On Becoming a Poet...

His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvel and Archibald MacLeish’s response. After reading Strand’s essay and taking a closer look at the two poems clear similarities and differences present themselves. “To His Coy Mistress” is a carpe diem poem, the author comments on fleeting our time on earth is and encourages the mistress, and in turn, the reader to take life by the horns. Unlike the “heated urgency”[1] in the first poem, the response, “You, Andrew Marvel,” is less passionate, and more contemplative on the passing of time and life’s imminent end.

In “To His Coy Mistress” Marvell imagines how he would spend infinity, and then in the last stanza acknowledges that he does not have an infinity to spend and then rallies his mistress to make the most of how little time they have with the last line,  “Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run.” The response has no call to action or upfront encouragement to live life to the fullest, the author chooses to ponder the infinity of time, and how time is simply a renewing cycle of events. The last stanza of this poem reflects on this concept of the cycle of lives and time.

And here face downward in the sun

To feel how swift how secretly

The shadow of the night comes on ...

In his essay Mark Strand remarks on how influential “You, Andrew Marvell” was on him, both in his youth and later in life. Especially as a teenager when he was trying to understand life, the “poem's power to enchant carried with it an obligation to reassure.” Strand professes that all poetry has a beautiful ability. “It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living. Even more paradoxically, poetry permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.”

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[1] Mark Strand, “On Becoming a Poet”

Where does the time go?

With the two poems, I get two different distinct impressions on the passage of time. "To His Coy Mistress" seems to show how a life can pass by in the blink of an eye, but "You, Andrew Marvell" seems to show the creeping passage of time with phrases like "ever climbing shadow grow," and "loom and slowly disappear." Mark Strand also brings up the point that this poem is also firmly based on a theme of cycles. He mentions that the first rhymes of the poem are also its last, bringing the poem full circle back to where it began.

I can usually pick up on the baser elements of poetry, but am not as adept at the more in-depth stuff that Mark Strand obviously is. When he talked about the whole theme of circulation, I could go back to the poem and easily be able to tell what he's getting at and probably could have come up with that on my own if I had thought on it a little harder. But then he'll go deeper and say something like, "it suggests... the more tragic rise and fall of civilizations." I doubt I would have ever picked up on that. It's an intriguing point of the poem, one that definitely makes sense, just not one that I would have known on my own.

Moses and The Burning Bush

To start this story off, Moses is flock-sitting for his father in law when one day he led them to Horeb, the mountain of God. Somewhere around the base of the mountain, Moses saw a fire and decided to investigate.

He saw a burning bush, but the bush was not consumed by the flames. He was very confused by this and decided, like all curious men do, to step forward and figure out what's going on.

God then spoke to Moses from the bush and told him to approach the bush, but to take his shoes off because He didn't want him to track dirt in the house. Or it was holy ground, I'm not sure.

The Lord then tells Moses about how he has a plan to get his people out of Egypt, for he has seen how they are oppressed and wants to help them. He will send Moses to the Pharaoh, and tell them that he is from God and that he should release God's people, and Moses will then lead them out of Egypt and into the "land of milk and honey".

Moses is a little skeptical about this plan, but after some reassurance from the Lord, he's good to go, and sets off for Egypt.

Although I don't have a lot of experience with fire, I do think that if I saw a bush on fire, but not burned, I would be pretty stoked. Not like Moses, who's all chill about it, like "Umm yeah I guess I'll go check this out". I think fire is cool, but I'm kind of afraid of it, honestly. I'm not bold enough to do stuff with fire, but I love to watch it. Fire has this unique power to it, and in a way I think it's kind of majestic.

In Which I Ramble About Poetry

Poetry is like painting with words. It's an art form, to be sure, and that's hardly an original statement, but that's at least part of what I got out of "You, Andrew Marvell." When he describes the various places in the first stanzas with snippets like "And Baghdad darken and the bridge/Across the silent river gone." This, of course, could be completely wrong, but in my view that's also kinda that thing about poetry: it's really up to the interpretation of the reader. Which is another thing I've thought of here, as Strand made me think of when he said that "[his] response now is pretty much what it was then. [He is] still that figure face down in the sun." While when he brings this up he is more so meaning that he still doesn't get it and that the time really hasn't changed his ability to understand the poem, it just made me think of something else, likely completely tangential and mostly just related to the line in the poem itself. Before I read on in the essay I thought he was taking a potshot at the fact that he was analyzing the crap out of the poem instead of enjoying it for what it was, which was something I understood and kinda agree on. That isn't to say that I think we should never try to discern the meanings behind poetry or strive to understand all the effort put into it. We totally should. I just think that maybe sometimes we make some leaps and bounds on exactly what it all means. 

