Katie+Horn

Wiki Poetry Project By: Katie Horn

**Edwin Arlington Robinson** Edwin Arlington Robinson was born on December 22, 1869 in Head Tide, Maine. His father, Edward Robinson, was a timber merchant and civic leader and his mother was Mary Elizabeth Palmer. Robinson grew up in Gardiner, Maine which set the beginning of his writing career. Robinson was rejected by his mother because she wanted him to be a girl and he was her last chance. His parents didn’t expect much from him which is why he was able to start writing poetry. Robinson went to Harvard but had to leave early to take care of his family. When his mother died in 1896, Robinson got two of his poems published. His early poems were similar in setting and writing style and generally followed the theme of public failure. Robinson was very serious about his poetry. He found the love of his life but decided he couldn’t be successful and raise a family so he decided to introduce her to his brother. When his brother and the love of his life got married, he couldn’t take it anymore and moved to New York City. After his family fortune vanished away, he was left penniless and lived in poverty. He continued to write and relied a lot on his friends. He got some of his works published with his friends paying the bill. Through poverty, depression, and alcoholism, Robinson was able to find his way and continue writing beautiful works. He won three Pulitzer Prizes. Robinson died at age 65 on April 6, 1935 in a New York City hospital (Edwin Arlington Robinson's Life and Career). . 

"Richard Cory" Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Poetry Analysis: Robinson uses rhyme and irony in this poem. This poem is talking about a man that is the “perfect gentleman”. He has lots of money, was extremely attractive, and is very polite to all the people in the town. The town people think he has the perfect life but at the end of the poem Richard Cory commits suicide. This presents irony because the entire poem is happy and it makes you want to be like Richard Cory because it seems he has everything. Rhyme gives the poem a happier feel and when you read the poem it flows easier. It is written in the abab format. When you read the last two lines you are shocked because Richard Cory just takes his own life. When I first read this poem I was surprised to read the ending and a bit disturbed. This just helps emphasize the moral to the poem. The moral to this poem is that appearances are deceiving and you can’t judge a book by its cover. On the outside everything seemed perfect for Richard Cory. He had everything that anyone could dream of. On the inside, Richard Cory was sad and depressed. He was missing something out of life and that caused him to take his own life. No one understood what caused Richard Cory to do such an awful thing. The first three stanzas of the poem describe Richard Cory. They set the stage for what happens at the end. Robinson makes Richard Cory dream-like and perfect. The last stanza tells us about the tragedy of Richard Cory. First, Robinson describes the effect that Richard Cory has on the town. He says “So on we worked, and waited for the light,/And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;”(13,14) which shows that all the people wanted to be just like Richard Cory. They went to an extreme by giving up meat to save money and they worked all the time. At the very end Robinson introduces the death of Richard Cory very calmly and then the poem ends.

Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore, Maryland on May 16, 1929. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951 and won the Yale Series of Young Poets Prize. Rich married Alfred H. Conrad in 1953. They had three children together. Rich published her second volume of poetry in 1955. The basic theme of these poems was a princess in a fairy tale. After the birth of all her children, Rich changed her style of writing. She began writing about very confrontational issues and began using free verse. She focused on racial issues, woman’s rights, and war. Rich has published many collections of poetry and has also written books of nonfiction prose. She has received many rewards throughout her life and is a very recognizable poet. She is still living today in Northern California (Adrienne Rich).
 * Adrienne Rich **

"Storm Warnings" The glass has been falling all the afternoon, And knowing better than the instrument What winds are walking overhead, what zone Of gray unrest is moving across the land, I leave the book upon a pillowed chair And walk from window to closed window, watching Boughs strain against the sky

And think again, as often when the air Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting, How with a single purpose time has traveled By secret currents of the undiscerned Into this polar realm. Weather abroad And weather in the heart alike come on Regardless of prediction.

Between foreseeing and averting change Lies all the mastery of elements Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter Time in the hand is not control of time, Nor shattered fragments of an intrument A proof against the wind; the wind will rise, We can only close the shutters.

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black And set a match to candles sheathed in glass Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine Of weather through the unsealed aperture. This is our sole defense against the season; These are the things that we have learned to do Who live in troubled regions.

