TEWWG

"At dat she ain't so ole as some of y'all dat's talking...Tea Cake ain't been no boy for some time. He's round thirty his ownself." (page 3)

This tells us that Janie Starks is over 40 years old and is still dating (or looking for) younger guys. Though they say that the one she's with is around 30, so he's not a boy by any means. But this also tells us that Janie looks good outwardly for being over 40 (referring back to "the men noticed her firm buttocks....then her pugnacious breasts trying to bore holes in her shirt.") and she can get younger guys to pay attention to her.

TEWWG

"So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from burying the dead...their eyes flung wide open in judgement." (page 1)

This paragraph is talking about a woman who has been dealing with people who are in horrible conditions, like starving or suffering from malnutrition (sodden and the bloated). The speaker talks about them being "dead," which they aren't, but they probably wish they were. Their eyes being "flung wide open in judgement" might refer to them realizing no one can really help them, that they're trapped in a problem they can't get out of.

TEWWG

"Now women forget all those things they don't want to remember...The dream is the truth." (page 1)

This paragraph is the speaker's contrast to the first paragraph about men and how they always watch their dreams, which are just out of reach yet still in sight. The speaker is saying that instead of watching their dreams and waiting for them to happen, women go on with their lives as if their dreams were going to happen no matter what. This paragraph tells us that maybe the situation(s) these women are in might be hopeless without dreams to hold onto, so they cling to their dreams like duct tape clings to itself.

TEWWG

"Ships at a distance have ever man's wish on board...That is the life of men." (page 1)

In this paragraph the speaker is talking about wishes and dreams. The ships do not actually have every man's wish on board, but instead they are metaphors for those wishes and dreams. What the speaker means by this paragraph is that while some men get everything they want (the ships coming in with the tide), others aren't so lucky and their wishes only get presented once they've given up (never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation). Those unfortunate ones are often discouraged and therefore their dreams are "mocked to death by Time." According to the speaker, this is the life of all men, waiting for something to happen then seeing that it only does after it's too late.

TEWWG

"The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets;...still it was a hope that she might fall to their level some day." (pg. 2)
This paragraph is saying that for being over 40 she is very attractive and the men still notice her when she walks by. While the men watch after her and remember how she filled out the clothes, the women remember the fact that she was wearing ratty-looking clothes that they could use against her if nothing else. They also hold some hope that her clothes symbolize that she might fall from a class above them, down to their level.

"She sits high, but she looks low. Dat's what Ah say 'bout dese ole women runnin' after young boys." (pg. 3)
The women are saying that she may have money, but she dresses and acts like she's poor. Also, that she's chasing after guys who are younger than her (like Tea Cake). And the person speaking disapproves of such behavior, so that puts Janie lower on her list of respect/approval.

"An envious heart makes a treacherous ear." (pg. 5)
This quote tells us that there is something about Janie that the other women are envious of. Maybe it's her hold over their men or the fact that she's of a higher class.

"Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf." (pg. 6)
Janie is saying here that what she tells her friend is the same thing that she would tell anyone who asked. It's also what her friend would say if he/she was asked about her.

"They don't know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings and if love is a bed-quilt." (pg. 6)
What this quote is saying is that people are so caught up in other people's business that they wouldn't know love if it bit them on the butt, or what living life is if they were to die then. They don't pay enough attention to the things going on in their own lives because they're too obsessed with someone else's.

"If they wants to see and know, why don't they come kiss and be kissed?" (pg. 6)
I'm not quite sure what she means here. It's an interesting quote, but it's confusing to me. Might this have something to do with the "my tongue is in my friend's mouth" quote?

"De Grand Lodge, de big convention of livin' is just where Ah been dis year and a half y'all ain't seen me." (pg. 6)
Janie is explaining to us where she's been for the time she's been gone that everyone's been wondering about.

"They don't need to worry about me and my overhals long as Ah still got nine hundred dollars in de bank." (pg. 7)
Janie's telling Pheoby that she's still well-off and she has her money in the bank, that she needn't worry about her until that's no longer true.

"Tea Cake ain't wasted up no money of mine, and he ain't left me for no young gal, neither." (pg. 7)
Self-explanitory...She's discrediting any rumors floating around about her and Tea Cake.

"Pheoby, we been kissin'-friends for twenty years, so Ah depend on you for a good thought. And Ah'm talking to you from day standpoint." (pg. 7)
This means that she trusts Pheoby, and has for twenty years. Kissing-friends refers to her quote "my tongue is in my friend's mouth," which is about her trusting Pheoby to tell things as she says them.

