to the controlling nature of a woman attempting to console the loss of her identity as a mother is clear in “Mother Love.”
I like how you broke the poem up into the different emotional stages Demeter is going through, it makes the poem more of a story and therefore more relatable. Your observation about how the structure of the poem makes for frantic eye movement is very interesting and something I hadn't noticed at first. The imagery of the baby boy being roasted alive is, like you said, extremely disturbing and I saw it as the representation of how far a mother will go to do what's best for her child. Here, Demeter has become obsessed with this baby boy even though he's not hers, but her instincts still drive her to do radical things, losing sight of what may be right and instead focusing too much on perfection.
DeleteIn Rita Dove’s indefinable sonnet Breakfast of Champions, I found hints of humanity within a bowl of cereal. Mornings are fresh starts while nights are tiring and never quite long enough. The person in this poem is going through the change from night to morning where they “crossed a hemisphere, worked my way through petals and sunlight,” using hemisphere to display the sharp turn from dark to light and petals and sunlight to show the delicacy and brightness of the day that a person constantly sees until they can bask in the quiet of darkness at the end of the day (1-2). Once night has started, the person wants further escape from life’s worries, stress, and everything else, and does so with “I’ll dive into a grateful martini tonight, eye to eye with the olive adrift in cool ether,” where they can be appreciated and comforted by this martini, allowing them to become selfish for a short while and enjoy themselves (5-6). Ether is a liquid that burns easily and is used as an anesthetic, here relating to the alcohol in the martini, and both substances can be used to take away pain, further displaying this person’s need for freedom from daily life and all of its pressures. A later reference to hospital uses is “honking out of the mist, a sonic hospital graph announcing recovery,” where honking refers to the beep of an alarm clock that wakes a person up in the morning (11-12). This beep brings a person back from a restorative sleep, allowing them to go through another day and creating a cycle of constant weakness where a person is revived every morning so they can fulfill whatever tasks they are faced with everyday, such as school or work. Like every other person, they “pour myself the recommended bowlful,” so they have the right amount to make it through the day since too much or too little would upset the cycle (13). Finally, the “stones are what I sprinkle among the chaff,” represent this average person’s contribution to the ‘cereal bowl’ of life, where they put in plain, meaningless stones into the chaff, meaning trash and worthless things, like every other human being (14). The chaff is where people throw in the empty actions they do everyday, but these actions are apart of the cycle and are what make us so tired at the end of the day; they make us long for sleep so we can be rejuvenated. If every person puts in their ‘stone’, no one will outdo another and we will all be equal. Unhappy, but equal.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement on how the petals and sunlight are the delicate day. I didn't put that together like you did. I like how you said that the person goes into the quiet of darkness I think you don't see night as a good thing in most writings and it's interesting how you connected it and it completely makes sense. When you said that the chaft is the cycle of things people do every day that make us tired and long for sleep is a great description of how Rita is trying to describes people's lives.
DeleteThe word “Wiederkehr” is a German nickname for someone who has returned to a place on more than one occasion. This can be directly linked to the Persephone myth since she had to return to the underworld every year for four months. Her nickname is wiederkehr because of her constant return. In the beginning of the poem, you immediately know that when the word “he” is used, Rita Dove is alluding to Hades. He was in love with Persephone and wanted her “for happiness”. She was opposed to this idea describing the underworld as a place of “darkness” where she “sat to hold the rain untouched”. Rain can be linked to sadness like it is in any other book, movie, or poem. The idea of rain leaves an even sadder tone to the poem than it already had since the beginning. You almost feel Persephone’s grieving and Hades’ happiness radiate off the page. Hades’ happiness is shown through the lines, “to watch the smile begun in his eyes end on the lips his eyes caressed”.
ReplyDeleteThis relationship can be compared to what people would consider an abusive relationship today. One person controls the other person and doesn’t allows them to live their lives. Hades is controlling Persephone and is not allowing her to go back to her mother and live the life she had before. The line “he never asked if I would stay” supports this idea of an abusive relationship because she doesn’t get to express her opinion. It’s as if Hades’ feelings are all that matter. Finally the last line of the poem, “Which is why, when the choice appeared, I reached for it.” expresses Persephone’s finally thoughts on the situation. When she was given the chance to “leave” the underworld and Hades, she immediately took it. But if you know the myth, she is forced to return four months every year. Returning to what tore her apart and made he life miserable.
I forgot to add that the poem I did was "Wiederkehr"
DeleteI also did Wiederkehr and agree with all of your points however I said rain was related to how Demeter causes seasons because she is so upset and that rain is apart of winter when Persephone is in the underworld. When Rita Dove says "I sat to hold the rain untoched inside me" she is saying that Persephone cant be upset and angered when she is in the underworld because it is something she has to do
DeleteI analyzed Dove’s “Wiederkehr” in my blog post too and I agreed with a lot of your points about the allusions and symbolism. However, I think that rain doesn’t always have sad connotations. Rain gives and sustains life, allows plants and crops to grow, and can be a sign of sign of hope and life in a vast, dry place such as a desert or in a drought. After all, it was only with Persephone that Demeter was able to allow harvest and new growth. Without her by her side, the world was barren and infertile. Perhaps the “rain” inside of Persephone is her liveliness and hope, and Hades captured her in hopes of having his own happiness and hope in the Underworld, where there is nothing but hopelessness, darkness, and death. In lines 9-10, Dove writes “... and though he saw how still I sat to hold the rain untouched inside me…”. In this statement, Persephone may have been adamant to not let her inner hope and life be affected by the darkness of the Underworld and Hades.
DeleteUsed
ReplyDeleteRita Dove’s sonnet Used envelops the pressure that is put on women by society. The imagery that is used in this poem, as well as the consonance and rhythm provides a creative flow that entices the reader to continue reading. The overall theme of the poem is established from the first few words of the poem and that is the uselessness of certain things that society believes people need. In the first stanza Rita Dove states, “Tabula rasa. No slate’s that clean--” (4). The philosophy of tabula rasa is that everyone is born with a blank slate and has no predetermined traits. This sonnet argues the exact opposite. The use of the word “man-child’s” when describing the predetermined attractions of humans presents the idea that certain characteristics are within from birth. The sonnet outlines the continuation of this predetermined trait because of the pressure from society. On line 4 the next statement is that no slate is clean, further proving the belief that Tabula Rasa is, in fact, an incorrect evaluation of human existence. In the third stanza the uselessness of certain societal expectations is further examined by the silk sheets that symbolize the over rated perception that people have. This brings the title into relevance because as people society has manipulated us to place value on useless things. Rhyming is used to emphasize specific words that influence the mood of the work. Rita dove writes, “to the floor and by morning the quilts had slid off, too. Enough of guilt--” (12-13). Emphasis is put on quilts and guilt to present the pointlessness of the expensive sheets, which are the over valued traits that existing in a society creates.
My first thought when reading the title of this poem was that it would be a coming of age story. The connotations that I associated with party dress are 21st birthdays or clubbing. When I first read first born, at first I thought of babies, but then my mind shifted to the eldest in a family. After reading the poem, I thought that my original thoughts were pretty accurate. In my mind, it’s about an ignorant girl with a protective mother, similarly to some of her other poems. The poem has a lot of literary features that add to this idea. For example, the first words, “headless girl” is a characterization of the “you” in the poem. It refers to a girl that’s ignorant, stupid and empty headed. This is perpetuated by the next two lines where Dove says, “ill at ease on the bed” and “I know, if you could, what you’re thinking of: nothing.” When she says ill at ease, she means that the girl is sort of uncomfortable, embarrassed or perhaps inexperienced, which could also be seen as ignorant and innocent. Even though Dove uses “you”, she’s not referring to the reader but actually to Rita’s own daughter, and then when she says “I”, she’s referring to herself and her own experiences with her own mother. Like when she says “I ran to my mother”, it shows how protective her own mother was in her life. She compares her to a cornstalk at the edge of the field. Corn can occasionally symbolize protectiveness or goodness, so comparing her mother to the cornstalk at the edge of a field is like saying that her mother was always standing at the edge of her life, watching protectively over her. In the sestet of the sonnet, it shows the clear reason as to why the protectiveness was such a big factor. It gives a hints towards sex culture and the predatory behavior of some men. She compares them to elegant scissors across the lawn compared the the women who are petals waiting to loosen. This is a metaphor to womens virginity which is often times compared to a flower. It shows the subtle behaviors in the line “they will nudge each other to get a peek and I will smile, all the while wishing them dead.” I think this shows how women are oftentimes forced to be quiet and just deal with uncomfortable situations.
