POETRY JOURNAL HW (due 2/22/07)

The Computation
John Donne
Contemporary Poet

S: The person lost in love
O: Losing what he once had
A: Anybody listening to him/ himself
P: To express his emotions and fears
S: Lost love
Tone: expressive, sad

This poem is one of the poems that a person reads and gets but they do not know how to but it in words. When I first read this poem is ways obvious to me what the author was saying, but it was very hard to put into words, the meaning I had deciphered from it. The speaker expresses that “for my first twenty years, since yesterday” he has just dropped to reality. Meaning he had just realized that he had lived in a world that did not excited. He lived in his own world and in this world he longed to be with his lost love. He tells the reader that even if a thousand years past his thoughts of her would not cease. It is very interesting how he ends because he ends by asking a question. He explains how he is dead internally and asks if it is possible for him to die of deception again. I say again because it seems like at the beginning he had been rejected, and because of this he had entered into this world were he did not realize what was happening. I also really like the title of the poem because he is like counting or making a list and realizing that a lot of time has past and he has not even noticed.
In my poem I tried to make it short like the original poem. But instead of writing about somebody I love or how I never moved on, I will like to talk about how long it has been since I talked to my dad. I never really talked to my dad and the last time I talked to him he said he did not care about me. In the poem I will like to talk about the last time I talked to him and how that has affected the way I look at different situations. I decided not to end in a question like he did but in a resolution.

The Computation

For my first eighteen years, since yesterday,
I scarce believe thou couldst be so cold
For thirteen more I fed on imaginary longings
And thirteen on hopes that thou wouldst they might last
Tears drown’d my everlasting hopes, and sighs released my deception of you
A thousand, I did neither think nor do,
Or not divide, my thinking and believing in you
Or in a thousand more, changing your views
Yet call this not vital to change ones life, but I
Am, inside dead at last.

POETRY JOURNAL HW (due 2/16/07)

Love
Pablo Neruda
Personal Response

S: The lover
O: To clear things out with lover
A: His love
P: To question their relationship
S: Their relationship or their actions
Tone: expressive, sincere

What’s wrong with you, with us,
what’s happening to us?
Ah our love is a harsh cord
that binds us wounding us
and if we want
to leave out wound,
to separate,
it makes a new knot for us and condemns us
to drain our blood and burn together.

What’s wrong with you? I look at you
and I find nothing in you but two eyes
like all eyes, a mouth
lost among a thousand mouths that I have kissed, more beautiful,
a body just like those that have slipped
beneath my body without leaving any memory.

And how empty you went through the world
like a wheat-colored jar
without air, without sound, without substance!
I vainly sought in you
depth for my arms
that dig, without cease, beneath the earth:
beneath your skin, beneath your eyes,
nothing,
beneath your double breast scarcely
raised
a current of crystalline order
that does not know why it flows singing.
Why, why, why,
my love, why?

This poem by Pablo Neruda, just define what I think a marriage is like. The couple starts by being madly in love, they marry but after a while they get tired of each other. The couple divorce and find other people that will make them happy. That is what I think marriage is like. I have always felt like if I marry someone I am going to get tired of them or too use to them that I will leave one day with no explanation. This, people tell me is because I have not found the right person to date and or marry. When I read this poem it reminded me of my theory. In this poem Neruda talks about his lover and how he has gotten to a point that they are too use to each other that he does not find a reason to be together. He tells us that they are being rapped by a “cord” and that the cord is draining their blood and is burning them. Meaning they are together by this thing that is holding them together but they no longer go together, that they are getting hurt. Because they are together and their relationship is dry they are hurting each other instead of loving and comprehending each other. He also tells her that he has gotten to use to her and that he no longer sees joy, and the things he use to see that would drive him next to her. Meaning that his relationship with her is not working and that she is becoming like a thing he was interested in and now he is no longer interested in her. At the end he tells us that maybe he was looking in her something that never excited and that is why his relationship is not working, and at the end he questions it.
I think this also connects to the world of today because couples get married without really thinking about their relationships and if what they are doing is going to work. People take marriage or even just a simple relationship as a joke or an opportunity for pleasure and a relationship is more then that. I think that that is when couples divorce because they do not understand their partner and they did not really give attention to something that needed attention. Like Neruda some question their relationships and sometimes it is too late.

POETRY JOURNAL HW (due 2/16/07)

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
e.e. cummings
Literary Critic

S: The lover
O: A moment of expression
A: His love
P: To tell the girl that he carries her heart with his
S: His love for his lover
Tone: expressive, sincere

e.e. cummings writes in his own style. He writes in lower case letters which is strange because he even writes his name in lower case letters. It is strange because usually when somebody writes normal the words have a feeling of being usual and normal but when people like cummings writes in lower case letters to convey their feelings its just strange. Its strange because when you want to convey strong feelings you usually use capital letters and exclamation points but in his case he does not use this type of punctuation. The way he writes the poem makes it seem like he is a calm man and wants to convey his feelings in a different manner but still strong, enough to make an impact in his lovers heart.
I also think that it is interesting how he uses parenthesis in the poem. The poem is written like if he is just talking to somebody and like the parenthesis are side notes, but they are crucial to the understanding of his feelings. I was also thinking that the parenthesis are the stressed parts and because he does not use exclamation points he instead uses the parenthesis.
I really like how he makes it seem like the girl is everything for him. That with out her he is not able to continue on. Without her he would not be able to share his true feelings and by carrying her with him he is able to “fear no fate” and to be the real him. I also think that the last part is interesting how he tells the girl that there is a secret and that it starts with her heart and his how he is not able to tell her but instead gives her a riddle so she can find out what he is trying to say. His way of writing is an interesting way to convey ones feelings.