Meanwhile, "To His Coy Mistress" is quite easy to grasp the meaning behind. Though not written in the clearer language of "You, Andrew Marvell" it has an idea behind it that many people can easily understand: a sort of carpe diem, or as the kids sometimes say, "YOLO." This is easiest to tell in the first two lines, "Had we but world enough and time/This coyness, lady, were no crime" which I can paraphrase as "if we had forever then you could play hard to get but since we're gonna die some day we should totally do the frickle frackle." Poetry, however, has a way of making this much more crude paraphrase sound beautiful and, well, not so crude. Which is probably one awesome thing about poetry. 

But yeah, I like the idea of poetry-as-art and carpe diem. I like poetry - just don't ask to read anything I've written because I was not born with that talent - and the idea that we should make use of the life we've been given and do what we want with it is probably one of my favorite ways to look at the world. Poetry isn't strange, but it's also certainly not my forte.

On Becoming a Poet

After reading the 2 poems, I didn't really understand what they were about and what I was supposed to write about. I recognized the rhyme scheme in Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," but I did not see the real meaning. I noticed the different spacing and rhyme scheme in Archibald Macleish's "You, Andrew Marvell," but again failed to decipher the poem. I saw the obvious fact that Marvell wrote one of the poems and was in the title of the other but didn't see why. 
After reading Mark Strand's essay On Becoming a Poet, it became more clear. Strand talks about how he loved the poem "You, Andrew Marvell" and wishes that he had written it; however, he didn't understand the true meaning of the poem until much later. He makes the observation that he, "was aware, as [he] had been in the past, that the poem seemed suspended between times. Only now that suspension seemed to feature a strange circularity, each event marked by a newness but eerily resembling the events that had come before"(Strand). This repetition is demonstrated in the rhyme scheme of the poem. "And here face down beneath the sun" "To feel the always coming on" "And here face downward in the sun" "The shadow of the night comes on ..." Lines 1, 3, 34, 36, respectively. The rhyming of sun and on is repeated in the first and last stanza to show that the poem had ended and the cycle is completed. 
Strand notes that "To His Coy Mistress" has a different, more urgent style than Macleish's poem. He says "You, Andrew Marvell" has a, "languor that is in direct contrast to the heated urgency of the lover's speech in Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" (Strand). The AA BB rhyme scheme (I think) along with the lack of spacing speeds the poem up; overall there is a very fast pace when it is read. Here is an example: 
"Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day" (1-4). 

The differences between the two are highlighted and explained in Strand's essay and provide an interesting outlook.

(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/andrew-marvell)

Here is a picture of Andrew Marvell. The subject of 1 poem and the author of the other. 

Stranger in a strange land of poetry

Mark Strand feels very strongly about both poems "To His Coy Mistress" and "You, Andrew Marvell" as conveyed in his essay "On Becoming A Poet." In his first paragraphs, he discussed how although he enjoyed the poem "You, Andrew Marvell" and connected to it greatly, he didn't get a full understanding of it until he took a greater look at it, which I can relate to. "You, Andrew Marvell" at first seems as if it is just talking about the come of night time, but it actually has a much deeper, almost darker (literally and figuratively) meaning. In the last line of "You, Andrew Marvell" it says "

The shadow of the night comes on ..." which, at first, gave me the idea that this poem is simply about night time. But, after reading Strands analysis of the poem in his essay, I read deeper into the poem. In his essay, he says "   It is both linear and circular, and what it suggests is not just the simple diurnal round of night and day, but the more tragic rise and fall of civilizations." Showing that the poet has a dark view on the experience of life. The poem "To His Coy Mistress," like "You, Andrew Marvell," has a lot to do with time. But in "To His Coy Mistress," time is wanted to pass, unlike in "You, Andrew Marvell," where it is dreaded. This poem shows a more excited, more beautiful take on life. Strand says of the poem "but the lovers cannot stop the sun, all they can do is make it run; that is, make time pass more quickly, join their heat to the sun's heat." showing the excitement of life.