ReplyDeleteThe Narcissus Flower is a poem by Rita Dove and is an indefinable sonnet. There are 14 lines, but there is no fixed rhyme scheme or meter in the poem. There are many enjambments throughout the poem. This poem seemed more story-like, rather than poem-like. On line 4, "blossom incinerated" could be an oxymoron. There could be a caesura in line two, when it says ..."frightened bird...not the earth unzipped." A question that arose while reading this poem, was who "this man" in line six was. "This man" is apparently "adamant as a knife." Another interesting line was on line 12 when it says "you can live beyond dying." This is a paradox because it is a statement that seems contrary to common sense, however, could be true. I found the title "The Narcissus Flower" to be a sort of oxymoron because Narcissus is a self centered person, compared to a flower in which people may view as pure. I found line nine interesting, because "center of a calm so pure, it was hate" seem to contradict each other. I wonder if the "frightened bird" in line two symbolizes, or means something else, other than its literal meaning.
ReplyDeleteCanary
ReplyDeleteThe poem Canary was written for Michael S. Harper who was an american poet and english professor at brown university. He also was the poet laureate of rhode island from 1988-1993. His poetry was influenced by jazz and history. This is important because it tells us what this poem is about partially. In line one Rita names a famous jazz singer named “Billie Holiday” whose nickname was “lady day”. Rita is writing a poem of a time period and topic that Michael was influenced by. This poem is about Billie Holiday and how she struggled in life. In line 2 Rita writes that she “had as many shadows as lights” this I believe is referring to Billie Holiday’s substance abuse, because though her caries was great her personal problems were just as great and followed every where she went like a “shadow” . Also in stanza one line 4 it says “Gardenia her signature under that ruined face” Gardenia is a tree or shrub of the bedstraw family with white or yellow flowers. Native to warm climate it is widely cultivated. Billie Holiday wear a gardenia in her hair a lot and that is why it is stated in this poem. The title of the poem Canary also is important to the poem because a canary is a mainly african finch with a melodious song, typically having yellowish-green plumage. One kind is popular as a pet bird and bred in a variety of colors, especially bright yellow. The canary is a symbol for Billie Holiday herself because of the signature song the bird has is the same as Billie Holiday’s signature voice. Finally in the last line of the poem “If you can’t be free, be a mystery” this is relating to Billie Holiday as a canary because they are common as pets so she can not be free because she is kept caged by mabey her reality or fame and is going to be a mystery or a unknown instead this might mean she is going to keep her substance abuse a secret from people because she can’t control it but that is just a guess.
Poem: Sonnet in Primary Colors
ReplyDeleteThe poem is about the famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. One of the features she is known for is her unibrow. You automatically know who is being talked about when reading line 1, “This is for the women with one black wing perched over her eyes”. The “one black wing” is, in fact, her eyebrows. In some Frida Kahlo’s paintings, she would paint herself, sitting up straight, with many parrots surrounding her. The quote, “erect among parrots” (line 2-3) alludes to her numerous paintings. Another thing that Frida Kahlo is known for is her horrific bus accident that injured her hip and spine. In line 5-6, Dove talks about this injury through the quote, “the plaster corset her spine resides”. Plaster is used for casts and if it is a “plaster corset” you can assume that Dove is talking about a full body cast used for spine injuries. This is also talking about her painting ‘The Broken Column” where it shows her in a body cast with a part of it cut down the middle where you can see her spine.
Kahlo lived a life full of pain due to her injuries. Line 7 talks about this in the quote, “Each night she lay down in pain”. One of the reasons why she died is because her body was falling apart. She was bedridden for a large part of her life and she had to get her leg amputated to prevent an infection in her foot from spreading. In line 8, it talks about a “celluloid butterfly”. Celluloid is a transparent flammable plastics that is commonly used in cinematography. A butterfly is both a negative and positive symbol. The negative meaning for a butterfly is the spirit of death. When looking at the poem, you can tell that the negative meaning is used. Dove uses the words “celluloid butterfly” to talk about Kahlo’s death. It was transparent, or obvious, that her pain was going to lead to her death.
Along with her husband, Diego Rivera, she was a communist. “Lenin and Marx, and Stalin” (line 9) are all famous figures in the world of Communism. Two of her paintings are talked about at the end when mentioning her husband. Those two paintings are ‘Thinking About Death’ and ‘Diego and I’.
When looking at the title of the poem, you can assume that it is a sonnet. But when counting the lines, there are only 13. A sonnet consists of 14 lines. Why does the title have the word “sonnet” in it if it doesn’t even fit the general definition of a sonnet? The other part of the title is primary colors. The three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. Nothing can be mixed to make these colors. This can be compared to Frida’s life because she was her own person. She wasn’t a mix of other people. She was her own individual.
I remember learning about Frida Kahlo in Spanish 4, and so it's very rewarding to see the historical references in this particular poem. I do wonder about the structure, though—I wonder if the 13-line sonnet represents an unfinished quality, like an unfinished work of art, or her death at a relatively young age (47). By writing about her life and emphasizing the painful elements of that life, while contrasting those elements with words of positive and appreciative connotation like "this is for the woman...," "lovely," "romance," and "rose," I think Dove is showing how much she respects Frida's perseverance in a life that brought her suffering.
DeleteI thought your analysis was very interesting and I agreed with many of your points. I believed that the sonnet only contained 13 lines because it is a tribute to Frida's life which was cut short and so was the poem.
DeleteCatherine of Siena
ReplyDeleteThis poem is about the Catholic patron saint of Italy, Catherine of Siena, and her fateful balance of struggle and success throughout her life. Even though Catherine lived during the 1300s, the poem is speaking to the reader by repeating “You” so they can see the inner Catherine in themselves and how all people will face similar difficulties and triumphs. Catherine traveled to Avignon, Tuscany, and many other places so as to bring the pope back to Rome, since he was in France, and to reorganize the Roman Catholic Church. Dove uses the hyperbole “You walked the length of Italy,” to describe this aspect of her journey, and shows how sometimes a person must go to great lengths to achieve their goal (1). Every road has bumps in its path, displayed through “You struck the boulder at the roadside since fate has doors everywhere,” giving hope to anyone who has been halted by failure that it will only lead to success (3-4). Additionally, ‘doors’ symbolizes that everything creates opportunity for something else, that there is always more to a path, and that fate is found in every step of life. This relates to Catherine because her failure at Avignon where she was ignored by the Pope allowed her to keep striving forward to attain her goal. To further emphasize how good goes hand in hand with bad, Dove uses the antithesis “of heaven, warm and dark,” to show that even a place as pure as heaven will have its comforts and its secrets (6). Through the imagery “the woolens stacked on cedar shelves back home in your father’s shop,” using ‘woolens’ instead of clothes to give off a warmer tone so as to support the familiarity of home to the reader and how they can find release at the beginning of their journey (7-9). Also, cedar symbolizes ritual cleansing in the Old Testament and here is used to represent the preserved, clean state of person’s home, allowing it to stand out and always have special meaning in their heart. Dove then adds the beautiful imagery “you prayed until tears streaked the sky,” to prove how deep prayer or belief and hope is always acknowledged, and how there will always be someone listening (9-10). Tears are never wasted and help with going through the bad in life, aiding a person in the transition from one experience to the next. By the end, the poem is reflecting on Catherine’s journey, on every person’s journey, with “No one stumbled across your path,” to state how no one got in Catherine’s way; everything that happened to her was fate (11). Catherine could not be disrupted during her quest and this is shown through “No one unpried your fists as you slept,” where ‘fists’ symbolize her unbreakable passion which enabled her to constantly have strength and hope (12). Every aspect of Catherine’s experiences were fateful, even her death, which even though was full of suffering still had meaning and allowed her to reach her goal. Portraying Catherine of Siena’s experiences lets the reader see the universal struggles and successes that come with life. A person must go through light and dark to be able to enact the change they want. During her time period, Catherine substantially changed the state of the Roman Catholic Church and Italy itself, proving that anyone, especially a woman, can achieve great things as long as they are determined and find fate in the failures as well as the victories.
Jeremy- I agree with all the points you make about the poem Catherine of Siena by Rita Dove. Without researching, one could assume this poem would be story-like, centered around a "Catherine of Siena". As I was reading this poem, I also noticed how Rita Dove used "you" to speak to the reader, even though Catherine of Siena lived in the 1300's. Without using the word "you" to connect with the reader, i think Rita Dove also successfully connects with the reader based on the message of the poem, which is a message that many people can relate to. As you said, the message of this poem was that anyone can achieve great things as long as they are determined.
