"The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Lord Alfred Tennyson

     Lord Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England on August 6th, 1809 and died on October 6th, 1892 in Lugarshall, Sussex, England. He was born middle class, but had noble and royal ancestry. He was married and had two children. He became a Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during the reign of Queen Victoria.
1.

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.

2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
 Someone had blunder'd:
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.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
 All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
 Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
 Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
 Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
 All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
 Noble six hundred.

     In this masterpiece crafted by Lord Tennyson we see him describing a battle that took place between the British Light Brigade and the Russian Army at that time, in which 600 cavalry attacked 20 Russian battalions. Due to lack of communication the British were destroyed. Lord Tennyson somehow crafts this poem to seem like a charge itself with the tone of the poem going from low gallantry to high gallantry and then falling off into a more depressing tone. This drop is because of the result of the battle: the British being destroyed. The tone also speaks to the ideas Tennyson is trying to convey. These ideas include the respect he has for the men that charged into certain death, they also address his contempt for the British command. The tone is mournful, because as Poet Laureate he basically writes for the country he was selected to be the Laureate of, however it also conveys the thoughts of a country and the thoughts of those at this time were ones of anger at British command and respect and humbleness, because of the sacrifice of those 600 soldiers. The meter in this poem is dactyl and is stressed in the beginning and middle of the sentence which also could be described as the story of the battle itself, the high action of riding into battle being stressed first, then death which is a low point, then the return of the survivors, and the low point of the story they would later describe. you can see this meter especially in the line "Someone had blundered", in this sentence "some" and "blun" are the stressed. Rhyme scheme is a bit more complicated:
Forward, the Light Brigade!" (A)

Was there a man dismayed? (A)

Not though the soldier knew (B)

Someone had blundered. (C)

Theirs not to make reply, (D)

Theirs not to reason why, (D)

Theirs but to do and die. (D)

Into the valley of Death (E)

Rode the six hundred. (C)

the only connection I could find here is that the rhyme is grouped with the certain aspects it addresses. For example all the sentences that start with "theirs" end in words that rhyme together. Whether this is coincidence or not is hard to discern. I find it funny that such great works come from such great tragedies. Weird, right?

"I Am Like a Rose" by D.H. Lawrence

     David Herbert Lawrence, or more commonly known as D.H. Lawrence was an English poet and writer. He was born on September 11th, 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England and he died on March 2nd, 1930 in Vence, France.  During his comparatively short writing career he amassed fame, but also was heavily criticized and persecuted. He attended the University of Nottingham and was part of the Modernist literary time period.

I am myself at last; now I achieve

My very self, I, with the wonder mellow,

Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear

And single me, perfected from my fellow.

Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving

Its limpid sap to culmination has brought

Itself more sheer and naked out of the

In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought.

     In this poem we see D.H. Lawrence compare himself to a flower, this is symbolic of freedom, but at the same time remembering your roots, because as we know rose-bushes are connected to the Earth and the Earth is the mother of us, so in a symbolic sense we are all connected through her. The rose he is describing shows that he is finally free just as this rose for example he says, "...Itself more sheer and naked out of the green In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought". This example hints at an analogy between flowers and people. It speaks to the bloom of us. We are all beautiful in our own ways, just as the flower sticks out in a green world, we stick out in a world centered around the superficial and not the feelings and emotions of us. Lawrence blends the metaphor of flower and human being seamlessly, because they are two completely unalike things, but at the same time they can represent very similar things. Lawrence uses these elements of analogy, symbolism, and metaphor to link the physical and spiritual sides of a human to that of a blooming rose bush in a sea of green, just as we are people in a sea of other human beings. We are all the same, but we are all different, just as the rose is. As a reader and an enlightened person on D.H. Lawrence we can assume he is making these connections through the use of these devices, because of the persecution he faced, because of ideas that the "pack" did not consider to be socially acceptable at that time.

"body" by James Merrill

     James Merrill was born on March 3rd, 1926 in New York City. He went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and become a distinguished poet, although he did dabble in some other literary types, such as fiction. He died on February 6th, 1995 at the age of 68.

Look closely at the letters. Can you see,
entering (stage right), then floating full,
then heading off—so soon—
how like a little kohl-rimmed moon
o plots her course from b to d

—as y, unanswered, knocks at the stage door?
Looked at too long, words fail,
phase out. Ask, now that body shines
no longer, by what light you learn these lines
and what the b and d stood for

