Poetry Post #2

Marvell’s poem begins by describing a strange but strong love and then turns even more strange after talking about death and “deserts of vast eternity.” Maybe the “truth so forgiving” that Strand claims some poems to be is Marvell’s message that no matter what feelings we have or how strong they may be, time will always be “hurrying near.” Or maybe, Marvell’s poem “permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves” (Strand). I definitely feel like something in my mind is just out of reach when I read this poem… If you can’t tell, I’m trying desperately to relate the poem to the essay.

On the other hand, Strand’s analysis of “You, Andrew Marvell” was a lot more clear-cut in explaining the power of poetry and the experience of life. Macleish’s poem helps to remove our personal lives from the cyclical nature of life and death while allowing us to feel a part of it. This relates exactly to the paradoxical condition of living “in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.” Macleish begins the first stanza with “And here face down beneath the sun” and the last stanza with “And here face downward in the sun” while describing the trees, grasses, and gulls in the stanzas between. This relates the feeling of awareness of “beyondness and withinness” that Strand described.  

Poetry Blog 2

Strand states "Something beyond knowledge compels our interest and our ability to be moved by a poem," and that seems to be eerily true. The underlying symbolizing, the thousands of interpretations all amount to how one person may relate differently to poetry than another and that in itself creates a unique reader experience.

The interpretation of Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress" ("..the act of love, the pleasure it seeks might offer the illusion of sidestepping the inevitable, but the lovers cannot stop the sun, all they can do is make it run; that is make time pass more quickly, join their heat to the sun's heat.") especially resonated with me. Marvell had written that "And yonder all before us lie/ Deserts of vast eternity." While it seems quite bleak, with nothing to look forward to but a stagnant and endless eternity, the ability to "... roll all our strength and all/ Our sweetness up into one ball," to make the sun run brings a sense of purpose to life. This need not even be with a lover; Marvell seems to speak to the age old "Carpe diem!" to create in the reader the sense of self worth and infinite ability, so long as the passion is there. 

MacLeish's "You, Andrew Marvell" prompted Strand's poetic journey and juxtaposes "To His Coy Mistress" by creating a "world enough and time". With a lack of punctuation, MacLeish takes the reader on a never ending worldly journey, giving hope that the "always rising of the night" can bring adventure, too. Marvell urges to readers to ardently live, while MacLeish calmly accept. MacLeish speaks to the hopeful world traveler in me, that while now I may not be able to see "The wheel rut in the ruined stone" or "Of Africa the gilded sand", once the day ends, the night begins. 

Poetry Blog Post #2

My first read through “You, Andrew Marvell” by Macleish, the only words that were left behind in my brain were “life is fleeting.” I saw that it was a sunset in different places of the world and I saw that as an end that you can not escape, even if you do travel and make the most of it. “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell wasn’t quite that simple and left me thinking for a while. Finally, I started to get the vague idea that the narrator is after an impossible love but that for one reason or another, he can’t attain, and so he sees it fleeing but at the end with the last two lines “Thus, we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run” make me thing that he is making the best of the situation. These two poems are similar in that they talk about the transient nature of life, although at first glance I thought that Marvell went to a more personal level with the poem, talking about love.

Those were my first impressions of the two poems. After reading Strand’s  “On Becoming a Poet” I began to get a better idea of what the first poem was about. The impressive manner in which Strand takes apart the syntax and the punctuation of the first poem to emphasize that life was not only fleeting but that there was a sense of “suspended circularity.” I thought that that was beautifully put, and helped put the poem into perspective. The more I looked back and forth between the essay and the poems, I began to like the poem more and more. I started to notice how Macleish had in very poetic terms put into words things that we have all felt as human beings. It went so as far as to touch base with our insecurities and aspirations through perfectly placed pauses in the fluent rhythm.

Yay for poetry!

I definitely read those poems out of order, that's okay. though. GIF not mine, someone on Tumblr made it bc why not? And Troye is great so. I'm out.

