Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo’s “Mourning Song” is a poem about a person who is enduring loneliness and grief, as indicated in the following line: “Oh grief rattling around in the bowl of my skeleton.” The narrator’s grief is so immense that it has found the very place that supports her; that holds her up and allows her to move. Without her skeleton, she couldn’t be anything, and now it is stricken with such grief. Also, the fact that it is early evening means that the narrator is finally allowed to show her anguish. The night is significant because it is completely dark and no one can see her pain during the night. The line, “I need to mourn with the night” is significant because night-time doesn’t last forever. As soon as the sun begins to rise, everything is bright once again, and just as the moon sets, her grief will set as well.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brook’s “A Song in the Front Yard” is a poem in which danger is the central theme. “The front yard” is symbolic of a place of safety, while “the back yard” refers to a life of danger. The narrator states that she has always lived in the front yard and appears to have grown bored with the front yard and wishes to visit the back yard.

                                “I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life

                                  I want to peek at the back

                                  Where it’s rough and untended and hungry and weed grows.

                                  A girl gets sick of a rose.” (Lines 1-4)

The narrator even disregards her mother’s sneers at the “back yard” and the “wonderful things” (line 10) that take place there. The narrator seems to hold the mentality that the grass is greener in the back yard.  “Sadie and Maud” is another work of Brooks, and I found this poem quite amusing. The primary theme contained in this poem is that wealth and education is  always the key to success. Muad attends college; Sadie does not, thus “scrapping” by life: “Sadie scraped life/ With a fine toothed comb./ She didn’t leave a tangle in/ Her comb found every strand.” (2-4). Sadie appears to have a hard life. Everything that could go wrong seems to happen in her life, but Sadie doesn’t let it get her down. She still lives her life, and all the while smiling. Sadie then has two children out of wedlock, and the reader can conclude that the father was not in the picture: “Sadie bore two babies/ Under her maiden name” (10-11). Her parents were ashamed of the circumstances which their grandchildren were born under, but it not matter to Sadie; she was happy.  And when Sadie passed away, her children were with her and although she had nothing to pass down except her fine-toothed comb (which could also be interpreted as her good nature), she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by loved ones. Maud, who went to college and was well-educated, is all alone.

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” is a poem about her father about how her father negatively impacted her life. The poem can also be interpreted as a declaration of independence from the clutches of her controlling father after he has passed away. Plath uses imagery in her poem, which makes it all the more effective. Such examples include the shoe, which Plath uses to describe her relationship with her father: “You do not do, you do not do/ Any more, black shoe/ In which I have lived like a foot/” (1-3). Plath describes herself as a foot, living her life covered by a black object. Also, Plath could be referring to “walking around on eggshells” with her father, as if she had to watch her every step. In the second stanza Plath goes on to describe her father using imagery once again.  Lines 7-10 illustrate him and also tell of how he died: “You died before I had time--/ Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,/ Ghastly statue with one grey toe/” (7-10). Plath’s father died of complications from gangrene, and she is describing this by telling of the “ghastly statue with one grey toe. Also, he was a God-fearing man and the reader can even be lead to acknowledge that he had a god-like mentality.

Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin's "Sad Steps" is a poem in which the narrator is envious of the moon. Unlike humans, the moon does not have an end and is symbolized almost as immortal. In the poem, the reader can grasp that the narrator is perhaps middle-aged and is not particularily happy, as indicated by the title: "Sad Steps". Also, he wishes to be young once again, and critizes the moon for not having a beginning nor an ending: It simply rises, becomes full, and sets just as it always does. The moon is unaware of its immortality, which the narrator yearns for. Also, the moon reminds the narrator that he is not getting any younger and that his youth will never be again, as stated in the following lines, "Is a reminder of the strength and pain/ Og being young: that it can't come again, / But for others undiminished somewhere" (lines 16-18).

Shel Silverstein's "The Perfect High"

Shel Silverstein’s “The Perfect High” symbolizes the typically selfish desire of mankind to constantly yearn for perfection, even though it does not exist.  In the poem, Gimmesome Roy (whose name is ironically significant)  is a boy who spends his days experimenting with drugs in search of the perfect high. Despite his numerous attempts, he fails to find a drug that gives him the rush he so desires. Gimmesome Roy eventually learns of the way to find the perfect drug and spends fourteen long years attempting to climb his way to Baba Fats, who can supply Roy with the perfect drug.  Upon being told that the perfect high can only be found within himself, Roy threatens Baba Fats and demands knowledge of how to obtain the perfect high. Baba Fats then has no choice but to lie to Roy, fabricating a story as provided in the following lines:

“A wretched land of stone and sand where snakes and buzzards scream,
And in this devil’s garden blooms the mystic Tzu–Tzu tree.
And every ten years it blooms one flower as white as the Key West sky,
And he who eats of the Tzu–Tzu flower will know the perfect high.
For the rush comes on like a tidal wave and it hits like the blazing sun.
And the high, it lasts a lifetime and the down don’t ever come.”

 Gimmesome Roy is far too determined to achieve the perfect high that his ignorance inhibits him from truly understanding what Baba Fats is trying to tell him. Roy is willing to slay beasts and swim in creature-infested waters to get his perfect high, even though it does not, nor will ever, exist.

T.S Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

This poem is one of the longer and more complex works we have studied.  The poem is narrated by J. Alfred Prufrock and uses dramatic monologue to express what he feels and believes as he takes a walk down the city streets. The destination isn't known or stated, as the following lines expresses: "Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/ Let us go and make our visit." (lines 11-12). The excerpt that is found beneath the title of the poem is from Dante’s Inferno, which is a story about the journey of a man as he traveled through the different levels of hell. It is rather ironic that the title of the poem states that perhaps this could be a poem on romance when the excerpt is taken from such a contrasting piece of literature. Also, the reader is lead to believe that Prufrock is comparing love to hell. Alfred J. Prufrock is an extremely critical individual, especially towards himself. The line “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair/ (They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’/ (lines 40-41) provide evidence of his criticism, more so about himself and his opinion of his thinning hair.  It is as if he does not feel adequate enough, especially in the following lines: “In the room the women come and go/ talking of Michelangelo.” (lines 13-14). These lines show that he perhaps wishes he could talk to such women, but he feels intimidated by their topic and he doesn’t feel that he is worthy of their attention.

T.S Eliot

T.S Elliot’s “Gerontion” is a poem in which I met with much difficulty as I attempted to read and interpret this particular work. I believe that Elliot’s purpose of making the poem difficult to understand is significant to its meaning. The man in the poem is reflecting on the life he lived, and he has lost his purpose and has failed to understand the meaning of his life now that he is older. Just like the poem is complex in understanding, the man’s purpose of life is difficult to understand as well.