“Marginalia is defined as, “marginal notes or embellishments (as in a book) or “nonessential items” (merriam-webster.com). In this poem, Billy Collins reflects his thought on the people and their important as they find certain notes in the margins of the book. Poet begins with explaining that how notes in the margin are “ferocious” and “skirmish” against the author. By these words, he means that notes in the margins are very irritating, cruel, and argumentative. These notes serve against the author as they directly challenge.
This poem, like most of his poems, revolves around a common object or event. But these objects and events are not only what they appear to be, they also have a deeper meaning, they are metaphors for larger issues and themes. By obscuring his theme and working so covertly in metaphor, the reader is forced to come to their own conclusions about the work. This is exactly what Frost is trying to accomplish, through metaphor he strives to make the reader think about his poem, what it means and what he is trying to say. Robert Frost the most famous American poet of the last century was born in San Francisco in 1874.
During 1852, his father arranged to have one of Howells' poems published in the Ohio State Journal without telling him. During 1856, Howells was elected as a Clerk in the State House of Representatives. During 1858, he began to work at the Ohio State Journal where he wrote poetry, short stories, and also translated pieces from French, Spanish, and German. He avidly studied German and other languages and was greatly interested in Heinrich Heine. During 1860, he visited Boston and met with American writers James Thomas Fields, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In regards to literature in both of their eras, it becomes seemingly and obviously so that Whitman both inspired and paved the way for Ginsberg. Both Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg are reflecting upon political and cultural controversies they are experiencing in the times they are living in. While they again are living in different times and generations, they both are writing in respects to their own personal thoughts and opinions regarding their own personal political and societal changes within their current America. However, this is not where the similarities of the two end, while the likeness is expressed in the content of both author’s works, the structure and style in which each poem is written is also notably alike. Walt Whitman writes his poem in independent stanzas that despite flowing flawlessly with the rest of the poem could just as effortlessly tell a story on their own.
To what extent are there common threads in the poetry of at least two poets you have studied this year? Futility is an inevitable aspect of human nature. Throughout the creative elements of poetry, the poets Sylvia Plath and Wilfred Owen have extensively explored the central concept of futility through varying perspectives. By the utilisation of poetic techniques such as metaphors, symbolism, and irony, the effects of conformity, death, and loss of self-identity have been reflected upon by the poets. A society is a place where people should feel a sense of belonging, but a society exhibiting a lack of compassion is one that is sure to crumble.
In Unsettling America the poetry contained in the book uses many various types of elements of poetry. There are many different elements of poetry, some of which are diction, imagery and metaphor. These poems use these elements to help elicit a type of feeling, visual picture, or understanding of what is trying to be described. The poems paint a picture of an historical event or talks about issues such as classism, racism and sexism, whether through personal experience or as a whole. One of these elements of poetry is very apparent while reading some of these poems and that is element is metaphor.
To Waken an Old Lady is a poem that was authored by William Carlos Williams. The poem essentially focuses on the aspect of old age. Therefore, the writer utilizes numerous bookish tools so as to construct the poem. In my experience of reading the poem I got attracted to the manner in which the author presented the poem the use of literary devices actually affected my experience. The use aspects of content, language and form were of greatest significance in the entire poem.
Bruce Dawes Essay Bruce Dawes poems, written in the 1900’s, are very influential pieces, even to this day because the themes and ideas he wrote about have maintained relevancy to a contemporary audience. Dawes poems are largely cynical, he discusses problems that he sees in society. Three concepts which are discussed frequently throughout Dawes’ poetry are the meaninglessness of life, our materialistic lifestyles and the constrictive nature of society. These themes can all be adapted to modern situations and applied to modern people and society. Three of his poems ‘ enter without so much as knocking’, ‘life-cycle’, ‘homecoming’ and ‘’weapons training’ all strongly convey at least one of the above themes in quite similar way.
The essay identifies the name of the poem and the author at the beginning. The essay presents a thesis in the introductory paragraph and ends with a concluding paragraph that restates the thesis of the essay. The body of the essay contains paragraphs that support the essay's thesis. The essay usually follows one or an appropriate combination of the four major organizational plans (chronological order, spatial order, logical order, order of importance), but there may be a few details or ideas that are out of place. Transitions are generally used effectively.
The poems in this section have to do with “Ars Poetica.” This means The Art of Poetry in Latin. The poets of this collection of poems are actually using poetry to answer the questions of what poetry is, how it should be written, and how it should be read. There is one poem specifically that I felt agreed with my views of poetry and that is Billy Collins’ “Introduction of Poetry.” In this poem, I feel like he is trying to say that people try too hard and over-analyze poems. They sometimes try to force a meaning into a poem because they think that there has to be a reason that poem was written and it has to have some kind of deeper meaning of an issue going on in the world. I think that the end of the poem really points this out with the words “torture of confession out of it” and “they begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.” I think that Collins is trying to tell people that they should just read poetry and enjoy it.