The Power of Poetry

Between these poems, "To His Coy Mistress" and "You, Andrew Marvell", and this essay by Mark Strand the most intriguing part is the in depth meaning behind both poems. In the essay by Mark Strand, he alludes to his childhood and the connection he felt with "You, Andrew Marvell" as one of the first poems he read. "I didn't know who Andrew Marvell was, nor did I know where half of the places were that MacLeish mentions. I only knew - what was most important for me then - that I was the figure 'face down beneath the sun.'" As a reader, I read the poem first before the essay and I also felt a similar connection as the person "face down beneath the sun" watching the world continue and all experience the same notion of night or death. Even though "To His Coy Mistress" is partially about sex and the abounding beauty of women, but it also talks about the beauty is only there for a short period of time "Time's winged chariot hurrying near;". Both poems talk about how the world is continuous and how no single purpose or reason would stop time eternally and how all things must fade eventually even though one is talking about different places around the world ("You, Andrew Marvell") and one is talking about not wasting beauty and having sex now... why wait? everything dies in the end ("To His Coy Mistress"). I feel a connection to "You, Andrew Marvell" because its true how events in life and places come and go like the motion of tides, and this poem, although on my first read, I was a little swept away in the places and trying to imagine them, I understand now how the poem is connected and is circular just like time and the earth. 

http://www.sees.arizona.edu/sites/www.sees.arizona.edu/files//files/earth-full-view_6125_990x742.jpg

Blog Post #2

Both "You, Andrew Marvell" and "To His Coy Mistress" emphasize the power of life and time, and how you must savor all your time and make the best use of it while it is there. People are constantly busy because we want to do as much as we can and "To His Coy Mistress" really delves into the idea of how we humans try to use every second, and the speaker of the poem tries to take advantage of that. The capitalizing on how we use time is what really intrigues me in these two poems. In "To His Coy Mistress" it states, "But at my back I always hear/Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; / And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity."and it just shows how we are so focused on time running out, we can rush into things. However in "You, Andrew Marvell" it says, "To feel the always coming on / The always rising of the night" so once again there is this idea of time coming closer and closer. As Mark Strand remarks, " I was aware, as I had been in the past, that the poem seemed suspended between times. " We let time happen to us and we just wait for it to pass. This realization can have a great impact on one's life because it recognizes the fact that you must be proactive with your life. The power of poetry is shown here through the way so few words can bring across this huge idea to commonplace people.I sort of understand what these poets are going for but I don't feel like I am completely committed in their claims, however I do agree with some of the points they both make.

Poetry Blog 2

What intrigues me most about Mark Strand's poetic conversation is the fact that he is brave enough to say that "You, Andrew Marvell" awakened his poetic side and that he "wished [he] could write something like it.". The main reason Strand loves it so much is because of how simplistically MacLeish conveys the meaning of the poem, the theme being death. MacLeish refers to death as "the always rising of the night," and he uses very little punctuation to describe the cycle of life and death, beginning and ending the poem with the same idea of being "face down beneath the sun,". In his poem, MacLeish is basically saying that life is a constantly rising of the night, meaning that death is always lurking upon us, waiting to take over and then find a new life to take over.

Compared to "You, Andrew Marvell", "To His Coy Mistress" goes on a different path to discuss the experience of life. Where MacLeish conveys death practically, gloomy and "always rising", Andrew Marvell conveys death as a place the speaker can't avoid, but wants to put off as "at [his] back [he always hears] / Time's winged chariot hurrying near", saying that "The grave's a fine and private place, / but none, I think, do there embrace,". Marvell then goes on to say that "though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run,". So, Marvell is saying that while death is inevitable, we shouldn't live in fear of it; in fact, we should be living the to fullest.

I can probably relate more to Marvell's poem in that one shouldn't live in fear of death or have our whole outlook about is since we have lives to live, but I mainly feel like a stranger in a strange land in that I don't give as much thought or attribute as much beauty/cyclical tendencies to life and death as Strand, MacLeish, and Marvell do. 