     In James Merrill's poem, "body" we see larger than life descriptions about the body it self and the moon. Merrill uses the moon to represent the cycle of life from birth to death. In line 5 we see that he refers to the "o" as the letter between "b and d" this is representative of the cycle of life, b represents the start and d the end. It is also interesting that he chooses body as representative of this life cycle, because Merrill's own body is very much failing at this time due to his infection with AIDS. It is interesting that such a simple word could represent so much to one man and without a little research the word would mean little when you read this poem. Therefore I purpose that diction however simple can be affected by the experiences of the person. I say this because, although his poem is something you can relate to, you cannot fully digest its meaning and his use of this particular language without first understanding what the man himself was going through. Imagine your immune system disappearing one day and leaving you to fight off diseases with a fist full of resiliency, you wouldn't last long, but to get back on track his description of the word body opens up the whole of our life cycle as living and breathing beings. The way he describes how "o" plots our course, because it is the entirety of our lives is just beautiful. Or how he mentions "y" being this lonely part who simply, "knocks at the stage door?". This leads me to believe that y is somehow the afterlife or heaven, or whatever you would like to call it. Even with the short and simplistic format of this poem we see a language that we can relate to, but it is still deep enough to evoke further thought and contemplation. Now, we should also touch on his use of stage directions, obviously this is describing our lives being somewhat like a performance on stage i.e. we get our ten minutes of fame and then we slowly fade, just as Merrill eventually fades and succumbs to death. James Merrill is sure to get you thinking about his words, even if not just analyzing the language of the poem, the message that radiates from this poem is powerful and worthy of being heard.

Aubade on East 12th Street by August Kleinzahler

     August Kleinzahler is an American Poet born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 10th, 1949 and is 64 years of age. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Victoria, he has won a number of awards including the Berlin Prize in 2000.

The skylight silvers
and a faint shudder from the underground
travels up the building's steel.

Dawn breaks across this wilderness
of roofs with their old wooden storage tanks
and caps of louvered cowlings

moving in the wind. Your back,
raised hip and thigh
well-tooled as a rounded baluster

on a lathe of shadow and light.

     In this poem we see the context of the story outlined in the beauty of both nature and the city. As we can see it is addressed as such by August Kleinzahler. In my opinion the context of knowing that he is comparing nature and a city is key, because it opens our minds to the idea that the author appreciates the beauty of nature just as much as he appreciates the beauty of a city. We can see it is a city, because Kleinzahler states, "...a faint shudder from the underground travels up the building's steel", referring to the skyscrapers in a city. The idea of the city being as free as nature is the main guiding force for what August has in mind. He is approaching the beauty of nature and is doing this by coming to us on terms that we would understand: a city. The context of the poem shows his thoughts on how both are always changing and becoming more diverse we also see that he thinks of these places as gathering areas for light, since light symbolizes hope and people and animals are drawn to it. The setting of this poem is the main contextual evidence, since there is no dialogue and characters to draw off of. Through the setting August Kleinzahler also shows how wild and untamed nature and the city are. Even when the city is full of technology and change it still remains a place of hustle and bustle just as nature and the environment does.

     

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

     Gwendolyn Brooks was born June 7th, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas and she later died of cancer at the age of 83 on December 3rd, 2000 in Chicago. She was buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois. She originally attended high school at the all white school named Hyde Park High School. She later transferred to Wendell Phillips an all black school and then to an integrated Englewood High School. She then graduated from Wilson Junior College. She was first published in a magazine at the age of 13 for her poetry. In 1939 she married Henry Lowington Blakely Jr. they went on to have two kids Henry Lowington Blakely III (1940) and Nora Blakely (1951).

                   THE POOL PLAYERS, 


SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.








We real cool. We 



Left school. We 









Lurk late. We 



Strike straight. We 









Sing sin. We 



Thin gin. We 









Jazz June. We 

Die soon.

     In this poem we see the prevalent use of "SPEAKER" in a simple eight line poem. AS we can see the narrator is speaking form the third person, because of the frequent use of the word "we". From this we can deduce that the speaker of the poem is speaking about other, people but her point of view is that of an adolescent that is "cool" and due to this sense of popularity this leads to the ultimate downfall of the adolescent which results in the death of the young death of those involved. This speaker is speaking in a light and short tone in which they describe these events simply and how they all lead to the ultimate ending, death. The speaker is also omniscient, because they know what will eventually happen to these people in this poem, the narrator foreshadows the quick and costly downfall of these young kids, we can also deduce that they are kids, because the author mentions them leaving school. There are two narrators in this story. The first is the boy or girl who is involved in these events, and the next is a author who waked into this group of dropouts. So we are told the narrative of both these young drop outs and the viewpoint of the author and her stance on what is going to happen to them. It is through these two speakers and the description of the seven pools players in the beginning that sets the narrators perspectives of both personal and distanced and guessed upon that we learn the authors viewpoint of these young dropouts. We learn as reader's through the author's narrative voice that she finds these young men or women will fail due to their lack of care about their schooling. We can see from her perspective that schooling has played a big role in her life and that she holds it at a high value and it makes her angry that these boys or girls are taking advantage of none of the opportunities presented to them. This may also speak volumes to the race issues that Brooks grew up with, due to this she feels angry at the fact that she struggled for hers and they laugh theirs off and do not take it to be important.