Poetry Analysis: This poem is about the build-up of a strong storm or hurricane. In the first stanza Rich describes the beginning of the storm. She can tell that it is coming because the barometer has been falling all day. She describes how it looks outside with a “gray unrest is moving across the land” (4). She also describes the severity of the wind and how she has to get up and leave her book to go close the window. In the next stanza Rich is thinking about the storm rather than describing it. She mentions how a storm can be so unpredictable and that the weather travels in “secret currents” (11). She is describing the thought of a hurricane because she says, “the air moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,” (9) which implies the wind circling toward the eye of a hurricane. In the third stanza Rich is comparing the nature of a storm to weather instruments. She uses a clock and weatherglass as an example. She is trying to say that no instrument can foresee the severity of a storm or when it will come. There is nothing that they can really do to prevent a storm and they can only prepare for it by closing the shutters. In the last stanza Rich describes how she will prepare for the grueling storm that is coming her way. She draws the curtains to “shut out” the sight of the storm. She lights candles covered in glass to protect them from the keyhole draught. This implies that the electricity has probably gone out. She realizes that there is nothing more she can do about the storm but wait it out. People learn to do this in regions with lots of bad weather. The theme to this poem is definitely about nature and control. People can’t control nature. They just have to put up their best defense against it. They learn to deal with all the unpredictable things in nature. There is also imagery in this poem. Rich gives the reader clear details about the brewing storm outside. There is also a strong metaphor in this poem. Rich says “weather in the heart alike come on regardless of prediction” (13,14). This line is meant to portray that the heart/mood of a person can change at any moment in time, just like the weather. She also uses personification in the poem. She says the wind is “walking” to describe how the wind looks on the trees outside. It is slowly rolling over the branches of the trees and it looks as if it could be walking. This poem is made up of four stanzas, each containing seven lines a piece.

**Sylvia Plath  Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932. Her father died when she was 8 years old. This event shaped her relationships and her poetry. Plath published her poetry in regional magazines and newspapers. She got her first national publication in 1950. Plath moved to Cambridge, England where she met her husband, Ted Hughes. They were married June 16, 1956. Plath came back to Massachusetts to study with Robert Lowell. She published her first collection of poems in 1960. She went back to England to give birth to her two children. In 1962 her husband left her which put her in a huge state of depression. Plath’s most famous book is //Ariel, which is a collection of poems after her husband left. She also wrote an autobiography but had it published under a different name. Plath committed suicide on February 11, 1963. Even after her death, she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Plath’s writing style consisted of coupling, dark imagery, rhyme, and alliteration. She is a poet of the Confessional movement (Sylvia Plath).  "Child" Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing. I want to fill it with color and ducks, The zoo of the new

Whose name you meditate -- April snowdrop, Indian pipe, Little

Stalk without wrinkle, Pool in which images Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous Wringing of hands, this dark Ceiling without a star.

Poetry Analysis: In this poem, Plath is expressing her love for her baby. In the first stanza she talks about how the baby has a blank view of the world in their eye and how pure and beautiful it is. Plath wants to fill the baby up with “color” and “ducks” (2). She wants her baby to be filled with a colorful view of the world. Also, she wants to fill their mind with toys and things that excite children, like a duck. She uses the line, “zoo of the new,” (3) to include all of the fun, exciting, new experiences she wants to give to her child, like taking him/her to the zoo. In the second stanza Plath gives examples of flowers that she wants to show her child. In the third stanza she expresses how perfect her child is. She says that her child is a “stalk without wrinkle” (7). She also describes how her child views the world as “grand and classical” (9). The tone of the poem changes in the fourth stanza. Plath makes the ending very depressing. She is talking about how scared and depressed she is in her own life. She says “Not this troublous wringing of hands,” (10,11) which means that she is wringing her hands in her own anxiety. She then compares her life to a “ceiling without a star” (12). This is very depressing and shows what Plath really thought about her life. This poem is written in 4 stanzas, with each stanza containing 3 lines. The lines are short and there is no rhyme scheme. The poem contains imagery and metaphors. //**

Elizabeth Bishop was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Bishop’s father died when she was very young and she and her mother went to live with her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia. While they lived there her mother became institutionalized and then she went back to live with her paternal grandparents in Worcester, Massachusetts. She attended a private high school and in 1934 she graduated from Vassar College. While she attended college she met Marianne Moore who served as her mentor and close friend. After travelling for two years, Bishop settled in Key West, Florida. She wrote poetry and incorporated her surroundings into it. She published her first book in 1946, titled //North and South//. Most of Bishop’s poetry focuses on her impression of the world instead of personal experience. Bishop moved to Brazil and resided there for 16 years. She wrote very slowly and didn’t publish a lot of her works. She used precise imagery and language that reflected her moral sense. Bishop became a major force in contemporary literature with the publication of //Geography III// in 1976. She died in 1979 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Elizabeth Bishop).  "One Art" The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster,
 * Elizabeth Bishop **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">[[image:bishop.jpg width="179" height="272" align="right"]]