"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches." (pg. 8)
She's foreshadowing the flashback later about the pear tree, sitting beneath it for three days every chance she got, and soon after, letting Johnny Taylor kiss her. The pear tree symbolizes marriage to Janie. By referring to her life as a tree, she's saying she's married (to Tea Cake) and that she's been through some good and some bad, but she's still standing strong.

"Ah ain't never seen mah papa. And Ah didn't know 'im if Ah did. Mah mama neither." (pg. 8)
This tells us that she was raised by her grandma, not her parents. It also tells us that she doesn't really know who her parents are.

"Mah grandma raised me. Mah grandma and de white floks she worked wid. She had a house out in de back-yard and dat's where Ah wuz born. They was quality white folks up dere in West Florida. Name Washburn." (pg. 8)
Her grandma raised her in the house, on the Washburns' property, that she was born in. This also tells us that she lived in west Florida for at least a while.

"Ah never caled mah Grandma nothin' but Nanny." (pg. 8)
Is that because that's what all the white kids called her, because that's what she was, or because she didn't know she was colored as well?

"Nanny used to ketch us in our devilment and lick every youngun on de place and Mis' Washburn did de same. Ah reckon dey never hit us ah lick amiss 'cause dem three boys and us two girls wuz pretty aggravatin', Ah speck." (pg. 8)
Her grandma used to catch them when they got into things and punished them for doing so, as did Miss Washburn. And Janie suspects that the adults never hit them when they didn't deserve it because they were always caught and punished when they did something wrong.

"Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn't know Ah wasn't white till Ah was round six years old." (pg. 8)
Janie didn't know she was colored until she was 6 years old because she was around them so much and they probably didn't treat her any different.

"A man come long takin' pictures and without askin' anybody, Shelby, dat was de oldest boy, he told him to take us." (pg. 8-9)
Shelby, the oldest boy of the five, told a man who was a traveling salesman (taking pictures and selling them to you) to take their picture which is how Janie finds out that she's colored; it also gets them all punished because it cost Ms. Washburn money when they got the picture.

"So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn't nobody left except a real dark girl with long har standing by Eleanor...Ah don't see me." (pg. 9)
Everyone was shown where they were and the only person left is a real dark-colored girl and Janie doesn't realize that that's her. She thinks it might be someone else in her spot.

"Everybody laughed, even Mr. Washburn...don't you know yo' ownself?" (pg. 9)
Janie didn't even recognize herself when she looked at the picture.

"Dey all useter call me Alphabet 'cause so many people had done named me different names." (pg. 9)
Apparently many different people have "named" her in her younger years.

"Aw! Aw! Ah'm colored!" (pg. 9)
She's obviously not happy when she finds out that she's colored, not white like the other children.

"But before Ah seen de picture Ah thought Ah wuz just like de rest." (pg. 9)
Before Janie saw that picture, she thought she was white.

"Dere wuz uh knotty head gal name Mayrella dat useter git mad every time she look at me...Dat useter rile Mayrella uh lot." (pg. 9)
Mayrella was upset because Ms. Washburn would dress Janie in her kids' old clothes, which was still better than what the other kids at her school had.

"Den they'd tel me not to be takin' on over mah looks 'cause they mama told 'em 'bout de hound dogs...so he could marry her." (pg. 9-10)
People are trying to rile Janie up by talking about the bloodhounds the sheriff and Mr. Washburn sent out to look for the man who raped Janie's mom (Janie's dad, a teacher), but they don't talk about how he was going to come back later to marry her.

"Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the backyard...It stirred her tremendously." (pg. 10)
When she wasn't doing chores, Janie spent every second she could under a blooming pear tree in the back yard. She watched it for three days, from the time its first bloom opened. It was a mystery and it intrigued her; she wanted to know how and why it could go from barren brown stems to leaf-buds to blooms. Maybe she's trying to look at her own life like the tree, growing from not much of anything and growing into something beautiful and captivating.

"She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace...Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid." (pg. 11)
Janie is experiencing/seeing love for the first time. She sees the harmony and bliss in the marriage between the bee and the blossom and longs to feel like that herself.

"Oh to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom!...Where were the singing bees for her?" (pg. 11)
Janie is 16 and wanting to know what it feels like to be loved like the bee and the blossom (see above).

