Poem #5: "May"

THE POEM: May

The wind is tossing the lilacs,

The new leaves laugh in the sun,

And the petals fall on the orchard wall,

But for me the spring is done.

Beneath the apple blossoms,

I go a wintry way,

For love that smiled in April

Is false to me in May.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sara Teasdale was a lyrical poet who was born on August 8, 1884. Although she had very poor health conditions, she survived through it and wrote numbers of beautiful poems. She was married to a man named Ernst Filsinger, but she decided to get a divorce with him because he often made her feel lonely. After her divorce, she spent a lot of time with her friend and former lover, Vachel Lindsay, and continued her love towards poetry. She committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills in 1993. Even though she died, her legacy still remains as one of the most beautiful poems.

PERSONAL RESPONSE

     The poem "May" starts with the description about how the spring is coming as we enter the month May, but at the end of the first stanza, it talks about how the spring is over for the speaker, even though the season had just started. At the second paragraph, the poem talks about how the speaker is sad about May. It says that he is sad about it because his love was still smiling until April, but in May, it is gone.

     My text to self connection would be the fact that May is one of my favorite months. I love May because it brings the soft warmth after the bitter winter. Although I do not like hot weather, I like the weather in May because it is like directly the middle of cold and hot. My text to text connection would be the fact that there are other poems that are named after months that are written by many different authors. My text to world connection would be the fact that May is a universal month. All months are universal. There is not a place where there is eleven months.

     I personally love this poem. I love how the author described the beginning of May where the soft breeze is blowing. Also, I love how she described the nature progressing by talking about how petals from flowers fall. In the second stanza, I think the speaker is trying to say that his or her love died between April and May. It says that the love that smiled in April is not real in May.

TPCASTT

TITLE

The title makes me think that the poem is going to be a very beautiful poem. I think it will have a lot of descriptions. I think that the poem will be very sensitive and full of butterflies.

PARAPHRASE

The wind is blowing on the flowers,

There are new sprouts coming out,

The flowers are flying everywhere,

But the spring is over for me.

Under the tree,

I walk around feeling cold,

Because the love that smiled in April

Is now gone in May.

CONNOTATION

1. Speaker: the person who is feeling sad about lost of love.

2. Imagery: Sight(apple blossoms), Touch(none), Smell(none), Hear(none), Taste(none).

3. Repetition: none

4. Rhyme Scheme: ABCB ABCB

5. Figurative speech: none

ATTITUDE

The speaker seems to be mourning someone that he or she lost between April and May. The speaker seems to be too depressed to be enjoying the month of May and the coming of spring. The speaker at least notices the season, so in the first stanza, he or she talks about description. However, in the second stanza, the speaker only talks about how the speaker is depressed because of the lost.

SHIFT

First quatrain (lines 1-4) : the speaker describes about the season and the surrounding

Second quatrain (lines 5-8) : the speaker talks about how all of it does not mean anything to the speaker because of the lost.

TITLE

Now that I look at the title again, I feel more sorrow in the word. Although it is a beautiful month that brings beautiful season, I feel like it is the mourning month for the speaker.

THEME

*Loss of someone or something can be make some people not able to continue on with their lives.

*Losing someone or something can blind someone to not see the truth.

*Death can come anytime.

*Loss is painful.

*Many needs to learn how to cope with  the loss of their loved ones.

APA-6 REFERENCE

Teasdale, S. (1933). May. Website. Retrieved from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/may-3/

Poem #4: "Child in Red"

The Poem: "Child in Red"

Sometimes she walks through the village in her

little red dress

all absorbed in restraining herself,

and yet, despite herself, she seems to move

according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,

half-turns around...

and, all while dreaming, shakes her head

for or against.

Then she dances a few steps

that she invents and forgets,

no doubt finding out that life

moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out

of the small body enclosing her,

but that all she carries in herself

frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember

later in a sweet surrender;

when her whole life is full of risks,

the little red dress will always seem right.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rainer Maria Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist. Rilke is "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets," writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. Several critics have described Rilke's work as inherently "mystical" His work include one novel, several collections of poetry, and several volumes of correspondence in which he invokes haunting images that focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety. These deeply existential themes tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist writers.

