Comments on: Three Lyric Poems

by: c8d1741fe9f3

Sun, 11 May 2008 02:21:59 +0000

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by: Kyle Hey

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:32:47 +0000

I enjoyed reading Those Winter Sundays a lot. I felt that I could relate to the positive aspects of the father portrayed in this poem. My own father works hard manually all week. In the winter he too gets up early to start our coal stove to bring heat to the house. Despite the cracked hand and the early morning the father in the poem still cared for his family. The father seems to get no reward or praise for his efforts but still continues to do the work to provide for his family. I really appreciate this depiction of fatherhood and responsibility. This poem also used a lot of imagery. I feel poet did a great job of wording this poem so that the images he constructed would come alive in my head. The “blueblack cold” and the “cold splintering” both give me visions of the cold and the heat piercing through it.

by: Bryant Vance

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:06:05 +0000

“A Mountain Spring” by Ch’u Ch’uang was one of my favorite lyric poems out of the ones that i read. This poem had a particular flow to it, just as the stream, because the reader never had a sense to pause or interrupt this flow with monotonous rhymes. I also LOVED how this poem SO descriptive. It was LOADED with verbs, painting this action filled picture in my mind - it falls, twists, makes, divides, flows, goes, and never changes. But no one knows about it! As expressed in the second line, the the speaker does not know its name, nor does anyone ask for its name. The stream is anonymous. Now, looking back on discussion from class, I wanted to pull a lot out from this poem. A lot of people had really interesting things as to what the poem stood for, or how it relates to their lives. However, I have a new found respect with NOT conducting a deep reading of poems like this. We discussed how there is great power when the reader holds back on the impulse to “over think” the poem. Take it for what it is. I did just that, and found a completely new meaning. It is a poem of beauty and comfort. The writer is blessed to have stumbled upon this beautiful, unnoticed creation and feels compelled to compose what he sees, along with his emotions, through poetry. Thats it.

Kudos to you Ch’u Ch’uang.

by: Eddie Poff

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:17:42 +0000

Those Winter Sundays evokes a great deal of emotion within me. It makes me think first of my own dad but also of his dad, who died when I was 2, so I never really got to know him. My grandfather was an alcoholic and a smoker and to be honest really wasn’t much of a father. The unique thing about both him and my dad is that they are about the most empathetic and selfless people I have ever known. My grandfather (norris) would chop wood, or do construction, or mow grass, or weed gardens, etc for elderly people in his neighborhood without telling them or them asking him. A person who helps people without even the desire for their knowledge of it, to me, is the definition of selfless. It is the utter desire to help people without any concern for reward. The personal satisfaction was what kept him going. My dad is a much better person than his dad was, as a result. He is exactly the same as the father in the poem, willing to get up and do things for his family early in the morning. The part that makes me sad is that both the character in the poem and my dad rarely are thanked for their selfless actions.

by: Brad Mensch

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:34:53 +0000

Morning Song is a poem you can read over and over and take from it a new modification each time. The first time I read this poem I was transported into a house feeling presence of an early morning. I took the title ‘Morning Song’ literally and this meant that I immediately thought of morning time in a log cabin. At first I could not relate to the poem because the title has nothing to do with a fat watch or a wife slapping a foot-sole. As I read on I got to the part where it talked about the window square and the night stars being dulled out. This part gave me hope that it still had to do with a warm morning in a cabin.
It was after I realized that this poem had mostly nothing to do with an actual morning that I decided to research it and find out what other people had to say about it in order to obtain more direction. As I researched I found that many people relate this poem to a newborn baby and its mother. This information was very insightful to me and my understandings of this poem. It certainly brought about a new light in my views.
Viewing the meaning of this poem as a newborn and its mother signifies much. Right from the beginning when it talks about love setting a fat gold watch shows that there is a relational aspect in which the main focus can rely on. The ‘fat gold watch’ portrays a very complicated and complex item that takes much time and effort in creating. A watch must be wound up in order to work and when a newborn is brought into the world it is like the watch that is wound up being given life in which to work from. To give the babe such life the mother first ‘slapped your foot-sole.’ Another way of saying this is that the mother is stimulating the baby in which it can cry and therefore get circulation. This is a very responsible way in order to start the baby off healthy.

