Response to "The Red Wheelbarrow"

"The Red Wheelbarrow"
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

     I chose this poem because as soon as I read it I was transported back to middle or maybe high school when we read this poem as a class. I definitely remember there being a big uproar because many people didn't consider this to be a poem and didn't know what we were supposed to 'get' out of it. I've always loved the imagery and senses that can be experienced by the rich, albeit simple, words.
     The lack of capitalization and the sole period as a punctuation mark add to the simplicity of this poem. It makes me think of a simpler time in life, when many families kept a small garden and a few animals for food. The poem is like a photograph, a small snapshot of something much bigger.
     The line "so much depends" alludes to this bigger picture. What depends on the red wheel barrow? What does the wheel barrow look like? We know that it is "glazed with rain water," but I also like to imagine it rusted and a little wobbly like one from my childhood. The choice of "glazed" gives the image a shimmering and shiny quality. Since we know that it has rained, this poem allows me to smell fresh spring grass right after the rain. I also think of mud on my shoes and footprints and wheel barrow prints all through the yard. The wheel barrow is "beside the white chickens" which adds a little music (clucking and strutting through the dirt) to the poem. Chickens make a lot of noise and are quite beautiful, especially white chickens next to a red wheel barrow. The colors go together nicely.
     Although short, this poem does not lack. If I could breathe this poem, I would breathe in a lot of old memories. I could breathe in the sunshine, a soft breeze, the wet and muddy ground, and the sensation of a peaceful and simple day.

Response to Emily Brontë's "The Night-Wind"

 The Night-Wind by Emily Brontë

In summer's mellow midnight,
A cloudless moon shone through
Our open parlor window
And rosetrees wet with dew.

I sat in silent musing,
The soft wind waved my hair:
It told me Heaven was glorious,
And sleeping Earth was fair.

I needed not its breathing
To bring such thoughts to me,
But still it whispered lowly,
"How dark the woods will be!

"The thick leaves in my murmur
Are rustling like a dream,
And all their myriad voices
Instinct with spirit seem."

I said, "Go, gentle singer,
Thy wooing voice is kind,
But do not think its music
Has power to reach my mind.

"Play with the scented flower,
The young tree's supple bough,
And leave my human feelings
In their own course to flow."

The wanderer would not leave me;
Its kiss grew warmer still--
"O come," it sighed so sweetly,
"I'll win thee 'gainst thy will.

"Have we not been from childhood friends?
Have I not loved thee long?
As long as thou hast loved the night
Whose silence wakes my song.

"And when thy heart is laid at rest
Beneath the church-yard stone
I shall have time enough to mourn
And thou to be alone."

The Night Window by Runda Alamour

My fingers pry
the stubborn window open, and
I breathe in the charcoal sky,
I worship the whispering land.

Thoughts, sharp as razor blades,
rip through my chest,
and I wonder if you know the shades
between life and death?

Was it you, calling to
me? Have your tears
become the morning dew?
Have your lips affirmed my fears?

Tell me!
Has your soul suffered, as
I have? Can I be free,
has this world no mercy?

Oh whistling wind,
haunting creature of the night,
I am pinned
and pressed beneath your might. 

No!
It is not wind, nor Earth tonight,
It is you, my ghostly love, so
sweet and terrible within my sight.

Oh Catherine! Oh love!
Come in! Come in!
Darling, sweet dove,
ease the tattered heart within.

The shutters gasped,
I whispered her name,
the candle crashed,
and I was engulfed in blame.

~~
     After reading The Night-Wind I thought back to Emily Bronte's book "Wuthering Heights." There is a scene in the beginning where Heathcliff is begging the ghost of Catherine to come through the window, but she pays no attention. This poem is inspired by both the poem and the novel.

My Favorite Poem-- "Writing" by Howard Nemerov

I wanted to share my favorite poem..

Writing

BY HOWARD NEMEROV

The cursive crawl, the squared-off characters   

these by themselves delight, even without   

a meaning, in a foreign language, in

Chinese, for instance, or when skaters curve   

all day across the lake, scoring their white   

records in ice. Being intelligible,

these winding ways with their audacities   

and delicate hesitations, they become   

miraculous, so intimately, out there

at the pen’s point or brush’s tip, do world   

and spirit wed. The small bones of the wrist   

balance against great skeletons of stars   

exactly; the blind bat surveys his way   

by echo alone. Still, the point of style   

is character. The universe induces

a different tremor in every hand, from the   

check-forger’s to that of the Emperor

Hui Tsung, who called his own calligraphy   

the ‘Slender Gold.’ A nervous man

writes nervously of a nervous world, and so on.

Miraculous. It is as though the world

were a great writing. Having said so much,   

let us allow there is more to the world   

than writing: continental faults are not   

bare convoluted fissures in the brain.   

Not only must the skaters soon go home;   

also the hard inscription of their skates

is scored across the open water, which long   

remembers nothing, neither wind nor wake.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171411

Emily Dickinson's "We Grow Accustomed to the Dark"

Below, I created an interactive/visual version of Emily Dickinson's We Grow Accustomed to the Dark. I don't think it needs a visual version, the words are enough, I just had the idea and wanted to explore it a bit.

We Grow Accustomed to the Dark

We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When light is put away --
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye --

A Moment -- We uncertain step
For newness of the night --
Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --
And meet the Road -- erect --

And so of larger -- Darkness --
Those Evenings of the Brain --
When not a Moon disclose a sign --
Or Star -- come out -- within --

The Bravest -- grope a little --
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead --
But as they learn to see --

Either the Darkness alters --
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight --
And Life steps almost straight.

Emily Dickinson

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-grow-accustomed-to-the-dark/

 This is also pretty cool... a visual poetry video by a student.

     What I like best about We Grow Accustomed to the Dark is the cadence and silkiness of the words when read aloud. They convey a sense of mystery and uncertainty. Dickinson's use of rhyme is subtle and not forced which is a style that I appreciate. Many times, I think that forcing a poem to perfectly rhyme takes away its integrity and power.

     I think the pronoun 'we' is important in implying that the experience described is a collective one. The experience of finding the way and adjusting to the dark is yours, mine, and therefore ours. Dickinson describes the literal adjustment of our eyes to darkness as well as the figurative. We all know the feeling of stepping the dark and physical sensation of our eyes adjusting. But what does it mean to adjust to the dark figuratively? She ends the poem by saying 'And Life steps almost straight' and I can't help but think that the result of our adjustment is the ability to see life from another perspective.