The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born in 1809 and died in 1892. He was an English poet who studied at Cambridge University. He was honored with the title of Poet Laureate of Great Britian and Ireland. 

From The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league, 

Half a league onward, 

All in the valley of Death 

   Rode the six hundred. 

“Forward, the Light Brigade! 

Charge for the guns!” he said. 

Into the valley of Death 

   Rode the six hundred. 

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!” 

Was there a man dismayed? 

Not though the soldier knew 

   Someone had blundered. 

   Theirs not to make reply, 

   Theirs not to reason why, 

   Theirs but to do and die. 

   Into the valley of Death 

   Rode the six hundred. 

In the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the author uses a strict structure to tell the story of the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava. Tennyson uses dactylic feet to praise the Brigade. He emphasizes the honor is serving one's country and being loyal to your leaders. This is shown by the soliders knowing that their commander made a mistake and carrying on anyway, "Was there a man dismay'd?/ Not tho' the solider knew/ Someone had blunder'd." The author praises the soliders but it does not make light of the cruelties of war. Tennyson makes it clear that war is brutal by using diction like "the vallley of Death" to describe the battlefield. In addition to honoring the men in the brigade, the author emphasizes the idea that the role of the solider is to obey. He does this by using repetion of structure and the word "their" in the lines, "Theirs not ti make reply/ Theirs not to reason why/ Theirs but to do and die." In these lines he is saying that the job the solider is not to talk back or question commands, it is to do what is told even if that means death. Just like soliders repeat what their commanders tell them, Tennyson repeats sentence structure.

Marks by Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan is an American poet with a Jewish background. She was born in 1932 in New York. She is well known for writing about family life and motherhood.

In the poem "Marks" by Linda Pastan, the author uses an extended metaphor to compare being evaluated as a mother to being evaluated in school. The speaker of the poem is a wife and a mother who is constantly being judged by her husband and her children. Her husband grades her on dinner, "My husband gives mr an A/ for last night's supper," and on her failure to iron, "an incomplete for my ironing." The husband even goes as far as to grade his wife in sex. The children of the mother also grade her. The children only give their mother okay marks. This is hard on the mother. Every mom wants their children to think highly of her. She wants to be the best mom to them and they give her decent marks. These average marks and the pressure her family puts on her, leads the speaker to a dark ending. The speaker is metaphorically "dropping out" of school. This represents her commiting sucide. She is dropping out of life. The pressure of being graded in every aspect of life has become to much for the speaker to handle. The speaker could be Linda Pastan herself. Linda, like the speaker, is both a mother and a wife. The speaker could also represent women everywhere who are tired of being judged all the time.

Lies by Martha Collins

Martha Collins is an American poet born im 1940 in Omaha, Nebraska. She received degrees from Stanford University and the University of Iowa. She taught at both the University of Massachusetts Boston and Oberlin College.

Lies

Anyone can get it wrong, laying low
when she ought to lie, but is it a lie
for her to say she laid him when we know
he wouldn’t lie still long enough to let
her do it? A good lay is not a song,
not anymore; a good lie is something
else: lyrics, lines, what if you say dear sister
when you have no sister, what if you say guns
when you saw no guns, though you know
they’re there? She laid down her arms; she lay
down, her arms by her sides. If we don’t know,
do we lie if we say? If we don’t say, do we lie
down on the job? To arms! in any case,
dear friends. If we must lie, let’s not lie around.

Analysis:

In the poem "Lies" by Martha Collins, the author uses word play and diction to express her belief that it is better to tell the truth than lie. Throughout the poem Collins uses three different versions of the word lie to tell the story of an affair between a man and a woman. She uses it to mean a false statement, sex, and to be at rest. For example in the passage, "but is it a lie/ for her to say she laid him when we know/ he wouldn’t lie still long enough to let/ her do it," the first "lie" means to fib, the second "laid" refers to sex, and the final "lie" refers to a man resting in a horizontal position. This word choice creates confusion for the reader. Collins creates this confusion purposely to represent the confusion caused by all the lies and secrets surrounding the affair.  Collin's also questions what is considered a lie when she says, "If we don’t know,/ do we lie if we say? If we don’t say, do we lie/ down on the job?" she is asking if extending the truth or omitting the truth is classified lying. These questions add the confusion that surrounds lies and contributes to the overall message that it is better to just tell the truth.

