... popular culture: " the Draper and the Jewess" followed by ' Don discovered America". Her pop-culture poems were humorous, and the way in which she smirked while reading them depicted an element of satire. Furthermore, Ms Umansky came off as a steadfast and strong woman; she kept her poems short and simple, using literary devices such as personification and ... laughter. His readings gave a very personal feel; it felt as if he was in a conversation with the general audience rather than just presenting his poems. This being my first poetry reading, I learned how different poetry is i...

• Word Count: 601
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... fighting for something so important, so necessary, that dying very well may be the end and irreparable result. But upon reading this poem, I wondered to myself, " was it a needless death after all?" After reading the entire poem several times, I wasn't so sure. But after listening to three readings of this emotionally charged poem, ... "call" and "all." This part of Levine's recitation is what I feel to be the most powerful moment of the entire reading, ending the third stanza with a subtle yet effective authority that truly relays the ultimate power of Yeats's words. Peter Davison took...

• Word Count: 1069
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of feelings and ideas is given intensely by use of distinctive style and rhythm. My understanding of form and sun-genre have helped to form/shape my reading of Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" and Gwen Harwood's "Suburban Sonnet". "Suburban Sonnet" and "Sonnet 18" ... presented in the poem is that the role of motherhood can be stressful and places mothers in a position where they feel trapped and isolated. My reading of "Suburban Sonnet" shows the ugly reality of being a mother, becoming over burdened and having to put your life on hold for ... is no escape from the stress and isolation of mot...

• Word Count: 761
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... been my old friend who I meet up with on and off. Every once in a while, I receive offers in the mail which contain small print and require the help of Reading to decipher. Reading seems to live so far away that I always hesitate before using. I would much rather stay by my dear TV and listen to her sweet voice than wasting my youthful ... days with Reading. But occasionally I do pay Reading my respects and I usually get a little too much information about all the events he covers. Now since school has begun and the University level is so difficult, I will ... again need Reading to ass...

• Word Count: 270
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... are really hard to follow. However, Ishmael Reed's poem, "Beware: Do Not Read This Poem," is not your typical piece of literature. Reading the beginning felt the same as watching a horror movie, the first three stanza's are so vivid and descriptive, telling the story of an extremely self ... it takes on many victims. "It is a greedy mirror you are into this poem," implying that readers should become so engulfed when reading poetry that it takes over their whole state of mind. Reed personifies poetry as something dangerous, which could mean that poetry is supposed to push the ... mirror;...

• Word Count: 820
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography

... form of irony, helping the reader draw out the meaning of the text through understated contrasts. Both "A Study of Reading Habits," by Philip Larkin and "Constantly Risking Absurdity," by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, employ allusion, however in "A Study of Reading Habits" Larkin alludes with a sense of irony while in "Constantly Risking Absurdity," the poet does not. In ... fiction as it soon becomes his reality. Immediately into the poem, Larkin writes "[w]hen getting my nose in a book/Cured more things short of school", revealing how through reading he was able to find remedy to his trouble...

• Word Count: 794
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Graduate

... mental games with the reader. In the last two lines, still to communicate making the reader understand too late. This would make the reader slightly confused after reading the poem. Poems aren't unique if the reader can understand it without thinking about the poem. In Francis" poem "The Pitcher," there are two meanings ... statement that initially appears to be self-contradictory but, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense. After reading this poem for the first time, the reader thinks that this poem is just about baseball. However after reading it over and over, it finally clicks ...

• Word Count: 1042
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... my favorite. I looked at the titles on the syllabus and I remembered how much I enjoyed "Dulce et Decorum Est" written by Wilfred Owen. After reading "Dulce et Decorum Est" the first time I found it immediately appealing. This poem grabbed my attention more than any of the other selections we have ... of war, specifically World War I. This first line paints a stunning picture of the soldier, "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks." After reading that line I can clearly see what the soldiers looked like marching with the great weight of their packs forcing them to hunch over. Owen fu...

