Sunday, January 30, 2011

"The Cat" by Miroslav Holub

"The Cat" is one of those rare poems that reveals itself differently to everyone. All poems do this to some extent, but here it is so prevalent as to alter the meaning and remembrance of the poem. As I perceive it, "The Cat" expresses the desire to hold onto the present, to not allow it to pass into memory.

The first cinquain describes the subconscious and the memories of the mind. The world is dark, the substance of this blackness filtered from the city, which represents the experiences of the present. The second cinquain along with the next quatrain stanza express the desire of people to hold onto the present. These experiences will be "trapped" and "bewitched" within the night of memory if they leave. They will become "nothing."

The next couplet and following sestet then demonstrate the necessary fleeing of experience into the past and into memory. The repetition of "a black cat" in "the black night" vanishing reveals the nature of memories, that they all form the dark veil of past experience and new ones simply merge into the fabric.

The final sestet shifts the poem from a solemn mood to a bittersweet one: it illuminates the idea that memories never wholly disappear. Though not as whole or full or rich as on the day they were experienced, memories remain nestled within the deep depths of our minds.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

"It Was a Dream" by Lucille Clifton

For me, the description in this poem, though plentiful, does not perform the true emotional work of the piece. It acts mostly to provide a setting and character through which the powerful dialogue can affect the reader.

The poem's initial line confused me slightly until I realized that the title was meant to precede it. I loved this because I was forced to reread the title and appreciate its importance within the poem; the setting and the spirit within it are both a dream. So often I read a poem's title, and then it slips away as I turn to the poem itself. That didn't happen here, and in fact, it provided the last line with a stunning personal profundity. "Oh what could I have done?" "This. This. This." In my mind, the apparition beckons to herself, in that she is a dream. She tells the author that she could have dreamed, dared to dream, to live the life she once envisioned for herself. This notion captures me and inclines me to consider my own regrets and lost dreams.

Monday, January 17, 2011

"Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe

“Alone” contains themes of isolation and sadness and confusion; it touched me as I suppose it does most people. At some point, nearly everyone feels alone, unlike anyone else. Poe’s eloquent expression of this taps that core of emotional dissociation we sometimes feel with the people that surround us.

The entirety of the poem has a dual-line rhyme scheme, but the first half of the poem utilizes this uniquely. Poe maintains rhyme, but each line does not articulate a complete thought. Lines hang over to start the next; dashes intersperse themselves, causing the reader to pause. Poe illustrates his feeling of alienation by his use of lines that are beautifully written and paced, but done so in an unorthodox and arresting fashion.

The second half of the poem then suddenly shifts to the classical style of rhyme, with each line a coherent purpose. This shift caused me to see the world, as Poe describes it, as ordered and uniform, yet still no less beautiful. Poe’s style of describing the world juxtaposes his description of his own experiences. His feelings of solidarity naturally seeped into me as I read.

As a last note, I can't seem to interpret the “demon” Poe describes. Perhaps I'm not meant to. The “demon” seems to represent the force that separates Poe from the rest of the world. He does not understand it any better than the reader can.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Untitled poem by Stephen Crane

The imagery of this poem is staggering. Crane's description is reserved and succinct but allows endless personal interpretation into the appearance and demeanor of his "creature." The creature is never mentioned to be humanoid or even ugly, but in my mind, these images first arose. In one word, "desert," Crane achieves a profound level of imagery: I envision a blazing red expanse, dulled with orange, where the hard, packed earth does not burn or chill. The landscape vaguely reminds me of the one portrayed in Salvidor Dali's painting The Persistence of Memory. I've read the poem many times now and remain baffled as to how Crane can provide such clear images with such simple words.

Thematically, this poem presents a far vaster challenge of understanding. The essence of meaning is veiled by Crane's sparse language, which inversely succeeds in creating the depth of imagery and personal attachment I described previously. In fact, an identical process occurs here, but time for reflection and analysis are necessary.

I believe the theme to be that people who seem consistently joyless and sullen may not find such misery in their conditions as others might suppose: these emotions are who they are. The creature says his heart is "bitter—bitter," but he professes that he enjoys eating it because of its bitterness, "because it is my heart." Crane implies that humans appreciate themselves for how they have defined themselves in their own minds, regardless of the beauty of these definitions.