Delete“Tou Wan Speaks to Her Husband, Liu Sheng”
ReplyDeleteThe story told in the poem clearly demonstrates a level of devotion or submissiveness that Tou Wan displays towards Liu Sheng. At the same time, however, it shows that there is a distance between them, by using “my only conqueror” and “my constant emperor” to refer to Liu Sheng, instead of something more personal like referring to him as her husband. She is only able to love him from this distance, while he gives her no affection in return; regardless, she feels obligated to give him the appreciation she thinks he deserves, saying that she will place “a statue / of the palace girl you most / frequently coveted” (37-39) in his tomb. Liu Sheng, Prince of Zhongshan was known for spending time with multiple women (as well as using drugs), and despite his careless behavior Tou Wan (who became a widow after his death) is willing to make his tomb rich and extravagant. Raising Liu Sheng to a godly level, by describing him as “long light and clouds / over the earth, just as the legends prophesy” (46-47) is almost ironic considering the historical context and the detail in lines 37-39, as he was very interested in wordly pleasures that are not characteristic of a heavenly image. The structure of the poem, long stanzas of short lines with limited punctuation, gives it the feeling of reading off a long list, which emphasizes the level of detail Tou Wan delves into in planning her husband’s tomb. Both of these details about the description of his grand burial chamber represent how much Tou Wan worships Liu Sheng, at the same time highlighting why Liu Sheng may not be so deserving of this love and devotion.
The sonnet ,Catherine of Alexandria, is a reminiscence of Catherine’s short life from the point of view of Catherine herself. Rita Dove uses imagery to relay the possible feelings that Catherine has. The poem has a tone of regret and gives off a depressing mood. In order to understand the significance of this poem, you have to know that Catherine was a saint and virgin in the 4th century. At the age of fourteen, she became a Christian and took part in converting others around her. By 18 she was martyred at the hands of the pagan emperor. Catherine had made a vow to stay a virgin and in this literature, it is portrayed that she regrets this lackluster life, but also believes the pain is necessary. The last stanza describes the importance of this promise she has made, the imagery used is, “a kept promise, a ring of milk” (15-16). The poem has a tone of innocence and purity. The symbolism of a flower is used in line 10, which is commonly used to symbolize virginity. In the bible the lilies beauty and fragrance shadow forth the preciousness of Christ. In this poem, it also symbolizes purity and preciousness. The secret nature of this poem is exemplified by the lines, “each night was fit for nobody’s ears” (7-8). In this poem, night shows a huge significance in half of the stanzas because of her choice to stay a virgin. In the last stanza Dove writes, “the nightshirt bunched above your waist-” (13-14). This shows her temptation to break the vow, but in the next two lines, it returns to the significance of her promise.
ReplyDeleteI after with your analysis and was interested in how you described the poem as a promise she was fighting to not break. I also agree how night plays a huge role in this poem towards her promise to stay a virgin. I like how you related the flower symbols to the Bible it gave a more in depth meaning and understanding to the poem.
ReplyDelete“Sonnet in Primary Colors” intrigued me in many ways. This poem is about Frida Kahlo who was a Mexican painter than was known for her various self portraits as mentioned in line two “lovely Frida”. First off, in the title Rita Dove mentions that this is a sonnet but it only has 13 lines instead of the traditional 14 lines. The absence of one line made me think that this represents the absence of the life that Frida would have had if she had not died so young. This poem is a tribute to Frida’s life and how it was cut short just like the poem was cut short. This sonnet is incomplete just like Frida’s life was incomplete and there was so much more than could have been added but never was. Another part that stood out to me was when Rita Dove states “This is for the woman with one black wing perched over her eyes: lovely Frida” (lines 1&2). At first I honestly didn't think much of this line and somewhat thought it was funny that Rita was referencing the unibrow that was once above Frida’s eyes, but then I decided to think a bit deeper. Birds usually represent freedom but in this case the bird she is referencing only has one wing and therefore it cannot fly, and it is the color black which usually has a negative connotation connected to it. The allusion of the bird in this poem does not represent freedom but it shows how close Frida was but could not reach it without her lover which represents the other wing.
ReplyDeleteThe House slave is a poem by Rita Dove, and is not a sonnet like the previous set of poems we read and analysed. This poem has five triplet stanzas, which translates to 15 lines, and is told from the point of view of a house slave. The house slave is watching field slaves work from "before-dawn". In the second stanza, there is a simile, "their mistress sleeps like an ivory toothpick", to contrast how comfortably the slave owner lives, to the stressful and painful lives of the field slaves. The house slave watches "whip curls across the backs of the laggards". The house slave watches the slaves in the field getting whipped. On line 14, it says "fat flowers". "Fat flowers" is an alliteration, however i wonder why Rita Dove describes the flowers as "fat". In this line is also a simile: "they spill like bees among the fat flowers". I wonder why the house slave weeps, when he/she is not the one in the field working day to night and getting whipped. Rita Dove creates a very sad tone when the House Slave describes how he/she can sometime hear his/her sister's voice in the field getting whipped. On those days, the House Slave sits on the cot, "shivering in the early heat".
ReplyDeleteJeremy 10/31-
ReplyDeleteThe poem Rosa by Rita Dove is a 12 line poem, with four triplet stanza. This poem is a part of the Civil Rights set of poems. This poem is about Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist, who was most known by her actions on a bus. She refused to stand up and give her seat up to a white person. In the first stanza of the poem Rosa, Dove gives some historical background of the situation. The first line is very dramatic, although it is only four lines. Everyone knows that Rosa Parks sat on the bus, however Dove adds this line to create a dramatic tone. In the third stanza, “doing nothing was the doing” shows the unequal rights for African Americans. As I read the poem, I noticed that “Her sensible coat” was not a sentence. It makes me wonder why Dove would add an incomplete sentence to her poem. The “camera flash” in line 9 shows that film crews and photographers are coming to document this moment. This also helps explain how this event has become so well known. The last stanza in this poem explains the aftermath of this situation. I wonder who is the person that “bent down to retrieve her purse”.
I agree I think the person who picked up her perse was the cops arresting her because in line ten it uses the word "stoop" which means to bend ones head forward and down as if she were getting arrested and in line 12 Rita used the word "courtesy" which can be seen as sarcasm because they are arresting her for staying seated on a bus but at least they grabbed her perce. Also in line 8 "the clean flame of her gaze carved by a camera flash" demonstrates just how determined rosa was and how passionate she was about her actions to end segragation.
DeleteI like your analysis of Dove's unorthodox approach to the famous story of Rosa Parks on the bus. Like many of the Civil Rights poems, this one references a bus, but this one relates more to the reader since it's a well-known event that we learn about from a young age. I also want to add how simplistic and ordinary Dove made Rosa appear by not giving her a flashy appearance of a stereotypical hero and instead showing her as "sensible". This shows how the most ordinary of people can make extraordinary impacts if they simply have a "flame" or passion for what they stand for.
DeleteBelinda’s Petition
ReplyDeleteThis poem is about a slave woman named belinda who was born in africa. Kidnapped and brought to america. She was a slave for 12 years then petitioned the massachusetts legislature in 1783 for her freedom. LIne one says “To the honorable Senate house of representatives of this country” This makes me think that the poem is written in Belinda’s perspective of giving the reasons why she should be free or testifying in court. Rita uses the word “Pitiable” in line six to show how little Belinda thinks of her life or how she sees her life in its current state of slavery. I the second stanza Rita says that “your countrymen have severed the binds of tyranny” which means that the slaves owners have been granting them freedom in some areas. Along with stating how she would “hope” for them to consider the same thing for her so she can boast or talk with excessive pride about. The last stanza talks about how the Senate argues that she is ignorant and how she “recieved existence on the banks of the rio de Valta” She then starts to argue her part and starts to say how she really feels stating “ how might I have known of men with faces like the moon who would ride toward me steadily for twelve years?” Rita uses imagery of the moon to represent white people’s skin color and the fact that they had controlled her for twelve years. She ends with a question making you think that Belinda had said her piece and left the Senate with a lingering question. This poem shows slaves starting to fight for freedom through appealing to the culture of their kidnappers.
Jeremy-
DeleteI like your analysis of this poem, and the points you make are good. This poem was an empowering poem by Rita Dove which she wrote in a story like way, rather than a like a poem. I liked how Rita Dove asked a question in the end to include the reader in this poem, which is about, like you said: slaves starting to fight for their freedom.