• Word Count: 765
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... , as T.S Eliot once wrote is "leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle with words and meanings." What I believe Elliot meant by that was the intense feeling one can receive from reading a poem. This is commonly related to the readers personal relationship to their interpretation of the poem. Whether it be a stanza or the overall tone, if something in the poem brings ... cry, can make another laugh, simply by the relation to ones self. This is also true for myself. I can be sent into a world of Utopia, or a dungeon of sorrow by reading poetry. It is an intense experience to feel the...

• Word Count: 1136
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... Thomas Sayers Ellis. His style, an odd, yet interesting one, fascinated me, and made me realize poetry was more of an art form then I had previously thought. Actually going to a reading, and hear the poet speak with such a passionate tone to correctly convey the meanings of his poems. His style of ... reading definitely upped the quality of his poems. He said it himself, that when he was reading a poem aloud before, it sounded bad. With readings, I now realize it is pertinent to accent your poem the way you think it should to get the ... drag, to what seems to be an "explosive ending" ...

• Word Count: 518
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... the reader better understand the text and the world around them. Reader Response critics can sum up their analysis by answering this question: What is the reading process, and what happens during it (Bressler, Literary Criticism An Introduction To theory and Practice, page 62)? John Donne, born 1572, died 1631, ... love with. He is speaking directly to her in the poem. The implied reader is the literal reader, or audience. Whomever happens to be reading it is presumed as the implied reader. The ideal reader is anyone who has experienced a kind of anticipated love. One who has been madly...

• Word Count: 1016
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. After his father passed away, Frost moved to New England when he was eleven years old and promptly became interested in reading and writing poetry. He briefly attended Dartmouth and Harvard colleges but did not earn a degree. In the early 1890's, he worked in New England as a farmer, an editor, and a schoolteacher ... mood of the language. Another great poem written by Robert Frost is "The road not taken". There are two main ways this poem can be read - a literal, surface reading, or a deep, analytical reading. In both way...

• Word Count: 1053
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... Under The Words by Naomi Shihab Nye my preconceived notions on poetry were shattered. For one of the first times in my life I enjoyed reading poetry. Her contrasts of emotions, feelings and thoughts, coupled with her ability to weave a web of words made this book enjoyable. Evidence of her travels as well as her Palestinian- ... poetry very diverse. A common theme I picked out between the two poems: "You Have to Be Careful" and "What He Said to His Enemies" is trust or lack there of. After reading "You Have to Be Careful" I received the impression that the author was looking for someone...

• Word Count: 716
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... what people in the future will be wearing. With the other poem I find that I don't see any pictures but rather think about what the poem is talking about. So whilst reading I take in all the key words and then think about what the author is telling us. The words used by the first poem to convey the images of change are ... nothing has changed it and how it will live on forever even after she's gone. Seeing as the poem is not very long the reader has plenty of time after reading it to think about what it could mean and if necessary reread the poem a few times just to pick up any suttle c...

• Word Count: 1063
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... use. When a language is created it really gets you into the work and makes you want to figure out what is really being said. An example is when you are reading Hamlet and you look down to see what a word means that is italicized, I enjoy ... ...

• Word Count: 319
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... he has traveled much; presumably by ship ("Round many western islands") Here we see the first comparison. Keats has done much exploring but he has never explored Homer. Keats compares reading Homer to be equivalent to discovering a new planet. But Keats does not stop at that comparison, because discovering a planet is usually a one-man business. Keats makes what would normally be ... a person and private reading into a communal and heroic event. He does this by turning the event of reading Chapman's Homer into one that is equal to the exploration of the pacific, or the movement of plane...

• Word Count: 605
• Approx Pages: 2

... had a hard time deciding on which one to write on. In high school I was co-president of the Idaho Falls High School Poet Society and we spent a lot of time reading Plath because she has such vivid detail and it's not as hard to understand her writing as compared to Shakespeare. So, I've decided to write on Point Shirley. I personally have ... in my dreams and imagination. I've seen pictures and read stories, but I've never had the opportunity to visit the quaint little villages in Nantucket or eat lobster in Maine. Reading this poem though really placed me in Point Shirley. I was able t...