 

While I wish I could just read a poem and get the true meaning and relate it back to my own life with  one read, I cant. No matter how hard I try, poetry will never come easy to me. After reading Strands essay, I understand the poems much more than I did when I read them before the essay, and I guess I kind of can relate to both of them. But, I do find myself to be a stranger in a strange land when it comes to poetry. I hope this unit helps me to better understand poems and teaches me to analyze them so I no longer feel like a stranger in a strange land.  

 

Joseph, his brothers, and the coat of many colors

Jacob had 12 sons, but his favorite was his 11th son, Joseph. Joseph would have dreams of him being a strong ruler that he would tell his dad and would make his brother's jealous. He would dream that the sky would bow down before him. One day Jacob gave Joseph a colorful coat made from the finest fabrics. It was beautiful and soft and much better than the other coats that his brothers had. The other brothers were even more jealous then they were before. One day when the brothers were tending the sheep, Joseph went to check on them which made them angry. Once he arrived they tore off his colorful coat and threw him in a pit. After a while a group of traders came by and the brothers took Joseph out of the pit and gave them to the traders. Once they realized that they had to tell their father something they took the colorful coat and smeared animal blood on it. They took the coat to Jacob and said that an animal had killed him. Jacob cried and the brothers said nothing. However, Jacob was in the Egypt where he was at first a servant for a Pharoh's official. He become overseer of the house. Then he was sent to jail where he worked his way up to be a warden. He got out and then worked his way up to be the Pharoh's number 2. Then when the great famine came Egypt was the only country with enough food and would sell it to other countries. Later his father and brothers moved to Egypt to escape the famine and although he could execute of imprison them he chose to let them be free.
I don't have any most warn garments now but when I was little there were certain clothing peices that I would want to wear almost everyday. In one particular instance, when I was around 6, I had been wearing the same shirt and jeans for a couple days and my mom told me I had to change to go visit some family friends. I said okay and went to my room to change. We made the few hour drive and had been there for maybe an hour or so the mom of the other family looks at me and then my mom and says, "Is Olivia wearing two sets of clothes?". My mom looks at me and then is astonished because since she had told me I couldn't wear the clothes I wanted I just put other clothes on top of them.

On Becoming a Poet

What struck me most about Mark Strand's essay "On Becoming a Poet," along with the referenced poems "You, Andrew Marvell," and "To His Coy Mistress" was the discussion of the passage of time in all of them. As Strand put it, "'You, Andrew Marvell,' is about time and in time, about motion," while "To His Coy Mistress" is almost desperate in its attempts to convince the audience that time only can run forward. It seems that the entire disagreement between the two of them--as "You, Andrew Marvell" was a response written to "To His Coy Mistress"--is how to treat the concept of time, despite the mentions of the woman and all the places into the world. It is evident that both of them are remarkable powerful poems; Strand wrote in his essay that he admired "You, Andrew Marvell" tirelessly as an adolescent, wishing that he had written it, and that now he still admires it, wishing that he could write something like it.

As for me, I do like these poems upon better understanding them. When I first read them, their meanings were lost upon me, but upon a deeper explanation of each of them I have a much better appreciation for them. I love the truths of time written in both of them--the struggle to make sure it does not run out, as well as the evident freedom it provides. To lie face down beneath the sun and listen to the passage of time is to live life fully, yet frequently all I can think is that my time--in high school, as a child, as a dependent student--is slipping and that I can sympathize with Andrew Marvell in his rush to make the most of time. Both standpoints are valuable and deserve to be recognized.

3 Poems

I found these poems to be very dark, as they describe the inevitable night approaching. There was a lack of hope and time as the flooding dark about their knees approached. Mark Strands essay connected with these poems because they put his feelings of mortality down on paper. I can relate to these poems because every time I talk to someone older than me, they always tell me to enjoy my time now because it goes by fast. It feels like just yesterday I was a freshman, so like these poems and essay I'm worried about "Times winged charriot hurrying near" and hopefully I can make the best of my time on earth.

On Becoming A Poet

What intrigues you about this poetic conversation? Respond to all three, quoting directly from the texts. What do the poets say about the power of poetry and about the experience of life? Do you relate to anything the poets claim or are you feeling like a stranger in a strange land?

