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].
0
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0answers
8 views
Writing/Poetry technique - Requiring reader to have prior knowledge
In the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, for the reader to infer the context of the poem - why so much depends on the red wheelbarrow, the reader has to know that William Carlos ...
-3
votes
0answers
22 views
Explanation of “We The Women” By Grace Nichols
I need help with a line by line thought by thought for the poem "We the Women" by Grace Nichols.
We the women who cut clear fetch dig sing
We the women making something from this ache-and-pain-...
8
votes
0answers
30 views
Who is the author of this contradictory poem starting “The night was dark and stormy”?
Does anyone know the name of or the author of the poem below? My grandfather used to say it all of the time and I would like to read it at his funeral. It's very silly and goes something like this:
...
4
votes
1answer
38 views
Does Blake appeal to his readers' faith in the last stanza of “Holy Thursday”?
Here is the poem "Holy Thursday" from Songs of Experience by William Blake:
Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land?
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurious hand.
...
-1
votes
0answers
33 views
Please critique this poem I wrote [closed]
I often find myself,
On the last page,
When I'm lost out
& locked away of reality.
In the adobe, freed
i taste colors & breath peace.
There's no line you see
its just the ...
0
votes
0answers
33 views
What does this phrase mean, “your touch left sweet accord in my frown”?
I recently read a piece of writing:
"your touch left a sweet accord in my frown"
Is this the right usage of the word accord? Am I missing something?
1
vote
1answer
29 views
What is the tone of “Spring” by Gerard Manley Hopkins?
Here is the poem "Spring" by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring–
When weeds, in wheels,
shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little
low ...
4
votes
1answer
28 views
Why is God a “harshener”? What does this mean?
In Robert Hayden's poem "The Ballad of Nat Turner", the word "harshener" appears twice in reference to God/Jehovah:
In scary night I wandered, praying,
Lord God my harshener,
speak to me ...
1
vote
0answers
18 views
What does flying represent in “O Daedalus, Fly Away Home”?
In "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home", Robert Hayden makes reference to flying back to Africa. In the second to last stanza, he says:
My gran. he flew back to Africa,
just spread his arms and flew ...
6
votes
1answer
119 views
How does the editor know that seven lines are missing from Wordsworth's Home at Grasmere?
The Wordsworth edition The Major Works, edited by Stephen Gill and published by Oxford University Press in 1984 (and revised later) was the first
selection of Wordsworth's work (...) in which the ...
5
votes
1answer
312 views
In the Sonnet 29 by Shakespeare, does the speaker pity himself over lack of skill as an artist or contentment?
Here is the "Sonnet 29" by Shakespeare.
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my
outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And
look upon ...
2
votes
1answer
44 views
What does “rushy bed” mean in this context?
The poem 'The Song of the Reed' by Rumi includes the lines:
Hearken to this Reed forlorn,
Breathing, even since 'twas torn
From its rushy bed, a strain
Of impassioned love and pain.
(From ...
0
votes
0answers
29 views
What does the poet Sukanta Bhattacharya mean when he said e has to make room for the newborn?
Why does the poet here want to clean up this squalid earth and make room for them when everybody in this world is running after wealth, glamour, glory, fame and egotistical nature's distortion? Did ...
1
vote
0answers
13 views
How does Dee Raain use the Mirrors to highlight negative human traits in the poem “Mirror of Truth”?
The poem "Mirror of Truth" by Dee Raain is as follows:
What is seen in the mirror is nothing more than a person with lies and hate.
With sadness and traits
Of discrimination and disgrace.
...
2
votes
0answers
16 views
Why did O’Shaughnessy write Ode?
Are there any theories on what motivated O’Shaughnessy to write Ode (also called 'We are the Music Makers') ?
Basically, he was not a "world-forsaker" himself. I read that he worked as a ...
2
votes
1answer
56 views
What is the meaning of these lines about love from “Desiderata”?
What is the message being delivered through these lines in "Desiderata" by the poet Max Ehrmann?
Especially do not feign affection
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity ...
2
votes
0answers
33 views
What is the difference between emotions and feelings in Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads?
In the Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), Wordsworth famously wrote that
all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: (...).
He later adds (my emphasis):
...
3
votes
1answer
93 views
Does anybody know who wrote this poem, or where it is from?