by: Travis Croft

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:21:08 +0000

I really enjoy the poem A Mountain Spring. I have much time in the rocky mountains in my lifetime and I find this poem easy to relate to. The first sentence expressed the brook and how it looked like a piece. To me this has beautiful imagery. I can imagine being up in the mountains and seeing a small stream in the distance and having the sun relecting off of it. Being up in this remote region makes you believe that you are all alone and you are discovering something for the first time that others have not seen. This image is a very peaceful image where one would just sit back and take in all it is that God has made. I can imagine the poet writing this piece ontop of a mountain looking out into the vastness of the wilderness. This poem I believe has a metaphore that can relate to a shy individual. This shy individual may be shy on the outside. But he/she has alot to offer to everyone. Once you get to know this individual you can actually see the trueness and beauty of them. Similarily the stream within the poem can be glanced upon but if you do not take the time to observe the image it does not take as much significant worth

by: nick martin

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:17:30 +0000

“Those Winter Sundays,” by Hayden was a wonderful poem to read out loud (although it did feel a little awkward reading to myself . Unfortunately, most of what I picked up on has already been said but maybe I’ll have a few different things to add to the table. I really enjoyed digging deeper into this poem. I know this is definitely a bit of a stretch but, as I read the poem, I pictured the house as the world and the son as humanity. I thought this was a great example of how God toils for us to shelter us and keep us warm. Even though he does all of these things, humanity still doesnt give Him the acknowledgment he deserves. The ending really sums it up for me when he says
“Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.”
Also, when he discusses the chronic anger of the house, I possibly thought that could be the stuggle between good and evil. Mainly becuase God is constantly fighting for us. This poem also instilled a big sense of regret. I immediatly felt this after reading it becuase it makes me think of all of the times I have not given God the credit he deserves for starting the fire for me every morning.

by: Laura Harris

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:28:25 +0000

Smooth and twisty were the first two words that I thought of when I read A Mountain Spring. Kenneth Rexroth’s imagery is astonishing. First he speaks about the brook in the mountains which no one knows its name. This little brook is completely unknown or unseen, yet it exists. Its “shines on the earth like on a piece of the sky” means its reflexive of the sky. It must be so smooth, and so clear that its like a malleable mirror. How beautiful! Then, in multiple waterfalls, it falls away, and splashes onto the landing below sounding like rain. It sounds majestically, almost like something one would hear in a zen garden or a place for solace and relaxation. I notice that he uses a plural form of the word waterfall, and think its remarkable how something unknown and unnourished by the world can multiply and its path can continue to grow. Its self-sufficient. It then twits between rocks. There’s so much erosion, and other impressions and dubre that brooks in nature pick up and deposit as it glides by the natural surroundings. WHen it makes a deep pool, it provides an environment for little creatures to swim and breed. It then divides into islands, and provides nourishment for the creatures of the land to dip their tongues into. It then begins to settle as its journey flattens, and the path becomes calms. He ends saying “It goes its way with no one to mind it.” All of these events, they leave an impact on their surroundings, yet no one is there to know. It just happens. There’s a contentment in Rexroth’s language, when the years go by, the depths never change. The stream never becomes shallow, but continue to flow into the same pools and grow. I’m a great admirer of nature.

by: Derek Sipe

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:29:57 +0000

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden describes a father who loves his family very much but struggles to convey that love through words. However, his actions demonstrate his love more than any words could. I believe Hayden himself is writing this poem about his childhood and how his father sort of went unnoticed. In the last line of the first stanza Hayden even says “No one ever thanked him.” This is because the ways that his father showed his loved seemed like typical routine events that became expected by Robert and his family.

One of the more confusing yet interesting lines of the poem is at the end of the second stanza, where it says “fearing the chronic angers of that house”. This backs up my idea that Hayden’s father was not the best at sharing his love verbally, and I suspect that Hayden’s parents may not have had the best relationship. This fighting among his parents is what I believe Hayden is talking about when he says the “chronic angers”.

“What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” These are the final two lines of the poem and they leave the reader feeling a sense of regret and even bitterness. I believe the overall tone of this poem is regretful and these final lines agree. As an adult Hayden finally realizes the love his father had for the family and all he had done for them, and feels bad because he never thanked him or noticed all the loving deeds his father had performed.

by: Jordan Swisher

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:56:45 +0000

I thought our class’ analysis of “Those Winter Sundays” was very insightful. I liked our discussion of the poet’s diction when describing the cold as “blueblack” and “splintering” and “breaking.” These are such excellent descriptive words that bring clear images to mind of what the cold was like in his home. Also, I liked hearing classmates’ opinions on what the ending could mean. For myself, it doesn’t seem angry or resentful toward the speaker as much as it seems sadly self-reflective. As if he were saying to himself, “I wish I could change the past but I can’t. Alas.” Having more information about the poet’s biography and his parent’s frequent fights helps bring another level of understanding to lines like “fearing the chronic angers of that house.” This is a good example of a lyric poem because it is clearly coming from the point of view of an individual, perhaps the poet himself, and it is short and concise. It tells us about a feeling, more than a story.