The Giant Book of Poetry (2006)
Page 74
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: The apology which is not really an apology.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: dray: work cart with low or no wheels; understrapper: underling.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, AABBCC … End rhymes—Vocabulary: tremulous: trembling.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, dropping off to tetrameter then trimeter much as the life is tapering off.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: pips: dots.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: carob: an evergreen tree with pods that contain a chocolate type pulp; Etna: a volcanic mountain; paltry: contemptible; albatross: an allusion to the albatross in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; expiate: make amends for.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: Ezra Pound looked down on Walt Whitman’s poetry for most of his life, but eventually recognized that his own poetry was an outgrowth of a trend away from formal verse started by Walt Whitman.
2 Form: Free verse—Notes: The narrator resents sharing Francesca with the world, or even having them talk about her. He wishes that the world, and its problems, would just vanish and leave him and his love alone.
3 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: apparition: act of appearing.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: availeth: is better—Notes: The eyes of weary of reading and would rather look on the lovely but unspecified woman.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: skein: thread wound in a coil; anemia: low red blood cells resulting in tiredness—Notes: The narrator is very class conscious, and looks down on what he sees as the lower class while mentally toying with a bored woman from the upper class.
2 Form: Free verse—Notes: The narrator sought after a comfortable life, but now those trappings of life are unwanted and the narrator longs for something new, and more specifically, longs to experience something new and foreign with his love.
1 Form: Mostly iambic tetrameter—Vocabulary: Daphne: nymph who changed into laurel tree to escape Apollo; wold: unforested plain.
2 Form: Iambic tetrameter, AAA end rhymes—Vocabulary: enmity: deep-seated hatred.
1 Form: Sonnet.
1 Form: Prose poem.
2 Form: Iambic tetrameter, AABB end rhymes.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, AABB end rhymes—Vocabulary: fen: marsh.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: deprecate: belittle; effrontery: presumptuousness.
3 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: congruence: appropriateness—Notes: Twisted, disjointed phrases make this a hard poem, but the observations about a steamroller (or metaphorically, any group, parents, company, and so on, that forces conformity) is contrasted with the image of a butterfly (individuality, freedom).
2 Form: Mostly iambic, irregular line lengths—Vocabulary: quay: wharf.
1 “Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: insidious: subtly harmful; malingers: feigns illness;
Lazarus: man raised from the dead by Jesus (Bible); Prince Hamlet: from ““Hamlet””
(Shakespeare); obtuse: unintelligent;
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
f I did think my answer would be spoken To one who could ever return into the world,
This flame would sleep unmoved.
But since never, if true be told me, any from this depth Has found his upward way, I
answer thee, Nor fear lest infamy record my words.
- from Dante’s Inferno, XXVII, 61-6]
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: The waiter wants to get the hysterical woman outside, but the narrator is only concerned with enjoying the moment in general and her breasts in particular.
2 Form: Prose poem—Vocabulary: Yezhovism: reference to Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, head of the Soviet secret police 1936-1938 during the “great purge”; torpor: lethargy.
1 Form: Iambic, irregular line lengths—Vocabulary: palpable: tangible; medallions: Greek coin.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Istrian: a peninsula in the Adriatic sea.
1 Form: Iambic, 3-3-4-3 pattern, ABAB end rhymes.
1 “Form: Mostly iambic pentameter, some trochaic lines, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: Knock-kneed: knees close together, ankles apart; lime: caustic chemical; cud: something held in the mouth and chewed, as tobacco; Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori: It is glorious to die for your country.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: corolla: the bloom of a flower.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Dimeter lines consisting of an iamb and an anapest xAxA end rhymes—Vocabulary: mould: earth of a grave.
1 Form: Ballad.
2 Form: Free verse—Notes: Here the pond may be a literal pond, or a symbol for anything in life that is ugly beyond redemption.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: vesper: evening prayer.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Iambic trimeter, xAxA end rhymes.
2 Form: Free verse.
3 Form: Free verse.
4 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: larking: carefree adventure—Notes: A metaphor, with drowning standing in for being overwhelmed in life, sinking even as those around us think we’re waving.
1 Form: Free verse, AABB end rhymes—Vocabulary: Lions exist (Latin); Liturgically: to do with the Church.
1 Form: Prose poem—Vocabulary: Dichtung and Wahrheit: Sealing and truth.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: polytheists: believers in many gods.
3 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Marginalia: notes in the margin of a book; femurs: leg bone; pottered: to be busy with unimportant things.
1 Form: Free verse, irregular end rhymes—Vocabulary: Hyacinth: floating, flowering plant—Notes: A metaphor for inner strength or hidden support helping to overcome problems.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: taboret: low stool; hirsute: hairy; marguerites: daisy-like flower.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: arctics: rubber boots—Notes: This poem describes the epiphany of self-awareness, and the associated relationships with family, gender, and the human race.
1 Form: Villanelle—Notes: Notice how the refrain takes on an increasingly deep meaning as the poem progresses.
1 Form: Sestina—Vocabulary: Marvel Stove: brand of wood-burning stove; equinoctial: at the time of the equinox.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: I read this as the fire balloons representing Robert Lowell’s poetry, shining like stars, sometimes starting a fire that illuminates and destroys. Fire balloons are tiny hot air balloons made from paper or thin plastic wrap using a candle as the heat source.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: portent: prophecy.
1 Form: Iambic, irregular line lengths, irregular end rhymes.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: slacked or shorted: other shoppers wearing slacks or shorts.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: The “mother’s sleep” is safety at home, and here the “state” is the military.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: We are all sometimes faced with difficult decisions, in this case what to do about the still living, unborn fawn in the dead deer’s womb.