PERSONAL RESPONSE

TP-CASTT

TITLE

I think this poem will tell a story about a girl dressed in red. It may be about her childhood or the effect she has on other people. It could be about growing up.

PARAPHRASE

Sometimes she walks through the village in a red dress while deliberately acting polite. But the way she moves shows what she will be like in the future. She moves all kinds of ways and forms her opinions. She dances a lot while learning new things. She feels like life is too fast. She doesn’t step outside of her body, but she is very frivolous. In years to come, she will remember her red dress and the adventurous life she led, and how genuine it felt.

CONNOTATION

This poem is told from the point of view from an admiring bystander it seems. It feels like it is someone close to the girl. Someone who has seen her grow up. They use symbolism when explaining the importance of the girl’s red dress. They make it out like a simple dress is the meaning of this one girl’s life. They credit the dress for being a symbol of the frivolous life the girl leads in a fast paced world. The dress represents her innocence and growing experience.

ATTITUDE

The narrator is very admiring throughout the poem. They are observing this girl’s every move. They have memorized every expression she makes.Perhaps they even love her. Or they are her parent. The narrator thinks very highly of the girl, but at the same time finds her silly. At one point they say, “when her whole life is full of risks, the little dress will always seem right.” The author is very supportive in the girl. He admires her youth and adventure and knows that she looks back on that as the one genuine moment of her life.

SHIFT

The poem starts simply by introducing the girl. Then in the middle you start learning about her peculiarities. For example, you read about how she “runs a bit, hesitates, stop.” You are learning who she is at the same time she is. In the end, she is grown up, but it talks about how the most meaningful moment of her life was when she was a child and learning her identity. Punctually, the author uses time lapses, commas and semi-colons as shifts in line and mood.

TITLE

The title refers to the girl in red. Or, more specifically, how your childhood is the most important, or memorable, moment in your life. The child in red represents when you discover who you are.

THEME

This poem contains themes of growth and knowledge. It basically says knowledge is gained from experience. This child in red spends all of her time exploring her footsteps and thoughts. She knows the most important thing she can do is study herself. These moments of self-discovery prove to be your most important

APA-6 REFERENCE

Rilke R.M. (2003). Child in red. Website. Retrieved from

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/child-in-red/

Poem #3: "Sonnet 18"

The Poem: "Sonnest 18"

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaboration, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, two epitaphs on a man named John Combe, one epitaph on Elias James, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

PERSONAL RESPONSE

   Sonnet 18 is one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets. It is a sonnet dedicated to comparing a person that he loves to summer. As I read this sonnet, I was able to clearly comprehend what the meaning of the sonnet was.  I think that Shakespeare is trying to say that though she grows older and older, her beauty doesn’t change.

     The first example is from line 4 and 7.  I think that line four means that summer is too short. “Summer’s lease” mean summer’s span and “All too short a date” means too short. Line seven is saying that something that is beautiful can lose its beauty. What he means is that beauty from beauty sometimes declines. He is trying to say that the summer is too short and it loses its beauty.

     The other example is in lines 9 and 10. In line nine he is trying to say that her beauty will not be changed. You can tell by the word untrimmed. He is talking about her natural beauty will not be changed. Line ten is saying that she won’t lose her beauty. He uses the word summer to represent beauty, so he is saying that her beauty will last forever. He is saying that, unlike the summer, her beauty is eternal and will not fade away.

     This sonnet deserves to be his most memorable sonnet. I think Shakespeare wrote a wonderful sonnet that really shows his feelings towards this person. It may be write in old English, but the message is clear. The sonnet is not just trying to say that the person’s beauty will never fade; he is also trying to tell her that her beauty is a gift.

TP-CASTT

TITLE
Not much different.

PARAPHRASE

You’re as beautiful as a summer day.

You’re better than the perfect summer day.

Life was bad before you came into my life,

If only summer were longer.

The heat of  summer sucks, but you don’t.

The sun loses its light everyday.

Beauty fades in everything.

Things naturally lose their beauty. It can’t be helped.

She will never lose her beauty.

She will never lose her inner beauty.

Death cannot even tame your beauty.

This sonnet will last forever:

As long as there are men on this planet,

Your beauty will live on forever in this poem.