• Word Count: 275
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... Theophilus Clinton, the Puritan Earl of Lincoln. Her father made it so that she had private tutors and also access to earl's library, where she spent most of her childhood reading about history and literature. Anne Dudley Bradstreet was sixteen years old when she married her husband Simon Bradstreet and about two years later her family sailed to America to settle ... these rough times, Taylor wrote poetry pertaining to these hard and difficult situations. Taylor found subjects for his poetry in common family and home affairs. "Taylor's subjects are mostly metaphysical" (Reading Edward T...

• Word Count: 611
• Approx Pages: 2

... that caused the collision between the Titanic and the iceberg to punish human vanity. Most poets keep their poems in chronological order to maintain suspense throughout the poem. However, after reading this poem I noticed that there was a disruption in the order of events. I later found out that Hardy intentionally did this because he felt as though the Titanic was so well ... poem the rhythm is very alluring. Hardy seems to capture the solitude of the sea that he is describing with his steady, gentle sway of words, a "rhythmic tidal lyre". While reading this poem, the words seem to mov...

• Word Count: 854
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Poems of Fathers It has become extremely apparent after reading and listening to "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden that both of these poems have been written about hard working fathers. After looking ... kind of a trend during a certain time. Both of the poems were short and very descriptive. They describe no more than one day in the life of the characters. After extensively reading and listening to both of these poems I have come up with the idea that both of the fathers in each poems are hard working, disciplining men. The word choices in ......

• Word Count: 656
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Gift Outright" at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. After his father passed away, Frost moved to New England when he was eleven years old and promptly became interested in reading and writing poetry. He briefly attended Dartmouth and Harvard colleges but did not earn a degree. In the early 1890's, he worked in New England as a farmer, an editor, and a schoolteacher ... mood of the language. Another great poem written by Robert Frost is "The road not taken". There are two main ways this poem can be read - a literal, surface reading, or a deep, analytical reading. In both way...

• Word Count: 1000
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Meaning in poetry is created from the reader making the connection between the literal and the metaphorical, and in doing so, "reading between the lines." At first glance, Yeats" poetry may seem to be merely spontaneous emotion, however, after close literary analysis, it is clear that Yeats" poetry is often fairly systematic ... " often drew parallel's between ideas within his poems, and also, between poems. These regularly reiterated ideas are clearly uncovered when analysis is applied to Yeats" poetry, which indeed, on first reading appears to be predominantly spontaneous emotion. As part o...

• Word Count: 823
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... night. Miss Narwin's class can be considered boring because she never does anything different except for the "official" things such as reading, writing, test-taking, and discussions. In fact, a typical day in Miss Narwin's class can easily consist of just reading, testing, reading, and testing. There is no excitement in the class because some consider Miss Narwin a perfectionist. Her response to Philip's answer ... ...

• Word Count: 875
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Have you ever read a piece of literature and thought for sure it meant one thing, but after reading it once more, or perhaps even a few times more, suddenly you no longer have the same outlook on what you just encountered? For many, interpreting poetry can seem like mind- ... poem, other literary works such as To Blossoms, by Robert Herrick and also, Intimations of Immortality, by William Wordsworth will be used in comparison with The Seed Shop. Initially, when reading the poem The Seed Shop, one would assume that the poem was merely a stunning description of the potential of a handful of see...

• Word Count: 1167
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

Ben Johnson's "On My First Son," is about the brief life of his son. From reading this poem we can tell that they were really close. Ben and his son Benjamin were such good friends that he wanted to make sure he had the world. He ... , allowing it to gain a songlike quality, and it is often used to make the poems easier to remember. The emotive vocabulary shows Ben's emotions and how he is feeling. By reading the poem we can tell that he has a lot of anger, having lost his son, when he said "flesh's rage" (quoted in Approaching Literature, 828). Every parent feels ... ...

• Word Count: 1007
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School