“Lady Freedom Among Us”
ReplyDeleteDove’s poem about the Statue of Liberty serves as an urgent reminder of the statue’s real meaning. Lady Freedom, in this poem, has a haggard appearance that is in no way reminiscent of her glamorous real-life image, with her “oldfashioned sandals / with her leaden skirts / with her stained cheeks…” (8-10) The anaphora used in this description emphasizes the imagery, making the reader think of a homeless or poor woman without the resources to care for her appearance. This image is reinforced in “don’t mutter oh no / not another one / get a job fly a kite / go bury a bone,” (4-7) which reflects the dismissive public attitude towards the so-called undesirables of society. By painting Lady Freedom in this gritty kind of way, Dove uses her to represent the hidden lower class of society, struggling under oppression and apathy towards their lives. I think that the theme of this poem is interesting considering this was one of the poems Dove wrote as a Poet Laureate to commemorate the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. It seems that Dove is rejecting the festivities surrounding the event to remind people, in her own way, that we should all remember why the statue even exists. “[D]on’t think another item to fit on a tourist’s agenda” (18) is speaking out directly to those who view the real statue of liberty in this way, forgetting the values for which it stands. It might even be referring to the crowds of people present at the reopening event or watching it at home, and the irony is extremely amusing to me.
Climbing In
ReplyDeleteRita Dove’s poem Climbing In displays a 1st person view of a person getting onto a bus. Buses used to be segregated where people of color would have to give up their seats to whites, and because of this it made buses an intimidating and almost scary experience for them. When you get on you are greeted with “Teeth / Metallic / Lie-gapped,” which I interpreted as the steps, showing how the vehicle itself is terrifying and not just the people inside (1-2). After going up the steps, this person has to pay the bus fee with “the dime / cutting my palm” where they seem to be sacrificing a part of themselves every time they ride, giving up a piece of their freedom as well as their money (4-5). Using the allusion “these are big teeth / teeth of the wolf / under Grandmother’s cap,” from the story Little Red Riding Hood, Dove portrays the bus driver as the Big Bad Wolf, a person who feeds off of other’s hurt but is kept safe under the security of a disguise (9-11). This enables them to get away with their judgement and victimizing, giving them the appearance of a good samaritan who transports everyone, even people of color, and therefore should be thanked for their service, allowing for their mistreatment to be overlooked. The dime is referenced again through “head over tail / down the clinking gullet,” where ‘head over tail’ depicts the two sides of a coin which travels down the ‘clinking gullet’, or metal mouth of the bus (15-16). On a single bus ride a colored person could lose a part of their confidence, freedom, and wealth, all of which are swallowed up by this metal beast that was created to benefit whites and abuse people of color.
I agree with your analysis. It's amazing how strong and heavily used the figurative language is in this poem, and it creates a powerful emotional effect. However, I think structure is also very important here, as the enjambment and short lines give me the feeling of climbing up steps, creating a suspenseful tone. Dove sure uses enjambment a lot, but what poet doesn't, I suppose!
DeletePoem: The Abduction
ReplyDeleteThis poem is based off a true story about a black man named Solomon Northrup who was a free man in the north. When you first read the poem, you immediately know that it is the same man from the movie 12 Years A Slave. Since I have seen this movie, I was able to understand the poem a lot more. The two men, “Brown and Hamilton” (line 5), are the ones who got Solomon drunk and then enslaved him. He originally went to work for the two men since he had the gift of playing the violin. He was then taken advantage of and abducted from his home to the south thus no longer being free. In the third stanza, the simile, “Then the wine, like a pink lake” (line 12) is used to describe the alcohol and how much of an effect it had on the whole outcome of his life. Without alcohol, there would have been a smaller chance of this happening to him. The poem is from the point of view of Solomon which allows you to get into his head and understand what he was thinking and feeling during the time of his abduction. The line, “I floated on water” (line 14) describes the feeling of being drunk and just feeling free; like you are having an out of body experience. Solomon floating there allows a calm tone to present itself which is then shut down by the last line, “I woke and found myself alone, in the darkness and in chains” (line 16).
PLEASE IGNORE THIS! I POSTED THE WRONG ONE!
DeletePoem: Lady Freedom Among Us
ReplyDeleteIn this poem, Rita Dove describes the Statue of Liberty as a person that we can relate to. When describing her appearance, she uses the words, “ old fashioned...stained..sunscorch..” to present her as a normal “person” or figure. At the same time though, she talks about how important she is and how she should be honored in the lines, “don’t think you can ever forget her” and “crown her with sky”. These two lines are used to portray Lady Liberty as this mighty figure that is above all and who stands for our freedom. The beginning starts off describing her as a normal “person” and by the end she is this powerful figure who “will not retire politely to the potter’s field”. A potter’s field is a burial ground for paupers and strangers. Dove uses this comparison to emphasize the point that Lady Liberty is the powerful figure that we should look up to and always honor what she stands for. Another thing to point out is the lack of capitalization. In the entire poem, there is not one capital letter and there is not one punctuation mark. I believe the reason for not using capital letters was to try and compare Lady Liberty with us. Capital letters are seen as these big things that are “above all letters”. So by using lowercase, it can be seen as one community of the same type of people who are all equal. The overall message of this poem is that the Statue of Liberty stands for our freedom and we should never forget that when looking up at the copper statue.
Climbing In
ReplyDeleteThis poem is about slavery and civil rights for African Americans and how their lives were during this time period. First of all, I wanted to address the title and what insight that might give to the rest of the poem. The title is referring to an African American person “climbing” on the bus and what the situation was like for them. It doesn't just refer to physically going onto the bus but it refers to the struggle and the “climb” it was for African Americans to do anything during this time period. When this poem states “Not a friendly shine like the dime cutting my palm as i clutch the silver pole” (lines 3-6) Dove is referencing the bus ride and how it used to cost a dime around the 1950’s and how they clutched it so tight because of the fear that was within them. The silver pole refers to the actual pole to get up into the bus.
This poem is also a metaphor for Little Red Riding hood and her experience with the wolf and her grandmother. It starts off with the imagery of “Teeth. Metallic. Lie-gapped. Not a friendly shine” (lines 1-3) which are characteristics of the wolf as well as the world in 1950 and the people that it was composed off. Later in the poem it flat out states “these are big teeth, teeth of the wolf under Grandmother’s cap.” (lines 9-11) which are directly referencing Little Red Riding hood and it is a metaphor for the awful people that attack the innocent and the weak just like the wolf attacked the grandmother. At the end Dove states “as the bright lady tumbles head over tail down the clinking gullet” (lines 14-16) she is talking about the very end when the wolf swallows the grandma and when society “swallows” African American people.
The abduction
ReplyDeleteThe poem The Abduction, by Rita Dove, is about the tragedy a famous American abolitionist named Solomon Northup from Saratoga Springs faces.In the poems first stanza a feeling of hope and joy is created. This mood is especially established by the last two lines of the stanza, “free papers in my pocket, violin under my arm, my new friends Brown and Hamilton by my side” (4-5). If you have been informed of his story possibly from the famous literature of 12 years a slave then you are aware of the false hope that Solomon has. The reality is that Brown and Hamilton aren't entertainers that will offer him a generous wage. Their real motive is to take him and make a profit by selling him as a slave. Their task is aided by the fact that Solomon is slightly drunk and blinded by the excitement of supposedly having a well paid job. The transition of moods is represented as a break between the first and second stanzas.The imagery used in this stanza is very vivid. “Pigs squealed invisibly from the bleachers and I fiddled” (9). The use of imagery intensifies the oblivion that he is experiencing. The poem is structured so that the last line stands alone and is very abrupt. Dove writes,”I woke and found myself alone, in darkness and in chains” (15). The mood of the poem has completely changed from hope to depression and darkness. The structure and enjambment further intensifies the harsh reality that he has to face. The last line is very abrupt and precise portraying the permanent effects of his illusion of freedom.
Parsley
ReplyDeleteIn the Poem Parsley by Rita Dove it speaks about a general or generalissimo in his perspective. The poem talks about how cane workers were being mistreated and even killed. The title parsley comes from the act of the soldiers shoving the very common parsley into their mouths. I believe the “parrot” is possibly the generals conscious reminding him of his and his soldiers actions to support this statement in line 2 it says “ It’s feathers parsley green, out of the swamp the cane appears to haunt us”. In the second stanza it says “ we cannot speak an R out of the swamp” this is relating to the fact that the sugar cane workers could not say some r’s in their words. Stanza five Rita says “ El general has found his word: perejil which means parsley putting emphasis on the general being an evil person. The parrot could also represent the souls of the dead workers in stanza 6 line 17 Rita says “ For every drop of blood there is a parrot imitating spring”. The day of the dead is mentioned in stanza nine making me think that maybe the general is remembering his dead mother through this holiday and this is why he is seen as such an evil person because he might have had something to do with it. The last sentence of the poem is a bit confusing because it says “for a single, beautiful word” i'm not sure if it is referring to the generals word parsley. Reading this poem overall I am still confused on some things it is saying.