I saw a poem on my friend's desktop background on his laptop, and took a screenshot of it because I thought it was cool. In fact, it was a poem.
Does anybody know who wrote it, or where it is from?
...
11
votes
3answers
125 views
Does “The Soul selects her own Society” by Emily Dickinson have a simile?
Here is the poem "The Soul selects her own Society" by Emily Dickinson.
The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —
Unmoved — ...
4
votes
1answer
43 views
Why is John Betjeman's poem set on the A30 in particular?
John Betjeman's poem "Meditation on the A30" is about a man who is fuming at his wife and driving recklessly. Everything described in the poem itself is fairly universal, could take place anywhere, so ...
4
votes
1answer
46 views
Is the man about to die in “Meditation on the A30”?
John Betjeman's poem "Meditation on the A30" is about a man driving his car and fuming about his unloving wife. In the final verse, he finally turns to action:
"You're barmy or plastered, I'll pass ...
5
votes
1answer
44 views
References in the first stanza of Amiri Baraka's poem “Somebody Blew Up America”?
In the poem "Somebody Blew Up America" by the African-American poet Amiri Baraka, he references a few people at the end of the first stanza:
They say it's some terrorist
some barbaric
A ...
1
vote
0answers
13 views
Is there any significance to the choice of similes for poetry in “Some Like Poetry”?
The poem "Some Like Poetry" by Polish writer Wislawa Szymborska is a musing lament about the unpopularity of poetry among the general population. The middle verse consists of a series of similes which ...
1
vote
1answer
14 views
Relevance of Findlay's poem 'Stolen' to Hopkinson's novel Midnight Robber
Nalo Hopkinson's novel Midnight Robber (published in 2000) is prefaced by the poem "Stolen" by David Findlay. According to the novel's colophon, the poem's copyright is dated 1997. However, according ...
3
votes
1answer
32 views
What's the implied meaning of this poem by Russell Edson?
My friends are discussing what's the implied meaning of this poem:
Fire Is Not a Nice Guest
Some people feel like it insinuates a futile effort to save people around. But I think this is not accurate. ...
1
vote
0answers
46 views
Why is Allen Ginsberg's “Howl” dedicated to Carl Solomon specifically?
The poem "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg (which can be read online) is partly a savage general commentary on society and partly an expression of solidarity for the institutionalised fellow writer Carl ...
7
votes
1answer
51 views
What is the relevance of the title of Nalo Hopkinson's “A Raggy Dog, a Shaggy Dog”?
I've just read Nalo Hopkinson's short story "A Raggy Dog, a Shaggy Dog" (available for free online from Apex Magazine). It's an odd, quirky tale about an orchid-loving lady who's constantly setting ...
2
votes
0answers
17 views
Does Shakespeare steer the reader's sympathy towards Venus or towards Adonis?
In the narrative poem Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare reuses a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses (which he often used as a source of inspiration), but gives it an original spin: Venus's desire is ...
3
votes
0answers
48 views
Interpretation of some lines in The Dolphins by Carol Ann Duffy
In the poem "The Dolphins" (see the summary on Beaming Notes), what does the following line mean:
"for the world will not deepen to dream in".
I am unable to understand the usage of "dream in"
...
3
votes
1answer
72 views
How many Elizabethan or Jacobean manuscripts of Shakespeare sonnets have come down to us?
When Thomas Thorpe published Shake-speares Sonnets [sic!] in 1609, the sonnets (or at least a subset of them) had already circulated in manuscript for some time. Francis Meres already mentioned these ...
6
votes
2answers
70 views
Style of poetry that plays with typographic rivers
In typography, rivers, or rivers of white, are gaps in typesetting, which appear to run through a paragraph of text, due to a coincidental alignment of spaces.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_(...
2
votes
1answer
48 views
Analysis of a self-written stanza in terms of meter?
A long time ago I used to write poetry, and there was one particular stanza that has always stuck with me and seemed inherently rhythmic, but I’m not familiar with the relevant terminology and so I’m ...
10
votes
1answer
276 views
Meaning of “may I be twice damned for a bank-clerk or store hand” in “I hight Don Quixote”, a poem by Jack Parsons
From I Hight Don Quixote by Jack Parsons:
They said I was crazy, ambiguous, lazy,
disgusting, fantastic, obscene;
So I hied for my sagebrush and cactus and corn mush,
To see if the air was ...
