Robert Lowell "For the Union Dead"

                "For the Union Dead" portrays the evolution and advancement of society while the great old historic monuments and events of the past are left to dissolve like faint memories.  Lowell concentrates on the social aspects of society and how in his point in time there is an albescence of gratuity for those that have sacrificed so much to establish equality.  He also vaguely indicates the political factors that went into creating the equality by mentioning prime figures of the Civil War.  Colonel Shaw was the only man that took on the duties to lead an all-black regiment to fight against the republic.  Lowell incorporates a presence of familiarity and loyalty by displaying some slang from his era in stanza thirteen quoting, "Shaw's father wanted no monument/except the ditch,/where his son's body was thrown/ and lost with his 'niggers (48-51).'"  Obviously Lowell wanted his audience to feel a sense of remorse for destroying and forgetting about the history that helped shaped America for personal satisfaction and comfort.  

Shel Silverstein - "The Perfect High"

Shel Silverstein delivers a very unique twist on what would be a children's poem in "The Perfect High."  The story follows the druggie named  Gimme-Some Roy who seeks that perfect high through effort, determination, and pain.  He follows his dream of attaining the high that's going to satisfy him forever once he snorts, smokes, or sticks it in his veins.  Through the perils of the mountain to get that perfect high he must go through the guru Baba fats that knows the secrets of the getting it.  But in the end, Baba Fats leads him down a new road full of more crap than the last.  The irony is that Baba is in a state of being high as he talks to the Lord while sitting on top of a mountain completely naked before sending the persistent  youth to nowhere.   The captivating  story and rhythm make the poem memorable and leaves an impression of how quizzical and crappy life can be. 

blog on howl

            Allen Ginsberg's  "Howl"  is like a love letter to the dark underground of drugs and filth that the author occupied while he was free to roam the underbelly of New York and New Jersey.  To start off, I really did not enjoy it for the fact that it just sounded like one long continuous rant from the author.  He depicts the humans of the city society in a raunchy and ridiculous way that's seems childish because he can't control himself.  It's almost as he needs to curse in some areas to get his point across to the audience but in fact he doesn't really need to.  I will say that the way he rally's and combines his word creates a distinct diction about the poem that leaves an imprint.  To me this seems like a rant, but its slightly less annoying knowing that it does fulfill the purpose of describing the specifics of that time period related to that area.  It creates the notion that this time period, not everything was fine and dandy and that everyone lived a "Great Gatsby" life but revels that the American dream, and the road to it, was corrupt just as the society itself.  

14 "The Young Housewife"

"The Young Housewife" by William Carlos Williams displays how young love is ruthless, carefree, selfish, stupid, and inconsiderate.  The poem, which is told from a first-person point-of-view,  speaks of a young woman who goes behind her husband's back to cheat with other men that are mentioned within the piece.  The ice-man and fish-man both have her way with her before she is discovered by the narrator whom I presume might be her husband or private investigator.   The last line of the poem says, "The noiseless wheels of my car/rush with a crackling sound over/dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling," which I take as a notification of discovery and satisfaction for catching the frivolous female in the act of deception.  As I stated earlier, the narrator may very well be the husband or a P.I. tailored to trailing the deeds that the young housewife commits, so as he "bows and smiles" as he passes her the gratification may come from the idea that he caught her red-handed or  it is the husband's gratification for finally freeing himself of deception, lies, and false love.   

13

            Mina Loy's poem "Der Blind Junge" takes a new perspective on the war poems that I have seen and gives her audience the notion of what war is to the German soldiers of World War I, or The Great War.  In this particular poem she is framing the idea that the young boys who served had no say or choice on the actions they committed.  The war changed these boys to men and took their freewill into a false reality that pervaded their humanity in order to complete tasks of cruelty.  These new bred tools of destruction are used for the sole purpose of causing death and mayhem and Loy implies that they have no say in the matter.  In stanza eight she also states, "A downy youth's snout/nozzling the sun/drowned in dumbfounded instinct,"  that implies these soldiers have realized that war has changed them but they do not refute it because in war it is either kill or be killed.  

12

                "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot is a poem that is hard to describe because of its grand allusions to history and its epic stories of the past.  His allusions range from stories in the Bible, Greece mythology, poems, and tales from different eras of time.  It splits and fragments each of the allusions and scatters them throughout the poem to make an obscure story that is confusing but almost angelic and prophetic at the same time.  Eliot takes these great pieces of literature and transports the reader to that time by using the languages  to connect figures, words, voice, culture, and time.  The tone is set throughout the story from the very first sentences.  Irony runs throughout "The Waste Land" When Eliot uses Petronius, Satyricon, which almost sound like the word "Satirical." 

blog 10

                As I said in my previous blog, Prufrock is an intriguing character.  Eliot describes him as an older man who  has experienced a good deal of life's twists and turns.  Prufrock is a pale and frail individual filled with many self-doubts and insecurities that hinder his desires to achieve things, in this instance a woman.  He is afraid to face the women because he believes they will judge him strongly on his appearance.  But Prufrock is made out to be a person that is a day dreamer as he visualizes the many outcomes and what-if's that would have been if he had talked with one of them.  One lines 87 he says, "And would it have been worth it, after all,/After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,"  and again on line 99 with, "And would it have been worth it, after all,/would it have been worth while."  The desires are not fulfilled in the end as the heartbroken Prufrock sings his song of goodbye to the unattainable "Mermaids" on line 123.