123rd Street Rap

To a Daughter Leaving Home by Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan was born on May 27, 1932 in New York. She is an American poet who is known for her writing about subjects like motherhood and family life. She is the mother of three children, one daugther and two sons.


To a Daughter Leaving Home

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.


Analysis:
The very title of this poem tells the reader the situation. The situation is that a daughter is leaving home. The mother of this daughter is recounting another time when the daughter left home. The mother is remembering when her daughter first learned how to ride a bike. She remembers her little girl riding away from her on a bike. Now her little girl is big and leaving home. The setting of this poem is at a park. This is revealed to the reader when the daughter rode her bike, "down the curved/ path of the park." This is the setting of the memory but I imagine that the speaker, the mother, is in a different setting when she is looking back at this moment in the park. The setting of the speaker is unclear. The mother could be standing in front of their house waving goodbye to her daughter or sitting in the car after dropping her off at her new home. Where ever the mother is she is yearning for the past. The author uses a nostalgic tone in this poem to express this. As the mother recounts the memory she uses simple diction. This helps express the mother's happy memories of a simpler past when the daughter was only eight. Now that the daughter is older and leaving for longer than a bike ride the mother is nervous for her child's future. In the memory the daughter "wobbled away" on a bike "down the curved path of the park." Now the daughter will have to wobble away down the twists and turns of life. The park is symbolic for life and the curved path represents its twists and turns. The mother may be nervous for her daughter as she leaves home but she has faith that she will be successful just like she was successful when riding the bike. The poem ends with the author comparing the author comparing the daughter's hair flapping to a handkerchief waving goodbye. This simile connects the memory to the current situation and ends the poem with a goodbye.

Dorthy Parker was born 1893 and died in 1967. She was a great American poet who was know for her wit and satire.

Analysis:

A Certain Lady is a poem that expresses the emotions that a women feels when she listens to the man he is in love with talk about other women. The speaker in this poem. The speaker in this poem is the author of the poem. Dorthy Parker is both the author and the speaker. She is the woman who is listening to her lover talk about other women. She is the woman who is laughing at her lover while she is really feeling the pain inside. The title of the poem, "A Certain Lady", tells the speaker of the poem. The certain lady is the speaker, Dorthy Parker.

In especially enjoyed this poem. The speaker of the poem, Dorthy Parker is very relateable character. Every girl, including myself can relate to this girl. We have all liked a man who is into other women and always talks about these women. He have all felt this pain while holding in our true feelings. 

A Certain Lady

by Dorthy Parker

Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head, 
       And drink your rushing words with eager lips, 
   And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red, 
       And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips. 
   When you rehearse your list of loves to me, 
       Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed. 
   And you laugh back, nor can you ever see 
       The thousand little deaths my heart has died. 
   And you believe, so well I know my part, 
     That I am gay as morning, light as snow, 
 And all the straining things within my heart 
     You'll never know. 

 Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet, 
     And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, — 
 Of ladies delicately indiscreet, 
     Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things. 
 And you are pleased with me, and strive anew 
     To sing me sagas of your late delights. 
 Thus do you want me — marveling, gay, and true, 
     Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights. 
 And when, in search of novelty, you stray, 
     Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go…. 
 And what goes on, my love, while you're away, 
     You'll never know.

Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey. He studied at Columbia University in New York and was a leading member of the Beat Generation.

