The Fruit of My Efforts

Example of abecedarian poem:Addressed "BAT CAVE" by Paul Szlosek
Attention, Batman, Caped Detective:Evil fiend, Gotham's hideous, insidious Joker's Kidnapping Lutheran ministers,
Nefariously oppressing Protestants. Quickly respond! Stop this unrepentant Villain.Wantonly, xenomorphicly yours,
Zebragirl
Abecedarian poems are guided by alphabetical order. They date back all the way to Hebrew texts. Now, they are used as mnemonic devices and word games to help children learn.
Example of cento poem:
Emily, Walking by Mary E. Moore
I started Early – Took my Dog –
And went against the World –
I had no Cause to be awake –
Creator – Was it you?
A Murmur in the Trees – to note –
And in the Handsome Skies
The Motions of the Dipping Birds –
A pleading Pageantry –
A chilly Peace infests the Grass
Of which it is the sign –
The things we thought that we should do
Make Life a sudden price.
This Me – that walks and works – must die,
The great exchange of clime –
A darting fear – a pomp – a tear –
And the Surrender – Mine –
The word "cento" comes from the Latin word meaning "patchwork". Each line in the poem comes from another author. For example, in Mary E. Moore's poem, each line is from a different Emily Dickinson poem.
Example of renga poem:
Seasons of Change by Marc Babin and Elisabeth Denisar-Babin
winterwafting pine ticklesnoses with Christmas tidingsgilded adornmentglistening flakes softly floating from aboveevidence of yesterday fadingcarolers sway totidings of old, huddledagainst white serenityspringpreparing black earthtenderly tucking seedlingsin springtime beddingbird songs sweetly growingslumbering beasts awake anewradiant sun burststhrough moving dappled shadowsagainst green carpets
summerschool bells clamor forkeen summer sabbaticallong awaited restdistant heat waves to me from afarnoisy window box breathes brief sanityanticipationsand and surf--paints hot refugefrom school day despairautumngreen is leaving mecrackling feet chase me aroundred yellow brown sleepcrisp pumpkin shaped facesgolden illuminationrevealing hidden fearslimy seeds from the inner bowelsmakes a wonderful pie
Renga poems are written by at least two people in Haikus. The authors take turns writing each stanza. There is no limit to the number of stanzas, but there is no capitalization or punctuation.
Example of rondeau poem:
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Rondeau poems are lyrical poems that began in France. The poem consists of 15 lines and only two rhymes are used in the entire poem.
Example of tanka poem:
Saying Goodbye by Unknown
Carefully I walk
Trying so hard to be brave
They all see my fear
Dark glasses cover their eyes
As mine flow over with tears
Tanka poems are short, lyrical poems are 31 syllable poems, and it is one of Japan's oldest poetic form.