Alzheimer's by Kelly Cherry

     Kelly Cherry is a resident of Halifax, Virginia. This is the state in which she was selected by Governor Bob McDonnell in July 2010 to become the recipient of the Poet Laureate award. Cherry originated from Baton Rouge, Louisiana she was Born on December 21st, 1940 and she is currently 73 years of age. She attended the following universities: University of Mary Washington, University of Virginia, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She moved to New York at the age of 5, and later to Virginia at the age of 9. She is best known for her 25 major literary works.

     He stands at the door, a crazy old man

Back from the hospital, his mind rattling

like the suitcase, swinging from his hand,

That contains shaving cream, a piggy bank,

A book he sometimes pretends to read,

His clothes. On the brick wall beside him

Roses and columbine slug it out for space, claw the mortar.

The sun is shining, as it does late in the afternoon

in England, after rain.

Sun hardens the house, reifies it,

Strikes the iron grillwork like a smithy

and sparks fly off, burning in the bushes--

the rosebushes--

While the white wood trim defines solidity in space.

This is his house. He remembers it as his,

Remembers the walkway he built between the front room

and the garage, the rhododendron he planted in back,

the car he used to drive. He remembers himself,

A younger man, in a tweed hat, a man who loved

Music. There is no time for that now. No time for music,

The peculiar screeching of strings, the luxurious

Fiddling with emotion.

Other things have become more urgent.

Other matters are now of greater import, have more

Consequence, must be attended to. The first

Thing he must do, now that he is home, is decide who

This woman is, this old, white-haired woman

Standing here in the doorway,

Welcoming him in.

     Kelly Cherry addresses the mental degrading disease of Alzheimer's in the poem by crafting a story of a man who is returning to a house that is unfamiliar, but yet familiar to him all at the same time. The tone is somewhat bright in the beginning of the poem when Cherry addresses the kind of day it is in England at that moment. She specifically states that the sun is shining and reader's such as ourselves get the image of a man in the door well ready to enter the house and a shaft of light falling over him. This vivid imagery and the light tone of the poem quickly shifts from one of happiness to one of confusion and deep, deep sadness. The man who obviously is suffering from the disease remembers building it himself, but what he does not remember is recent events, he pictures himself as a young man, which strikes a chord at everyone's heart. Hold on though, the worst is yet to be revealed. As you read on you see that he is confused by one thing, a woman. As reader's we can only guess at the identity of the mysterious white haired woman, but somehow inside of us we can tell it is his wife. The most heart wrenching moment is when we realize that he does not remember her. The tone here epitomizes sadness, and the author hammers the nail in the coffin by stating that the man had to, "..decide who this woman is, this old, white-haired woman standing here in the doorway, welcoming him in". This makes the reader feel silent pain for the woman and this is also the tone of the poem, despite the shift from light and happy to silently painful and sad.

To Enter That Rhythm Where The Self Is Lost by Muriel Rukeyser

     Muriel Rukeyser (December 15, 1913 – February 12, 1980) was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. She was a progressive political activist for most of her life.Her poem "To be a Jew in the Twentieth Century" (1944), was adopted by a Jewish group and added to their prayer books. She attended Columbia University and private schools for her young adult life. She died in New York of a stroke caused by her diabetes in 1980.

To Enter That Rhythm Where The Self Is Lost

To enter that rhythm where the self is lost where breathing: heartbeat: and the subtle music of their relation make our dance, and hasten us to the moment when all things become magic, another possibility.
That blind moment, midnight, when all sight begins, and the dance itself is all our breath, and we ourselves the moment of life and death.
Blinded; but given now another saving, the self as vision, at all times perceiving, all arts all sense being languages, delivered of will, being transformed in truth - for life's sake surrendering moment and images, writing the poem; in love making; bringing to birth.

Muriel Rukeyser


In this poem by Muriel Rukeyser we see deep thoughts on the feminist movement during this time. Considering that this is at the height of the feminist movement in the 20th century we can easily see why she decided to address this as such. In the poem we see Rukeyser describing a scene of intimacy filled with vivid imagery. She describes a place in which the moment is inviting the reader and the "characters" in the story to join in on common experiences. I say "characters", because although not expressly stated the point of view describes the intimacy almost as if the narrator is experiencing this while telling the story. Rukeyser blends the ideas of love making and the intensity of it. She shows through this images that women should not be the lesser of two rather the greater, and if not that, then the equal at the very least. She characterizes the sexual desire of women to show that however different men and women may seem that they actually are not all that different. Their lusts and desires tend to be the same. she uses sex as a medium to spread this feminist view. I would have to guess that she uses sex, because it it such an intimate act, as well as an act that was not usually talked about. Making it a shocking poem, allowing it to better attract the attention of the readers.