Poetry Blog #2

To His Coy Mistress- After the the first read of the poem, I was left confused. On the second read I began to grasp what Marvell was getting. Upon the third read, I decided that I loved the poem. It flows gorgeously and is marvelously crafted. I loved lines such as "Two hundred to adore each breast,/ But thirty thousand to the rest:" How sweet is that? I suppose maybe I feel a sense of connection with the desire to race time, despite knowing that I will lose.

You, Andrew Marvell- Who the hell is Andrew Marvell? To Google! Oh, now I feel stupid. *hides under rock* Anyway, I also had difficulty understand this poem, and it took me about five full reads to understand what Macleish is getting at. I am still not entirely sure what each stanza means, but I think the poem as a whole works to discuss how night is inevitable. It catches all creatures in the light all the same; nothing can be done to stop it. "And over Sicily the air/Still flashing with the landward gulls/And loom and slowly disappear/The sails above the shadowy hulls" Life is caught in the act by the dark and must sucumb to it and yet here we lay, face downward in the sun, thinking, feeling, how the darkness, essentially death, the end of our time, is due to arrive at an unscheduled time. 

On Becoming a Poet- Holy heavens. Mind blown. I began reading this out loud, hoping that it would make it easier to understand through the fog of my head cold, after the first few paragraphs of sheer brilliance my voice softened to a whisper and eventually my voice faded out, unworthy to speak word of such insight. While I was in awe, I also began to realize that I may have skipped a few crucial connections between the two poems. Lost on me was the fact that You, Andrew Marvell is essentially a counter argument to "To His Coy Mistress," or at least I hope so, because that is what I gathered from the essay. The end paragraph is almost a poem itself, which is not that far from the realm of possibility considering that its author is a poet. "A poem may be the residue of an inner urgency, one through which the self wishes to register itself, write itself into being, and, finally, to charm another self, the reader, into belief." To me, poetry is magical, but I never quite realized how magical I thought they were until reading this passage and a moment of epiphany where I understood exactly what he meant.

Poetry Blog Number Two - Andrew Marvell

I'm not much for analyzing literature, but here goes: the first thing that struck out at me when I read Andrew Marvell's "The Coy Mistress" and Archibald Macleish's "You, Andrew Marvell" were the different places the poets refer to. In "The Coy Mistress" Marvell talks about the Indian Ganges River and the Humber River of Hull, England. In the other poem Macleish refers to Ecbatan, Kermanshah, Persia, Baghdad, Arabia, Palmyra, Lebanon, Crete, Sicily, Spain, and Africa. The next thing I noticed was the use of the sun in the poems. In "The Coy Mistress" it says, "though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run" (Lines 45,46). In "You, Andrew Marvell" Macleish speaks about being "face down beneath the sun" which is at "noonward height" (Lines 1, 2). I find it interesting that in each poem, the places get closer to where Marvell lived (England). In the first poem he refers to India and then to England, where he grew up. Then in the second poem it starts off in far, foreign lands and steadily comes toward Europe. There is a sense that time is coming after Marvell constantly (Line 21, 22 of the first poem states, "But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near"). Although time is not a physical object, the imagery and descriptions reminds me of someone being pursued in the climax of a movie. The rush and adrenaline can be felt in the anxious way they describe time drawing closer and closer to an end. In the poems, it seems as though he accepts that this is his fate, that time will catch up with him. But in the first poem, it seems that he takes this fact and decides to convey the message to live life to the fullest and do all you can before time runs out, while in the second it's like he's already given up, he'll just take it without a fight.

