"There was a young girl from St. Paul" by Anonymous

"There Was a Young Girl From St. Paul"
There was a young girl from St. Paul, Wore a newspaper-dress to a ball.
   The dress caught on fire
   And burned her entire Front page, sporting section and all.

This short, "sing-songy" limerick resembles a nursery rhyme ("There once was a man from Nantucket...") and holds a charmingly didactic tone. This rhyme seems to hold a similar lesson to that of the infamous "Three Little Pigs". It's humorous and I imagine the speaker to be an adult perhaps gifting a lesson to his/her child. The poem holds an AABBA rhyme scheme which adds to it's nursery rhyme nature. The rhymes and language are extremely simple, easy for a child to comprehend. It is clever the author use newspaper to craft the dress because the newspaper is usually associated with an adult male. The poem consists an anapestic meter which creates its melodic beat.  

"Marks" by Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan

     Established Jewish-American poet Linda Pastan has captivated audiences of all backgrounds throughout her fruitful career. Linda has been awarded titles like Maryland's Poet Laureate (1991-1995) and the Madamoiselle Poetry Prize.

"Marks"

My husband gives me an A 
for last night's supper, 
an incomplete for my ironing, 
a B plus in bed. 
My son says I am average, 
an average mother, but if 
I put my mind to it 
I could improve. 
My daughter believes 
in Pass/Fail and tells me 
I pass. Wait 'til they learn 
I'm dropping out.

Immediately this poem strikes me as humorous. They way the author uses Ameican Education standards to symbolize the judgements from her family is unique, witty, and slightly sarcastic. However, the tone becomes indignant and irritated the more the poem becomes. They marks are a metaphor for how well she is performing for her family. She is constantly being judged and criticized for her duties. No one appreciates her. It's not an A for effort here. She talks about ironing, cooking, mothering, and her performance in bed. These are all presented as subjects. School isn't optional. Everyone must go, even if it sucks sometimes. This mother  is undergoing the stress and grief of high school for the love of her family. She doesn't have to do these things but her family would never realize that. They think this is her purpose. She is an object, nothing more than her chores. Lines 5-10 talk about the author's relationship with her children. She uses the metaphor of marks to present her children as teachers, mean teachers. Her kids obviously have no respect or gratitude for her. A teacher doesn't need a student, a student needs their teacher. The kids seem to think they have no need for their mom but little do they know, she's done. and she CAN leave.

"Sex Without Love" by Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds
     Sharon Olds is among The United States' leading contemporary poets. She is distinguished by her deeply personal, emotional works and for them has been awarded titles such as the Pulitzer Prize and many others. Olds was born and raised in California and threw her unique style shares her deepest thoughts and memories.


"Sex Without Love"by Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time. 

 

Through the usage of diction and language in this piece, Olds creates a judgmental tone. Immediately I recognize the "temperature". Sharon starts the poem illustrating two lovers as "ice skaters"  and towards the end of the poem she describes the "cold" and "wind" of loneliness. This usage of language is ironic because usually sex is described as hot and sometimes (sorry) sweaty. Olds is trying to reveal the internal meaning of this loveless intercourse for its cold, clinical, selfish nature. Olds describes the external aspect of sex to be "beautiful" and compares the lovers to a "wet child". Providing the scene with a newboen emphasizes the true gift of life, and (what I'm assuming the author's opinion) the true purpose of sex. She then attacks people who partake in this meaningless sex for hypocrites and scoffs at them for  considering themselves religious when they are actually committing a severe sin. The rest of the poem describes the inner loneliness that accompanies an empty love life in which the auther makes a comparison to runners, so that readers may understand  her point simply.

"To a Daughter Leaving Home" by Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan

     Established Jewish-American poet Linda Pastan has captivated audiences of all backgrounds throughout her fruitful career. Linda has been awarded titles like Maryland's Poet Laureate (1991-1995) and the Madamoiselle Poetry Prize.

"To a Daughter Leaving Home" by Linda Pastan

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

The nostalgic manner of this poem mixed with the caring, parental speaker provides an extremely relatable context; growing up. The speaker of the poem is a parent who loves their child dearly. This love builds throughout the fond, slightly comical memory the parent presents to the reader. The child is leaving home and although the parent is excited and happy for her child, she will miss her...A LOT. The sadness of the situation is saved only for the last two lines because the parent is mostly happy.

"Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde

 When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

     ~Audre Lorde  

  The late Audre Lorde is a Carribean-American feminist, civil rights activist, lesbian poet. She started her care writing love poems and was featured in a Seventeen magazine issue. Her inspiration transferred, however, when the civil rights movement emerged in America. She expressed her liberal views and her struggle as a lesbian in an unaccepting community. 

"Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde

I am fourteen 

and my skin has betrayed me   

the boy I cannot live without   

still sucks his thumb 

in secret 

how come my knees are 

always so ashy 

what if I die 

before morning 

and momma's in the bedroom   

with the door closed. 