It's interesting how he really delves into what made him love the poem as a young boy. Although he didn't understand it how or why at the time, it still effected him on a personal level. I agree with him when he says "The poem urges us to read its lines one after another without stopping" because it does just that. In 'You, Andrew Marvell' each sentence flows together effortlessly while the lines back am entire new interpretation based merely on the division marked by punctuation. 'To His Coy Mistress' does the same but it does so with sense of urgency. It hurries us through the poem just as it speaks of  how time rushes by: "Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run." The poets speak of the power of time itself and the importance of acknowledging out mortality. The experience of life is in and of itself a mortal experience. These poems analyze what exactly that means along with the response seen by various people when they encounter their own lack of time. I can relate to what these poets are saying but it doesn't move me like it did Mark Strand. While I understand and agree with the feelings but represented, I have no desire to become a poet due to my reading them. In light of recent tragedies, these lines from 'You, Andrew Marvell' I find to be particularly relevant to me: "To feel the always coming on / The always rising of the night:" It seems a reminder of the inevitability if death and almost a challenge to offer up something worth while that you have accomplished when the time comes to confront the darkness. 

Rescue of the Child Moses

The story begins with a new king coming to power in Egypt. They were overpopulated and to decrease the number of people, the slave mastered oppressed them with forced labor and made their lives miserable. When this didn't work as well as they had hoped, the Pharaoh said that every boy who is born must be thrown into the Nile River while the girls may live. A baby boy was hidden by his mother for a few months and then he was put in a basket and left to float down the Nile. The Pharaoh's daughter saw the baby floating and he was one of the Hebrew babies. The Pharaoh's daughter took the baby to the actual mother of the baby and said she would pay her to nurse the baby. When he grew older, the Pharaoh's daughter reclaimed the baby as her son and named him Moses and said she drew him out of the water.

I am not adopted, nor am I good friends with anyone well who is adopted. However, The few people I do know are adopted seem to have the same parent-child relationship that any family does. The unconditional love is not bound by genetics, but it is still very much present. In the story, the baby was found by the Pharaoh's daughter, and rather than letting him die like all the other boys, she paid a woman to take care of him and eventually made him her son. Parents who adopt children don't receive anything for their efforts, in fact they have to pay a very high price to take children in. Just like other parents they want a child to love and take care of; adopted children and their parents share a special bond.

(http://familyfaithnews.com/kind-hearted-stranger-picks-up-grieving-familys-tab/)

Here is a picture of an adoption with a great story behind it. 

3 Poems

What intrigues you about this poetic conversation? quoting directly from the texts, what do the poets say about the power of poetry and about the experience of life? Do you relate to anything the poets claim or are you feeling like a stranger in a strange land? It is intriguing to me that Strand can hold an intelligent discussion about such a broad topic that seems to deeply connect both with his feelings and his brain. It seems like he is very appreciative of other works of any poetry. It is also intriguing how Strand's analysis of this poem lends him to enlightenment of things he wish he could put into words, and yet Strand is unchanged. According to the essay, the poem provides Strand with, "the sense that I am still myself." It was very interesting to me that Strand could have all these distressing thoughts, and then this poem reassures him that he is right in his thoughts, but that everything will be okay. In Marvell's poem he said, "tear our pleasures with rough strife through the iron gates of life." This quote discusses the experience of life. Life is something incomprehensible, thus the iron gates, but through it we still experience pleasure, even through the rough times. We have to balance our physical struggle, our pleasure, and iggnorance to the world around us to lead a life worth being proud of. I relate to directly to claims the poets make. Pretty much any quote from the poem or essay I could dig into and analyze and apply. I feel as if poetry is the preservation of the concious feelings of different eras, and it is interesting to see how what they felt at the time relates to the collective unconcious that I am aware of now. We are all connected as human beings, and the feelings can be sympathized with today.