The essay "On Becoming a Poet" has hit some of the ideas I agree with when it comes to poetry. With poems there's either going to be a hate or a love relationship. He describes being discontent with his own writing, but found Macleish's poem to be intriguing with it's simplicity on the outside and complexity on the inside. I usually find that most poems are too decorated for my taste. The meaning is hidden behind all this fluff that I quickly lose interest trying to decide if the writer really meant to say what he said, or if he was just messing with me to see if I could make out a meaning from a bunch of nonsense (the author may be a she as well, it takes less time to type "he" then "she"). Kind of reminds me of contemporary art today. They call a toilet seat on its side "art," but I think that the so-called "artist" just wants to see what kind of deep, emotional meaning people can come up with from a toilet seat. Anyway, like the author of the essay stated, I liked the simplicity of Macleish's poem. The word choice and lack of punctuation helped create an unbroken video in my mind of the darkness seeping across the globe, helping me understand the poem itself.

Bay Phillips - Poetry Blog #2

(I wish I could put a silly title for this blog post, but a. I am very sleepy and b. it just feels weird doing so, I'm not sure why.)

Let me preface with this: I am tired. I am so very, very tired, so this will most likely be an awful post/analysis. Apologies in advance.

I think my favorite part of this 'poetic conversation' would be the final paragraph of Strand's essay. At least, that's the bit that stood out the most to me. I'm all too familiar with the feeling of wishing "that I could write something like it, something with its sweep, its sensuousness, its sad crepuscular beauty, something capable of carving out such a large psychic space for itself." Given that I want to be a writer - though I definitely don't want to be a poet, being a good poet is way too difficult and daunting and I admire poets so much for tackling that challenge - this just really resonates with me. Not to mention the idea of a poem (or any piece of writing, for that matter) "saying things that I wished I could say." Regardless of the subject matter of whatever it is that you're reading, this is a universal feeling that people experience when it comes to good writing. It's envy, yes, but it's an envy that inspires reverence as opposed to resentment. Poetry is given a lot more free reign with how it's able to be constructed as opposed to prose, so it has a certain ability to put words together in such a way that really hit home. It's the subtle things, like a lack of punctuation providing the work with a flow to it, that work to a subconscious advantage. Another potent paragraph of Strand's would be the one that begins with "I also undoubtedly liked it..." and ends with "steady as nightfall." He's basically just gushing about poetic devices, but it really seals the deal on what makes good poetry so good. Every element of a poem, even the ones you might not notice, like the meter, help it give whatever impression it's trying to give. 

Honestly, I wasn't really that impressed by "You, Andrew Marvell" until reading Strand's essay. It just seemed like a general description of various places - or maybe I just wasn't reading it closely enough. In any case, Strand definitely spelled it out to me just how technically skilled MacLeish is as a poet, even if I didn't really appreciate his work on an aesthetic level. Goes to show that deep, insightful analysis can make something you don't even like seem awesome. The only part of "You, Andrew Marvell" that really struck me was the same part that struck Strand - the idea of being "face down beneath the sun." It's probably just the fact that I'm tired as heck talking, but lying face down in the sun sounds great right now, albeit full of sunburn and agony. On a more serious note, however, to steal Strand's comment: "This description of the distant night's inevitable approach, even as it reflected my own increasing awareness of mortality, was calming. I now felt located in a vastness, which, in my real life, had made me feel lost." Just... this. I feel it. The poem didn't immediately give me this feeling as soon as I read it, but Strand's reflection just resonates with me. 

"To His Coy Mistress" is cool because it's basically talking about seizing the moment and gettin' busy while you're still alive. Heck yeah. *does a cool skateboard trick* Nah, for real, though, this poem has a nice carpe diem attitude, particularly with regards to passionate love. As much as you might think that you're going to be with someone forever - or even in a platonic sense, if you think you're going to be friends with someone forever - that relationship can sometimes change, so you should take advantage of what you've got while you've got it, and I mean that in the best possible way. One should appreciate how transient relationships can be, especially ones based solely around passion, (I'm looking at you, Romeo and Juliet) and let your love "grow / Vaster than empires and more slow" while it can.

Time for an abrupt end due to the fact that I'm tired and am going to bed. Goodnight.