A Tribute to an Unfortunate Friend

In the middle of my third year at Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School, a friend of mine had a very bad day. Now you must understand that this certain friend is often associated with the bad days he has and has become notorious for the bad stuff that seems to fall upon him. After the first two and a half years or toil and hardships, these days became funny to those simply observing. My friend, of course, is Ssempa Kisaalita, very dear to my heart and my memories.
This certain day was particularly normal, we went to school, said we hated it in the morning, hated even more during the day, and were relieved when we were able to go to lunch and have the usual to eat: nothing. That’s how our days went. We went to school, had no food for break, went to more school, had no food for lunch, went to more school, and finally finished playing some sport or other. Well on this memorable day, we did nothing different. At lunch, we begged for food from everyone else, and the person lucky enough to find something was attacked by everyone else until they either shared or had the food destroyed. That’s how our class is: we’re either full together or we’re hungry together.
Well on this routine day Ssempa happened upon some peanut butter crackers, a rare delicacy. Living by our motto, we were not about to let Ssempa eat those crackers without sharing and when he refused, we attacked. The crackers were soon crumbs. Now some may say “poor Ssempa” or “he didn’t deserve that” but the truth is, we all found it to be quite just. We all know the same thing would have happened had we been the ones with the crackers. The rest however, would never have happened to any of us, at any time in our life, in any shape or form. All the black cats, broken mirrors, walking under ladders, salt, or any other shape of bad luck could have given us as much grief as Ssempa’s luck gave him.
Why Ssempa likes the little fruit cups that haven’t been refrigerated and are packaged in formaldehyde, I don’t know but nobody else did. So when he got his hands on one of those grotesque slime food packages, we left him alone. Victorious, he went over to open it over the trash can and he must have had a little trouble getting the plastic seal of because the fruit cup bobbled up, was almost caught, and then plummeted into the trash can, leaving a hungry Ssempa just staring down. Now this was funny, we laughed, he made that sulking face that he makes at every turn of misfortune, and the moment was done. So far there’s hardly been anything different about the day, this kind of stuff happens all the time.
By this time we were probably two-thirds of the way through lunch and were excessively bored with the way things were turning out, though it was no surprise to us. Then by some stroke of divine will (this couldn’t have been good luck, Ssempa Kisaalita is immune to good luck and will be the first to tell you) Ssempa was able to come by a dollar. Yes, in those days a buckaroo would get you an entire water battle. No it didn’t just buy you a measly twelve ounce Power-aid or four fifths of a twenty ounce bottle. It bought the entire thing. As I said, Ssempa came across an entire dollar, and decided he’d use it to buy a juice from the vending machine in the Den. That’s where Ssempa’s ill fate kicked in.
He made the purchase with ease, the machine didn’t eat his money, the drink came out fine, and it was even the drink he had asked for. I don’t remember if when he got the drink we chased him or he was just being clumsy again but either way, he fumbled the drink. It bounced around in his hands for a while and then fell with a splash to the ground. Now you might have already picked up on this but bottles don’t make a splash sound when they fall. They make a thunk or bump. However, this bottle definitely went “SPLASH!” Ssempa hadn’t even started to open the drink. All he did was drop the bottle and the lid split to pieces. The juice spilled out everywhere and Ssempa fell to his knees, closed his eyes, and let out a wail: “NOOOOOOOO!!” This is the kid whose soda had been thrown twenty feet in the air expecting to be caught, and when he wasn’t, exploded on the gym floor. The same kid whose pens routinely busted, once leaving behind a green trail as his book bag rubbed against the wall. The kid kneeling on the lunchroom floor was the same kid whose sodas routinely spontaneously exploded in his book bag, leaving a soppy mess and a dry mouth. Everything bad that could have ever happened, happened to Ssempa, and to those who knew him best it was hysterical.
We did end up helping clean it up if I remember correctly; we weren’t that cruel hearted. We all laughed in awe of Ssempa’s incredible consistent bad luck, and reminisced all the other times his drinks had exploded. The lunch ended with a lightened heart yet still the same hate for the dreaded routine. There was, in fact more school to go to, even though that day had been a day that I will remember for a while, and stuck out so much in my mind, that I wrote about it as my senior memory. It is not how I will remember Ssempa or my friends, but it will remind me of just how improbable it was for a drink cap to explode like it did. It would have happened to no one else, though millions buy drinks and thousands of lids may be less than quality. The one kid to drop a substandard drink bottle would have to be Ssempa, whose legacy of bad luck will never be forgotten.

Araby- On Style #2

In the short story Araby by James Joyce, the speaker is so overwhelmed by love that he thinks about his lover everywhere, even "in places most hostile to romance." One of the places that is seemingly unfit for romance is the marketplace which is filled with "flaring streets", "drunken men", "bargaining women", "shrill litanies", "pigs' cheeks", and "nasal chanting". Throughout all of these distractions, annoyances, and danger, the speaker stills carries the thought of his lover. The harshness of the situation only adds to how much attention he gives his thoughts. He protects her from all the chaotic noise, all the dangers, and all the unpleasantries of the marketplace.
By turning every-day happenings into dangers that could have an ill affect on his love, the speaker is able to create a romance out of a simple shopping excursion. Each thing that he passes by is a threat to his lover but if he had passed by without his lover in mind he might have not even thought about them at all. However, because they are presented as threats and disturbances, the speaker becomes a guardian, a chivalrous knight protecting his lady.
Using harsh words to describe everyday things gives the illusions that these are threats. Adjectives like "flaring", "shrill", and "drunken" all give a much more negative tone to the words they modify which would not be negative at all without the preceding adjectives. So it is through the placement of the negative adjectives that the speaker is able to create a chaotic environment which he must save his lover from, and therefore presents a simple shopping trip as a chivalric romance.

