Personal Helicon

“Personal Helicon” by Seamus Heaney can be seen as a pretty straight forward poem, but looking into the poem a bit more I found a bit of a deeper meaning. The very first thing I asked myself after reading the poem was what is a Helicon? I found that in Greece it is a mountain, and it is believed to be a source of poetic inspiration and the home of the muses. So, after finding out what a Helicon was, I began to look at the poem and pick out what his muse was; what was his source of inspiration? As a child it began that his muse was a well, and all the buckets, moss, and all the childhood memories that came along with it. There was a name that I didn’t know, and I felt there must have some importance to it because it looked like it was possibly a Greek name. The name was Narcissus, and I found that it was a Greek name, and he was a man in a myth that fell in love with his reflection in a pool and pined away, and he became the flower which bears his name now. This allusion to the myth of Narcissus really brings the whole poem together. “Now I pry into roots, to finger slime, to star, big-eyed Narcissus, into spring is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme to see myself, to set the darkness echoing,” with that first line it becomes a bit more clear that the well was his muse in to poem, and maybe that well represented his childhood and likeNarcissus, he fell in love with that child that he was. The parts, “Now I pry into roots” and “darkness echoing” I believe represents him in adulthood and him looking back through the memories of his childhood that he loved, his muse, and how it is fading… The sadness of his fading memories is represented perfectly by the tone with his use of dark words like “dark drop” and “trapped sky” and “dank moss,”ect. The sad tone also makes me think that maybe he is a little lost in adulthood because he uses dark words a lot, and I look at dark like being lost because nothing is clear in the dark. In the end, the poem was a cool, yet it was sad because of fading memories and him being a little lost in adulthood.

It was a dream

“It was a dream” was a simple poem by Lucille Clifton. Clifton describes her dream, taking an outside view looking at herself and what she has done with her life. There is a sense of anger with her self throughout the whole poem. Clifton starts the poem like this, “in which my greater self rose up before me accusing me of my life with her extra finger whirling in a gyre of rage at what my days had to come to.” From the start, it is revealed that obviously she hasn’t become exactly what she wanted, and her “greater self,” the one who knows she could have reached her dreams if she would have tried harder confronts her defeated self. I picture the same girl but one is business like, looks better off, and then I picture one who looks sloppy and a little lost, and the better off of the two is pointing a finger with rage not understanding why it was so hard to try harder. The second part of the poem is basically her reaction to what her greater self had said to her. “what, i pleaded with her, could i do, oh what could I have done? and she twisted her wild hair and sparkled her wild eyes and screamed as long as i could hear her This. This. This.” For this second part the angry tone is heightened, and the frustration from the greater self has become even greater. Thegreater self is showing that she isn’t going to accept the excuses and that there were so many things she could have done to better her self... there is always something. This poem has that angry tone, but I also think it has that fear in it too because of the word “pleaded,” and the lack of capitalization of “i,” and at the beginning of sentences gives off that sense of being fearful, belittled, or very unsure. If I were to interpret this dream I would think that this just represents the fear in a person of not realizing their dream when there were so many things that can be done to reach those dreams in life. In a couple of ways it reminds me of us seniors and going off to college, it scares a lot of us and the fear of failure and not reaching our dreams is scary and what can we say if we don’t succeed… what could have we done… who wants to admit that theydidn’t try hard enough? At the end of the day, this sounds less like a dream and more like a nightmare, for the realization of the possibility of failure can scare anyone and bring out a lot of anger within oneself.

Introduction to Poetry

“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins is the perfect description of how I was with poetry in the beginning of the year. Collins describes how he wants people to read a poem and talks about how a poem should be understood. “I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out,” meaning he asks readers to really get a sense for the poem, discover what it is about, and search for the meaning. “Or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch.” By that I believe Collins is describing how a reader should feel the poem, touch the poem, and be able to feel the feelings the poet wanted to portray. “I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore.” Basically, the poet wants the reader to have fun with the poem, enjoy it like they would waterskiing, and not whine at the sight of a poem. Collins describes what I did at the beginning of the year so perfectly, “But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it.” This is crazy how true this statement is because it is like from a young age we have been taught that there is always one meaning to a poem and only one. But when you get older and the poems get more complicated one will find that there are many of ways any given poem can be interpreted. Some still don’t get that, and they are in constant search for the overall meaning, and then that is when poetry becomes no fun and groans fill the room at the sight of it. My Dad put it like this, “A poet is like a man who makes a very nice sports car. He wants you to feel the engine and it’s power, he wants you to enjoy it, and he wants you to discover what the car has to offer. But he doesn’twant you to buy it only to take it home and tear it apart because then you have missed the fun and have missed out on why he really made that car.” A poet does have meaning behind every poem, but it is their own meaning, and when they think of the readers they hope that they can come up with their own meaning and enjoy it rather than suffer through it… beating it with a hose to find out what it really means…

The Hat Lady

“The Hat Lady,” by Linda Pastan, was a sad poem that took the reader through the death of a cancer patient with the use of hats. The “hat lady” possibly represents a doctor or a care giver for this lady who has cancer. She comes and “measures” for the mother’s hat, and it represents the docter measuring her health and how long the patient has left. “Last year when the chemicals took my mother’s hair, she wrapped a towel around her head. And the Hat Lady came, a bracelet of needles on each arm, and led her to a place where my father and grandfather waited, (…)” This is the part where the doctor or care giver takes the “needles and pins,” and gives the patient the drugs to help her slip peacfully into a different place and pass a way. When it says, “led her to a place,” I ultimatly think that references the care giver helping the cancer patient pass over to heaven. This poem takes hats and I don’t really know how else to describe it, but it makes them show death in a way? The first stanza helps describe my thinking, “In a childhoodof hats— my uncles in homburgs and derbies, Fred Astaire in high black silk, the yarmulke my grandfather wore like the palm of a hand cradling the back of his head— only my father went hatless, even in winter.” In this stanza I believe the hats represent the many that the poet knows who have had cancer and it has taken their life. She says that her father went hatless… so I can only conclude that he didn’t ever have cancer, but still is no longer with her because her mother meets her father again in heaven in the last stanza. At the end of the day, this poem was sad, yet it was very interesting; it really makes the reader think about cancer and how it affects many people in the world.