On Becoming a Poet

It's interesting how from the moment he first read MacLeish's "You, Andrew Marvell" that he instantly felt this deep connection that in turn caused him to become a poet himself. The poem "You, Andrew Marvell" seems to present the notion that, time notwithstanding, "here face down beneath the sun" the earth is vast territory. However, as Strand points out MacLeish is able to manipulate his words to convey to his audience "the visual record of ascending night into a private matter instead of simply a geographic one." That is meant to imply that although the poem speaks of different geographic locations, it is more the experiences and the encounters that the narrator faces with those places that are the focus of the piece. By moving so fluidly from Ecbatan to Kermanshah to Baghdad and so on, MacLeish implies that this is what he believes life experience should be. This he implies not only through his direct wording but also through his pace of the poem which us slow, but not dragging, reflecting the the pace with which he believes life should be experienced. In short, he believes time is in abundance and that life should be savored for all it has to offer. In contrast, Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" employs a sense of urgency that implies and impending end, thus the two lovers should take part in any and all acts so as to not miss out. Marvell's poem has a sense of urgency which MacLeish's lacks, even though the latter has no punctuation which typically would suggest urgency. Strand makes these points predominant in his essay in which he compares the two, and talks about his own response to "You, Andrew Marvell." He states "I also undoubtedly liked it for its apparent simplicity" and describes how even though there are deeper mechanics behind the technical aspects of the poem, the overall affect MacLeish accomplished was one powerful enough to persuade a young man to become a poet. I believe because his poem seemed so effortless and simple and clear, that is why Strand was able to have such a deep connection to it. I can relate to the poems because, although at times I may feel like a stranger in a strange land, I like to think like Strand in that the world should be savored for everything it offers is somehow connected to any and all other aspects of the world that we should take the time to observe and uncover all those connections. And as MacLeish points out, we have all the time to do so. 

Two Poems

The first poem I read was "Identity Card" by Mahmoud Darwish, I was a little disappointed when I found out the poems lines didn't end in a rhyme scheme, but I enjoyed reading the poem because it gave me a different opinion of the lives of some Arabs. You see his anger and impatience on the way his people have been treated from the beginning of time. Through the whole poem he use of his short quick sentences you see him speaking abruptly almost filled with anger, a very Eye opening poem. And speaking of eye opening…...

The second poem I read was "When I consider How My Light Is Spent". At first I was confused at what he was trying to say, until I realized he was literally talking about blindness  After doing some readingI found out the poet Milton was actually blind himself, and that he was worried about how he could serve the Lord without the ability to see. I thought that he wanted people to realize that through everything in your life, the good, the bad, and the ugly, you should always be grateful for what is put in front of you, because somebody out there has it much worse. So take what you can, when you can.

Identity and Culture in my 2 Poems

The first poem I chose is "The World is Too Much With Us" by William Wordsworth. I chose this poem because I like the authors name and because I liked how "I" was referenced several times making it more personal. Wordsworth describes the wastefulness of our society by saying, "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers"(2). Many things have been given to us through nature, but we do not use them well. Our "powers" so to speak are not used near to their full potential. Perhaps this suggests our wasteful, materialistic, and selfish culture as Americans. We are perhaps the most prosperous and powerful nation in the world, but we stand idly by while people in Africa are starving. We throw away hundreds of tons of food every day, while a little boy in Ghana hasn't eaten in days. This is further shown through, "For this, for everything, we are out of tune" (8). We are out of tune because we cannot see that help is needed and we could make a difference. Although there are problems occurring everywhere, "It moves us not" (9). We are selfish and care more about petty things in our lives than important things elsewhere. I connect with this because sometimes I feel bad about how wasteful I am; instead of being generous and donating food, I eat until I am full then throw food away. 

(http://www.drboblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/rich-vs-poor.jpg)
I think of this image when reading about selfishness and the disparity of wealth. 

The second poem I chose is "Identity Card" by Mahmoud Darwish. Not only does he have an awesome name, but also I like Darwish's short style in his poem. The short lines make it easy to read and draw me in as a reader. This poem is different from the last one because it shows the other side of the spectrum. The speaker works very hard, doesn't waste anything, and is still hungry and angry. He needs help and is not getting it, where the first poem referred to people who didn't help those less fortunate. I selected this one for the same reason as the first; I feel sorry for the speaker and wish I could help. I want to not be wasteful, so there is plenty of food available for all. 

2 Poemz

In the poem "The Quiet Life" by Alexander Pope identity and culture are expressed by the notion that a simple man is a happy man. In the first two lines of the poem, it says "Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound." This shows that the man in the poem, symbolizing someone we should all be, has a simple life but is content with it. The poem focuses on one going back to his native roots and "breathing his native air in his own ground." (lines 3-4) It builds the idea of ones identity based on their original native roots, rather than  the contemporary conformity culture. It goes on to discuss traditional ways of life like "herds with milk" and "whose flocks supply him with attire." (lines 5-6) These simple ways of life lead to the idea of a more relaxed, content culture. Pope uses a flowing rhyme scheme to go along with the "flowy" way of life discussed in the poem.

