Questions tagged [poetry]
This tag should be used on questions about poetry in general or about any specific poem. Please use this tag with the appropriate author tag, and, if applicable, the language tag (such as [french-literature].
308
questions
3
votes
1answer
59 views
“inlooped flags” in Whitman's poem
What is the meaning of "inlooped flags" in a poem of Whitman (When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd)? He is describing the Lincoln funeral:
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,
...
1
vote
0answers
39 views
How can enjambment be used to enhance rhythm in a poem?
I was wondering how enjambment can be used to improve the rhythm in poetry. I have seen some innovative uses of it by e.e. cummings, such as by breaking a word and writing the ending on the next line....
1
vote
2answers
47 views
The meaning of the poem “Crucified” by Kahlil Gibran
I am a high school student, and my assignment was to find intertextuality of the crucifixion of Christ and write a reflection about it.
I was surfing on the web, and found a poem called "Crucified" ...
1
vote
1answer
45 views
In “Howl”, what does “Blake-light tragedy” mean?
In the passage from Ginsberg's Howl:
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war
How does the hyphen in Blake-...
1
vote
0answers
24 views
What does A. E. C. denote in the poem about Edward Anti-Teller?
"Perils of Modern Living" is a poem written by the physicist Harold P. Furth inspired by a speech on antimatter by Edward Teller. (Hat-tip to our comrades at Worldbuilding SE for making me aware of ...
1
vote
1answer
60 views
What does T. S. Eliot mean in the poem The Hollow Men when he ended it with “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper”?
I once read a poem "The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot. The poet ended the verse like this:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a ...
4
votes
1answer
70 views
What does “ceremony of innocence” mean In “The Second Coming”?
The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,...
0
votes
0answers
37 views
What does “the cedars where our old ones sleep” mean here?
days pass easy over these ancient hills
i wander near a moccasin path overgrown with
rusted cans and weeds
i stand in the forest at sunset waiting for
a song from the rising wind
it ...
2
votes
1answer
68 views
What is the meter of the poem “Snow” by Louis MacNeice?
I'm struggling to find the meter in which the poem "Snow" is written. I know that Shakespeare's poetry was written in iambic pentameter.
So far, I've read that the poem "Snow" has a rough meter, and ...
6
votes
1answer
38 views
Who is the 'Immortal Hale' in William Cowper's The Task?
I was reading Book III of William Cowper's The Task today. Lines 252-260:
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage,
Sagacious reader of the works of God,
And in his word sagacious. ...
1
vote
0answers
63 views
Thomas Hardy’s “The Man He Killed”
This question is asking for open-ended interpretation of a poem. See here on meta for an explanation.
Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Man He Killed’ (1902) was published in Time’s Laughingstocks (1909):
“...
2
votes
0answers
17 views
Are Lorca's “Gypsy Ballads” adapted from, or inspired by, traditional Romani songs?
Federico Garcia Lorca's Romancero Gitano, usually translated as Gypsy Ballads, is a collection of poems, about which Wikipedia says:
All of the poems deal with the Romani people (gypsies) and their ...
1
vote
1answer
50 views
What does Neruda mean when he says ‘Maybe January light will consume My heart with its cruel Ray.’?
I’ve been a fan of Neruda for a while now. In his Sonnet LXVI: I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You, he says:
Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my ...
3
votes
1answer
53 views
Repetition of “smile” in Kamala Surayya's 'My Mother at Sixty-six'
In the poem 'My Mother at Sixty-six' by Kamala Surayya, the poet ends the "prose" saying
all I did was smile and smile and smile....
There are various critical interpretations as to what does the ...
4
votes
1answer
97 views
Is Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's poem 'The Camel Rider' really a translation?
I came across an interesting poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in a forgotten old tome, The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse. Blunt's own note states it is 'From the Arabic'. Is this just a device, or ...
3
votes
1answer
84 views
Difference between “Ode to” and “Ode on”?
We sometimes see Ode to and sometimes Ode on.
Do these both mean a poem written about something?
I am a new literature student.
2
votes
0answers
99 views
Emily Jane Pfeiffer's “Evolution”
Emily Jane Pfeiffer’s poem ‘Evolution’ was first published in Poems (1876):
Hunger that strivest in the restless arms
Of the sea-flower, that drivest rooted things
To break their ...