"In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes." (pg. 11-12)
Before opening her eyes and awakening (as Thoreau called it), she didn't really notice Johnny Taylor as anything other than just another person there. Now that she is in this hormonal teenage girl mood where you notice everything to do with guys, she actually sees him for the first time.

TEWWG

"What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls?...in her class?--" (page 2)

This paragraph tells us a lot about this woman. She works late hours, longer than anyone else (she's coming into town when everyone else is already on their porches). She's a widow who was left with money from her husband's death. This woman is forty years old. She has long hair. She has been keeping company with a younger male (they might have been engaged). She doesn't seem to have the money she once had (they assume the guy did something with it). The guy she was with might be having an affair with an even younger woman than himself. And this woman in overalls is looking for mates outside of her class.
The paragraph also tells us something about the person speaking. It shows us that they are probably less educated and southern because the dialect is distinctly southern.

Walden

I was doing research, trying to figure out what Thoreau was saying in Walden and stumbled across this website. Hope it helps.

www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/walden/titlepage.html

The Second Coming

I don't think we have this in our books, so I'm posting it to make it easier to find.

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Personification—giving human characteristics to something nonhuman
-Envious moon

Metonymy—substituting the name of an attribute for the thing that is meant
-Suit for business executive

Apostrophe—An exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one that is personified)
-The woman talking to herself (or the mirror) in The Wastelands (A Game Of Chess)

Synecdoche—a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole (or vice versa)
-Skagway had runners in the top ten at state (meaning Skagway’s cross country team)

Symbol—a thing that represents or stands for something else
-Gold is a symbol of wealth

Allegory—a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one
-After Apple-Picking

Paradox—a statement or proposition that leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory
-The paradox of war is that you have to kill people in order to stop people from killing each other

Overstatement—an exaggerated statement (too strongly expressed)
-The bed was colder than ice

Blues

Woke up this morning with sand in my eyes
Yeah, I woke up with morning, sand in my eyes
Laying on the road on my back
Yeah, I was laying on the road on my back

I hear that rain water dripping
It's dripping down on my head
I feel that rain water whipping
It's being whipped by the wind

I feel that cold rain just falling
Raindrops, falling on my head
I hear the wild wind a-blowing
Blowing on down the road

But I see sunshine, on this cloudy day
Yes, I see sunshine on a cloudy day
And I hear a train whistle blowing
Train whistle blowing, headed my way


*Fielding this is so much harder than the Villanelle or even the Sestina I was writing. Those came naturally, but this is so out of my range. This is torture, I swear it is!*

My Poem--Villanelle

Baby says he loves me
But I don't think that's right
He never wants to show it


Even if we're then apart
When he turns in at night
Baby says he loves me

Is he playing with my heart
Ev'ry night, flips off the light
He never wants to show it

Am I ever gonna get smart
To his games, when every night
Baby says he loves me

This dance, turning into an art
I don't want to always fight
But he never wants to show it


Something tugging at my heart
When he turns off the light
Baby says he loves me
But he never wants to show it

Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota

1) The speaker is lying in a hammock looking at the nature that's surrounding him.
2) The person in the hammock is very observant. He notices the colors and sounds of the things he sees/hears. He may be a returning guest, but he does not live at the farm.
3) He notices the small things that most people would find insignificant and explains them. He does more than just say the generalized statement like "oh, there's a butterfly." I know that he's a guest because of the title (...William Duffy's Farm...) and because farm work is constant and continuous. There is no end to farm work, so if he worked/lived there he would be working instead of lying in a hammock.
4) The title lets me know who the speaker is (a guest at a farm), what he's doing (lying in a hammock), where he is (on a farm in Pine Island, Minnesota), and who he's there to see (William Duffy).
5) The speaker notices all the small things: the colors, the sounds. He sees a bronze butterfly resting on the black truck of a tree, swaying, like a leaf blowing in the wind. He hears repeating cowbells from a place down the river, which is behind an empty house. To his right he sees two pine trees and a patch of sunlight where horse droppings from the year prior are reflecting the golden rays of the sun. He relaxes further as the day begins to fade. He sees a chicken hawk soar overhead.
6)a) As the poem progresses, the speaker is describing what he sees and hears, but he is also letting us know how he feels about his own life. "Over my head" could mean that the speaker is unsure of what exactly is going on in his life. "Asleep" could be taken to mean that the speaker is young or doesn't have a clear view of life as it is while it's occuring. The butterfly blowing like a leaf could be a symbol of his life being shaky and uncertain, like he's at a crucial point in his life or he's doing something he's never experienced before. The empty house could symbolize that his life isn't as full as he wishes it was, maybe he's been restricted from doing something he wanted to or the opportunity hasn't arose yet. The afternoon that he is observing could be symbolic of his life, that he's middle-aged now and starting to get older and maybe a little wiser. The fact that there's a field of sunlight between two pine trees to his right might be saying that he's at a point where he has to make an important decision and he can see what he thinks is the right choice, but in reality it's nothing spectacular. Those "golden stones" he sees are the right choice, but really they're "droppings," or not a good choice. The darkening evening might be saying that the speaker is near death. The chicken hawk floating overhead is searching for a home much like a soul looking for a place to go after the physical death of its host body.
6)b) The succession of ideas is, in a way, much like the natural progression of life. In the beginning of the poem the speaker is young and uncertain ("over my head" and "asleep") and his life isn't as full as he wishes it could be ("empty house"). The speaker is then referring to being older ("afternoon") and a difficult choice, maybe a mid-life crisis of sorts, where he can see what he thinks is the correct choice ("field of sunlight between two pines"), but that supposedly correct choice isn't always what it seems to be ("droppings of last year's horses blaze up into golden stones"). Then the speaker is talking about getting older, getting the hang of things and settling into his life, understanding the rhyme and reason of things ("I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on"). At the end of the poem the speaker is at the end of his life and his soul is searching for a home ("chicken hawk floats over, looking for a home").

Sestina: Altaforte

This poem is about a man, Bertrans de Born, who loves to fight. It seems that the only reason he loves to fight is because he thinks peace is too "womanish," like it's a cowardly idea. Every time Pound uses the word peace in this poem, he's saying something bad about it ("all this our South stinks peace," "the earth's foul peace"). He also uses the word crimson, which can mean bravery and blood. I think that Pound is trying to let us know that de Born thinks he's courageous and brave by battling all the time, but all he's really doing is shedding innocent blood. Music is another word that Pound chose to use. When I think of music, I think about the nice-sounding, meaningful songs that we all listen to, but music to de Born is something different. Music to de Born is the sound of swords clashing, thunder roaring, and the battle cries of heard through the night.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

In the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" either the title line, "rage, rage against the dying of the light" or both are repeated in each stanza to give the poem a new meaning. In the first stanza the writer is saying that in their last days someone isn't wanting to leave this earth. In the second stanza the author tells us that though wise men know their time is up, they too, do not want to die. The author explains in the third stanza that as "good men" near the hour of their death, they feel an undeniable rage at the fact that there is no more time. The "wild men" that the author talks about, who have "caught and sang the sun," are those that were always living life to the fullest of their ability and never slowed down for anything, but now that they're close to the end they've realized that they could have done more with their lives than strictly having fun and they don't want their time to end. These "grave men" the author talks about are probably old and nearly blind, yet they know so much it seems like they know everything. And though they know they're getting close, they too, want to rebel against the thought of dying. The last stanza is a more personal stanza, the author praying futilely that his father will fight death like all the others, even though it would be pointless because a person can only live so long before they finally have to give up.

The Road Not Taken

1) No, the speaker does not feel that he has made the wrong decision by taking the road less traveled. He says that doing so has made all the difference. The speaker sighs because he knows he has accomplished something by taking the road less traveled by. His regret is only that he could not take both roads and was made to choose.

2) A choice between two roads that seem very much alike will make such a big difference many years later because that decision, that path, will open up different opportunities in the future. The one he picks now will influence the rest of the decisions in his life because while the two roads seem alike right now they branch out with different options. Some of those might ultimately be the same, but there's guaranteed to be at least a few different choices on each road.

The Road Not Taken is about a person who comes upon a big decision in his life and has to choose what he's going to do (which road to take). He thinks through the first decision (looked down one as far as I could ln. 4), then thinks through the other option. He decides to go the direction most people wouldn't have taken (it was grassy and wanted wear ln. 8), but if ever he finds himself in that situation again he says he'll try the other option (I kept the first for another day ln. 13), though he doesn't believe he'll ever be faced with that decision again (yet knowing...come back ln. 14-15). At the end the author sighs; it's not a sigh of despair but one of achievement. He seems to be very pleased with the decision he made and the path it has opened up to be (I took...the difference).