The poem "Difference" by Mark Doty explains how words are used to make sense of the unknown. Doty begins by choosing an object from the natural world, a jellyfish, and describing it. He calls their form "alien grace", something that we cannot really grasp but only try to explain with words and figures that we do know. The jellyfish is foreign, yet similar to other things we come in contact with so often. That is what Doty explains in the second half of his poem: the unmistakable connection between objects using words but also the separation of the object by the use of those same words.
Doty’s use of metaphors to describe jellyfish in the first half of his poem is, to me, very effective. Doty gives the reader a seemingly easily recognizable object and then proceeds to show the reader how little they know about it. He uses irony to add to the confusion by saying: “a dozen identical” and then right before he starts to use the metaphors: “every one does something unlike”. By contrasting their likeness and their differences, Doty shows how the words describing them can both connect recognizable shapes to the jellyfish and also separate them from each other.
A main focus of “Difference” is the use of metaphors to describe something that otherwise is just “sheer ectoplasm”. By using metaphors and similes we apply a shape to the object. The ironic part of this is that it is by connecting jellyfish with other objects, changing its shape to the shape of other objects, we indeed separate it from everything else and thus define it on its own. A question that follows then is how do you describe the shapes used to describe the jellyfish? How does one describe a balloon? A spherical shaped ball that has a tendency to float? If so, then how would one describe a sphere or a ball? The answer is by using other metaphors which would lead to a perpetual circle of interchanging shapes, connecting one shape to another.
However, it would be ignorant to say all shapes are the same. One can tell just by looking around that a bottle does not have the same shape of a desk, or that a shoe does not take on the same shape as that of a Styrofoam cup. Even similarly shaped objects, a breathing heart and a jellyfish, are not the same. It is a compilation of metaphors that accurately portray the shape of an object. A jellyfish is like a rolled condom but also like a plastic purse while at the same time sharing the characteristics of an expensive lamp shade.
Doty also notes how we skew the image of an object by comparing it to such things. The grace of the jellyfish is lost when we compare it to something it is not; we change what it is. Here Doty is not so much lamenting this fact as he is simply pointing out that it exists.
Another interesting point Doty makes is the “transparence of like and as”. Transparency is exactly what like and as add to a metaphor, making it a simile. These simple words take away the sharp defined outline of the shape and muffle it, distort it, and make the outline a sort of guess work so that the object being described can fit perfectly into the edges. It is an ingenious way of describing similes.
Doty points out in his poem that words both uniquely define and connect objects by using comparisons and how doing so both changes the state of the object being described and identifies the object as it is. Without metaphors, similes, and figurative language, we could not describe anything and thus it is by the use of figurative language that we are able to describe at all.


Sidenote that is below the text: while writing, i couldnt help but think: hey this is alot like the number pi. its like 22/7 and similar to 3.14 but its also as undefined as infinite, all the while being completly defined as pi. Thats just what it is: pi. its nothing else, theres no other way to describe it and maintain what it is. unless we use figurative language but i dont know how to describe pi using figurative language so i didnt put anything about it in my text. and it is kind of irrelevant but i had to tell someone...

After 2 1/2 I Don't Know Whats... A Metaphore Attempt... and a cheat

The speaker in the poem "Broadway", by Mark Doty, is very lonely. The poem starts out describing a busy yet desolate place, underneath Grand Central Station, where only "half a dozen electric stars" remain lit. The speaker then moves on to Broadway, where the streets are lined with windows, which are filled with pretty things to buy, while the beggers huddle in the rain, asking for spare change. The speaker is overwhelmed with emotion when they meet these people and mistakes a beg for a helping hand. The speaker then hears a poem about the jewel of love, and gives up their change. The man next to him also gives up his watch. The poet, in return for the offerings offers another poem, about replinishing the jewel of love.
Because I do not know what exactly Doty's motive for writing this poem was and I am also not motivated enough to find out, I cannot say exactly what this poem is a metaphore to. However, I believe that Doty is saying that when we are alone, the shiny, expensive things will not help us through. Those "glass eyes" void of emotion cannot help us and only stare at us in the rain from the comfort of the store window. When we find ourselves helpless and alone, only other people, who might in fact be experiencing the same problem we are, can help us. The woman the speaker meets has a name, Carlotta. She has an identity; she is not just some thing in the street. She doesn't just ask for money and when she doesn't get any, she doesn't walk away in disgust. Rather, she notices one in need and offers words to console. The poet also has a name, Ezekiel. In the bible, the prophet Ezekiel prophesized the restoration of Israel. The poet Ezekiel also gives hope for the restoration of the soul, the jewel of love. Ezekiel gives hope and finishes the poem by beginning to fulfill that hope.

The Riff Raff

I agree completely with Brooks' statement about her own poem. I think that enjambing the lines and splitting up the "we" and the adjectives describing we creates a feeling of insecurity. Whether the "we" at the end of each line is spoken softly or not, the insecurity remains. Even if one were to read the we harshly, and succeed in reading the following words on the next line harshly, the pause still creates an uncertain attitude. However, the way the poem flows, if the we is spoken softly, the rest is spoken more assuredly. If the we is spoken harshly, the rest flows quietly.
The way Brooks reads the first line, which also happens to be the way I read it, "real cool" closely follows the "We" instead of being enjambed like all the other "we" references. The pool players don't realize just how uncertain they are until they start speaking. It's almost as if they say "We real cool", then someone asks them to prove it and they are lost for words. I think the enjambment here has the effect that ellipsis does. The pool players, searching for the reasons that they are "real cool", pause after each "we" looking for another peice of evidence of just how cool they are.
One characteristic of the poem that isn't mentioned in Brooks' statement is the alliteration and rhyme scheme. However, I think both of these literary tools amplify the same meaning. The cool pool kids can rhyme on a dime, they think they're the cool cats, the buff beef, the slick slacks, and the knick knacks. The way the poem alliterates and rhymes almost makes it sound like a lame rap verse, a couple of big bad boys who desperately call themselves cool to replace their lack of knowledge of theirselves.