Velocity Of Money

by Allen Ginsberg

I’m delighted by the velocity of money as it whistles through the windows
of Lower East Side
Delighted by skyscrapers rising the old grungy apartments falling on
84th Street
Delighted by inflation that drives me out on the street
After all what good’s the family farm, why eat turkey by thousands every
Thanksgiving?
Why not have Star Wars? Why have the same old America?!?
George Washington wasn’t good enough! Tom Paine pain in the neck,
Whitman what a jerk!
I’m delighted by double digit interest rates in the Capitalist world
I always was a communist, now we’ll win
an usury makes the walls thinner, books thicker & dumber
Usury makes my poetry more valuable
my manuscripts worth their weight in useless gold -
Now everybody’s atheist like me, nothing’s sacred
buy and sell your grandmother, eat up old age homes,
Peddle babies on the street, pretty boys for sale on Times Square -
You can shoot heroin, I can sniff cocaine,
macho men can fite on the Nicaraguan border and get paid with paper!
The velocity’s what counts as the National Debt gets higher
Everybody running after the rising dollar
Crowds of joggers down broadway past City Hall on the way to the Fed
Nobody reads Dostoyevsky books so they’ll have to give a passing ear
to my fragmented ravings in between President’s speeches
Nothing’s happening but the collapse of the Economy
so I can go back to sleep till the landlord wins his eviction suit in court.

Analysis:

In this poem Allen Ginsberg uses a sardonic tone to criticize importance placed on money in today's society. He believes that people are too focused on money. He expresses this when he says, "everyone running after the rising dollar." He is saying that people are chasing after money. While they chasing money they are placing too much importance over it. Ginsberg criticizes how people put money before family when he says, "buy and sell your grandmother." The sarcasm in this line enhances the sardonic tone of the piece. He is also angered about the current state of the economy and uses sarcasm to express this. He says he is delighted by the poor conditions of the economy when he really is not. For example, he is "delighted by inflation rates that drives me out on the street" and "delighted by double digit interest rates." Using this parallel structure and structure adds to Ginsberg's disapproving sardonic tone. It is clear through reading this poem that Ginsberg is an opponent of Capitalism. When he uses the word "Capitalist" to describe the world, it sounds like an insult. He also states that he is a communist in the poem.

I choose to analyze this poem because one if my favorite movies, Kill Your Darlings, is about Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation. I wanted to learn more about the great poetry by the famous poets that the characters in the movie are based off of. I really enjoyed this poem because of it's message. Although it was written in the 1987, I believe the truths in the poem can be applied to today's society. Too many people are too focused on money that they forget about important things like family and knowledge. 

Introduction to Poetry by Bill Collins

Bio of Author: Bill Collins

Bill Collins is an American poet born on March 22, 1941. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and was the appointed Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He currently works as a teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.

Introduction to Poetry

BY BILLY COLLINS

I ask them to take a poem   

and hold it up to the light   

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem   

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room   

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski   

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope   

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose   

to find out what it really means.

Analysis: 
This poem expresses a teacher's feelings about teaching his students about poetry. He trys to get his students to look at the poem as an abstract piece of art. He emphasis this by using abstract language and similar sentence structure. For example he uses a simile to compare a poem to a "color slide." By doing this he shows that poems are not straight forward; they are complex and abstract. He starts three stanzas with I and a verb, telling the reader what he wants for his students. Towards the end of the poem it becomes clear that his students are not doing what he wants. They are treating poems like a math problem; looking for a single concrete answer. They are abusing the art form, "beating it with a horse", by trying to find one exact meaning to a poem, "torturing a confession out of it." The speaker is obviously not pleased with his student's approach to poetry. It is actually very ironic that I am writing an analysis on this poem because I am writing about what the poem says and the poem is about how poetry does not just have one concrete meaning. 

I like this poem because it applies directly to me as a student studying poetry. I make me look at how I see poetry and how I can improve my analysis of it. I far too often look for the singular meaning to a poem. This singular message does not exist. I need to broaden how I analyze poetry.