Language- Pied Beauty

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pied Beauty=Particolored beauty: having patches or sections of more than one color.

The author starts out by describing the many colors that are in one pattern or design in nature, using the colors from others:

"rose moles" dotted on "trout that swim"

"skies of couple olor as a brinded cow"

"Fresh firecoal chestnut falls"

Then the author describes the landscape, which reminds one of the aerial view of land from a plane, where its different colors are sectioned by the way each piece of land was worked

The author then moves beyond the visual meaning of "pied beauty" and includes the great assortment of "all trades", and then "all things counter, original, spare, strange". 

The authors language shows how the author sees one thing as an ensemble of others, and how the beauty is not only visual but is found in every different aspect of life.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Reaction to "Singapore" by Mary Oliver

in the Norton: pg. 911

Setting the poem in the Singapore airport gives it a gritty tone. The very worldly singapore is a well known sight of drug trades, prostitution, and an overall lack of hygiene and safety. Saying that "a darkness was ripped from my eyes" (2), meaning that she has learned or realized something and seen the light, in a Singapore airport is quite significant because she could have seen any number of things she'd never been exposed to in ohio or upstate new york (http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/O/OliverMary/index.htm)

The speaker didn't particularly like the setting or the situation she was in, "disgust argued my stomach"(5), and switches settings briefly in her mind , thinking that "a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem" (12), as she describes beautiful unspoiled nature.

The meaning of the entire poem is given at the end, saying "the light that can shine out of a life" (29), like the woman she saw there, can be just as beautiful and happy as the trees and birds she was describing earlier.

Response to "God Says Yes to Me"

The speaker could be the author or most probably a woman at the least. She is speaking directly to God in a childlike manner: the diction and syntax of the questions are simplistic and humble, lacking sophistication and pride. So the speaker is either a child, or feels like a child in the presence of God. Also, the speaker refers to God as a female who is loving and calls her "honey"(7) and "sweetheart"(14) in a motherly manner. The nature of the speaker's questions (1,3,5,6,12) about whether it's ok to be melodramatic, short, wear or not wear nail polish, and not paragraph letters seem to have to do with general standards and critiques of feminine perfection and/or inferiority, which could explain why both the speaker and God are females.

Overall the speaker seems to be looking for affirmation from "her creator and god" that she can be exactly who she is.

"God Says Yes to Me" by Kaylin Haught

God Says Yes To Me

Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramaticand
she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Analysis of "A Certain Lady"

The speaker in this poem is a lady who reflects on how she interacts with a man she loves. She puts on a gay pretense to make the man feel that she loves and eats up every word he says. She acts physically flirtatious (lines 4, 22), uses her body language to please and entice him with looks and smiles (1-3, 6, 13), and she laughs and "marvels rapturous eyed"as he "rehearses his lists of love" and tells "tales of fresh adventurings". The problem is, the whole time he's telling her about his exploits and his experiences with women, which is causing her great pain (8, 11, 23), but she knows her part so well (meaning she's acting, playing a role) that he believes that she is delighted by his stories and continues, oblivious to her pain.

A witty cynicism towards romance emanates from the hardened, world weary speaker that is characteristic to a lot of Dorothy Parker's works. The speaker herself is clever, well practiced in her ruse, and quite wry and sarcastic in the way she deals with the man. She has knowledge that reveals the weaknesses of the man, and she decieves and has some control over him through her behavior, but she can't make him do what she really wants, which is to stop adventuring with young ladies, understand her pain and feelings, and love her.

"A Certain Lady" by Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

A Certain Lady

Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You’ll never know.

Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings,—
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me——marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ….
And what goes on, my love, while you’re away,
You’ll never know.

My Response/Analysis of "London"

Immediately you pick up on the repetition of the word "chartered" in lines 1 and 2, which instantly denote an emphasis on privelege, and the English "establishment". But in the third line says "every face" which changes the focus from the priveleged or extraordinary, to common and ordinary, especially as the fourth line speaks of "weakness" and "woe". Weakness and woe is a characteristic of struggles of the common man, not the "chartered", or those granted special favor or honor by the government. These two pairs of lines bring together the contrasting aspects of London, and set a critical tone, ensuring that the next stanzas will show how London's weak and weary go unassisted, though they live near wealth in the Church and in the Palace.

And indeed, cries from the helpless and underprivileged (i.e. babies, chimney sweeps, soldiers) "appall" the Church, which is "blackening" from the evil of turning a blind eye, and marrs the Palace walls, or the image of London's wealthy institution, as much as bloos running down its walls. And the last stanza describes how the pains and horrors that are found in the streets of London "blights wiht plagues the Marriage hearse". Here, the marriage hearse is supposed to represent both the Church and secualar establishments, and the hearse can only be afforded by the priveleged, so it is symbolic of everything the wretches of London cry out against. And the tone mocks these "institutions" for being stained and "bothered" by these, but turning away anyway, so they won't have to help.

Tone- Norton Poem

William Blake

London

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening Church appals;
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.