Feeling Poetry - Blog #4

Here are a few poems which I have read and below is a catalogue of how they made me feel. Enjoy.

"Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" by Dylan Thomas

After reading this poem, I felt both saddened and angry. Sad that the poets father was dying and also, angry that there was nothing he could do about it, but to keep admonishing him to fight and 'rage against the dying of the light'. I chose this picture from 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' as I thought it encapsulated the feeling of the poem in its entirety. At this point in the movie (for those who have not seen it) Harry's godfather, having engaged in a vicious battle to protect Harry, is killed by one of their aggressors. He then drifts off beyond a dark veil, although Harry pines after him, trying to get him to stay. It is an all too familiar feeling to me to say the least, having lost my father as well and knowing the feeling of an emotional concoction of denial, anger and greif.

"We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

Now here is a poem which had me thinking 'these pretty little things don't know what they are getting themselves into'. It evoked pity in me and literally made me shake my head at how these little shool children reject an education to pursue a lifestyle which they were no where near ready to handle, just to look cool. Then, I thought 'I sound like my mother!' And I wondered if this is how she felt when she observed me engaging in something that I could not understand the

consequences of in the fearlessness of my youth. The picture I associated with this poem comes from Cycle 9 of 'America's Next Top Model', where they did a photo shoot about the effects of smoking. Although some of the models don't look it, they are actually 18 and 19 year olds who have left high school or taken time off of college to pursue a career in modeling. In this image, they portray the 'coolness and glamour' which is associated with smoking with their current selves, whereas, the image in the mirror shows what they do not know; that they are harming themselves irreperably and this is the future which awaits them. 'Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?'

"I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain' by Emily Dickinson

Dazed and confused is how I felt after reading this poetic jem (sarcasm). I take this time to apologize to all the Emily Dickinson fans out there because I just might be ripping her to shreds for the rest of this section. So here goes. I read the poem the first time, and I was confused. I read it a second time and I felt my brain get knocked sideways, and I was dazed. I read it a third time and somewhere within myself (for my brain was dazed) I willed myself to stop before I went crazy. And that is the conclusion I came to about Ms. Emily Dickinson: THIS BITCH IS CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But in the spirit of trying to illustrate the feeling of the poem, I came up with the piece 'The Scream'. I believe that in the instant that my subconscious took control of my body and retrained me from further reading to avoid permanent mental damage, I related to Ms. Dickinson in a small (much emphasis on that word) way. We both lost control of ourselves for a moment and something more basic took over. We were essentially trapped within ourselves, completely at the mercy of something we could not control but that something was ourselves and we, although numb to stop it, were conscious of the whole occurrence. Confused? Now you get what I'm talking about.

'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost

Robert Frost made me feel something I have also felt before; the feeling of no matter what decision I make, I would have regretted not making the other. I felt that there is no clear or concise way of dealing with the situation and that everything is grey. I chose this picture because it represents to me the picture of the two roads which diverged in the wood which Frost had described.

'If The World Was Crazy' by Shel Silverstein

I felt happier than I had ever felt in my adult life (7 months since my 21st birthday). It brought back happy childhood memories and made me reminisce about simpler days, when things did not have to make sense and imagination was the greatest asset I possessed. The Mad Hatter definitely came to mind from the off when I read this poem as he moreso symbolizes the meaning of the poem than the concept of Wonderland. The poem rolled along stating unconventional ideas and concepts like there was nothing wrong with them, but just to appease the conventional thinkers, it states these things with the proverbial 'grain of salt' that is the line: 'If the world was crazy'. I found this to be similar to the Mad Hatter since he rolled along, doing unconventional things (as was his nature) and personifies 'If the world was crazy' in his natural way of being.

Thus brings the end of feeling poems from my perspective. I hope you can do the same when you read them.

Note: I was given permission to hand in this assignment after class time. Thanks alot! = )