Jeremy-
DeleteThe points you make completely make sense, and I understand where a lot of the poem can be confusing. I think the overall summary of this poem is about the General's willing to kill based on a sort of segregation. He thinks about how his mother and even his parrot could say the word "parsley", but the Haitian sugar cane field workers could not. When the general thinks back to the moment his mother died, it is the moment he began to hate sugar. This could be another reason he targets sugar cane workers.
I found your analysis very intriguing and insightful. I found it interesting that you connected the parrot to the souls of the dead workers because in most pieces of literature it represents freedom and happiness. In a way this is their freedom from from the intensive work, but it is a grim existence. This use of imagery with the bird is interesting because it seems to contrast the most common symbolism of a bird.
DeleteJeremy-
ReplyDeleteIn the poem Parsley by Rita Dove, General Trujillo orders the Haitian sugar cane workers to be killed. The immediate question comes from the title “Parsley”. What is the significance of the word parsley in this poem? The significance of the word parsley can be found in the first part of the poem. The haitians “cannot speak an R”, and General Trujillo claims “who says it, lives.” The haitians can not say the word parsley because they cannot speak an R, and are ordered to be killed. In the second part of the poem, the general recalls his mother’s death. His mother “collapsed in the kitchen while baking skull-shaped candies for the Day of the Dead, the general has hated sweets.” This may be another explanation for why the General orders the death of the sugar cane workers. The general begins to think how his mother could roll an R “like a queen”, and how even a parrot could roll an R. He hears a voice that sounds like his mother’s and he sheds a tear. His sadness quickly becomes anger, and orders anyone who cannot say parsley to be killed. This poem is very much like a story, rather than a poem. It has no rhyme scheme. Throughout the story, there are many enjambments. In the second part of the poem, the General thinks to himself “who can i kill today.” This characterization of General Trujillo shows how he is a ruthless and emotionless killer. A reason the final line: “for a single, beautiful word.” is a separate line completely could be to place emphasis on the significance of the word parsley. Parsley is, after all, the major symbol in the book. It represents death, and the anger and ruthlessness of the General.
I completely agree with you the general is shown as a ruthless killer throughout this poem. I found it interesting how you connected his mother baking skull shaped cookies for the day of the dead and him hating sweets to be a reason why he killed the sugar cane workers. I wondered why he would compare how his mother rolled her R’s to how the worker did ending in the end of their lives. I also agree with how you say this poem is like a story reading this poem again makes that clear with its beginning middle and end. This poem to me seemed very dark and sad from the generals point of view.
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ReplyDeleteParsley
ReplyDeleteImmediately, I knew that the way the poem was broken up into two distinct parts marked with numbers and separate titles indicated a stark shift in the poem’s meaning; in reading the poem, the nature of the shift became immediately clear to me, and I noticed an additional shift within one of the two sections. In “The Cane Fields,” the point of view of the Haitians is emphasized by the plural first person and the violent imagery with words like “screaming,” “rain punches through,” “gnaw their teeth into arrowheads,” “teeth shining,” and “blood.” However, at “The Palace,” there is a tone shift that is indicated by the change in setting in the title. This part of the poem does not actually take place at a palace, but instead represents the privileged position of General Trujillo and the Dominicans. The diction is geared towards making the tone of this part of the poem as sugarcoated (no pun intended) as possible, with words like “love,” “mother,” “four-star blossoms,” “coy as a widow,” “candies,” and “sweets.” Interestingly, the tone of “The Cane Fields” return in the fifth stanza of “The Palace,” reintroducing “rain” and “teeth,” “gnawed to arrowheads,” and the Haitian’s chanting of “Katalina.” The tone has shifted within this poem, once Trujillo remembers the death of a soldier and of his mother in the fourth stanza. His view of the world has changed with war and the death of his mother, and the mixture of anger towards the Haitians and the fading nostalgia towards his culturally Dominican childhood is depicted in the final stanzas.
And a note on the parrot and its symbolism --
DeleteI actually had an entirely different theory for the parrot, but it got ruined by one random line. Let me explain. I thought that the parrot symbolized the Dominican people who were turning a blind eye to this genocide and enjoying the fruits of the Haitian's labor (the sugar). My reasoning for that was that the parrot is treated like a pet-like figure under the general in "The Palace," who eats sugar and pastries (again, from the labor of the Haitian sugarcane harvesters) who can pronounce the r in the proper Spanish way (which is referenced in 'even a parrot can roll an R!') In addition, the parrot is mentioned repeatedly in "The Cane Fields," depicted as singing and accompanied with the beautiful imagery of spring juxtaposed with all the bloodshed in that first part of the poem. While the Dominicans were comfortably enjoying their lives, the Haitians were suffering under Trujillo's sadistic orders, and the parrot represented this.
Or so I'd thought.
"The parrot, who has traveled / all the way from Australia in an ivory / cage" (35-37) ruins it all. Australia. Who would have thought. Does anyone know how Australia fits into any of this? Or is Rita Dove being fickle for the purpose of adding extra colorful imagery? If anyone has insight on this it'd be lovely; I already hate seeing my good theory go to waste.
The poem “Parsley”, by Rita Dove, refers to October 1937 when Rafael Trujillo, military dictator of the Dominican Republic, ordered nearly 20,000 migrant workers from Haiti to be killed because they could not pronounce the Spanish word for "parsley" correctly. They could not pronounce the letter "r", "parsley" in Spanish is "perejil", so their pronunciation came out as "perejil," so the speaker was condemned to death for having a Haitian accent and not pronouncing things correctly. This poem has a negative tone to it throughout the entire thing due to the tragic event that it is talking about. In the first few stanzas, Dove is using imagery to talk about the setting of where this all took place. Lines three and four state, “Out of the swamp the cane appears to haunt us, and we cut it down.” This is referencing “el general” or Rafael Trujillo who appeared to haunt them as they worked in the fields. Another part that stood out to me is when Dove states, “Like a parrot imitating spring, we lie down screaming as rain punches through and we come up green” (6-8), like we have previously talked about in class, rain never just means rain. In this part of the poem rain represents sadness and pain for the Haitians. To them rain is awful and represents the Dominican Republic going to kill them. The use of a parrot is repeated multiple times throughout this poem. Parrots are often known for repeating whatever they hear, just like how things in this poem are repeated in every stanza. Parrots are also birds and birds usually represent freedom which also applies to this poem and how the Haitians are trying to be free from the Dominican Republic. In "the Palace" Dove states "the parrot, who has traveled all the way from Australia in an ivory cage, is, coy as a widow, practising spring". This is referring to a parrot that was once caged was freed just like they were freed in the poem.
ReplyDeleteThe poem “Parsley”, by Rita Dove, portrays the lives of both the dictator of the Dominican Republic and the Haitian laborers. The first stanza begins the poem with a contrasting tone. This implication of the difference between the two groups can immediately be concluded. Within the next stanza the conflict is given a purpose, presenting El General, who is the dictator. The contrasting classes causes tension within the lines of the poem. The hardships of these workers and brutality of the dictator is exemplified by the dark diction used throughout the poem like “haunt”, “screaming”, and “punches”. This poem begins with a vague statement, “There is a parrot imitating spring” (line 1). This same line is repeated throughout the rest of the poem and represents the luxuries and wealth compared to the Haitian workers. The motif is persistent in the stanzas describing the dire existence of these workers that are being killed. The parrot itself is a paradoxical symbol of not only the wealth of the general, but the caged existence of the Haitian workers. The parrot also represents the irony of beauty because it can be found in even the darkest places . The parrot is described as imitating Spring. What can be taken from this season is growth, rebirth, and light. The act of imitating Spring is fraudulent because the dictators’ true intentions are the death of the Haitian laborers. Just as there is growth in spring, plants sprout from the decomposed bodies in the soil. Rita then reveals that the Haitians death relates to their inability to pronounce the letter “R”. By this point in the poem the General has not killed the Haitians, but it can be inferred that it is approaching because of the violent diction used. The workers are then calling to the Mountains, which are misrepresented by the missing letter R in Katalina. The workers cannot get to the mountains because they are trapped in the fields. This line has a ghost-like feel to it. Rita then redirects the topic to their children. She writes, “The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads” (line 11). The utter grief that the children are experiencing is causing them to clench their teeth together into “weapons”, foreshadowing the fate of their parents. The poem then returns to motif the about the parrot. This time the parrot is oddly peaceful, offsetting the dictator with the soon to be killed Haitian workers. Rita Dove gives the parrot serenity, intending to relate that to Trujillo. This causes unease because a person that is the source of so much tragedy is compared to a peace and calmness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis and like how you focus on the dark diction that's very present in the first section. The parrot motif I also saw as a constant reminder to Trujillo of all the grief and death he has caused and how it impacts all aspects of his life but can either be in a sense of guilt or a sense of comfort. I like how you connected the children gnawing on the arrowheads to foreshadowing of the death of their parents, giving further horror to how Trujillo could ruin so many lives and on the outside seem completely unaffected by the results of his actions.
