Poem Response 3

Salvador Dali "Woman's Hands"

 "A Hand"

By: Jane Hirshfield

A hand is not four fingers and a thumb.

Nor is it palm and knuckles,
not ligaments or the fat's yellow pillow,
not tendons, star of the wristbone, meander of veins.

A hand is not the thick thatch of its lines
with their infinite dramas,
nor what it has written,
not on the page,
not on the ecstatic body. 

Nor is the hand its meadows of holding, of shaping—
not sponge of rising yeast-bread,
not rotor pin's smoothness,
not ink. 

The maple's green hands do not cup
the proliferant rain.
What empties itself falls into the place that is open.

A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question. 

Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.

______________________________________________________________________

Hirshfield begins her poem by saying a hand is not what we all know a

hand to be, "four fingers and a thumb". However, through the poem,  

instead of answering the question, what is a hand if not "four fingers 

and a thumb", Hirshfield tells the audience all the things a hand is not. 

This cryptic way of conveying a question, with no real answer, in part

intrigues and frustrates me. Hirshfield says the question is "transparent", 

but then contradicts this by ending her poem with the statement that it is 

"unanswerable". After reading the poem several times I came no closer 

to answering the question, but I did come to a deeper contemplation 

of the poem's images and mood.

The mood is very pensive. The poem reads almost like the speaker's 

inner dialogue. As if the speaker had these thoughts as they went 

about their day taking repeated notice of the hand's function in their life. 

They speak of things the hand does, such as writing, loving, and making 

bread. Or they liken a hand to something else in nature;

such as meadows and a maple leaf. 

Noticing the poet's focus, not on the hand, but on the common things

that it touches or is intrinsically similar to, brought something to my mind.

I realized that I may have missed the point. Perhaps Hirshfield's poem was not 

so literally about the hand, but about the people that hands belong to.  

The lines, "What empties itself falls into the place that is open. A hand turned 

upward holds only a single, transparent question" now implies something 

other than a mystery to me. An open hand stands for a person's general 

acceptance of others and the question is whether or not the hand will stay open.

New and Better

 Hortense, Queen of Holland

 

“New and Better” 

by: Lauren Laguna

This princess broke her crown.

Broke it in two.

Didn’t need it, want it,

Let its sharp edges scratch the ground,

Walked on, leaving it behind.

A tripping hazard.

Someone steps on the edges,

Bleeds, or not.

Admires the broken pieces,

Fix it with glue.

They like the words:

I Am Royal.

But, it’s still broken,

Worn and thrown out.

A princess once wore it,

Broke it in two.

Better to her in the dirt, Separate.

Making her own,

Better, new.

Only touched with soft fingers,

Lily white molding dark silver,

Bent it, twist it.

Shined to mirror’s sheen.

This crown she saved from dirt and splotch.

If ever she looked back,

Saw the someone,

Bleeding, or not.

Admire the broken pieces,

She may have wished she buried it.

Poem Response 2

 

Nude in Front of Mirror By: Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg

 Naked Girl And Mirror

By: Judith Wright

This is not I. I had no body once-
only what served my need to laugh and run
and stare at stars and tentatively dance
on the fringe of foam and wave and sand and sun.
Eyes loved, hands reached for me, but I was gone
on my own currents, quicksilver, thistledown.
Can I be trapped at last in that soft face?

I stare at you in fear, dark brimming eyes.
Why do you watch me with that immoderate plea-
'Look under these curled lashes, recognize
that you were always here; know me-be me.'
Smooth once-hermaphrodite shoulders, too tenderly
your long slope runs, above those sudden shy
curves furred with light that spring below your space.

No, I have been betrayed. If I had known
that this girl waited between a year and a year,
I'd not have chosen her bough to dance upon.
Betrayed, by that little darkness here, and here
this swelling softness and that frightened stare
from eyes I will not answer; shut out here
from my own self, by its new body's grace-

for I am betrayed by someone lovely. Yes,
I see you are lovely, hateful naked girl.
Your lips in the mirror tremble as I refuse
to know or claim you. Let me go-let me be gone.
You are half of some other who may never come.
Why should I tend you? You are not my own;
you seek that other-he will be your home.