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Poetry Analysis:<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;">Bishop’s poem “One Art” is about losing things and that over time “the art of losing isn’t hard to master” (1). She first talks about how some things are intended to be lost and that by losing them it really is no disaster. She then gives an example of something that could easily be lost. She talks about losing door keys. This is something that everyone has probably done at least once or several times and that losing them isn’t a disaster. At first it is aggravating to spend time looking for them but over time you accept the fact that they are lost. She says, “Accept the fluster of lost door keys, and the hour badly spent” (4,5). The next lines she talks about furthering the practice of losing, not just with door keys but with places and names of travel. These types of things are more valuable if lost than door keys. She reminds the reader that if they practice losing these things; they will realize it is no disaster. In the next lines, Bishop talks about things she has lost. She lost her mother’s watch and three houses. Losing your house three times or losing a family heirloom is very painful and you would think it would cause great disaster but to her since she is used to losing things, these things are no disaster. Losing things like this are also greater in value then what she previously mentioned. Bishop continues listing things that she has lost. She lost two cities, two rivers, and a continent. She literally didn’t own these things but they were just places she was from that were important and meaningful to her. From her practice of losing, losing these things too are no disaster. In the last lines Bishop shows the true meaning behind her poem. She is writing about a loved one that she lost. She describes the person with a “joking voice and gesture” (16). With practice she has learned that the art of losing isn’t hard to master and that she is fine without this person. The very last line shows you that she still misses that person because she has to make herself write that losing them was no disaster. With practice she has learned that losing is one art that can be perfected so that it has little effect on you. This poem is written in villanelle form. There are 5 tercets and one quatrain. The first and third lines repeat alternately throughout the remaining tercets and then are brought together in the quatrain. The lines repeating in this poem are “the art of losing isn’t hard to master,” and “no disaster”.

Marianne Moore was born in 1887 in Kirkwood, Missouri. Early in her childhood, her father abandoned her, so her mother moved them to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Moore attended Bryn Mawr College and graduated in 1909. She traveled to England and France with her mother in 1911 and when she returned to the United States she began teaching at the U.S. Indian School between 1911 and 1915. Moore first started writing poetry in college. During this time she had a few of her works published. Moore and her mother moved to Brooklyn, New York to live with her brother in 1916. She worked in libraries and schools and continued to write poetry. In London in 1921, a book was published of Moore’s works without her knowledge. Another book was published in 1924 and won the Dial Award. Moore became the editor of the //Dial// in 1925. During her time she was known as the “poet’s poet” because of her way of writing about the human mind elevated with the ordinary. She was a modernist poet. Her language was complex, her style was complex, and she liked to write about nature. Moore was really able to expand her writing in “The Paper Nautilus”. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1951. Moore died in 1972 (Marianne Moore). <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"> "Poetry" I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine. Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise if it must, these things are important not because a high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are useful. When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do not admire what we cannot understand: the bat holding on upside down or in quest of something to <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center;">eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base- ball fan, the statistician-- nor is it valid to discriminate against 'business documents and
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 156%; text-align: left;">Marianne Moore ** <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination"--above insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them", shall we have it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, the raw material of poetry in all its rawness and that which is on the other hand genuine, you are interested in poetry. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;">Poetry Analysis: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Moore’s poem “Poetry” is very unusual because she starts off with the line, “I, too, dislike it,” (1) which is implying that she really doesn’t like poetry much like everyone else. She is assuming that everyone dislikes poetry and that there are more important things out there for her time. Moore is creating a relationship to her reader in saying that she dislikes poetry. She then introduces the fact that after you start reading poetry there is something genuine about it and it is worth actually reading. The next lines talk about how poetry can make the reader feel, but that the interpretation of the poem is not important, only that it can be useful. Moore gives examples of the types of poetry that are not useful to the reader. She says, “When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible,” (8) she means that derivative poems don’t make sense to the reader and that is why they dislike poetry so much. Moore makes a good point when she says, “We do not admire what we cannot understand,” (9,10) which is very true because if something doesn’t make sense to us, we just discard it and don’t appreciate its true value. She gives specific examples of things most readers would not understand to clarify her point. Moore compares poetry to “business documents and school books” (16,17). She is trying to point out that if people read poetry like they do these kinds of things then they will miss the whole purpose of poetry and its meaning. Also, if they cannot distinguish poetry from a document then they will draw a different meaning from the poem than the author intended. The last few lines of the poem Moore is talking about how if the reader comes across true poetry then he/she will come to like poetry. The reader must find a very authentic poem that is truly genuine. This is expressed in the poem as, “the raw material of poetry in all its rawness and that which is on the other hand truly genuine” (26,27). This poem has a very unique format. It looks as if it is split into 4 stanzas but once you read it, it really is in 5 different verses. She continues verses into the next one and the text is indented.

Works Cited

"Elizabeth Bishop." //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Poets.org //. Academy of American Poets. Web. 23 Mar. 2010. <[]>.<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; text-align: left;"> Moore, Marianne. “Marianne Moore.” //The Norton Anthology of American Literature//. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 2030. Print. Peschel, Bill. "Edwin Arlington Robinson's Life and Career." //Edwin Arlington Robinson's Life and Career.// 1999. Web 23 Mar. 2010. <[]<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">>.

"Adrienne Rich." //Poets.org.// Academy of American Poets. Web. 23 Mar. 2010. <[] >.

"Sylvia Plath." //Poets.org.// Academy of American Poets. Web. 23 Mar. 2010. <[]<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> >.