The second, more contemporary poem I chose was "I'm nobody! Who are you?" by Emily Dickinson. In this poem, she almost depicts having an identity is a horrible thing. She even says "how dreary to be somebody!" (line 5) While in "The Quiet Life" all it talks about is having an identity. A simple identity, but an identity nonetheless. Both express their views on identity as a whole, the views are just opposite.

Two Poems

In “The Quiet Life,” poet Alexander Pope wrote of his own culture, which he felt was repressed in the time period. A devout Roman Catholic in a time when there were many anti-Catholic laws, Pope expressed himself through his poetry. He wrote of a plea to “Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;/Thus unlamented let me die;” in this, we see his need for some sort of acceptance, even if whole-hearted support is out of the question. He asked for “The Quiet Life” itself, in which he would be able to live as he wished and let others live as well. His culture was above all important enough to him that he would ask for “Not a stone/[to] Tell where I lie,” upon death.

Nathalie Handal also addressed her own culture in “Caribe in Nueva York,” but in a different manner. While she, too, was not specifically in her original culture, she wrote of missing it despite appreciating the new one she had been introduced to. One of the most telling lines talked of how “I love America/but I dream of mangoes;” her appreciation for a new culture had not in the least overshadowed her love for her origins. The smallest details of both cultures were noted, whether in regard to the people there, the food, or the celebrities.

Thus, culture is an instrumental part in the building of a person, whether an embraced culture or a repressed one. Both Pope and Handal wrote of missing their own culture and feeling that it was overshadowed or even oppressed by their current culture. Their poetry, therefore, was instrumental in helping them to embrace their origins.

Two Poems

The first poem I chose was "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent" by Mr. John Milton, which literally and figuratively discusses blindness. Milton himself was blind, and he wonders if his "talent" (a New Testament reference meaning gift) have been wasted, if he can still serve God without his sight. Also, he casts a wider net. The point of his poem is to get the readers to ask themselves if they are wasting the talents that God gave them. Does our culture lessen the value of certain God-given skills, and if so, how can we change that? Milton proposes the idea that our identity comes from God, and to serve Him should be our main focus in life.

The second poem I chose was "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" by Emily Dickinson, where she says that to be somebody is "dreary" and "public". Her idea that being a "nobody" is unpopular and yet, better contrasts sharply with Milton's desire to please The Lord, and to be out in the open serving God. Dickinson is sarcastic almost, making fun of those who believe that living a public life is the way to go.

Caribe in Nueva York

William Wordsworth wrote about losing touch with nature in his poem, “The World Is Too Much with Us.” He depicts his “reverence for nature” when he brings back the ideology that the strength and power of the sea is a god-like force in his reference to Proteus and Triton. He claims that humans once had a bond with nature that during the Industrial Revolution in England is slipping away. Pure forms of nature no longer move the human heart. Wordsworth deeply regrets this claiming, “I’d rather be / A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn.” In this statement, Wordsworth asserts he would rather remain close to nature than follow the trends of civilization and society.

The poem “Caribe in Nueva York” written by Nathalie Handal is set in the materialistic and industrial world that Wordsworth so hated. However, while the narrator does not so boldly dislike the city, she to misses nature. In this case, she misses the nature that is well known to her; she “dream[s] of mangoes,” “can’t forget the sun on [her] back,” and “dream[s] of la tierra / where we were born.” She appreciates the city and the opportunities it has to offer, “we are spoiled here,” but she misses the nature that is most well known to her.

Both poems pay homage to nature. Wordsworth focuses on nature in comparison to the industrial societies of England, while Handal writes about nature in the narrator’s home versus nature in New York. I find it interesting how similar these two poems can be, yet still have such drastically different viewpoints. In the first, Wordsworth mourns the public’s loss of the appreciation of nature. In the more contemporary poem, the melancholy author contemplates the loss of her own, more personal nature.

