Confessional poetry

Frank O 'Hara 's "The Day Lady Died" is an elegy centering around the day of O 'Hara, leading up to his discovery of the death of singer Billie Holiday. This poem is unlike most in that it lacks figurative language throughout. O’Hara’s poem uses what seems almost like a bulletin, with every one of his actions being listed. He includes every detail of his day from the time he completed an action up to the people he interacted with along the way. On the surface, all of these things seem to be…

The thought-provoking essay “Poetry as a Way of Saying” by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren provides an educational direction for a reader’s comprehension and understanding of the “naturalness” of poetry. They claim in this critical text that “mere immersion does little good unless the reader is making, however unconsciously, some discriminations, comparisons, and judgements” (16). As illustrated in “Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night,” by Dylan Thomas, the raw power and emotion that…

“A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky” In the poem “A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky,” Lewis Carroll talked about the boat ride that he went on with his friend, Alice, and her sisters (Popova). On this boat ride, he told the children about the story of Wonderland, which later inspired his book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Popova). This poem reflected the loss of Carroll 's loved one. As Alice grew up, she is not naïve and optimistic like she used to be when was a little girl. As a result, Carroll…

William Stafford, a famous writer whose work was often described as deceptively simple, wrote poems that often took place on a mountainside, a riverbank, or a roadside—"near an exit". In his poem “Traveling through the Dark,” the speaker travels upon a dead deer on the edge of a narrow road. This poem dramatizes the conflict between life and death, particularly as this conflict relates to the speaker’s assertion that death is inevitable, however, life can continue after death. Although the…

Waltz, Rhythm, and Rhyme A waltz is a rhythmed dance of partners that twirl around a dance floor. If said partners are words that rhyme and rhythm, and the dance floor made of paper; literary works of a poet are created. Theodore Roethke was a poet that mastered this skill and created “My Papa’s Waltz.” The choice of words and meter of lines send your imagination on a journey envisioning what is unfolding from the words set forth before you. The speaker in the poem, the structure of the…

“The Raven” is an example of Poe’s poetry, this poem in particular was based around the dark side of the human mind.The speaker of this poem is a man who is very unstable, to the point where he is talking to a raven.”Our speaker is definitely the melodramatic type. He starts out on an emotional…

narrative). Chinese Mountains This poem is very short and is meant to emulate the historical four-character poetry of China. Although not exact, the poem is meant to be translatable into Chinese characters, with four-characters per line. In this poem, I wanted to write something similar to a haiku but Chinese in origin. This was included in the portfolio as it was a new style of poetry for me to write.…

The lifestyle we choose to live come with a variety of factors that accommodate our personal needs. Sometimes there are things that we don’t like to do but are part of the way we contribute to society whether we enjoy it or not. The idea of satisfaction can range from a broad comfort or to a specific joy that causes us to want it and enjoy it. In the poems “Numbers” and “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” the speaker both discuss a sense of satisfaction that they both receive. The first poem…

A Soldiers Sacrifice in “They” and “Disabled” In Siegfried Sassoon’s “They” and Wilfred Owens “Disabled”, both poems describe the physical and emotional trauma that soldiers experienced in the trenches and on the battlefield. Those left on the home front did not understand the circumstances that the soldiers were under and were shocked when their boys came home suffering from “shell shock” and PTSD. “Social reactions to shell shock victims varied from sympathy or anger at the war to confusion…

Moments of joy like finding love, succeeding in your career and celebrating birthdays with the people closest to you, truly makes it worth living. But in life we must all learn the inevitable facts, that what goes up, must also come back down. Rumi’s poetry teaches us that the highs, can never last forever, and we must therefore learn how to also embrace both the high and the low points of life. Whether it is due to losing someone you love, guilt, heartache, loss, rock bottoms, and goodbyes, we…