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.