Poetry Blog #2

Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is a bit confusing. It appears to be (obvious through its title) a poem to the narrator’s lover. The poem seems endearing and romantic, yet there are lines that seem slightly humorous or out of place, such as “my vegetable love.” In addition to it seeming romantic, it also has the message of seizing the day and embracing life before death. “You, Andrew Marvell” is a poem of the sun setting and night beginning all over the world in one night. Archibald Macleish mentions many cities and their descent into night (e.g. “And Baghdad darken and the bridge / Across the silent river gone / And through Arabia the edge / Of evening widen and steal on”). Macleish alludes to a permanent end with the ending of his poem, “the shadow of the night” symbolizing death or the like. Strand’s essay encompassing both poems goes far beyond any analysis or reflection I could possibly manage. He delves into the meaning behind the punctuation I hardly paid any attention to, but when he mentioned it, the analysis illuminated my understanding. Strand also offers wise words about what poetry can be to and for us: “A poem is a place where the conditions of beyondness and withinness are made palpable, where to imagine is to feel what it is like to be. It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living. Even more paradoxically, poetry permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.” I particularly relate to those words. Of the poems, however, I want to say I relate to both. There’s a part of me that is in love with love, therefore I very much enjoyed “To His Coy Mistress,” as it allowed me to indulge my idealism. On the other hand, I loved the realism of “You, Andrew Marvell,” and the analysis by Strand made me like the poem even more.

Poetry Blog #1

“The Apology” by Ralph Waldo Emerson has a message of knowing when to apologize for things, and that sometimes it’s all right to not apologize for certain things, and it’s all right to be individual. He begins the poem outright with “Think me not unkind and rude, / That I walk alone in grove and glen;” where the narrator is almost apologizing before doing something. Again, he asks for something like forgiveness in the beginning of the third stanza, saying “Chide me not, laborious band…” Emerson’s beginning of his second stanza with “Tax not my sloth that I / Fold my arms beside the brook;” seem to have something to do with being individual and doing something “nonconformist,” per se. Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” focuses on the feeling of otherness and being on the outside. Dickinson proclaims “How dreary – to be – Somebody!,” meaning it would be awfully boring to conform and be a part of the crowd. Her blatant excitement to being a “Nobody!” illustrates the message of individuality, similar to Emerson’s message of individuality. Both poems stress the comfort and acceptability of being individual and different. Dickinson’s poem focuses more on one’s whole being going against the norm, while Emerson’s centers on the quirks and things one does that makes him or her different. I connect with both because I believe it to be important to be individual and to not feel the pressure to conform. 

The Burning Bush

Exodus 3 describes the encounter between God and Moses when God tells Moses to free his people, enslaved by the Egyptians. God calls Moses to the mountain and draws his attention by speaking to him through a burning bush. As Moses approaches the bush ablaze, God orders him to remove his sandals because the ground is holy. As God explains to Moses what he is going to do, God says something that is foreshadowing what Jesus will say in the new testament. When Moses asks “what if they ask me who you are?” Jesus replies “I Am Who I Am.” Now, if you are just skimming through the story I could understand being like “Man, God has some sass.” But the reply was to set up the way that Jesus would approach answering the “who are you” question. Jesus would always reply with “I Am.”  Which alludes to this passage directly.

Aside from the historical significance/significance to the plot (depending on what you believe) of this encounter between God and Moses, the story also conveys a theme that has always been close to my heart. The burning bush is a perfect example of listening for God’s voice in nature.  Before I was able to fully comprehend this story as a kid, I would often ask myself “how come I can’t  talk to God like these guys do?” Well, this story would eventually provide me with the answer that I have to actively seek God’s wisdom out, and constantly be looking in nature among other things to listen for it.

