Cottonmouth Country by Louise Gluck

This poem is a bit difficult to understand completely. The title is referring to the cottonmouth snake. The poem seems dreary. It has a sense of loss to it. The fish bones, I think, represent dead animals. The line that confused me the most is the line: "Birth, not death, is the hard loss." Usually death is considered a loss, but in this case, birth is. Maybe it refers to the shedding of skin mentioned in the next line. When the snake leaves its skin, it leaves a little of its protection behind. I think the poem is about starting life and the struggles that occur. Sometimes it seems easier to stay as we are and not grow, but it is important to take risks and become better by growing.

Sort of a Song by William Carlos Williams

First of all, awesome name. I bet his parents had fun with that. This poem doesn't flow as well as many others. It is broken in odd places. The title sets up the piece. It is "sort of". The ideas are not quite there immediately. The poem seems to be about writing and the writing process. Williams talks about words and their purpose in a written piece in the first stanza. The snake in that first stanza might represent something that could stop the creative process. By staying in its place, it could allow the words to be what they are meant to be. The second stanza is talking more about the outcome or the creation of the writing. It talks about how people and stones can be compared and likened through metaphor. I think saxifrage is a metaphor for words. This flower grows in very harsh mountainous climates and is very delicate. It is known to grow into and deepen cracks in rocks. I think Williams is saying that with his delicate words, he can crack people. That he can use words to write of and understand people.

Reading Myself by Robert Lowell

This poem is really a self-reflection. Lowell uses metaphors to express his ideas. First is the metaphor of fire. The size of the fire seems to correspond with the value or the popularity of a piece of writing. He says he knows how to set a "river on fire". This would imply that he is a good writer, but he precedes this comparison with "memorized the tricks". This is almost like cheating. He is basically saying that he has memorized the tricks of others have come up with, that his appearance of greatness is a facade. Little of his merit is based on his original ideas. The other major metaphor he uses is the bee building the beehive. In essence, he is saying that no writer's work is done until he gives everything to it. And even then there is no guarantee that the work will be permanent.

The Book

Every time I moved
the memories were shelved
like an old book
rarely to be removed

Part of my past
locked between covers
of the volume of my history
meant to last

But life goes on
among the pages
stories infinitely expand
heaping into a mountain

Years pass
the book is opened
finally the stories
are revealed in mass

The people I know
some exactly as they were
some changed by time
some who no longer show

And the memories
well remembered or
vague and needing prompt
come flooding in as stories

The beginnings
of the stories
are vivid
but the endings

The endings are
not yet complete
they are continuously
written with care

The visit is over
the book is shelved
the stories once again
trapped beneath the cover

Waiting patiently for me
to pull down the book
and reminisce
about my history.

Song of Powers by David Mason

This poem seems childish at first glance, but it becomes darker upon closer examination. Mason uses "Rock, Paper, Scissors" as a model for this poem. Because this game is childish, the poem is playful. But then Mason uses words like "crush" "reams" and "ethereal". These words are defiantly a bit more intense than a childhood game. These words, crush especially, are associated with power in the real world. This makes the poem seem more serious. I think that Mason is really getting at the idea that no power is absolute. All powers have some weakness. I think he is saying that fighting will get us nowhere but will leave us alone. The poem's structure is not overly complicated. It has three sections for each of the powers and a final section to emphasize the loneliness. This poem was interesting, but it wasn't my favorite.

It was a dream by Lucille Clifton

I don't quite know what to make of this piece. I think it is about the "greater self" or conscience coming through in a dream. It is accusatory and points out all the flaws of the speaker's life. Clifton's poem is free verse with no consistent rhyme pattern or rhythm. She also doesn't capitalize anything except the last line. The last line is what the greater self is telling the speaker she could have done. This makes sense to emphasize. Clifton also emphasizes the last line with the punctuation. "This. This. This." It makes the last line very forceful. As a whole, Clifton uses a lot of imagery. When I read the poem, I thought of Ursula from "The Little Mermaid." I know she is not exactly akin to a conscience, but she can be very angry. I pictured her underwater with her hair fanned out and her face is red from screaming. It's not exactly a pretty picture, but I think it captures the image created by the poem well.

The Book by Miller Williams

"The Book" by Miller Williams is a bit morbid. The poem is about a book that a man found that was blank. The man kept it as a diary and later found out that it was bound in human skin. The man tells this to the speaker in the poem while the speaker holds it. I can't find any experience in Williams' life that would inspire a piece like this. He was born in 1930, so he would have been 15 when WWII started, but I don't think he served any time. He completed his master's in '52, at age 22. By this, I would assume that Williams didn't take any time off from school in order to serve. This poem was published with a collection of others. Several poems had central themes of death and suicide. For some reason, Williams wrote many depressing pieces around this time. The most interesting part of this poem is how the speaker reacts. Initially, the speaker is curious, fascinated with this morbid item. He wonders whose skin and who did it. Slowly, horror grows in the speaker. He is horrified that he once found the book beautiful. The way that Williams writes the reaction helps the reader visualize it: the fifth stanza is about who the skin is from. This leads naturally to the fourth stanza which is about who would do this. Finally, the sixth stanza shows the thoughts as the gravity of the book sinks in. This progression really gets Williams' idea across and is really the whole point of the poem. The lines leading up to these stanzas are all background information.