Daily Analysis' of Famous Poems
Each day, I will select a published famous poem at random. After a poem is posted, with a link to the source, the famous poet's poem will receive a quick five to ten minute informal analysis, hopefully, from all of us. The analysis can include things such as syntax, connotation, alliteration, allusion, and other poetry devices, or a personal assessment of the poem's effect on the reader, you. After you put up your analysis we can start discussing where we agree, disagree, why, and other points of the poem that have not been discussed yet. Just remember to keep it civil, without personal attacks.
Remember, this thread is for discussion, so do not worry about your opinion not matching up with other people's opinions. We are not here for an outside sources' opinion. Instead, look for evidence and support in the poem itself. This is to be us, the poem, and each other. If you want to quote, or agree with an analysis above your own, that is alright. These are opinions and should be treated as opinions, not facts.
If you have a particular poem you want to put up, I encourage you to do so! I will analyze any poem you put up just like I would my own. I will also help you stimulate discussion on the poem you put up.
Steps for Posting Famous Poems
1. Choose a published famous poem from a credible site
2. Copy the text from this site
3. Bold the title (You may have to write the title out yourself)
4. Include the poet's name at the bottom
5. Include a link to the original site
6. Submit the poem
7. Analyze the poem you just posted
8. Watch the other analysis' that come in and comment on them
Steps/Tips for Analyzing Poems-
1. Read the poem out loud
2. Consider the effect the poem had on you
3. Consider what the poet did to create this effect
4. Free write
5. Remember there is no right or wrong opinion
If you want to know more about any of the poetic devices, check out these helpful topics in Resources Forum written by our fellow YWSers.
- Hannah's Secret Treasures in Poetic Devices
- barefootrunner's Kiss my Assonance- 5 ways to improve your poetry
- Rydia's
How to Write Good Poetry
- Lumi's
How To Make a (Poetry) Review Go Further
I hope to see your poem selections soon!
Daily Analysis' of Famous Poems
13 posts in this topic.
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Fruit of the Flower
My father is a quiet man
With sober, steady ways;
For simile, a folded fan;
His nights are like his days.
My mother's life is puritan,
No hint of cavalier,
A pool so calm you're sure it can
Have little depth to fear.
And yet my father's eyes can boast
How full his life has been;
There haunts them yet the languid ghost
Of some still sacred sin.
And though my mother chants of God,
And of the mystic river,
I've seen a bit of checkered sod
Set all her flesh aquiver.
Why should he deem it pure mischance
A son of his is fain
To do a naked tribal dance
Each time he hears the rain?
Why should she think it devil's art
That all my songs should be
Of love and lovers, broken heart,
And wild sweet agony?
Who plants a seed begets a bud,
Extract of that same root;
Why marvel at the hectic blood
That flushes this wild fruit?
-Countee Cullen -
XD I'm messing up already: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fruit-of-the-flower/]Countee Cullen's "Fruit of the Flower"[/url]
Analysis:
This poem seems to be talking about how even though the two parents are married, they are very different, and how they created something different from both of them, their son. The poem uses beautiful rhyme schemes of abab cdcd... which are hidden through the use of the rhythm, as well as a flow to the words that is natural which makes it easy to read. This poem also had a structure of four lines per stanza, but something went wrong with the copying. In my book it is four lines per stanza, but I can't edit on here or I would put the link through the name at the bottom of the poem too.
The poem calls attention to similes which is actually similar to some poems that talk about writing poetry. They say what they're going to use, then use it so masterfully, you know that you've just been hit by a train and accept it like it's gold.
My favorite thing about this poem though, is the theme. It is talking about, for me, how the father and the mother together really made the child. He has his power of faith from his mother, but he actually believes more of what his father's faith is. It seems as though the father has some native earthly ties considering the "To do a naked tribal dance/each time he hears the rain?" lines 19-20. I'm not quite sure what to take of the image of the fan though, but the simile of nights and days being the same with a fan is really interesting and clear. I'm not sure what it says about the father though. If he works all day does he work all night? When would he sleep? -
My analysis:
First, I love the alliteration of the second line, sober, steady, it makes his father feel dependable, I think, all those s's.
I'm not sure about the fan either... Perhaps... He's folded in on himself... or not all of him is seen? I don't think either of those really fit, but it's something to think about. I think... It's not talking about what he does during the day and night. It's more like, he's always the same personality wise. He doesn't change.
'I've seen a bit of checkered sod
Set all her flesh aquiver.'
What does this mean? I can't quite make it out, but I feel like it's really important to the character.
I love the last three stanzas.
I have the feeling that his mother isn't happy with him because of the mention of devil's art. Perhaps she doesn't want him to be a poet. -
I think the "... checkered sod/Set all her flesh aquiver." is saying that while she says this about the dad, and the son, she really does get a thrill out of seeing what they do. Sod could be grass, checkered because sod comes in squares that are put over dirt? I'm not sure why that would set her all aquiver aside from perfection, she's a puritan, perhaps a puritan of society's perfect family which would require they have a perfect house/lawn?