Yet I pity your eyes in the mirror, misted with tears;
I lean to your kiss. I must serve you; I will obey.
Some day we may love. I may miss your going, some day,
though I shall always resent your dumb and fruitful years.
Your lovers shall learn better, and bitterly too,
if their arrogance dares to think I am part of you.

_____________________________________________________________________

 If you have starred at your self up close and personal for more than a minute you may feel a bit self conscious, to say the least. Judith Wright's poem has captured the warring emotions of an adolescent girl noticing her body's changes in a mirror. Wright captures the emotions of alarm, hate, sadness, and confusion. she does this by not allowing her poem to flow in a continuous, repetitive rhyme. She halts the reader's tendency to expect a matching rhyme. Interestingly, this mirrors the narrator of the poem who is feeling several different emotions in quick succession.  

Stanza two's dialogue, 'Look under these curled lashes, recognize- that you were always here; know me-be me', seems to be the exact question my reflection would ask if it had a voice. Growing up, I remember the pure abandonment of childhood, as Wright talks about in stanza one. Running through a muddy paddock in my white school shoes, trying to dig a hole to China in my mother's vegetable garden. However, I also remember when a flip was switched sometime in the fifth grade. A whole new cast of responsibilities were expected of me as a "young lady". In turn I expected more of myself as well. As Wright says, there was a time when I had no body. The memory of what that may have been like is strewn across several boxes of family photos. Ultimately, as in the last stanza of Wright's poem, I obeyed the person I grew into and moved on.

Mimic Poem: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

 


Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird

By: Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
____________________________________________________________

Happy Year of the Rat By: Edith Dora Ray


  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Rodent is my mimic poem of  Wallace Stevens Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird. The object of this exercise was to experiment with the feel of Steven's poem.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Rodent

I
Among twenty snowy heads,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the rodent.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a pantry
In which there are three rodents.

III
The rodents scurried in the murky shadows.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A shrew and mouse
Are one.
A shrew and a mouse and a rodent
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The splendor of varieties
Or the splendor of insinuations,
The rodent squeaking
Or just after.

VI
Thorns filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the rodent
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An unintelligible cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine silver mice?
Do you not see how the rodent
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the rodent is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the rodent dashed out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of rodents
Scuttling in a green light,
Even the tramps of melody
Would sing out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his outfit
For rodents.

XII
The river is moving.
The rodent must be running.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The rodent sat
In the dank corners. ­

Stevens seems to not be particularly concerned with rhyme except for what naturally occurs, but he is keen towards repetition. Also, the only real connection between all thirteen "ways of looking" or stanzas of his poem is through the object of the Blackbird.

Poem Response 1

Claude Monet "Poplars at the Epte"

 

First stanza of (Endymion)

by: John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
__________________________________________________________________

­­­­­ Everyone gets into a bad mood at some point. Inevitably, it is something beautiful that pulls us back into the sun. Right after reading Keats poem, I was reminded of a far off memory.

A particularly bad mood had me brooding. I was so absorbed in the bad that I didn’t notice my surroundings. Everything was muted by negative emotion. Until an electric yellow butterfly flew past my face, so close that it almost touched me. I was completely thrown off. This small creature just wasn’t to be ignored. It swooped around my head twice then flew away; it’s yellow wings melding with the blue sky. I watched it until I couldn’t see it any more. The negativity was gone and I was left feeling completely renewed. The only thought in my mind was how pretty. Butterfly’s, especially electric yellow ones, still make me smile when I see them, maybe even more than they did that day.

Keats captures exactly what beauty can do for human emotions. It lifts us up and if held onto we can turn our something beautiful into hope, our cure-all for any ail that the world might rain on us. Hope lasts forever in our hearts, always there for when we need a lift.