DeleteParsley
ReplyDeleteIn her poem “Parsley”, Rita Dove depicts the reasoning of General Trujillo’s murdering through the need of death and destruction to attain rebirth. The poem is split into two sections, the first describing a cane field where Trujillo kills workers, and a second showing the impact his past, especially the death of his mother, has on his decisions as a powerful and wealthy man. In the first part, “out of the swamp the cane appears,” repeats to emphasize how something as dark and disgusting as swamp can produce riches, here cane, giving a typically terrible thing more meaning (3). Trujillo takes this idea to an extreme, justifying his killing as a way to cleanse society so as then to become better, a thing of riches. These descriptions of people working in fear and death are interspersed with the word “green” to symbolize life and growth among the decaying. In the second section, Dove portrays Trujillo’s constant remembrance and struggle with his mother’s death. After she died, “he planted her walking cane at the grave / and it flowered,” again showing how where death ends life can begin (24-25). The death that occurs, especially when done personally, sticks with a person and give them constant guilt, and only briefly will “the little knot of screams / is still,” but those screams of the dead are a burden and here they almost haunted Trujillo (32-33). Not only does Trujillo remember all the lives he has taken, but he also remembers the experiences before his power, when he first saw death in war. His boots from “the first day in battle / splashed with mud and urine,” symbolize how coated in death and guilt a person gets when engaged in warfare, and how it affects you externally and internally (44-45). War placed the first screams in Trujillo’s head, and after that he began to accept them instead of fear them, allowing for killing to become easier since it would only add to the noise: nothing could take it away. His “boots” were even damaged before his time in war when his mother died, “a startled tear / splashes the tip of his right boot,” which marks the beginning to his relationship with death and how it brings sorrow, fear, victory, and life (65-66).
The poem “Parsley” is about a Caribbean massacre headed by General Rafael Trujillo in the 1930s. In part one of the poem titled “The Cane Fields”, the massacre is told in the perspective of the Haitian slaves working in the cane fields for General Trujillo. They see the cane fields as a place of murder and tragedy. The word “spring” is repeated multiple times throughout this section of the poem. Spring can be compared to new beginnings. Along with the word spring, “parrot” is also repeated multiple times. Parrots allude to truth telling and repetition. With the line, “a parrot imitating spring” is repeated multiple times throughout section one of the poem. Each time someone dies in the poem, this line is repeated as if there will be a new beginning each time someone dies. In section two, “The Palace”, the reader is introduced El General and his life in the palace. Throughout this section of the poem, words such as “death” and “kill” are used multiple times showing what Trujillo’s intentions were when it came to removing the Haitian people who inhabited the Caribbean island. HIs mother is also talked about quite a bit showing that he had a close relationship with her when she was alive. The overall title of this poem, “Parsley”, is translated to perejil; which is the spanish translation. In the line, “My mother, my love in death. The general remembers the tiny green sprigs men of his village wore in their capes to honor the birth of a son”, you see that parsley had almost a positive connotation in the past. Also in the beginning of the poem, you see that El General found pleasure in the fact that the Haitian people could not pronounce the word, therefore not taking away what el general found so beautiful about it.
ReplyDeleteQuick
ReplyDelete“Quick” by Rita Dove portrays a man looking for someone to dance with after a night of going back and forth before seeing a woman that is all too perfect, but who vanishes before he can meet her. This poem is in the style of a foxtrot dance, separated into 8 couplets and ending in a single stanza, mimicking the 1-2 step of the dancer’s feet and ending in one ‘final’ move, giving the poem rhythm and a continuous flow. In the beginning, a man symbolized as a gray fox is a “Wink of fuzz / in the headlights,” making his shy but mysterious entrance into the setting where he is a newcomer and novice. (1-2). Entering the dance floor, he “peers from the culvert, / all bobble and twitch, vacant eyes,” using “culvert” which is a tunnel carrying a stream under a road to show his emergence into a place full of vigor and excitement, making his curious eyes soak it all in (3-4). He dances with people who leave to dance with another, going “through this bait and switch / all night,” a cycle where he can’t seem to find the perfect partner (5-6). Dove uses a dash to show his pause and astonished stare as he sees her “crested / in moonshine and fabled silhouette,” using mystical imagery to make this woman stand out from everyone else in a mysterious and breathtaking way, proving her to be the one he’s been searching for all night (7-8). This woman is also symbolized as a fox with a “tail / waving its flamboyant / afterthought,” further describing her attractive and lively presence, using “waving” to display her taunting beauty which adds to her grandeur (9-11). As quickly as she is seen “she disappears: / red swish / or gray, too quick to tell,” portraying the man’s short but sweet encounter with this woman who at first he sees as “red”, a person more grand and special than the others but after she leaves she might be “gray”, just like everyone else (11-13). Even though he is sad that she disappeared, “no grief nor thought / of love一” is used with a dash to depict his sigh or realization that he shouldn’t be heartbroken because she was just a person and one that he didn’t even know (15-17). The alliteration “pure purpose / poured into flight,” further expresses his realization that her leaving was more important to him than if she had stayed, making their encounter destiny (16-17). If the man would have met the woman her mystery would dissolve and she would not longer be “red”: she would become the same “gray” as every other person he danced with. Because of this, he finds comfort in curiosity and better understands fate.
Jeremy-
DeleteYour analysis of the poem "Quick" by Rita Dove, from the American Smooth section of the packet is a very good analysis. At first, I was confused about the overall idea of the poem. In the first couplet, "Wink of fuzz in the headlights, and gray at that" completely threw me off from understanding what this poem was about. With your analysis, I now understand this poem.
Jeremy-
ReplyDeleteThe poem “Fox” by Rita Dove is a poem in the American Smooth section. This poem is not about a fox, as the title would suggest. The speaker of this poem is a woman. The speaker of this poem seems to be very self-centered. This self-centered personality can be seen through the quote on the last lines, “which was more than any man could handle.” The speaker of this poem seems to love herself more than anything else. The quote “she loved what she was” and “she loved nothing more than what she had, which was enough for her” supports the idea the the woman in the poem loves herself more than anything else. The title “fox” leads me to believe that the woman in the poem is “foxy” which means attractive. This woman most likely thinks of herself as attractive, and believes that there is no man that could handle her attractiveness. The poem has many enjambments. Something I noticed with this poem was that anytime the word “she” was present, it was always the first word of the line. This was obviously done on purpose, perhaps to emphasize that this woman always comes first, however the reason behind this could be debated. This poem seems very random, and makes me wonder how this poem was thought of. The title “fox” was very misleading until I read the poem.
Edit- the word "she" is actually not always the first word, there is one instance where is is not.
DeleteI found it interesting to how you related the title to the woman being self centered. I agree I found this poem very confusing and random I personally had no idea what it was talking about at first. I am a little confused on how the poem is structured I'm not sure why it is in two separate parts and why the poem is so skinny and straight. The word imagine is repeated a lot in this poem so I'm wondering if this might mean this poem is all in her head or beyond comprehension but that's just a guess.
DeleteI also found it interesting that you decided to portray the main character in a negative, self centered light because she may have been difficult to handle. When I read this poem I thought of her as confident and driven, but I see how this poem could go both ways due to the confusion it cause for the readers.
DeleteFox trot fridays
ReplyDeleteRita names this poem after a ballroom dance in 4/4 time with alternation of two quick steps which originated in 1914. This poem in my opinion is told from the perspective of someone describing the dance and the it gives them. The first stanza demonstrates how they can’t wait for the night so they can go dancing through the lines “Thank the stars there’s a day each week to tuck in”. Tis sentence also emphasises their only being one day each week friday like it says in the title. In stanza four rita mention Nat King Cole who was a american singer who started out as a jazz pianist and his “satin smile” he was known for his baritone voice. In the lines 13-14 where it says “ rib to rib with no heartbreak in sight” I think is referencing to the dance it self because of how it is performed. Finally I noticed how the lines are in pairs of two in each stanza I think this is also to reference the dance itself because of its quick two step pace.