CONNOTATION
Beautiful, loving, romantic. When Shakespeare says, “Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” he is saying that she is more beautiful than the perfect summer day. This is loving and beautiful and romantic.

ATTITUDE

Peaceful, enchanted, admiring, loving,

Words like eternal summer give an ethereal feeling. His tone is summed up in the last two lines of the poem. He loves his subject.

SHIFT

1st stanza – she is as beautiful as a summer day.

2nd stanza – summer is not always perfect (“Sometimes” indicates the shift, as does the new stanza)

3rd stanza – her beauty will live on forever (“BUT” indicates the shift)

Rhyming couplet: This poem will keep your beauty alive. (“So” indicates shift change, as does the separation of the couplet from the rest of the poem.)

TITLE

Not much different.

THEME

Beauty never fades

APA-6 REFERNCE

Shakespeare. W. (1609). Sonnet 18. Website. Retrieved from

Poem #1: "Stars"

THE POEM: Stars

How countlessly they congregate

O'er our tumultuous snow,

Which flows in shapes as tall as trees

When wintry winds do blow.

As if with keenness for our fate,

Our faltering few steps on

To white rest, and a place of rest

Invisible at dawn,

And yet with neither love nor hate,

Those stars like some snow-white

Minerva;s snow-white marble eyes

Without the gift of sigh.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874 and died on January 29, 1963. Robert Frost was and still is one of the most popular poets that left us numbers of beautifully written poetry. He was famously known for his accurate and vivid description that caused an imagery. Later during his life, he died because he developed complications from his prostate surgery.

PERSONAL RESPONSE

     In the first stanza of the poem, it talks about how there are countless numbers of stars that take over the sky, which is above the snow covered ground. It says that the stars are above the snow that becomes as big as trees when it is blown by wind. In the second stanza, it talks about how our ability to notice things is supposed to be sharp and keen. In the third stanza, it talks about how the stars are neither full of love nor hate.

     My text to text connection would be the fact that Robert Frost has written numerous poems about how the nature acts around us. His poems are unique and very beautiful. My text to world connection would be that most people in this world think that star is a beautiful thing. There is no place on Earth that does not have star above their head. If there are too much pollution, they would not be able to see it, but the stars are always there, just watching us. Snow is something that is used as a simile in this poem. All around the world, there is a season where it is colder than other seasons. When it becomes that season, in most places, it tends to snow. If they are living in a very tropical place, of course, it would not rain.

      My text to self connection would be how I think that star is a big part of beauty. The stars are like the symbol for something sparkly and pretty. I loved star shaped things more than any other shapes when I was young. Also, I loved snow, too. I lived in Korea, so I always saw snow every winter. The white, crisp snow always made me feel as if I was one of the princesses in fairy tales.

TP-CASTT

TITLE

When I read the title "Star", it makes me think of all the pretty shaped jewelry and other things. I think the poem will be about how the star would be pretty since it is always above us.

PARAPHRASE

The stars surround us above us,

Covering over the snow,

And those snow becomes very big

If the wintry winds blow

Our keen sense

Cause the marks on the

White and clean snow,

That is invisible at dawn.

Without love nor hate,

The star that are like snow,

Snow that is very white,

Is with no gift nor sigh.

CONNOTATION

1. Speaker: anyone who is bitter about it

2. Imagery: Sight(white as snow), Touch(none), Smell(none), Hear(none), Taste(none)

3. Repetition: none

4. Rhyme Scheme: ABCB ABCB ABCB

5. Figure of Speech: continual metaphor of star and snow.

ATTITUDE

The speaker seems to be very bitter and depressed. The speaker sounds as if he or she as a big problem that the speaker is too tired of.

SHIFT

First quatrain (lines 1-4) : seems to be a little bit depressed

Second quatrain (lines 5-8) : little bit bitter

Third quatrain (lines 9-12) : seems to be disappointed, sad, bitter, and depressed

TITLE

Now that I look at it again, I think that the stars are supposed to be symbolism for all the things that happened to the speaker that the speaker could not control/

THEME

*Nothing lasts forever, just like how stars disappear at dawn.

*Just because you cannot see it, do not think that it is not there.

*All of our nature is a gift from God.

*Nature is something that cannot be altered.

*Stars are like grief because they continually come and go.

