Meeting at Night

Meeting at Night by Robert Browning

I really loved the description in this poem. As I have said with another poem, it wasn't just a description of the sight, but there is description of everything. You can really be in the moment with Browning.

Daybreak

Daybreak by John Donne

I really liked this poem. Even though you can tell that Donne was born in a completely different century, it is easy to understand and still applies to current day society. You can really feel the emotion that he put into the poem. It's nice for it to come across so easily.

Whatif

Whatif by Shel Silverstein

I have always loved this poem, as I have all Shel Silverstein poems. I particularly like this one because of the whatif theme. I think everyone experiences this whether they're young or old. Also, the whimsical nature that he writes it in fits the chaotic and childish nature that our brains are in when we're in the semi-conscious state that we're in before we go to sleep.

To Her Father with Some Verses

To Her Father with Some Verses by Anne Bradstreet

I didn't understand this poem. At least, I didn't understand the connection between a poem and a father-daughter relationship. Perhaps I misunderstood something.

Dreams

Dreams by Langston Hughes

I really enjoyed this poem. I liked the concept as well as the brevity. The message was short, sweet and to the point. The fact that the poem was concise really just added to the message of it. Without dreams, life is full of despair. There's no more to say about it.

Tintern Abbey

Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

I really did not like this poem. I started to read it, but then I scrolled down the page and it was so long that I decided to just skim it. I didn't like it even in skimming it. It was droning and prosaic and I'm just not into prosaic poems. They should be essays, not poems.

After Apple Picking

After Apple Picking by Robert Frost

I really like the imagery in this poem. Frost not only invokes sight, but he invokes scent, touch, taste and sound too. It makes me really be able to imagine being there, not just seeing the place that he was, but really being there. It's quite a gift to be able to do that. It's impressive.

Freeway 280

Freeway 280 by Lorna Dee Cervantes

I like the way that Cervantes incorporated her Spanish heritage and the language into her poem. She sued it appropriately too and it wouldn't really confuse anyone that doesn't know Spanish. It puts a little bit more of her into the poem than it would otherwise.

Sestina d'Inverno

Sestina d'Inverno by Anthony Hecht

I really like this style of poetry (the sestina.) I like the repetition of the end words. It gets them caught in your mind and really makes an impact. I like the way that Hecht picked a place as one of his words too. Also, his enjambment was very creative and showed his flexibility as a poet.

Answer to a Child's Question

Answer to a Child's Question by Samuel T. Coleridge

I liked the whimsy in this poem and, yet again, the personification. I particularly enjoyed the bit about the wind and how it sings a loud song, but one that is unfamiliar. I often find myself, as I believe others do as well, hearing things in the wind. Not really thinking the wind is speaking, like a crazy person might, but I often think I hear someone talking and go to turn around to see who it is, only to find that the wind is playing tricks on me. That one line in this poem captures that feeling nicely.

Home is Sad

Home is Sad by Philip Larkin

I really like this poem. I feel like this is what things are going to be like when I leave for college. Home is sad because it's going to stay exactly the same as I left it while I leave and go off to grow up and change. It seems sad, but it really is the way things are. It's quite a relatable poem, especially for people my age.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Where the Sidewalk ends by Shel Silverstein

I've known this poem since I was a little kid. My parents bought me this when I was in elementary school to try to introduce me to poetry and I just drank it up. I learned to read when I was very young, in kindergarten I actually read at a third grade reading level, and so I started to read these poems. I always loved the whimsy of them. It made poetry fun. Whenever I get sick of the academic way we do poetry in school now, I go back to these poems to remember why I love it.

The World

The World by George Herbert

This poem was interesting. I believe it's been done before, but not in any poems that I've read. I liked the way that he took ambiguous things like pleasure and wisdom and not only personified them but turned them into the actually characters of the poem. It was quite an interesting take on things.

Moonrise

Moonrise by H D

I really did not like this poem. I'm usually one for personification, but I didn't like the way she was speaking to the moon. It just bothered me. It seemed awkward and it doesn't fit the moon.

A Man of Words and Not of Deeds

A Man of Words and Not of Deeds by Anonymous

I have always loved this poem. I committed it to memory back in middle school. Something about it just really speaks to me. It's just that whole domino effect where if you're "a man of words and not of deeds" it leads to death. It's a powerful, albeit exaggerated, metaphor.

We Real Cool

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

This poem...is ridiculous. It's not that it's a short poem, but it seems to have no meaning. It's a bunch of nonsense. It doesn't even really sound nice. I just don't understand. What was Brooks thinking?

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Adolescence

Adolescence II by Rita Dove

This poem was very strange. It has weird sexual undertones with it that go along with the theme of adolescence. I like the line about the venetian blinds slicing up the moon, but as for the rest of the poem, it actually kind of creeps me out. It takes a sick mind to produce poems about imaginary figures with weird sexual undertones.

Deer Hunter

Deer Hunter by Joy Harjo

In all honesty, I did not read this poem. I will be honest about it. This poem is like a freaking essay. It's not a poem and it's a crime that it's being passed off as one. The stanzas are paragraphs and the poem in it's entirety is pages. It's ridiculous.

To The Moon

To The Moon by Shelley (a fragment of it)

I really like the poem. I'm a fan of personification, especially of things larger than life, like the moon as Shelly does. I like the image of climbing Heaven to get to the top of the earth so that the moon can see everything on earth. It gives a nice image of someone or something watching over all of us "little people" here on earth. It's a comforting poem.

Song to Celia

Song to Celia by Ben Johnson

I did not like this poem either. Maybe it's the monotony of reading all of these poems in a row to get them done. I'm not sure. I also hate the old style language of it, even though it doesn't change the words of the poem, it makes it a lot more confusing. I don't resent Johnson for writing like this because it was the style of his time, but I'll just never appreciate old poems because of this. It's like a language barrier.

Metaphors

Metaphors by Sylvia Plath
10/20/09

This is not the first time I've read this poem. I hated it the first time I read it and I hate it now. I hate how dark and depressing Sylvia Plath is and I hate the way she looks at this pregnancy. I think that pregnancy is a wonderful thing and that all the things she is comparing herself to are terrible.

The Fist

The Fist by Derek Walcott
10/20/09

I really enjoyed this poem. I liked the way that he described love and looked at it in the light that it is pain, but we all love it anyway. In particular, i liked the last line, "This way at least you'll live." It's just saying that it's going to be a rocky ride, but at least you'll get to experience something.

The fist clenched round my heart
loosens a little, and I gasp
brightness; but it tightens
again. When have I ever not loved
the pain of love? But this has moved

past love to mania. This has the strong
clench of the madman, this is
gripping the ledge of unreason, before
plunging howling into the abyss.

Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

"The Fist -." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. .

Summer Song

Summer Song by William Carlos Williams
10/20/09

I don't like this poem very much. Even the way that it's structured bothers me a bit. I don't know if it's the fact that it's ambiguous or what it is, but I really actually detest this poem. As I read it, I was actually really angry.

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken by Frost
10/20/09

This has always been a favorite poem of mine. It's not really like that I love the writing style as much as the concept of the poem. I like the idea of taking the road not taken and making your own path.

History

History by Robert Lowell

I really love the first line of this poem in particular. "History has to live with what was here." It really speaks to me and I appreciate the personification of the ambiguous "history."

History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had--
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic,
his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends--
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull's no-nose--
O there's a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15287