I don’t have too many personal connections with fire, so I don’t have a long tale of how I was stranded in the woods and had to make fire with only wood, saliva and rocks. However, I do enjoy myself some fires and fireworks especially. This is probably because as a kid, I was terrified of all things fire, so now I’m making up with that disinterest with over-interest. This past summer, one of my friends thought she could make a ping pong ball explode by wrapping it in foil and lighting it. I knew this wasn’t going to work, but I let her try anyway (like a good friend). Well, she wrapped the ball up and lit it, and just held it there, the foil just smoked until it eventually carried a flame, at which point I poked fun at her and yelled “BOOM” This turned out to be a mistake, as she proceeded to throw the flaming ping pong ball at me. It hit me and burned my pants, and charred the fabric. So, that’s my experience with fire and how it ruined one of my favorite pairs of  pants. Lesson: Don’t let a homeschooler do “science experiments”

Poetry blog #2

First, I love that Mark Strand acknowledge the inspiration for his work and directly points to Andrew Marvell. This also helps the reader understand where Strand is coming from in his work. "To His Coy Mistress" seems to either be a passionate love poem or a poem mocking what people say about love because it goes to such extremes with "deserts if vast eternity" and "they beauty shall no more be found." Such strong phrases suggest he was completely head over heals for this lady or that he doesn't understand when people describe love in such a way. I don't feel as deep as the poem for love, so to me, it came across as a mockery of love. "You, Andrew Marvell" by Macleish responds to "To His Coy Mistress" and has an underlying theme of death, symbolized by "the always rising of the night" meaning that death is always coming. "And ever climbing shadow grow" also shows that death is coming and is contrasting from "To His Coy Mistress" because "To His Coy Mistress" is focused in the present and love of one day whereas Macleish focuses on a whole lifetime and that death is coming. Strand's essay shows his inspiration and what he got out of these two poems. He says, "I no longer wish I had written "You, Andrew Marvell" I wish I could write something like it." This shows he used to aspire to write something as great and still does. This particularly intrigues me because he loved these poems for so long and got so much out of them. They truly influenced his life and later his work.
The poets all say and imply that the experiences of life directly influence their work. If you just lived in a dark room and stayed there your entire life, you wouldn't have much a write about besides the darkness. Most great poets have lived a life full of experiences that give them ideas and inspiration for their work. For example, falling in love and getting your heart broken can be a huge inspiration for writers and poets. I relate more to "You, Andrew Marvell" because I tend to think more realistically and think for the future instead of getting caught up in one day and being so in love that I think I will be with the person for "vast eternity." On the other hand, I don't think of everyday as leading up to death, so that whole symbolism was a little dark, and I feel more like a stranger in a strange land for parts of it.

Poetry Blog Post #2

I really enjoyed reading Mark Strand’s “On Becoming a Poet” mainly because I liked his description of Lyric Poetry. It was interesting to be how he mentioned that these poems are not to be read or spoken; rather, they are to be sung. Going into Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” and Archibald MacLeish’s “You, Andrew Marvell”, with this thought proved to be rather helpful in shaping how I viewed them. “To His Coy Mistress” was almost Shakespearean to me; the way the way the lady in the poem was described. Though this connection may be off, lines like “An hundred years should go to praise thine eyes” reminded me of some Shakespearean sonnets we had read a few years back describing the features of a loved one. One similarity between the two poems was the topic of time and death. “To His Coy Mistress” has lines like, “while the youthful hue sits on thy skin like morning dew” that indicate haste. The speaker is talking about love coming sooner than later while they are still young and fresh. The reference to one’s grave in this poem also shows the idea of speediness and not to wait for death. “You, Andrew Marvell” also focuses largely on the idea of living while alive for one does not realize how quickly and discreetly the end can come. This is best illustrated in the last lines of the poem, “To feel how swift how secretly the shadow of the night comes on ...” Another reason I really liked Strand’s essay was because he really demonstrated how to carefully analyze the choices a poet makes. In one of Strand’s paragraphs he talks about a subtly repeated rhyme at the beginning and end of “You, Andrew Marvell” and how minimal punctuation influences the poem. This type of attention to detail is a very large part of not only analyzing, but truly appreciating a piece of poetry; seeing Strand do this as a well-known profession serves as a very good example for me- a novice poetry reader. Overall, having read Strand’s essay before looking into the two poems was very useful and also nudged me into paying more attention to the smaller details of the works.