APA-6 REFERENCE

Frost, R. (1963). Stars. Website. Retrieved from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stars-2/

Table of Contents

My 5 Choices of Poems/Poets

1.Stars - Robert Frost

2.Piano - David Herbert Lawrence

3.Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare

4.Child in Red - Rainer Maria Rilke

5.May - Sara Teasdale

Introduction

My Introduction

Hello! My name is Jeong Yoon Kim, and my blog is going to be about poetry. I am a freshmen at a school called Saipan Southern High School. I created this blog for my English class, and I think that it is going to be very fun. I will post many things, but the majority of the things that I will post will be about poetry and the poets that wrote them. i hope many of you read my blog and get inspired, so that you guys could start loving and enjoying poetry as much as I do. Try to have fun so that you guys would get interested.

Poem #2: "Piano"

The Poem: "Piano"

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Herbert Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile which he called his "savage pilgrimage."At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, "The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation."Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. Lawrence is now valued by many as a visionary thinker and significant representative of modernism in English literature. 


PERSONAL RESPONSE
    The poem Piano, by D. H. Lawrence describes his memories of childhood. Hearing a woman singing takes him to the time when his mother played piano on Sunday evenings. In the present, this woman is singing and playing the piano with great passion. However, the passionate music is not affecting him, because he can only think about his childhood rather than the beauty of the music that exists in his actual space.

     “A woman is singing” softly to the speaker “in the dusk.” The speaker is describing the place he is at in the present moment. It’s partially dark, and a woman is singing to him. As he listens to the woman’s soft voice, he remembers the time when he was little. He says that it is taking him “back down the vista of years,” till he sees “a child sitting under the piano.” This child is the speaker.

     The child is “sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings,” and he is “pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.” When the speaker was a child, he used to be under the piano where the strings were tingling since his mother was playing the piano. He used to press his mother’s feet, which were in balance. His mother was singing with a smile on her face.

     The speaker sees this scenery in his mind. As a reader, I can even imagine him standing in a dark room looking at a woman singing and imagining his old days with his mother.

TP-CASTT

TITLE
The poem might be simply about a piano or playing a piano. Is it about some memory the author has or some special feelings he has about his piano.

PARAPHRASE
The poet/speaker hears a woman singing, which makes him vividly recall a childhood memory. He listened to his mother playing the piano, while sitting underneath the piano and touching her feet. He longs to be back in the cozy, happy home of his family, when he was a child. He is overcome by emotion and cries.

CONNOTATION
The poem might mean that the author/speaker is unhappy with his current adult life. Things seemed to be quite loving and warm in his childhood.

There is a simple rhythm in the three-stanza, rhyming couplet structure, maybe related to his pleasant, more simple childhood. The piano itself is a symbol of rhythmic emotion.

Rich imagery created by use of such devices as onomatopoeia (boom, tingling, tinkling) and simile (weep like a child). The word “appassionato” suggests heightened emotions (passion).

“Manhood is cast down” suggests he is giving in to his longings for the past.

ATTITUDE

The poet/speaker’s tone seems to be one of sadness and longing, as shown by “till the heart of me weeps to belong…”, “the glamour of childish days is upon me…”, and “I weep like a child for the past”.

“softly, in the dusk…”

“a mother who smiles as she sings…”

“betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong…”

“cast down in a flood of remembrance…”

SHIFT
There is a subtle shift in tone from the beginning of the poem ,which seems like a simple recollection of a childhood memory.

In the second stanza, the author/speaker uses words like “betrays” and “weeps” to indicate a desire to return to these happier times.

Then in the third stanza, words like “it is in vain”, “appassionato”, “manhood is cast down”, “flood of remembrance”, and “I weep like a child for the past” demonstrate a more painful longing to have things the way they used to be.

TITLE

I think the title Piano represents a focal point for the author/speaker’s feelings. Pianos and music are, by nature, connected with our emotions and often with other people in our lives. Music can prompt us to feel very deeply, and thus the piano comes to represent a much happier time in the life of the author/speaker.

THEME

The theme of the poem appears to be longing for the past, which may seem to have been more loving and happy.

APA- 6 REFERENCE

Lawrence D. H. (1918). "Piano" Website. Retrieved from 

http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/piano.html