1
vote
0answers
15 views
Is there specific mythological significance to the Dingli Cliffs?
The poem "Cliffs" ("Irdumijiet") is part of a collection available online by the Maltese-Canadian writer, poet, and academic professor John P. Portelli. Written in 1973, and found on pages 40-41 (page ...
7
votes
3answers
229 views
John Betjeman’s “Suicide on Junction Road Station after Abstention from Evening Communion in North London”
John Betjeman’s poem ‘Suicide on Junction Road Station after Abstention from Evening Communion in North London’ was first published in the collection Continual Dew (1937). It’s short enough to quote ...
2
votes
1answer
89 views
Can anyone identify this parody of 'Consider the ant'?
Hoping you can help with this half-remembered poem that from what I can recall was written by someone who worked for the New Statesman or the Spectator in the 1970s.
The opening part is:
'They say ...
1
vote
0answers
74 views
How was poetry born? [closed]
It is probably impossible to know how literature or music were born. However I would like what research says about how poetry was born.
Perhaps some people claim that it came into existence after ...
0
votes
1answer
77 views
How can “Death be not proud” be related to the areas of exploration?
Here is the summary of the poem "Death Be Not Proud" by Jon Donne (Source - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44107/holy-sonnets-death-be-not-proud)-
“Death Be Not Proud” presents an argument ...
2
votes
0answers
131 views
Analysis of “Liberty Tree” by Thomas Paine
I am having some trouble comprehending a portion of "Liberty Tree" by Thomas Paine, and was unable to find a decent analysis of it. It is my understanding that this poem is about the Liberty Tree that ...
0
votes
0answers
30 views
Poem about moving beds
I remember a poem about a little girl who is with her mum and is trying to change the sleeping arrangements or something so that she can stay in her dad's bed.
I remember something about the father ...
2
votes
1answer
74 views
Help understanding this quote/hymn by Isaac Watts
Recently heard this, and was trying to figure out what it means. It's by Isaac Watts and, I believe, from his book https://www.amazon.com/Arrangement-Psalms-Hymns-Spiritual-Songs/dp/024343913X
Our ...
4
votes
1answer
96 views
What is the meaning of Samuel Butler's eulogy beginning “I fall asleep”?
I found this as a part of some frequently quoted poems in the eulogy (such as http://www.peopleinspirit.com/poems___quotes.html. I am not sure what exactly it tries to convey and how people use it, ...
5
votes
1answer
51 views
Meaning of “every dewdrop paints a bow” from In Memoriam, Section CXXII by Alfred lord Tennyson
And every dewdrop paints a bow
A line by Alfred Lord Tennyson, from section CXXII of his poem In Memoriam. What is the poet actually trying to convey with this line?
The verse in context:
And all ...
4
votes
1answer
91 views
Why the capitalization of “Heavens” in Rudyard Kipling's “The Secret of the Machines”?
In Rudyard Kipling's poem The Secret of the Machines the last stanza goes as follows:
Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
...
5
votes
1answer
62 views
What is the text Ivan refers to in the preface to the Grand Inquisitor
Before declaming the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov, Ivan refers to a poem with the virgin Marie visiting Hell and begging God for mercy for its inhabitants.
Is this a real poem? If so, ...
4
votes
0answers
37 views
Is there some cultural significance in the “chhanna” or metal bowl?
The Punjabi poem "Chhanna, the Metal Bowl" is about a "flat-bottom metal bowl" which is apparently some kind of family heirloom, "filled with memories". What's so special about a metal bowl? Is it ...
2
votes
0answers
65 views
Source of “Immortalised in Prose, A God Among the Pages”
I'm pretty sure this comes from an English poem, referring a woman's beauty. The author suggests that roses fade and wither, and that by describing her in written word keeps her alive forever.
That ...
2
votes
1answer
117 views
Why “all should cry, Beware! Beware!” in Coleridge's “Kubla Khan”?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's incomplete poem "Kubla Khan" ends with a vision of a poet in an ecstatic state with "flashing eyes" and "floating hair". He is beyond the realm of mere mortals for he has ...
0
votes
0answers
28 views
Who is Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley?
Who is Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley?
I get that he's a failure, but not if the modernist Pound thought that Mauberley was "wrong from the start". Should he, Mauberley or people like him, not have ...
2
votes
1answer
70 views
Who is “Luna” in Byron's “To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture”?