10
votes
4answers
243 views
Meaning of “And do not drop in for an after-loss” in Shakespeare's sonnet 90
Sonnet 90 by Shakespeare:
Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an ...
1
vote
1answer
66 views
Is this a pararhyme?
"Halted", "Fed" and "Eased" from first stanza of "Spring Offensive" by Wilfred Owen.
Halted against the shade of a last hill
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease;
And, finding comfortable ...
4
votes
1answer
50 views
Looking for a poem by Simon Armitage
I'm struggling to find a poem by Simon Armitage where he goes on a tour about him in disguise only to find that the tour guide doesn't know much about him. What was its name and what collection is it ...
1
vote
1answer
25 views
Where can I find the text of the poem “Climbing Tintagel” by (I think) Vicki Feaver?
I have lost one of my favourite poems, Climbing Tintagel, which I think is by Vicki Feaver. I read it in a library book that had works by three (women) poets many years ago. I can't find it online ...
1
vote
1answer
67 views
What does the top of the bird-catcher's head look like?
In The New Yorker issue of 13 February 2013, Brad Leithauser discussed some of Robert Graves's love poems, including the quatrain "Love Without Hope". (I think the poem is still copyrighted, even ...
3
votes
1answer
51 views
Meaning of this line from “Birches”
I was reading "Birches" by Robert Frost. I am having difficulty in understanding the meaning of a line.
Please refer to this link for the full poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44260/...
1
vote
0answers
39 views
Book about War Poetry [closed]
Please help me figure out what book this is! In college I had a book about war poetry that was "borrowed". I'd dearly love to acquire another copy but I am having a hard time figuring out exactly ...
7
votes
2answers
158 views
Could Ozymandias be interpreted as referring to the power of the Church/pope?
The poem's central line that establishes the theme of power:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Does the "king of kings" part happen to be a subtle reference to the English papacy by any ...
6
votes
1answer
50 views
Trying to find a poem called “The Boaster”
At Junior School, in the mid-1950s, I came across a poem entitled "The Boaster".
IIRC it ran to several verses, each one ending in "I'm from our village, our village. I'm my father's son", and ...
4
votes
1answer
46 views
What is the literal meaning of this line in “Birches”
I was reading "Birches" by Robert Frost. I am having difficulty in understanding the meaning of a part of a line.
Please refer to this link for the full poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/...
6
votes
1answer
38 views
Who wrote the poem that begins “What have we not done for this country”?
About 15 years ago I read a popular history (in the sense of popular science, not popular politics) of the 20th century which includes a short poem that I believe went as follows:
What have we not ...
4
votes
1answer
39 views
Why does Auden relate logical deduction to Adam and Eve's Fall?
From: Philip Johnson-Laird BA PhD Psychology (UCL), Stuart Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton. (Author isn't a logician.) How We Reason (1st edn 2008). p. 103.
How We Make ...
8
votes
1answer
117 views
Doesn't Burns' use of parallelism reinforce “My Heart's in the Highlands” visual images?
Here is "My Heart's in the Highlands" by Robert Burns (https://www.bartleby.com/360/8/24.html).
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in
the Highlands a-chasing the deer;...
7
votes
1answer
77 views
Savantism by Whitman
The poem
I'm trying to understand the following poem by Whitman, called Savantism.
THITHER, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and
nestling close, always obligated;
...
9
votes
1answer
105 views
Meaning of “We make the wise distinction still, soever made in vain” in a poem by Dickinson
A poem by Emily Dickinson:
We send the Wave to find the Wave—
An Errand so divine,
The Messenger enamored too,
Forgetting to return,
We make the wise distinction still,
Soever made in ...
2
votes
0answers
62 views
What poetic techniques are used in The Farmer Remembers the Somme? [closed]
What poetic techniques are used in Vance Palmer's poem "The Farmer Remembers the Somme"? I all ready have juxtaposition, personification, repetition and imagery. But i am looking for more.
Will ...
1
vote
0answers
24 views
Whitman's idea of democracy
There are two lines which disturbs me a little on One's self I sing from Whitman. It reads:
One's self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
...
