Barbie Doll by Piercy

Barbie Doll, by Marge Piercy, has to be one of the best poems written so far. The poem has a simple but yet important message to all woman, and in a way men as well. Why does everyone analyze their own physical features and not look into what the other person has inside. In the poem, you have a girl who is described as smart and healthy, yet she was being criticized by her big nose and big legs, so instead of ignoring all the comment she decided to cut her legs and nose off, and then found herself in a casket.

            The name for the poem, Barbie Doll, represents of how many females are being fed that the perfect body is made like Barbie. Barbie got these beautiful eyes, blonde, thin waste, cheek bones, and curves, for me this is just one specific type of beauty and that would only come from the outside and not the inner side of the person. Many woman do in fact get stressed out or even take the action of changing their whole life style to look pretty for everyone to watch. Truth is that if you were the only one in the world, you would probably not care about your appearance because you wouldn’t have anyone to tell you how beautiful or ugly you are in a daily basis. But in this case I want to say people, not just woman, because there are some cases where even men go through this stage of life.

In Golden Gate Park

  In Golden Gate Park, by Lawernce Ferlingghetti, the poem starts off with what i believe it is a elder couple walking by. The poem shows many ideas that makes me think this way including having an old flute, feeding birds, and the husband taking the shirt off, now not that I am saying that only elderly people do or have this but when someone is being described I think we get an idea that this is how the person is ideally being described for.
  In the poem, many quotes are being presented for example ....

"they sat down together on the grass

                                              without looking at each other   

                and ate oranges

                                    without looking at each other

                                                            and put the peels   

             in a basket which they seemed

                                       to have brought for that purpose   

                  without looking at each other "

 

  Lines like these shouldn't be misunderstood, if a marriage was going downhill or was in critical condition, a couple wouldn't be in the park doing activities that helped others, in this case the wife was feeding birds and the husband was sharing his snack with his wife. In a case like this, the couple was just enjoying their own companies with on another, they walked down the park, maybe like they always do every saturday, they ate together and laid down next to each other. All of these are characteristics of what an elder couple would do. That first love they had almost 30 or 40 years ago, (estimating) is not there, but what they have now is a diffrent kind of love for each other. Its a love that married couples feel after a long marriage. They don't look at each other or say one word to each other but they know they are there. The poem doesn't have one dialogue, they dont speak to each other at all but they do like each others companionship i believe because if they didnt i would think that this poem would have taken place back in their own house where privacy is being honored and they can act the way they want to. So in a poem like this there is no depression, i feel that in the end when it says with a awful look of terrbible depression, i think the author may have been trying to be funny here when the wife realized the husband took his shirt off. Its a beautiful poem about love and how love can change over time.

The Day Lady Died by O'Hara

  The poem take palces in a rush, no line is ever still, once the writer writes something he is onto something else right away

" I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me"

The speaker sounds too excited in the beginning, almost so much that you just see a person running around from left to right doing errands on your head and not paying attention to anything. That is until we get to the end of the poem, when he see's "her" face. After looking up a few critics and analyzes of he poem i found out that the poem is about a famous jazz musican who was named Billie Holiday. The poem also "Day Lady" has to do with Holiday's nickname "Lady Day." Two imageries you can see there. The poem ends also in more tributal way when the author writes

"while she whispered a song along the keyboard to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing"

You can almost picture Holiday with someone else singing like she always used to. I can't really relate to Holiday except when it comes to talking about celebrities that i know. Like many athletes who i watch who tragically pass away with accidents. What do you guys think of the play?

Late February by Ted Kosser

  Late February reminds me of the March weather that New York goes through. Usually February is spring time in much of USA's south states but not New York. ".. the snow is no more," ".. by 5'o clock the chills come ..." both of these remind me of the Spring time in New York, but except NY gets this weather in March. The poem also ends in a good way as they bring up the "famer's body that has been missing will show up unexpeceting like a tunip," which is a very poetic way to say that farmers will be back to work soon to work on their gardens. "...bicycle, small carnivals," is signs of people starting to go out the house, not like the winter where mostly you spend in doors. "Children dress somehow of old men ..." in this line i feel like it saying that spring is wet with all the rain that children when they play together get so dirty on all their activities with one another. What do you gys think of the poem?

Old "I go back to May 1937"

  I go back to May 1937 by Sharon Old is a interesting poem because you sense a tragedy to occur almost in the poem. Throughout the whole poem all she can say is no and stop

I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die

Old is obviously stating that something bad is bound to happen to them. 1930s where one of those tough years that many American citizens went through. Women went through more domestic violence at that time then now, children were sometimes asked to work and even citizens were paid very little. The Great Depression started in the late 30s and ended in the early 40s as well. A child like this could probably be a lone child, going through rough time, or even a child that has gone through parents divorcing. (with all do respect to any who have divorced parents) Another thing that catches my eyes in the poem is the amount of innocense that the author says about her parents, "the are dumb, they are kids" its as if she really didnt want them to be together.

Many reasons could be aybe why she didnt want her parents to be together, all that she did state was that she would rather tell them in the future when she is born rather then erase her existence.

Gifts/ Under Stars/ Choices

   Gifts by Young Lee is more of a father-son moment that two two went through. The father is trying to help his son becuase he has a splinter in his hand and instead of just yanking the metal iron off he tells a story to his son to take the pain away. The poem is very inspiring in many ways including for those who love shteir father. Like in the end when he says what else is there to do but give my father a kiss. When he says "had you entered you wouldve thought there was a man planting somehting in the boy's palm" its like he is saying how sweet he felt during the moment he had with his father.
   Choices is a poem that makes you think of many things that goes on in life, like the big important decisions. The nests appearing on all the branches that the author wnted to cutt down can represent many people who you might hurt by decisions we all makes, choices also gives a point of opportunities. When all the nests appear rather then the one tht the author saw, i may think its "door opening for other things to come."
  Under Stars poem is a poem that the author remembers one specific moment in her life from a present day occuernce. She talks about two people who just left the bed, but yet they are so far away. It makes me think she is thinking of a loved one that she lost because she says i think of you and yet you are so far away, you give me reasons to look up at the sky
   What do you guys think????

The red wheel barrow

  The red wheel barrow was one of those small poems that make a lot of sense to me after i read it very carefully. I love it, i can say i learned a lot, at first i was thinking that the poem was going to a more farmville type writing that it had to do a lot about rain and mud and other farm stuff but no. The poem made me realize that little words can mean a lot. The poem took a more twisting affect when I finally realize it was only about the importance of a wheel barrow and how imporant it was to the farm. The poem can mean anything from a newborn needing her mother at birth to a man being the man in the house hold. Thats how imporant the red wheelbarrow is to the poem. The imporantance of the red wheel barrow is what stnads out to me, and it showed how important it was in a pome that only carried about 16 words.