Which is the "easiest" poem in the collection so far? For me, "Walking Home" (44) is the least challenging of the poems in this early part of the reading. Do you agree or would you suggest a different one? What makes a poem easy to read? If this poem--or a different one--is easy to understand, does that make it superior or inferior to more difficult ones? Speaking of difficulty, which poem so far have you struggled with the most?
Also, what makes these poems? (As opposed to prose.) What stylistic qualities have you noticed in addition to line breaks? Rhyme? Metaphor? Rhythm?
What questions do you have so far?
Welcome to the blog for Prof. John Talbird's English 102 class. The purpose of this site is two-fold: 1) to continue the conversations we start in class (or to start conversations before we get to class) and 2) to practice our writing, reading, and thinking on a weekly basis in an informal setting.
The easiest poem for me is "Today's Special"(25). I think this poem has a lot of connotation, meaning that it describes exactly what it is trying to say. I find poems like this easier to read because they are more abstract then poems with denotation. I like also how this poem has a consecutive repetition and just the style on how it is written. I think poems like this make it superior to difficult ones because with difficult ones you actually never know what the writer meant with the many assumptions that could be made. For example in the "Love Poem: Chimera" you can assume many things because it doesn't give you an abstract idea. This poem as well is short but I think its content is worth a lot on how he build on the rage and how its been developed over time because it has been "caged" in a sense. Also poems that can relate to me also become very easier to understand and become more superior. Other than that no questions in regard to what we have been doing.
ReplyDeleteThere were a few poems that on the first read through had me confused. "Sherpa song"(7), Those were the days"(14), Certain Prayers(200,, Reading Dostoyevsky(28), Orient Epithalamion(31)were all poems I found difficult to digest. What made these poems so dense for me was how not relatable the subjects were to me. Sherpa Song for instance is about mountain climbing and I have never done any mountaineering. So when I read through the poem initially I was completely lost as to why it was talking about ropes and breathing, two important aspects of climbing a mountain. I had to google the title to get a better sense of what the poem was about.
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