The Joy of Cooking

This poem was not at all what I had anticipated to read, to say the least. The figurative language of preparing the sister's tongue and the brother's heart for a meal is quite grotesque but also somewhat humorous. Descriptions of the tongue and heart characterize the brother and sister, and that is done so in a way that complements the style of the poem. When mentioning the sister's tongue, the speaker "trimmed the roots, small bones, and gristle," saying "it probably will grow back." These descriptions of the tongue correlate to the sister's personality; perhaps she is quite loquacious and has a sharp tongue. The brother's heart is "firm and rather dry" and needs "stuffing to make it interesting at all." Her brother's heart "barely feeds two," and this description is much harsher than the speaker's criticism of the sister. Saying that the brother's heart is too small, not interesting, and dry certainly conveys the speaker's feelings about the brother's lack of love. The tone seemed bitter, and it provided an interesting way to complain about one's siblings.

The Panther

I immediately felt the tense tone of this poem, created by the imagery of the bars and the panther's pacing. The bars form the panther's small prison in which he paces, and I felt his restlessness. The simile "like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stand paralyzed" contributes to the overall tone of anxiousness and intensity. I had difficulty interpreting the image that enters into the panther's heart. Perhaps it is some sort of symbol, as is the panther. Maybe the image was one of freedom, or a scene from his life outside of the cage. Whatever the image, it held significant meaning since it "plunged into the heart." It must not have been something the panther cared to dwell in because it promptly disappeared. The line "it seems to him there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world" was incredibly desperate and lonely which contributes to the previous mentioning of weariness. The panther's actions speak of his inner weariness and struggle.

Those Winter Sundays

Even though this poem was short and straight forward, I really enjoyed "Those Winter Sundays." Some lines were especially powerful to me, and I felt the subtle emotion in the words. The imagery was painful in places, like the "blueblack cold" and "with cracked hands that ached from labor." Paired with lines like "No one ever thanked him" makes me think that the speaker is not only expressing gratitude but also shares his regret. Now the speaker realizes the sacrifices and labor the father endured for his son, and he did not properly express the appropriate gratitude. I sympathized the most with the father, going out on Sundays in the freezing cold so his son would be warm when he got up. The author's imagery when describing the cold made me understand the magnitude of the father's actions, warming a house of people that never expressed thanks. For most of the poem, the speaker details the events of those Sunday mornings, but at the end he says "What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?" I think that something may have happened to the father that makes the son reflect back on his indifference those Sunday mornings. The speaker's emotions peak at those very last lines, strengthening this sense of regret and reflection.

The Widow's Lament in Springtime

When I read this poem, I noticed the use of nature and colors, all creating the image of spring. This spring, however, was tainted with grief. Her obvious depression seemed to be a contrast to the vibrant whites, yellows, and reds of the flowers around her. She used to be able to appreciate the beauty that surrounded her, but now she is unable to cast aside her grief to revel in the colors of spring. When I read the line "sorrow in my own yard," I thought that perhaps that yard held to many memories of her husband, so it only added to her sadness. She is confined in her yard just as she is confined by her sorrow. Maybe going to that meadow to fall into the flowers would be her way of not only escaping her yard but also escaping her sorrow. I got the impression that she was contemplating suicide when she says she wants to "sink into the marsh" near the flowers. I see the marsh surrounding her, enveloping her, and giving her a sense of comfort and peace. The flowers no longer are beautiful to her without her husband, and that represents her outlook of life, how her sorrow has erased life's beauty. Her grief seemed so strong and consuming, even though the poem describes the beauty of spring.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

As strange as this poem was, I consider it to be one of my favorites out of the group. When read literally, the poem may not be perfectly clear. Even though the poem contains realistic details about a funeral, it seems to revolve more around the mind. I considered the details of the funeral to be a metaphor for the speaker's loss of sanity. The line "And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down-" was the strongest piece of evidence I have for my interpretation. The speaker compares her loss of reason to a funeral, mourning the loss of her sanity. When that plank of reason broke, that was his or her breaking point, and the speaker completely lost his or her mind. The tone is somber which is appropriate for the funeral setting. The phrases "my mind was going numb" and "Wrecked, solitary hear" seemed melancholy, like the speaker was all alone in his or her descent into insanity. I got the impression that the speaker struggled against going crazy, but in the end the speaker could not retain his or her sanity.

London

This poem by William Blake used imagery in a way that I found to be rather unique. Instead of appealing to the reader's sense of sight, smell, or touch, Blake almost exclusively engaged the reader's sense of hearing. The most predominant sound in the poem was crying which I thought symbolized the desperation of the people. Institutions of corruption, like the Church, the monarchy, and prostitution, all caused the people suffering. Blake pairs the source of the wails, the chimney-sweeper, soldier, and infant, with the instigator that prompts these cries. My favorite line was "In every voice, in every ban, the mind-forged manacles I hear." The citizens of London are caught in their daily struggles, trapped by powerful rulers like the king and the Church. Another strong piece of imagery was "how the youthful Harlot's curse blasts the new-born Infant's tear, and blights with plagues the Marriage hearse." This shows that even things as sacred as marriage cannot avoid the poison of corruption in London; the sacrament has been poisoned by prostitution. Blake paints a bleak, troublesome picture of London with his sounds, using the cries and wails of the people to tell his story.

The Nature of Proof in the Interpretation of Poetry

Perrine's concept of incorrect and correct poetry interpretation was entirely new to me, and when I began to read the article, I was hesitant to accept his theory. I had always thought the poetry could mean many things to many people, and that was one of the unique quirks of poetry. With Perrine's explanation in mind, I now realize that poetry cannot mean everything to everyone, and that is a significant difference. Although poems may have more than one right interpretation, they cannot have an infinite number of meanings. Taking that into consideration, I agree with Perrine's method of determining the right interpretations, especially the second point that the explanation must be the most "economical." The idea that most stuck out to me and was perhaps was one of the most convincing points was Thomas Huxley's concept of the missing silverware. To me that point best summarized what Perrine was saying about the economical approach to interpreting poetry. With that illustration in mind, I better understand Perrine's point and the correct way to evaluate poetry's meaning. I had never thought of looking at the details in the poem and seeing if my interpretation is contradicted by any of those details. Now that I have an actual method for evaluating poetry, hopefully I will not produce as many "farfetched" or incorrect interpretations that Perrince mentioned.

Although I agreed with Perrine's approach to interpreting poetry, I was not in agreement with some of the comments he made concerning the poems he used as examples. When he explained the correct meaning behind the poems, he made the true interpretation seem so obvious. The interpretations are obviously not obvious; otherwise, he would not have to explain them. On the fourth page, when describing Melville's poem "The Night-March", Perrine commented, "The five words together form a constellation whose reference, once the pattern is recognized, is almost immediately clear." I do not think we need to have references in mind in order to interpret poetry, nor should we need to be familiar with other works by the same poet. Perrine mentions other works by Dickinson and references Whitman's life, suggesting the reader should have some background knowledge when reading poems. I do not necessarily agree with that; a reader should be able to correctly interpret a poem using just the poem itself. After the various explanations of poems I would have never correctly interpreted, I was back to agreeing with Perrine once he began to explain symbols in poetry. A concept I really liked was that "the areas of greatest meaning are created by symbolical poems...but even a symbol does not have unlimited meaning." I also understood the difference between metaphors in poems, like the poems by Dickinson and Melville, and symbolical poems like "The Sick Rose" by William Blake.