POETRY ANALYSIS

Obscurity and Selfhood
by C. D. Wright
Not far from a college. Nevertheless. A man living by himself kept his fighting cocks in plain sight. Each had its own tether and miniature shed and dish with embossed sobriquet. Their domestication reserved for battle before the table. Gallus gallus domesticus. A young male, a cockerel, my husband's patronymic before the adoption. Some hens are disposed to poach another's egg. Once there were teeth. Given certain conditions they could come back. If not a full set. Even now a breathing hole has to be pipped for the offspring to break out. This is done with an egg tooth. Not a true tooth. Love among the chickens involves a circle dance. He is a wonderful dancer. It goes straight to her brain. Before and after they prefer to wash off in dust. Ashes will work if no dust. If they aren't forced into shedding one another's blood, they can live until their heart gives out. The cock the man could not resist loving. He withdrew from the ring. Yet relinquished. To settle an unforgiven debt. My question is this: Would you describe yourself as a wanderer, a friend of the court, amicus curiae, falsely construed as a snitch, a blue yodeler,    an apostate, a lost cause, a bird in the house, a biter, a common blogger, a contender, a purse    snatcher, a false witness, a palterer, a silkie, a backyarder, channeler for malevolent spirits, girt in the loins, figure on a shard of black pottery, moderately active, a fog    machine, a visionary miserabilist, a chook or a cuckold, a roundhead, a little seditious, a slow-wave    sleeper, a dead mule, a gongorist, honey on the comb, half goat half god, a white throwback, crossed    with a mongrel, a genesis, a retired fighting cock, a doll named Memphis. This poem explores the many different lives that human beings can lead.  The general summary concerns a fighting cock that the master decides to pull from the ring because the master loves it too much.  The tone is very powerful and thought provoking because it directly asks the reader who they think they are.  I found the diction to be more advanced once the author began to ask the reader who they truly are. To My Mother   by Edgar Allan Poe Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called you— You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you In setting my Virginia's spirit free. My mother—my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. I find this poem to be confusing but very intriguing.  Poe seems as if he is merely talking about his own mother until the line, "Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly."  This sentence makes it seem as if the mother Poe is portraying was not his own mother.  The tone is filled with love and passion for the mother he is talking about.  The diction is very simple and did not give me any problems. #4   by Jane Miller Do you know how long it has been since a moral choice presented itself and the wrong choice was made not two minutes why is it not quiet between lightning and thunder as if someone were asking do you have other articulable feelings if so express them now tragedy ensues with a laser blast from the cockpit the dangled finger of God makes contact PLEASE CALL FOR SEVERAL THOUSAND PHYSICIANS QUICKLY One of the most irrelevant yet thought provoking poems I have ever read.  The immediate theme that jumps out at me is that in life there are negative decisions made even when a positive one presents itself.  However I begin the doubt that theme by the end of the poem when the author begins to talk about lasers, God, and physicians. "Out, Out—"   by Robert Frost The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. And nothing happened: day was all but done. Call it a day, I wish they might have said To please the boy by giving him the half hour That a boy counts so much when saved from work. His sister stood beside them in her apron To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap— He must have given the hand. However it was, Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh, As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all— Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man's work, though a child at heart— He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off— The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already. The doctor put him in the dark of ether. He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.  This poem I believe suggests the idea that life itself can end so very suddenly.  The beginning of the poem seems optimistic however by the end a somber tone finishes the poem.  The poem is about a boy that is hurt by a saw and then loses his life after surgery.  Overall the diction is quite simple. 1492   by Emma Lazarus Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate, Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword, The children of the prophets of the Lord, Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate. Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state, The West refused them, and the East abhorred. No anchorage the known world could afford, Close-locked was every port, barred every gate. Then smiling, thou unveil'dst, O two-faced year, A virgin world where doors of sunset part, Saying, "Ho, all who weary, enter here! There falls each ancient barrier that the art Of race or creed or rank devised, to rear Grim bulwarked hatred between heart and heart!" From just the title the reader is able to grasp the idea that this poem will most likely concern Christopher Columbus.  The poem describes how Columbus was refused by the environment around him which caused him to travel west towards a new world.  The theme presents itself as how the world can change so very quickly.