Before I Got My Eye Put Out

The poem suddenly becomes much darker in the last stanza and a Billy Collins explains how teachers, students or general readers of poetry ‘torture’ a poem by being what he believes is cruelly analytical. He says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it”. Here, the poem is being personified yet again and this brings about an almost human connection between the reader and the poem. This use of personification is effective as it makes the

· In the first line of the poem, the speaker expresses her feelings towards men by using the word “Anger”(1). From just the

/ My breath came quickly, thinking it over―/I had no money, no one was looking.”(Lines 38-40) This depicts and captures the thoughts and actions of the speaker, she is scared, she was aware that stealing the book is a crime but she did not have money. The speaker is so interested in Louise Bogan’s book that she’d be desperate enough and willing to the steal the book. The tone has shifted and is now anxious and intense. The speaker is feeling guilty and unsure. Moreover, she discovers the fear inside her but also begins to see how much the poems had affected who she was. The speaker was actually considering taking the book and not paying for it, she was not thinking clearly, which demonstrates that the reading material had affected her. Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries had prompted her to discover a part of herself and how far she would go to get the

In the first part of the poem the writer shows the difficulty he is having with taking a human life. In the second stanza he says “Making night work for us the starlight scope bringing men into killing range. This dark tone helps to emphasize the struggle the author is feeling as a soldier in war. Also he shows his emotions directly. In stanza 3 he says “The river under Vi Bridge takes the heart away”. This quote shows the feeling that the author gets

Pain is something that few can resist showing, because on some level their survival depends on releasing some anguish. The eyes show all too readily the blunt realities of our world. They do this through more than tears, because some people have seen things so horrible and wretched that they have forgotten how to cry. One has but to look deeper, and the sparkle of his eye will tell a thousand stories far greater than with what the Arabian Nights ever enchanted its audiences.

"Out, Out" is a great example of a typical Robert Frost poem. This narrative poem tells a story of human tragedy through the death of a young boy. The poem shows how fragile life can be and how it can be taken from people in an instant. The boy's tragic death is illuminated for the reader by a commentator watching the incident from the outside looking in. There is a lot of detail given to the reader early on describing the saw and the way it "snarled and rattled." These details and the emphases on the boy's age and his wanting to leave work early made the situation destined for tragedy. It was as if Frost was preparing us for the tragedy to come, "And nothing happened: day was all but done"(9). This suggests that something is definitely going to happen. Another clue that something awful is about to happen is the way the saw is personified it: " leaped out of the boy's hand" (16). As it is described, the saw jumped out of the boy's hand when he is called for supper, "As if to prove that saw knew what supper meant" (15). Through the use of onomatopoeia, the saw is also made to sound vicious like an attack dog when it is heard to snarl and rattle. The personification and description of the noises of the saw makes defiantly it seem like a major character in the poem.

In the poem and parody the narrator was mourning over Lenore, his wife, because she had died, and said that his books would never be able to make him feel better about it. In the parody and in the poem the rustling of his purple curtains scared him, but in the poem he never said that he got as scared as the narrator did in the parody. In the poem when it says “...each separate dying ember wrought its

“Before I got my eye put out” is a poem which seems to be talking about how the speaker saw the universe before they got their eye put out , but it has a much deeper meaning to it. My interpretations on this poem is that the speaker wanted to be closer and experience nature by taking bigger steps and exploring the different dimensions but is stopped by a force of an instinct. I believe this because the speaker uses words that convey the impression that they were ecstatic about trying something new and eventually they find out they can't do it because of the what actually might be on the outside world. As it stated “So safer-guess-with just my soul …. Where other Creatures put their eyes - incautious -of the Sun …” line 18-21. This quote states the speaker's understanding of why it was safer to stay sheltered then to be out in the open where they were free and vulnerable. Another reason why I think they were willing to explore the world is because the speaker speaks of nature as theirs like it says “The Meadows - mine - The Mountains - mine -

In the first stanza of the poem, the second line is an example of imagery. The poet writes, “a darkness was ripped from my eyes” (Oliver 2). For centuries, artists have used “darkness” to portray the image of ignorance or lack of knowledge. A perfect example is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where darkness depicts lack of knowledge. Similarly, in this poem, Darkness portrays the image of ignorance. Therefore, the line, “a darkness was ripped from my eyes” (Oliver 2), means that ignorance was cut from the poet's mind. She learnt a new thing that she did not know before this encounter. The poet discovered that she should not discriminate people based on their work or profession.