Although much of “Foxtrot Fridays” depicts the dance, and the rhythm of the poem emphasizes the movements made, I disagree that the stanza “rib to rib / with no heartbreak in sight” are just referencing the dance and its performance. Instead, it’s one of the few Biblical allusions in the poem. Two more Biblical allusions are present in “Foxtrot Fridays”, in the couplet stanzas before and after. “one man and / one woman” represent both Adam and Eve, and Adam’s rib that Eve was created from is described in the next stanza. This creates an intimate and close mood, as they are physically close and within each other's comfort. Another Biblical allusion made by Rita Dove is in the eighth stanza, “just the sweep of Paradise / and the space of the song”. “Paradise” portrays Heaven, and gives the couplet a whimsical tone, as if the heavenly feeling from the dance is fleeting and fairytale-like.
DeleteIn the poem “American Smooth”, by Rita Dove, I was able to gather the information that the perspective is coming from a woman. This woman is partaking in a dance that is “American Smooth”. The authors use of enjambment, hyperbole, and imagery, really bring this poem to life. The poem is set through the wonderful mesmerization of a woman and her partner in the movement of dance. The rhythm and flow allow for the perspective to take shape as a graceful dance between two partners intoxicated by each other’s presence. The beginning of the poem starts the reader out mid dance. The story develops into that of anguish and beauty. The strain shared by the partners withstanding the urge to break their smooth movements into fragmented faults. The dance continues. Move after move the smiles radiating from the partners fade into confusion amongst the woman. As she traced back to where she was, there was a sense of freedom given by the author as the woman was hoisted into the air “achieved flight, that swift serene magnificence.” (lines 26-28). She is brought back down to earth with a sense of relief as she was able to recover her movement and grace once again. In lines 6 and 7 the use of enjambment makes you wonder if she was talking about precision movements or moving into the next song with precision. The use of commas are present throughout the poem creating an ongoing sentence. Dove chose to use commas instead of periods to make the poem continuously flow imitating the way that this woman danced, “as we moved into the next dance without stopping,” (lines 6-8).
ReplyDeleteAfter reading through the “American Smooth” poems by Rita Dove, it was evident the amount of passion and emotion she had towards dance. The work that stood out to me the most was “Fox Trot Fridays” because of the rhythmic nature of the poem as well as the structure and alliteration. The first thing I noticed about the piece is that every stanza is written in couplets except the last one, which is just one line. This relates to the premise of the topic of the poem which is about the fox trot. The foxtrot is a ballroom dance with an alteration of two slow and two quick steps, which relates to the specific enjambment and structure of the stanzas. In the title, Friday is very important because it is the end of the work week. It can be interpreted that Dove is greatly affected by the pressures of society and the hardships of living. It is not at first easy to come to this conclusion because of the joyful, upbeat rhythm of this poem. In the second stanza Dove writes, “the grief, lift your pearls, and stride brush stride”(line 3,4). This line references pearls, as in a necklace that she is taking off at the end of the week. The pearls symbolize stereotypical femininity and the social pressure that is put on women. The couplet suggests that dancing is the only form of existing that she can be completely freed from the confinements of society and be herself. The next stanza transitions into the movements made when dancing. The lines are rhythmic like the taping of dancing shoes because most of the words are only one syllable. In the next stanza Nat King Cole’s smile is referenced. He is significant to this poem because he was a professional musician who was a jazz pianist and also spent years in pop. In the next line alliteration is used to describe his smile. The use of alliteration further enhances the rhythmic nature and creates imagery. In the seventh stanza Rita writes, “rib to rib, with no heartbreak in sight-”(line 13,14). This explains the proximity and intimacy of dancing, yet the ease of knowing that nothing is expected or taken from dancing with another person. Rita Dove in her lifetime experienced a lot of pain and this is revealed through her resistance towards feeling for another person. Her passion for music and dance is given purpose in this poem.
ReplyDeletePoem: American Smooth
ReplyDeleteIn the poem “American Smooth”, Rita Dove compares the various dances under the American smooth category to the idea of escaping your surroundings and all the troubles that you face. She talks about being “distracted” by the dancing and not being aware of her surroundings because of how engrossed she was in the movements. Later, Dove alludes to the idea of the troubles that African American people faced in the line “before the earth remembered who we were and brought us down to earth” showing that the way African Americans were treated was much different compared to a white person. The line “smiling,smiling” leaves this idea that Dove is reminding herself to smile; even when it might be hard to. The use of the comma allows for a pause in the sentence leaving that feeling of being reminded of something. The use of oxymorons throughout the poem such as “perfect agony” show the positives and negatives of the dancing compared to the lives of African Americans. She also mentions a phrase, “sine que non” which means to absolutely need. This can be taken in the sense that in order for these dance moves to be complete, these moves are essential when executing them. This idea is also compared to African Americans in the sense that their role in history is absolutely essential to what our world is today. They play an important role when it comes to equality and the advancement of it.
I agree with you analysis and how Rita Dove felt that dancing was a way to escape reality. I found this to be true in all of the American Smooth poems. This reflects back on Rita because in these sets of poems she is not telling the story of someone else. What can be inferred by these pieces is that she went through many hardships which can be backed by the information about her life. When I first read through this poem I didn't catch the allusion to African American struggles with the line referencing earth.
DeleteThe situation is intolerable
ReplyDeleteThis poem is in the perspective a slave from the civil rights movement era. The first stanza seems to have a mocking tone to it. The last three sentences of the first stanza say “a righteous sword advancing onto the field of battle in the name of the Lord….” The … makes me think that the person saying this is mocking a script of what he or she is supposed to say. I also think that this could represent the civil war itself and its beginning showing what side this person would be on freedom. The second stanza seems like the war itself and how soldiers keep quiet while they look over their terrain. You get a different tone to this stanza it is more of a quiet like if you move you could be in trouble feel. The third stanza seems like he is concluding his thoughts by saying “ So what if we were born up a creek” this makes the reader feel like he was ranting throughout this poem about his hardships and how maybe he would like to see change. The poem ends with what I think is a sarcastic sentence “ Oh yes oh mercy on our souls” this sentence can also be taken as real worry for the future as well.
* I blogged about slavery on accident when we were supposed to blog about civil rights. The poem on slavery I blogged about was belinda's petition.
Poem: The Abduction
ReplyDeleteThis poem is based off a true story about a black man named Solomon Northrup who was a free man in the north. When you first read the poem, you immediately know that it is the same man from the movie 12 Years A Slave. Since I have seen this movie, I was able to understand the poem a lot more. The two men, “Brown and Hamilton” (line 5), are the ones who got Solomon drunk and then enslaved him. He originally went to work for the two men since he had the gift of playing the violin. He was then taken advantage of and abducted from his home to the south thus no longer being free. In the third stanza, the simile, “Then the wine, like a pink lake” (line 12) is used to describe the alcohol and how much of an effect it had on the whole outcome of his life. Without alcohol, there would have been a smaller chance of this happening to him. The poem is from the point of view of Solomon which allows you to get into his head and understand what he was thinking and feeling during the time of his abduction. The line, “I floated on water” (line 14) describes the feeling of being drunk and just feeling free; like you are having an out of body experience. Solomon floating there allows a calm tone to present itself which is then shut down by the last line, “I woke and found myself alone, in the darkness and in chains” (line 16).
Jeremy-
DeleteI understood the poem "The Abduction" better as well because I had seen the movie 12 Years a Slave. Watching the movie adds another level of emotion to this poem and creates a very sad tone. Watching the movie can create another visual of this already sad poem. This poem by itself however, is still very emotional and can create a visual in your mind of this depressing moment in history, and how a person's life can be taken away so quickly through abduction.
I have never seen this movie that was made about Solomon Northrup, but the poem still emotionally influenced me by the diction and contrast in tones from calm to when he realizes he has been enslaved. The specific diction Rita uses to describe Solomon's drunkenness seems to focus the blame solely on the alcohol, which I found interesting coming from her perspective.
DeleteJeremy-
ReplyDeleteThe poem “Belinda’s Petition” by Rita Dove is spoken from the point of view of an African slave named Belinda. Belinda was born in Africa, but was kidnapped, and brought into America as a slave. In 1783, Belinda petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature for her freedom. In this poem, Belinda is portrayed as a very humble but angry. This can be seen in the line “I will not take too much of your Time.” In this line, I noticed that the word Time was capitalized, as well as many other words in this poem where it seems unnecessary to capitalize the words. The unnecessary capitalization of many words in this poem creates an angry tone, as if the speaker is screaming. In the final line of the poem, when the question is asked, it includes the audience into the poem. This creates a visual in the reader’s mind of actually being there as Belinda is petitioning. Rita Dove’s style in this poem is an older style. Many poets nowadays write in more modern English, however, this poem seems to be written in a style a person would write in hundreds of years ago. Throughout this poem, there are many enjambments, as if she was trying to get her point across as quickly as possible.