2 Form: Villanelle.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: careening: rushing carelessly.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Parnassus: mountain in Greece sacred to the muses.
2 Form: Iambic tetrameter, 2 lines rhymed per stanza—Vocabulary: Vergissmeinnicht: forget-me-not; abased: reduced in prestige; swart: dark skinned.
2 Form: Prose Poem—Vocabulary: gleaning: collecting bit by bit—Notes: Perhaps a metaphor for life or for relationships?
1 Form: Free ver
se—Vocabulary: Icons: image; cryptograms: writing in code; obverse: facing side; Jupiter Ammon: Greek (Zeus), Roman (Jupiter), and Egyptian (Amun) god with a ram’s head.
1 Form: Iambic pentameter, AABB end rhymes—Notes: Perhaps metaphorically describing the way we are perfected through adversity?
2 Form: Prose poem—Vocabulary: coons: raccoons; castigate: criticize severely.
1 Form: Iambic, 5-3-5-5- pattern, ABAB end rhymes.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABBCAC end rhymes—Vocabulary: Arundel: region in West Sussex, England; effigy: likeness; supine: laying on their back; tenantry: tenants of an estate; skeins: a length of thread; blazon: coat of arms—Notes: Here the spouses posed for a sculpture to be used on their tomb, him in armor, while holding hands. The sculptor caught this moment, and their expression of love is what has endured.
1 Form: Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), but meter varies (falls apart) in last two lines, much as the relationship’s flaws are made obvious in the last two lines.
1 Form: Iambic tetrameter, ABAB end rhymes—Vocabulary: soppy: sentimental.
1 Form: Iambic, irregular line lengths—Vocabulary: sovereign: supreme—Notes: There is an implied acceptance of the natural order of things built into this poem.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: chaste: virtuous; ewe: female sheep.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Granicus: Battle in 334 BC where Alexander defeated the Persians.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: plumb; properly vertical; true: properly aligned; skewing: tilting—Notes: The house may be read as a metaphor for the marriage, or perhaps for some other problem area in life which becomes a cross.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: alluvial: flood plain or delta; solace: comfort.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Prose poem.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: fatuous: smugly and unconsciously foolish.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: On a literal level physical movement, or even the movement of time, resulting in death all around us, from minute mites to large organisms. The basic idea also applies to non-physical things like ideas, where intellectual movement creates new ideas and destroys old ones.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Mostly iambic tetrameter, ABABCC end rhymes—Notes: This poem tells a story, but really, only enough of the story to leave us speculating about what actually happened to Jane (was she seduced?, raped?) and what will ultimately happen to her?
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: invigilate: Monitor.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: The season metaphorically describes the narrator’s old age, and the distant bank of the river represents death. Rivers are often a passageway to death in myth.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: The poem is a metaphor for aging.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: fodder: coarse food; slops: leftovers served to animals.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: Notice the sense of a secret shared as the moon-beams are mentally turned into something living.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: hames: part of a harness; sledges: sled on low runners; cordwood: wood cut to 4 feet; Glenwood: brand of stove; Holsteins: species of cow; Quartertop: mostly open buggy.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: catafalque: platform for a coffin.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: This poem illustrates the beauty that can be found within the midst of ugliness.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: beguine: a ballroom dance.
1 Form: Trochaic, irregular line lengths, ABABCC end rhymes—Vocabulary: disaligned: unaligned; “Twelve-fingered”: physical deformities in general, and extra fingers in particular, were taken as a sign that someone was a witch. “my ribs crack where your wheels”: a medieval form of torture, sometimes applied to people accused of witchcraft, was to break their limbs and thread them through the spokes of a wagon wheel, then hang the wheel horizontally in the air on a pole.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: The serpent: the father’s penis in this case.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: wrangle: argument; pottage: stew.
1 Form: Iambic trimeter, irregular but frequent end rhymes—Notes: Notice the double meaning of the title, meaning both “life yet remains” and a “still life” as in a painting, which has the appearance of life but no actual life.
2 Form: Iambic trimeter, two end rhymes per stanza in irregular positions.
1 Form: Prose poem.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Sarajevo: capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Kai: narrator’s son.
1 Form: Free verse—Notes: This list of things needed to be a poet includes all forms of fundamental human experience, both the positive and the negative.
1 Form: Free verse—Note: The poem addresses redeveloping a relationship with yourself after breaking up as a couple.
2 Form: Loose iambic pentameter, unrhymed.
1 Form: Prose poem.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Orpheus: Thracian poet and musician who’s music had the power to move inanimate objects.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: versification: writing poetry.
1 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: Esso: brand of gasoline station; PATRIA O MUERTE: Fatherland or death.
2 Form: Free verse.
1 Form: Free verse.
2 Form: Free verse—Vocabulary: jute: a rough fiber.
1 Form: Prose poem—Vocabulary: desiccated: foods preserved by drying; lacunae: missing parts; coquettish: teasing with sexual or romantic overtones; apparition: ghostly figure; circuitous: roundabout; brocade: heavy fabric with rich, raised design—Notes: The village in the story is a symbol representing any situation that is tolerable but not pleasant (for example, purgatory, a job, a location) and the bus represents the potential for escape from that place or thing. Notice how the earlier dream-like observations are pulled together in the end, with the bus including the mysterious letter writer as the Virgin Mary, the woman from the postoffice as the passenger, the color scheme of the tiles within the bus, and the two boys from the bus stop as the drivers.