. . should burn and rave at the close of day”(2). This means that old men should fight when they are dying and their age should not prevent them from resisting death. Another example of personification in the poem is “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay”(8). This line personifies the men’s frail deeds by saying that they could have danced. This means that the potential actions of the men could have flourished and contributed greatly to their lives. The metaphor “. . . words had forked no lightning. . .”(5) is about how the men had done nothing significant with their lives. They had not achieved anything great or caused a major change. The simile “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” is about how even grave and serious men will fight against death for as long as they can. Another notable example of figurative language within the poem is “. . . blinding sight”(13). This oxymoron details how the men can see very well and it is very obvious to them that they will die soon, but they know that they can control how they will leave this world. There is an abundance of imagery within this poem, a few examples of which are “. . . danced in a green bay”(8), and “. . . caught and sang the sun in flight”(10) . These examples of imagery are both appealing to the sense of sight by using descriptive words such as “Green” and “danced” in the first example and words such as “caught” and “flight” among others. The second example also appeals to the sense of sound by

When she says she is “practicing a wider lens,” she wants the reader to understand she is trying to broaden her mind, her thinking to her realization. Nonetheless, later coming to the realization that the bully is within her. The most vivid lines in this poem are lines six and seven when she writes,”I’ve been remembering the time I cried in a cloud of tear gas at a peaceful protest.” These lines show how she was no longer able to hold the bully inside of her within her. When she

And when the rain would fall down/ I’d just stared out my window” illustrates how the soul of the protagonist is confined and restricted by the world that the protagonist shares with all of the other people who also live on the same planet. In the following three lines, the protagonist sings of his/her wishes, but he/she is unable to fulfill those wishes because the society has imposed restraints. Those three

Emily Dickinson and Philip Larkin both explore power and powerlessness through their poetry, as they both present a power imbalance in the relationship between two individuals. Dickinson explores the position of woman in the 19th century to present the imbalance of power between men and women, an example of this is ‘My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun’, as one interpretation of the poem is the idea of unlocked potential in women. The poem illustrates the relationship between a gun and its owner, and presents the idea of dependency which slowly develops into the gun’s desperate need for its owner. During the 1800’s there was a stigma towards women that were unmarried at a certain age. Dickinson’s view towards the assumed role of women is exemplified

“An echosonnet: to an empty page” is a Shakespearean sonnet that manipulates literary devices to carry the story. Robert Pack introduces a voice and his subconscious as an echo. The two exchange questions and answers that reveal the poet’s apprehensiveness towards life. The voice appears as a man that’s afraid to jump into life because he fears the future and the inevitability of death. As the title suggests it is a sonnet created by an echo that provides answers to an empty page.

“That oppresses, like the Heft of Cathedral Tunes--.” It has a very heavy feeling derived from the word Heft as well as Cathedral Tunes. The Cathedral is considered sacred yet it is such as somber sound that it could easily affect a person’s mood. The use of paradoxes in the poem creates a sense of confusion about the true feelings about the revelation. “Heavenly Hurt” is both wonderful and horrible and suggests that the pain comes from the heavens. This suggestion is support in various situations throughout the poem. “Cathedral Tunes” and “Sent us of the Air” are the prime examples. It shows that this new realization may have been from a divine being therefore the reader is confused on it’s significance because it perhaps a type of gift. “Landscapes Listen Shadows—hold their breathe” is the personification used in the poem. This personification in the work shows that a divine being has arranged for this revelation to occur therefore, all of nature will halt to the being who has been selected to find this new piece of themselves. She also uses a bit of irony as well as parallel structure to set the scene in the poem. The revelation is brought out in the light of an wintery afternoon, this is the parallel yet it oppressive and dark which is ironic because the light brought with it such darkness.