I noticed the irregular capitalization as well, and Dove's intent with this capitalization becomes a lot more clearer if you read this poem out loud or pretending to read it out loud in your head. The capitalized words are given natural emphasis, and even if the natural emphasis wouldn't be there, the capitalization makes you feel compelled to give it more emphasis. This contributes to rhythm, which in turn I think creates a tone of eloquence that was surely important to Belinda as she wanted to appear credible and intelligent before the government for her petition. Her anger seems to be more of an undertone, supporting the volume of the piece under a blanket of proper words and the aforementioned eloquent rhythm.
DeleteThe House Slave
ReplyDeleteThe thing I noticed most about this poem was the imagery in it, which Dove really brings attention to through local color and the inclusion of specific details. The lines “children are bundled into aprons, cornbread / and water gourds grabbed, a salt pork breakfast taken” (3-4) paint a picture of the slave quarters through the food that they are given to eat. The passive voice also puts emphasis on this food, some of the elements of the daily routine of these slaves. Using “Massa” to refer to the master of the house is also an intentional choice to bring realism to the environment of a property run by slaves. The house slave in this poem, presumably the speaker, is removed from the suffering, so most of the imagery is auditory: “The first horn lifts its arm over the dew-lit grass,” (1) “At the second horn, / the whip curls across the backs of the laggards— / sometimes my sister’s voice, unmistaken, among them” (8-10). At the same time, Dove uses diction to communicate a different tone through imagery. The house slave’s isolated position communicates a sense of helplessness, and this can be seen in words of weak, diluted connotation, such as “vague before-dawn,” “lie on my cot, shivering,” “whiteness,” “spill,” and “weep.” This imagery is distinct from the rest of the poem, which uses rougher words like “rustling,” “asses, rum and slave-funk,” “the whip curls,” and“laggards.” This makes me think that there is a juxtaposition between the experiences of the field slaves and the house slaves that Dove wants us to see, which goes back to the house slave’s helplessness in witnessing the other slaves’ suffering.
In the Lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.
ReplyDeleteA poem that grabbed my attention from Rita Dove’s civil right collection was “In the Lobby of the Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C.” The poem describes in detail an event that alludes to the premiere of Amistad in 1977, the main focus being Rosa Parks. At this time Rosa Parks gained massive media attention, and in 1977 Amnesty international launched a campaign to have protesters declared “political prisoners”. In 1980 a federal court reversed the verdicts after covering that the prosecutor's tactics had worked hand in glove with the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation to shut down the black freedom movement. Rosa Parks as we all know from history books is a strong women who fought for African American rights. This poem presents her not as an icon, but a person who is brought alive through the lines of this poem. Rita writes, “that the smile was not practiced at all” (line 19). This expresses that Rosa Parks was truly overjoyed by the progress they had made and takes the reader away from her being the symbol of the fight for African American rights. Dove also personifies her by including details that relate her to any normal person. Just as Rita Dove makes Rosa Parks relatable she illustrates the importance of her role by posing a question that is answered in the stanza after the question is asked. Rita writes, “but it was only right (wasn't it?) that she be where ever history was being made-after all,” (lines 7,8). The importance of Rosa Parks in emphasized by posing a question with an obvious answer. It is interesting that Dove never included Rosa Park’s name in this poem because the entire piece of work revolves around her. Dove personifies her as more than a symbol and possibly further showed this point by not including her name. As a reader when you see the name Rosa Parks you immediately think of her as the mother of the freedom movement, but the purpose was to see her beyond those boundaries and as a person, not a symbol. The vantage point from which this event is told is most likely from one of the audience members. The purpose of this is to capture the event as it was viewed by the part of society supporting the movement.
The poem “Belinda’s Petition”, by Rita Dove, captures the journey of Belinda, an African Slave that was brought to America as a child, and her petitioning the Massachusetts Legislature in 1782 to gain freedom. This poem is written in a format to resemble a letter from the perspective of Belinda that is along the lines of what she said to the Senate and the House of Representatives. One thing that stood out to me in this poem is the random capitalization of letters throughout the poem without any punctuation. The use of capitalization in this poem helps emphasize certain words that you would otherwise look over as not very important, “I would hope you would consider the Same for me” (lines 9 and 10). In this case the use of the capital ‘S’ in “Same” helps the reader understand that there is an emphasis on the word and help understand that being treated equal and the same as everyone else is extremely important for Belinda. When Dove states, “I have known Men with Faces like the Moon, who would ride toward me steadily for twelve Years” (lines 19 and 20) she capitalized the ‘Y’ in “Years” to help emphasize how long it has been and how painful those years have been for her. Capitalizing certain words also helps create rhythm in this poem just like a lot of Rita Dove’s poems include, for example, “All my Childhood I expected nothing, if that be Ignorance” (lines 15 and 16) the words “childhood”, “expected”, and “ignorance” are all stressed syllables that help create rhythm in this poem. The use of rhythm and emphasizing certain words are significant because they help the reader understand the tone that this poem has and helps the reader think of this poem as a speech or a letter coming from Belinda, instead of just being a poem.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis and like your connection between the poem and her statements to the Senate and House of Representatives. I hadn't explored all of the capitalization, but your descriptions of what she capitalized Years and Same were something I hadn't thought of but it makes much more sense. I also saw how the poem was structured more as a speech and thought that it gave the reader a more confident and strong depiction of Belinda and gave off the tone that all of our voices are valid and respected and to express your voice is more beneficial than to keep silent.
DeleteWhen I read this poem the first time it was very evident that she capitalized certain words and structured it like a speech, but I hadn't made connections to the reason for this choice in structure and capitalization. I agree with your statement that she capitalized the words that meant the most to her and had the most emotion from them even though they were simple, otherwise overlooked words as I reread the poem. I also took from the tone a very empowering message.
DeleteThe Transport of Slaves From Maryland to Mississippi
ReplyDeleteIn the poem “The Transport of Slaves From Maryland to Mississippi”, Rita Dove depicts different people’s perspectives of the event of a wagon of slaves breaking free, killing two white men, and the slave woman who helped a driver get on his horse to find help. The first section is told from the slave woman’s view as she contemplates the murders. When she notices the bodies, the simile “like a screen of mosquitoes / shimmering in the hushed light,” displays the heavenly glow around them and uses “mosquitoes”, which are annoying, to symbolize the constant reminder that the two white men were good people and not entirely evil (5-6). At the time, slavery was so terrible, blacks would not admit this because of the all the horrors the whites had inflicted upon their race. This woman, though, sees through that with “his eyes were my eyes in a yellower face,” allowing her to realize that her and the white man are the same; even though they have different colored skin, they are both humans and have the same “eyes”, meaning at heart they are good and are connected (10). Her perspective ends with “I am no brute. I got feelings. / He might have been a son of mine,” to justify for herself that she is not bad for getting help to stop the freed slaves, she is a person and not a monster, but her choice still comes with remorse and guilt because she also feels connected the slaves that she just put in danger (12-13). Dove adds a break with the symbol “≈” which reminds me of the approximate symbol used in math, explaining how the next section is of the same event (equal to the first) but is not quite the same. For this quintet, it is being told from a white man who is then telling other whites of this happening. Because of this, he takes the side of the white men and portrays them as the victims like in “ ‘barely escaping with his life...just as his pursuers came into sight,’ ” labeling the slaves as the monsters even though whites had done much worse to them (14-15). His ‘retelling’ concludes with “ ‘ending this most shocking affray and murder,’ “ making it sound terrible even though there were only two deaths, but does so to further take the blame off of whites and pin it on the slaves (18). The third section describes the even right before it happened. First, the “last handcuff / broke clean from the skin,” using “clean” to represent a clean slate or freedom that the slaves felt when the shackles were off, despite the fact that handcuffs leave a mark (19-20).
The white driver was then hit from behind as “Sixty slaves / poured off the wagon, smelly, half-numb, free,” utilizing “poured” to show their overwhelming force like they had been waiting to break free at every second of their lives (22-23). Also, the slaves are described like degraded beings, but it didn’t matter if they were disgusting because all they desired was freedom, even though it displayed how they were different people once they attained it. The last section is from another white man who punishes the slaves once they do break free. He recalls how “not even the wenches stopped,” to show how all of the slaves were strong and fighting, giving them unity and further power and giving fright to the whites seeing them work together (27). Suddenly, he realizes that they are humans so used to pain, they don’t even react to his whip and how it will take something larger to stop them. He becomes surprised and scared with “Wait. You ain’t supposed to act this way,” telling how blacks are not supposed to rise and attack, they are meant to behave to the word of the whites (29). It allows this man to become terrified of their power and makes him ask himself: What else can they do?