The Love Song by Alfred Prufrok

My favorite part of this poem was the imagery used in the fourth stanza. Prufrok describes a yellow fog that is traveling through the streets and in many other places. What I think this yellow fog is is sunlight. The third line reads "Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening". In my head I picture this as dusk where it is not yet completely dark and there is still some sunlight. The yellow fog that "rubs its back upon the window-panes" is sunlight shining through the windows.

I think this is a very creative way of describing sunlight and I love the metaphoric relation to a yellow fog. By describing the sunlight this way the image in my mind of the poem is not that of simple daylight, but it is the air being filled with sun. It gives the reader a different perspective on sunlight itself. This along with many other metaphors and imagery in this poem make for a very beautiful and interesting read.

Poetry 180

Nights

Kevin Hart

There’s nothing that I really want:
The stars tonight are rich and cold
Above my house that vaguely broods
Upon a path soon lost in dark.

My dinner plate is chipped all round
(It tells me that I’ve changed a lot);
My glass is cracked all down one side
(It shows there is a path for me).

My hands—I rest my head on them.
My eyes—I rest my mind on them.
There’s nothing that I really need
Before I set out on that path.


I liked this poem for a couple of reasons. First, I liked the symboilsm that the author found in his or her plate and glass. The fact that the plate had chipped a lot around the edges means that he changed a lot through the years and the crack going down the glass symbolized that there is a path in life that is set for him. The last STANZA, however, is my favorite. I like the IMAGERY of the LINE "my eyes- I rest my mind on them." In the second line the author uses PERSONIFICATION to describe the stars (as rich and cold). This poem does not rhyme and follows a FREE VERSE structure. Imagery is the main literary device used by this author in this poem.

Intro to Poetry

Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.



This poem by Billy Collins is about enjoying poetry for what it is instead of picking it apart and looking for a right or wrong answer. Poetry is subjective and has many different meanings and interpretations. Students and readers of poems often look to immediately find a meaning and answer to the poem when they should just be enjoying it and gathering a general feeling or idea from it. Sometimes in poetry I feel like the mouse trying to find the way through the poem and struggling tremendously. The point of this poem is that this is ok. It is also not necessary to pick apart every line to find the meaning. Poetry is there for enjoyment so instead of trying to pull out of it an immediate answer, the reader should just enjoy it for what it is. Each stanza is offering a different approach to viewing the poem. All in all, there is no need