8 ways of looking at trees

We did a school assignment this year on Wallace Stevens. This is some of the collateral




1
What Monstrous arms!
Streaming to heaven
Fire Dancing with Shivan urgencies.

2
You, my droll friend are as accessible as sleep.
Bush in your form
Rose in your mind.

3
There is a tree on
Fire
Above my neck
Rooting
To the tubercular sky.

4
Throw your pollen
To heaven
Baptize earth in spring
How the sap roars
With the hammer of nature.

5
Lonely old wet dogwood
You are the tree of the world.
Immortal
But for the snake gnawing your roots

6
At first instance of
Fruit
I lost my first
Gardener.

7
“Lift your skinny fists
Like antennae to heaven.”

8
To you we
Nailed the Roman's
Antichrist.

Well snap, a Godspeed You! Black Emperor reference! Never thought I'd see one on this forum.

The first one interested me, but I have to be honest and say I didn't read through all of them because I've never heard of Wallace Stevens. I feel like I should look him up before I finish reading these so I can get more out of him.

But you still get some respect points for this general thread.

Definitely hit up the wallace stevens 13 ways of looking at blackbirds. And thank you for the kind review. The idea for the poem is that each stanza could stand on its own as a poem, albeit a short one, and come together to make a unifying poem. Try and guess what the general poem is about!

to me, this was all about religion. A lot of the parts were good, but I would argue that each section isn't really able to stand on it's own--though the idea's nice, and rather reminds me of ghazals.

1: Not my favorite section. The whole 'arms' thing isn't developed enoguh to pack a punch, and I'm missing something about the rest.

2: A much better follow-up. Doesn't make much sense the first read-through of the poem, but the second clears everything up nicely. Religion is easy, I think? Oh Jesus, you slag.

3: Biblical reference to the burning bush, I assume. My interpretation of this section is that it's comparing reason to faith, favoring the former over the latter.

4. Nature vs. religion? I'm not as sure on this one.

5. I assume dogwood's significance comes from it's traditional use in crucifying? If so, it's a pretty well used allusion. The snake is good, too.

6. 'Gardener' ruins this for me. I really want to like it, though.

7. Kind of weird. Just commentary on how Jesus is the 'only' route to heaven? Decent imagery, anyway.

8. Good ending. This is what makes the piece accessible, and it doubles in providing for a new perspective.


All in all, it was a pleasant read. Nothing brilliant, but it's satisfying in what it is.


and sorry again that I took so long in getting back to you. XD. School just started, etc, etc, *insert more excuses here*