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.