I have to learn how to dance   

in time for the next party   

my room is too small for me   

suppose I die before graduation   

they will sing sad melodies   

but finally 

tell the truth about me 

There is nothing I want to do   

and too much 

that has to be done 

and momma's in the bedroom   

with the door closed. 

Nobody even stops to think   

about my side of it 

I should have been on Math Team   

my marks were better than his   

why do I have to be 

the one 

wearing braces 

I have nothing to wear tomorrow   

will I live long enough 

to grow up 

and momma's in the bedroom   

with the door closed.

      This poem serves as an anthem to all American teenagers struggling with insecurity or anxiety. The speaker is intended to be younger, and slightly in focused. She is insecure about her dancing and and goes off into many different directions just in the first stanza. This emphasizes the speakers youth and confusion and creates an anxious worrysome tone. The first stanza ends with her "momma's door closed" to represent the common loneliness and thirst for love in all teens. In the second stanza the speaker continues with her worrysome tone and in the last stanza she shifts to a slightly more lonesome depressed tone. She wonders why no one believe her side of the story. Parents always take the "adult side" and the speaker expresses the effect this has had on her. This poem is rather short and lines are pithy. This shows how fast and common these thoughts are in people of the authors age. Teenagers have a wide range of emotions and thoughts that all cycle in the course of mere minutes. The author, being extremely libera, probably felt at times uncomfortable or worrysome/insecure in certain, unaccepting situations. She illuminates that feeling for the audience so that they may feel it as well and perhaps relate. 

 

"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson

     Born in 1957, this renowned American poet has has left her print on 20th century literature. Claudia Emerson-born in Virginia- was named Virginia's poet Laureate and received numerous other awards. She also was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.

Driving Glove
by Claudia Emerson I was unloading groceries from the trunk of what had been her car, when the glove floated up from underneath the shifting junk- a crippled umbrella, the jack, ragged maps. I knew it was not one of yours, this more delicate, soft, made from hide of a kid or lamb.It still remembered her hand, the creases where her fingers

had bent to hold the wheel, the turn
of her palm, smaller than mine. There was
nothing else to do but return it -
let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water
to rest on the bottom where I have not
forgotten it remains - persistent in its loss.

     Although the situation of this poem is slightly telling of the theme, the structure and diction are what truly frame the tone and shift. The first two lines of the first stanza characterize the narrator as some type of parental unit or as a person of that age/ level of responsibility. The rest of this stanza plays with diction. Lines 3 and four reveal that the floating glove holds a negative connotation of sorts while the rest of the stanza speaks nostalgia. The author uses adjectives like "delicate" and "soft" to reveal the calmness of her mourning while the lines before that include more candid words that reveal the true feelings on the matter. Someone the narrator loved DEARLY has passed away. I'm assuming a daughter. At the end of the first stanza the author gets lost in her mournfully nostalgic tone until she remembers the tragedy. She breaks between the first and second stanza not only to recover from the brutal hit of reality but also to change the shift to bitterly bereaved. The author reveals that she is not yet ready to confront this emotion however, and returns the glove as a pathetic attempt to erase the tragedy that has struck.

"Museum Piece" by Richard Wilbur

Richard Wilbur
      New York City, 1921. The United States was blessed with one of the undoubtedly best American poets of the century: Richard Wilbur. Richard grew up in NYC during the Jazz Age. Hs whole life practically revolved around literature seeing that both his dad and grandfather were both important editors. In college Wilbur enjoyed writing stories, editorials, and poems and showed great interest in journalism. After returning from World War II, his poetry was transformed. Wilbur wrote profoundly, sharing his life experiences and wisdom by stanza. Wilbur was recognized nationally for his literary achievements and earned the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and was named the Poet Laureate.Wilbur also writes children's stories and is a celebrated text translator.
        
 "Museum Piece"

The good gray guardians of art
Patrol the halls on spongy shoes,
Impartially protective, though
Perhaps suspicious of Toulouse.

Here dozes one against the wall,
Disposed upon a funeral chair.
A Degas dancer pirouettes
Upon the parting of his hair.

See how she spins! The grace is there,
But strain as well is plain to see.
Degas loved the two together:
Beauty joined to energy.

Edgar Degas purchased once
A fine El Greco, which he kept
Against the wall beside his bed

     In this four stanza work, Wilbur criticizes society's compulsion to denigrate all forms of art by providing a scene in an art exhibit. I got the sense that Wilbur feels this way towards poetry as well, but didn't want to write about poetry because then the message becomes far too obvious. If Wilbur wrote of his disdain for the judgmental  platform in literature, critics and other audiences would have scoffed at him. The literary community would assume he just can't take criticism or that he's some liberal bookie who fears opinion. Wilbur uses the "good gray guards" to mock the critical society in art. He uses the alliteration to simplify and degrade their sophistication in a sense. He alludes to other artists such as Degas and El Greco to not only showcase his knowledge of the art world but also to illustrate an example.  Wilbur delivers his thesis in the last stanza, delivering the message that all artists have their own unique styles, therefore, they can not be categorized by medium, nor compared to one other.