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My thoughts (don't really have a full analysis)
The fan: I took it to mean small, concealed, easily hidden, but inside there's something more wild and beautiful. A folded fan also isn't very useful.
As for the checkered sod, I took it to mean a graveyard? Like the mother's so sure about God, but the grave (with raised and lowered sod...sort of checkered) scares her because she really doesn't know?
I don't have much else to add. -
The Last Leaf
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone!"
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said--
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago--
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes -
So, first definitions!
Crier: 1. a person who cries.
2. a court or town official who makes public announcements.
3. a hawker.
Wan: 1. Unnaturally pale, as from physical or emotional distress.
2. Suggestive or indicative of weariness, illness, or unhappiness; melancholy: a wan expression.
Now odd ones I know already,
Bough: branch of a tree
queer: funny
This poem has a nice way of turning what the meaning is about from start to finish. At first it seems to be about this man's loneliness, but in the second to last stanza, the mood suddenly is lifted as we go back to first person point of view. This first person point of view is first touched on only, really, in the first line, so drawing it all the way back around to what he saw, and how he reacted to what he saw was masterfully done. Also, the description of the man and giving us details about his past really draws out who he is.
The metaphor of the man's cheek being like a rose in the snow is really pretty too, and gives a clear image of rosy cheeks without saying red with blood like a blush.
We also get a feeling of the town through this poem and how it deals with talking about this man's prime. We hear that most of the older generation, his generation, is gone, and that they have moved on from three cornered hats, but also that they are a close community. This draws us into a setting without saying exactly what the town is, or talking about the town directly. -
I like this poem, I think it take an interesting view point on loneliness and really captures the sadness of being the last, but also the inevitability and I love how we get the younger man's almost unashamed amusement coming through.
The description is vivid and great, the use of the old words really helps to set the scene and makes the poem feel like we're looking over the speaker's shoulder and into the past.
As for the future element, the possibility that you might be the last leaf, the last of your generation. It's a chilling thought and I'm not sure if the persona's apparent acceptance of it eases my fears or only makes them larger.
What I like best is the disconnected rhythm, that 6,6,3,7,7,3 that when you hit the first three feels so off and so out of place, but by the time you reach the end of the stanza, the poet has once again reconciled the two characters and the two time-frames and everything falls together. That's then reflected in the content and it works really well. -
Exeunt
Piecemeal the summer dies;
At the field's edge a daisy lives alone;
A last shawl of burning lies
On a gray field-stone.
All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer's final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.
Richard Wilbur -
This poem really speaks well to the senses. Most of the descriptive language plays to multiple senses, such as burning being something you can smell, but you can also taste burnt food, not that burnt food is what this poem is talking about. There's also the pity we can feel for the last of the last in this poem. It wraps things up well also, having the hearse, or the coffin moving vehicle, crawl out instead of rushing anywhere.
This poem really uses rhyme and syncopation well. The first and second stanzas actually match up with the number of syllables per line and the rhyme scheme remains consistent as well. This consistency seems to aid to the slow plodding feel this poem gets as it talks about the death of summer, the last spoonful, not nearly enough for anyone, but that's it. Now it's gone. Similarly, the fact that this is only two stanzas also really matches up with that. -
The Poet
Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbook
May speak much but makes little sense
Cannot give clear verbal instructions
Does not understand what he reads
Does not understand what he hears
Cannot handle “yes-no” questions
Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs
Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.
Cannot tell a story from a picture
Cannot recognize visual absurdities
Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
Has difficulty retaining such things as
addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables
May recognize a word one day and not the next
Tom Wayman
* In Billy Collins' anthology 180 more Extraordinary Poems for Every Day there is a note which reads,
"Taken from A Checklist to Aid in the Detection of
Learning Disabilities" -
This poem is what we consider a 'Found Poem' or a poem that is taken from other things and put together in a poetic way. This particular poem was taken from a place that I feel is very important to the poem overall, a Checklist to Aid in the Detection of Learning Disabilities. In the book, this notation was added beneath the title off to the side, on the website, this was completely omitted, but I feel it should be put back, and so I put it at the bottom. That being said, I feel this is an important fact because so many poets go through some struggle with how to put together language, just as it is being described with the poem. Some days, we hear words different, see things uniquely, and we cannot break out of that. For teachers and psychologists, this may seem like a Learning Disability, and perhaps they have identified it as a Learning Disability, but it is a strength for poets.
Without our ability to uniquely create connections between our words, we would not have the range of poetic ingenuity that we should. Eventually, we would all write that same sad poem about the rain washing away our pain, or the way your smile reminds me of the sun. Instead, we have the ability to pick our metaphors, or similes, and make them our own. It is important to keep our uniqueness, and not let it get called a "Learning Disability" which needs to be shut away. Sure, sometimes we need help getting through normal things. Sometimes we need that someone special to help us through understanding this, or that, but we are who we are because of our 'disabilities' and our strengths that come out of dealing with them.
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