The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell (Poem #4)

I was confused by this poem; I did not know what the narrator was talking about. The narrator is talking about his/her fur, but it would not make sense since they are human. I think maybe the narrator was using personification, and pretending to be in an animal’s perspective. It’s like an animal thats wished his life was different, like a dream as it says in the poem, “Loosed from its dream of life,” the animal was loosened from his/her dream of life. It seems like the animal woke up in a nightmare, maybe the last place he’d ever want to be. A turret is a tower-like place, so when he/she died, he was just washed out of the tower, with a hose implying that the narrator was unimportant to anyone around. When the narrator died, it did not seem like anyone mourned him/her, but that it was easy to get rid of him/her. Obviously the narrator felt upset about his death being nothing to others. I felt like the theme was the fact that we are born into life, in a harsh or easy environment, and we leave noticed, or unnoticed. I liked the poem’s implicitness, and how  it was simple and short. Alot is implied or implicitly said through just five lines, which is a very interesting way to write a poem. Since it is short, we as the readers must read it over and over again to really attempt to understand it and what it is trying to say.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman (Poem #3)

I did not understand the poem much. I think the narrator learned about how one becomes an astronomer. He also learned things involved he had to study to do what he wanted to do, which was become an astronomer. After hearing about how difficult it was through the lecture he/she  listened to, and the math involved in astronomy, he/she grew sick and tired of trying to become one. He just like wandering around, looking up at the silence of the stars, instead of learning how to really study them. The narrator seemed to like the simplicity of the stars in the sky, not the complications in studying them to become an astronomer. The narrator did not enjoy learning the depth of astronomy, and did not seem to find it interesting in any way. The theme is that sometimes, we as humans, like things that are simple, and do not like the complications of the actuality of something. The narrator makes this clear by ending the poem with looking up at the stars, instead of talking about what he learned that day. He/she was so engrossed with the sky and stars that what he learned and heard at the lecture did not fascinate him, only the view did. The view is what seemed to push the narrator to want to become an astronomer, but when it came down to it, he did not enjoy learning about it’s specifications.Not everything is what he seems; the study of space was not just the view of the sky, but a very complicated study that the narrator was not anticipating.

This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams (Poem #2)

I really liked this poem because of what it is implying; that sometimes we like things that are sweet and cold, opposites of each other, that go together perfectly. We sometimes take advantage of something even though we know we should not, just like the narrator said, “I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast.” This shows that the narrator knew that the plums were probably saved for someone else, but could not resist it’s coldness and sweetness. You would think that sweetness is so far from being cold, but that is what makes the plums delicious to the narrator. The narrator wanted to be forgiven, even though he/she enjoyed the plums. If someone is too much of something, it is not good, that means there is no balance whatsoever. If someone was cold (cold-hearted), and had no sweet tendencies, than the person would not be enjoyable to be around. If the person was too sweet all of the time, and can not be cold at times, this person would be walked all over, and taken advantage of. If a person can be both when needed, than the person is balanced, just like the plum was. The plum, originally sweet, was put into an icebox, making it could; the conditions the plum was put in made it “so sweet, and so cold”, just like the narrator said. This is true to humans, like I said before, if one is put into a situation when they needed to be cold, they have the ability to do so, just like the plum did based on it’s surroundings which is what made the plum so desirable to the narrator.

Pass/Fail by Linda Pastan (Poem #1)

This poem is talking about constantly having something you are trying to overcome; you will never finish because in your mind, there is always something to be done, always something you want that you cannot have. I read the poem and understood that it is saying whatever you do, personally you will find a way not to get to it, a way not to overcome it. As much as we think we passed, we have finished, there will always be something to do and try to accomplish. It’s saying that the heart will only overcome what it thinks it can handle. The title Pass/Fail, connects to the whole poem because it can be either be a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ for achieving something a person’s heart wants. The poem did a good job in giving examples of the authors idea of something getting in the way of passing or failing, like “when you reach for a book - it closes its door in your face; when you conjugate a verb - it is in the wrong language.” When I read this quote, I thought about how a person thinks they are on track to do something, then something simultaneously happens so that you cannot succeed to pass. You might be on your way to do something, and something little will stop you, unexpectedly and this is true to life as a whole. What I think the poem fails to say is that even though you do not ‘pass’ per say, trying then failing is not the same thing as just straight out failing with no effort.

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

The first time reading this poem, I realized that it was short for a reason. I realized the title had something to do with what the narrator was trying to tell us as the readers. The second time I read the poem, I noticed the same things as the first time reading it, but realized that the narrator thought what they did made them cool, that to make them cool, they did not have to do much hence the shortness of the poem itself. Also, I really recognized the last line the second time around reading it because the narrator was saying that they die soon, meaning they die young, not living a long life but it was okay because they were 'real cool' anyway.

Othello

1) When I initially read Othello, I didn't focus on what the narrator meant by telling us that Desdemona's dad loved him. I liked it the first time around, especially since I already read the play before and loved it. The second time reading it, I really focused on what Othello was saying between the lines: he was exaggerating his experiences to seem more appealing to Desdemona's father, and to Desdemona. In those days, being an experienced man was mandatory, and made him a 'knight in shining' armor.

2) Some of the questions were easier than others to answer. I had to put more thought into some questions. The questions I did not find so hard were the ones with the quotes from the poem, asking about what the narrator was trying to say, and another I found easier than others were the questions that asked the definition of a word in the context it was used in the text. The questions I felt like I needed more instruction on were the ones that asked what two lines stated the same idea, and the one that asked about what line the poet introduces no variety into the passages iambic rhythm.

Spring & Fall

Annotating and commenting on the poem seemed to be really easy for me because it was all perspective; what we think the narrator is saying and what it may mean connecting to the whole poem. I liked the poem overall, it had short and choppy lines so it was easy to read. Annotating/writing what I thought was happening was key because breaking it down makes one understand it more. What I was thinking while reading each line was what I wrote down, so it flowed with my thoughts and I could get all my thoughts out and at the end be able to connect them altogether.