2 Poems

The first poem I selected was "The Quiet Life". I thought that this poem was saying that it is important for a person to be comfortable with their environment before they can assume an identity worth living. I got this from the lines that say, "Content to breathe his native air In his own ground." Also, these lines stood out to me: "Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire; Whose trees in summer yield him shade," This line said to me that your culture is based heavily upon how you take care of your day to day needs. The author's culture consists of him relying on nature for his well-being. Another thing that I thought the author was trying to say was to not let others define you. "Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die" I think that the author wanted to live without scrutiny from to world so he could successfully live out his identity without biased influences. The other poem I chose was "Identity Card". I selected this poem because of the use of the stereotype that the author seems to be playing into. He doesn't mind to be classified as an Arab because he knows his morals to be greater than anyone that sees him merely as an Arab. This contrasts to the other poem because the author of "The Quiet Life" seems to want people not to judge him and live in the shadow, hidden. The message of both is similar though. Both authors are seperated because they see their lives as greater than what anyone could say about them.

Identity and Culture in Poetry

The poem I chose was "The Quiet Life" by Pope in which he considers the virtues of defining oneself within a set environment. What Pope is insinuating in his poem is that a person's identity is defined "in his own ground" and by the environment in which he surrounds himself. Stemming off of his title, Pope paints an image of a self-sufficient culture in which "whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread / whose flocks supply him with attire;" and it is in this culture that an identity of "health of body; peace of mind;" is engrained. Pope portrays the identity of this man almost as an extension of his environment which further solidifies the poem's message that culture is based on one's treatment and connection to his surroundings.

The second poem I chose was "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" by Emily Dickinson. Dickinson's poem compares to Pope's in that in both, the idea of an identity is not solid. In Pope's identity was an extension of the environment, whereas in Dickinson's the idea of identity is treated with a hint of irony and assumes that "to be - Somebody!" is "dreary". With her first line Dickinson proudly proclaims "I'm Nobody!" and insinuates that such an identity, or lack thereof is far more enticing than being "Somebody." She compares being somebody to being "dreary" and "public." In relation to Pope's "The Quiet Life" both poets take the stance that identity and culture are more of a private matter and both express the time of life they find most valuable.

A. Pope 4 the Win

"The Quiet Life" is a direct espousal of the founding American ideals independence and simplicity. Pope writes about how a man who lives simply is the most content, how happy one is when his "wish and care is a few paternal acres bound". He laments that we all cannot live quietly and reap the bounties of our own labors, have our "own flocks supply [us] with attire" as it were. the last this A. Pope asks for is a quiet death with no-one to weep for him, he wants to live inconsequentially with no worries outside of himself. Thats what he really wants for us all, small, self-contained universes that we can thrive and be happy in. I think that this dream is the dream of the yeoman farmer and the founder's framers, that everyman would have his own piece of land and his own problems. I feel like Thoreau would have liked this poem quite a bit.
My second poem is "Mexicans Begin Jogging" by Gary Soto. I picked this poem because it talks about a culture and a lifestyle that is very different from the one A. Pope writes about. Soto's world is full f worry and hardship, working in factories, and running from ICE. The world south of the border of just above it is much different from the quiet farmlife of the North.

Poem

In Alexander Pope's "The Quiet Life" the topic of identity is explored in the context of not being known. The identity that is described is one that is built off of the very ground in which one lives. Pope goes on to explore the idea of self sufficiency and the blessed nature of those who are "content to breath his native air". The want for anonymity is hit upon in the last stanza with his request to have "not a stone tell where [he] lies". The rhyme scheme used throughout is abab but the a is based off of a sound rhyme. Care and air to not rhyme by sight but when pronounced they are. This use emphasizes the endings of the a lines adding to the message of identity and anonymity.

Gary Soto has a very different take on identity in his poem "Mexicans Begin Jogging". In this poem, the identity or, once again, the lack there of is explored in the lives of undocumented workers. Even though the speaker protests that he is an American, legal to be working, the boss wants to help and shoves him out the door after giving him money. The second stanza tells of the American speaker running as a part of the Mexican groups, "the wag to a short tail". This man is being grouped with different people multiple times but still seems lost as to which is his actual identity. The lack of a rhyme scheme adds to the free, floating nature of the poem and the speaker'a wishy-washyness on personal identity. The landscape/sight descriptors that "blurred like photographs" adds to the quick nature of the speaker'a adventure that propels him into "the next century".