Here are the fourth and fifth stanzas of "To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture" by Lord Byron:
Here, I behold its beauteous hue;
But where's the beam so sweetly straying,
Which gave a lustre ...
4
votes
3answers
142 views
Looking for poem in which sleep is as great an equalizer as death
There was a poem on the 2015 AP English Literature and Composition exam multiple choice section that I only barely remember. The topic was along the lines of "sleep is as great an equalizer as death" ...
3
votes
1answer
98 views
What is the metre of this poem by Emily Bronte?
I really like the following poem by E. Bronte:
High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars,
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,
...
5
votes
0answers
47 views
What do you call a break in rhyming in the middle of a book / poem for dramatic effect
Here's what I'm trying to say.
I'm creating a children's book for a school project. I've been tasked to identify some literary devices used throughout the book.
There is a section of the book which ...
4
votes
1answer
94 views
Poem with A's and T's representing Ford model A's and T's in traffic
I'm looking for an English poem, in fact I think it was at least two poems, that consisted of capital A's, representing the Ford Model A, moving as if in traffic, and another that had both A's and T's....
1
vote
0answers
18 views
Thomas McElwain as Ali Haydar?
On this website of translated Turkish poetry, a traditional hymn of sacrifice from a Turkish Alevi village is included in its English translation, with a note at the top signed "Ali Haydar", although ...
6
votes
2answers
560 views
What did Alexander Pope mean by “Expletives their feeble Aid do join”?
Alexander Pope's 'An Essay on Criticism', lines 337–349:
But most by Numbers judge a Poet's Song,
And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong;
In the bright Muse tho' thousand Charms ...
2
votes
0answers
237 views
What is the difference between emotions and feelings in Eliot's essay Tradition and the Individual Talent?
In his most famous essay, "Traditional and the Individual Talent", T. S. Eliot appears to make a distinction between emotions and feelings. Read especially the following passage (emphasis mine):
...
3
votes
1answer
373 views
What did Gray mean by “where ignorance is bliss,'tis folly to be wise”?
Here's the last stanza of Thomas Gray's 1742 poem, 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College':
To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,
The tender for another's ...
4
votes
0answers
23 views
Is there a name for poems where each verse is a time period?
I'm having a hard time finding examples of this, but I found one by a man named Darryl Davis, called Almanac of a man, that goes like this:
When I was five,
I was supreme ruler
of a boundless ...
3
votes
2answers
128 views
What does it mean to peer from a dewball?
In Ted Hughes' "Crow and the Birds", the lines before the ending read:
While the bullfinch plumped in the apple bud
And the goldfinch bulbed in the sun
And the wryneck crooked in the ...
2
votes
1answer
247 views
What does Browning's cloistered soliloquist mean by ‘Hy, Zy, Hine’?
Here’s the last stanza of Robert Browning’s ‘Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister’, first published in Dramatic Lyrics (1842):
Or, there’s Satan!—one might venture
Pledge one’s soul to him, yet ...
3
votes
1answer
207 views
E E Cummings: [may i feel said he] What may parentheses signify?
In the poem [may i feel said he] by e.e. cummings, it is suggested to be a dialogue between a male and a female. My interpretation (an obvious one) is the dialogue spans for a period of time, and ...
5
votes
1answer
341 views
Confused about the meter and rhythm of Ulysses by Tennyson
Ulysses is written in iambic pentameter. There are a few spondees and trochees thrown in for good measure, but I'm confused in some places, like here:
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life ...
5
votes
0answers
91 views
Who wrote the poem that begins, “The Yeti, experts will attest . . .”
The Yeti, experts will attest, is physically unkempt at best.
And due to this may go for weeks, alone amidst the snowy steeps.
(Goes on to tell how he is looking for his "yet unmet counterpart".)
2
votes
0answers
40 views
Poem Identification from a stanza(?) containing “the midnight train” repeatedly
And in the midnight train
A cold wind blows through the rain
A child laughs an adults cry
Leads to pain and sacrifice
Toward the tracks of the unknown
The icy river icy cold flows
Trapped ...
2
votes
1answer
261 views
What is the meaning of the poem “Praxis” by Wendy Xu?
This poem caught my eye a few days ago. I was strangely unable to find a single analysis piece, however.
What is the meaning of Praxis by Wendy Xu?