Paraphrase

William Carlos Williams begins his poem Asphodel, That Greeny Flower by describing the blandness of the flower. The speaker has brought asphodel flowers to his lover, who I assume is dead, and recalls all the flowers which they loved together. The speaker says that the flowers are important to him, even the ones that are not as colorful. The speaker says that those who are dead appreciate the flower more because the shape of the flower, not the color, reminds them of life and love. The speaker then stops his talk about the flower and says that he has something urgent to say, but that it will take some time while he takes in all the memories he had with her. The memories start to come, the first of which is a book of pressed flowers which he kept when he was a boy. He has brought her the asphodel flower, which retains its odor, although it has lost its color, but since the dead don't typically reflect on color and more on shape, it's okay.

The speaker then begins to reflect on their life together and the wonders of the gardens of the the earth. The sea, he says, is the most marvelous and puts all other gardens to shame. From the sea stars to the sea wrack, the sun shines upon all of it. Both were born by the sea and gathered strawberries and wild plum in the fields by it.

He then switches his focus to hell. He says he has never been there in for her but have been there in pursuit of her. Death is not the end of love, he tells her. Looking at the fairy flower the storms arose and they danced in its blossom and began to read books, the first of which was a "serious book", the Iliad. He thinks of that book when he thinks of the sea. Helen's blossoming caused the Trojan war and therefore the poem was written. It was her blossoming that caused so many men to die, but they must cure their minds and maintain hope.

Indifferent to Indentions? Read On.

William Carlos Williams uses structre more than anything else in his poem Asphodel, That Greeny Flower to explain his point. Each line is broken into three "sub-lines" which start at the same respective indent each line. By breaking up each line into three parts, Williams creates a stuttering, gasping effect. The lines "There is something / something urgent / I have to say to you / and you alone / but it must wait / while I drink in / the joy of your approach, / perhaps for the last time" suggest that the speaker is either dying or will never see the one whom he or she is talking to again. Each time the line breaks and is indented, it is almost as if the speaker is gasping for breath, panting, either from near death or a rushed run to tell what he must tell.
The speaker also speaks of blood splattered among the rocks: "Were it not for that / there would have been / no poem but the world / if we had remembered, / those crimson petals / spilled among the stones, / would have called it simply / murder." The way each lines is broken off and indented also gives a dripping effect. If we assume that the speaker is indeed dying, as the case seems to be, and is imposing his last words to her or his listener, then the drip, drip, drip of each line can also be seen as the speaker's life drip, drip, dripping away. These are the two effects accomplished by breaking up the lines and indenting each new line in such a way. Williams accomplishes both points very effectively although both effects are at first subliminal and unrealized

Repitition in "In Paris With You"

The repitition in "In Paris With You" displays the obsession the speaker has for his love. Having been "bamboozled", "marooneded", "wounded", and taken as a "hostage", the speaker has obviously been troubled by his lover. The speaker has had an earful of her talking and doesn't feel like listening to any more. All that matters to the speaker is that he is "in Paris with you". This is made extremely clear by the constant use of the phrase and the way the phrase is integrated into every idea in the poem.
Love is not what interests the speaker. It is thrown out immediatley: "Don't talk to me of love". We know that Paris cannot mean love because the speaker wishes to speak of Paris instead of love. Paris does seem to be a form of desire, as seen in the last stanza: "Im in paris with the slightest thing you do. I'm in paris with you eyes, your mouth...". The speaker uses the term "Paris" to describe an infatutation and judging by the things the speaker is "in Paris" with, it seems to be a lustful infatuatation.
The repitition used in the poem makes the speaker sound like he is making his final speech, almost like foreplay. At the end of nearly each stanza, the speaker reminds his lover that he is "in Paris with you". Every idea that is raised during the poem is drowned by the thought of being in Paris. And at the end, the speaker's last chance, over and over again the speaker is in Paris with his lover. The speaker stutters when he reaches the climax of being in Paris, as if to say, what the heck, its true, and then wonders if he has messed up. Quickly and abruptly the speaker ends in Paris yet again.