Song of the Powers

“Song of the Powers” by David Mason was an interesting poem that left a the reader with a simple moral or lesson. Mason’s poem is basically a simple description if rock paper sissors. He uses rock, paper, and scissors to represent those who hold power. Mason puts it like this, “As stone crushes scissors, as paper snuffs stone and scissors cut paper, all end alone.” This basically shows how those with power are in a fight against each other for more power, but in the end, however powerful one may be, they are now all alone. I think one of the strongest messages this leaves, is that power isn’t a very good thing and it should be shared, and maybe the best power is the power of unity and the power to refrain from greed and the need for all power. Mason makes it clear that there is that fight for power by the use of “mine” to begin the first three stanzas. Each stanza changes to the different object (rock, paper, scissors), but always starts with mine and then continues by describing the destruction of the other objects. An example of the greed and need for power looks like this, “Mine, said the stone, mine is the hour. I crush the scissors, such is my power. Stronger than wishes, my power, alone.” With any kind of power that is obtained there is always that want for more, and like the poem, “they all end alone.” At the end of the day, it is easier to share power than fight for only one to hold that power, for they will just end up alone and probably powerless when it is all said and done…

Tone Piece

Something that frustrates me to no end is how selfish and misunderstanding people can be in this world sometimes. Kelsey Thomas, first, the Mountain View soccer program manager, then captain, and now assistant coach, has been someone in my life that I have learned so much from. Assistant Coach Thomas has Down Syndrome, and she doesn’t let that stop her from doing anything that she wants to do in life. Kelsey is such an inspiration to others. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself at all, she is smart, has the biggest sense of humor, and is just a goofball. The thing that frustrates me about her situation is how people act like people like Kelsey are not people, and that they are “retards” or “idiots”. This absolutely drives me crazy, to the point where I have to take a deep breath so that I don’t give someone a black eye. The word retard is unacceptable and does not represent Kelsey one bit! When I tell people about Kelsey I simply describe her as the sweetest girl in the world, with the biggest heart, and she is just a little prankster. Not once do I ever feel the need to say “oh and she is retarded.” That is not who Kelsey is. Kelsey is that funny, joking, inspirational girl, who puts a smile on my face every day. I do know that not everyone has had the privilege of meeting such a wonderful girl like Kelsey like I have, but I find it tiring listening to people be rude and narrow minded. There are many people in the world, and people with disabilities or people who struggle a little more than others, and they are all part of our too. People need to realize that those people work harder in life than anyone else in this world everyday, and that is something to admire, not make fun of. It is heartbreaking when people insult Kelsey, and it has happened at soccer games before, and the worst part is that Kelsey knows about it, she is not oblivious to it, and it makes her upset. She doesn't let things like that drag her down she continues to take life and enjoy it as much as possible. I know others are not as understanding as I am to her situation, but it is something that gets old real quick. This is always something I am going to fight, no matter how frustrating because everyday that Kelsey is out there with the Mountain View soccer team she is making a difference, and she is doing something that not a lot of people with disabilities are not able to do. Kelsey is one of the most courageous people I know, and that is nothing to make fun of at all. I am tired of the hurtful things people say towards such a wonderful person as Kelsey, and it is time to grow up and take a look in the mirror before the word “retard” or “idiot” slips, and think who the real “idiot” is when a person doesn’t have the courage to admire someone like Kelsey.

A Study of Reading Habits

A Study of Reading Habits was a very odd poem, at first, but after getting the true meaning its oddness was very fitting. The poem had three stanzas. After thinking for a long time, I think I figured it out. Each stanza is a new stage in his life, but he represented them through the types of books a person read at that age. The first is his adolescence; he talks about the little underdog beating up the bullies twice his size. When a reader is little, the books they read allow them to believe that the good guy always wins. In the second stanza, I found this to be the teenager stage. At this age boys find it cool to be a bit of a rebel because they are in that awkward stage in life where they are still finding who they are. Larkin stated it like this, “Later, with inch-thick specs, evil was just my lark: me and my cloak and fangs.” When it starts with the part about specs it seems that maybe he was made fun of at this age for his glasses, and then he found that it was fun to be the evil character like a vampire because of his insecurities at the time, so enjoyed those thriller books. Then the last stanza I found to be a bit confusing. The stanza went like this: “Don’t read much now: the dude who lets the girl down before the hero arrives, the chap who’s yellow and keeps the store, seem far too familiar. Get stewed: books are a load of crap.” This I found to be the present time because it seems like he came to a realization when thinking about how his life is now. When a person gets older the books are more mature, more realistic; there is a sense of reality that at a younger age most wouldn’t enjoy. Now he isn’t fighting off people twice his size, he isn’t that evil vampire looking for a thrill, he is just that store owner who isn’t the hero and never gets the girl. He finishes with saying “books are a load of crap,” and I think it’s his funny way of saying that reality is boring. Maybe we all are a little jealous of those characters because they get to be the perfect hero, or thrilling villain. When that time comes and we grow up… books just are a load of crap… because rarely does anyone get to be those characters; we just get snapped back to reality to be those that are oh so familiar… And where is the fun in that?