My favorite blog out of my classmates has to be mastersloth’s. This blog showed alot of variety in poems. The choices of poems were very interesting and the analyses were always in great depth and clearly full of effort. Great job Mastersloth!!
honorable mention: Poetry in a can; just add water, nightwrighter, incognito16, secret keepers blog, volleyball14!
GREAT JOB EVERYONEEE 
“Austin” BY BLAKE SHELTON
http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/blake-shelton-lyrics/austin-lyrics.html
She left without leavin’ a number
Said she needed to clear her mind
He figured she’d gone back to Austin
‘Cause she talked about it all the time
It was almost a year before she called him up
Three rings and an answering machine is what she got
If you’re callin’ ’bout the car I sold it
If this is Tuesday night I’m bowling
If you’ve got somethin’ to sell, you’re wastin’ your time, I’m not buyin’
If it’s anybody else, wait for the tone,
You know what to do
And P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you
The telephone fell to the counter
She heard but she couldn’t believe
What kind of man would hang on that long
What kind of love that must be
She waited three days, and then she tried again
She didn’t know what she’d say,
But she heard three rings and then
If it’s Friday night I’m at the ballgame
And first thing Saturday, if it don’t rain
I’m headed out to the lake
And I’ll be gone, all weekend long
But I’ll call you back when I get home
On Sunday afternoon
And P.S. If this is Austin, I still love you
Well, this time she left her number
But not another word
Then she waited by the phone on Sunday evenin’
And this is what he heard
If you’re callin’ ’bout my heart
It’s still yours
I should’ve listened to it a little more
Then it wouldn’t have taken me so long to know where I belong
And by the way, boy, this is no machine you’re talkin’ to
Can’t you tell, this is Austin, and I still love you
I still love you
!!! How adorable is this song. The speaker/singer shows real, true emotion. If you listen to the song with the music and the beat, it is alot more interesting and appealing. The major thing that pulled my into the lyrics was the fact that the speaker held on to his true love for over a year after she left him. The emotion in the words as well as his voice is extraordinary. Through out this class I have learned how poetry is very universal and can be read different ways. I think that is a poem that is not very versitile. This poem in my opinion only has one meaning and can only be viewed in one way. It would be interesting to see if anyone thinks that this poem/song could mean anything else to them.
I think it just goes to show that true love is something that will last forever and its ok to miss someone. Its ok to try to contact someone you still love, you never know, they may still love you too.
I chose this poem/song for my last blog because I find it interesting and I think that poetry can be interesting to many people. Others may not like what I like, but thats why poetry is so important because poems can appeal to one, but not to another and it is ok to have different opinions about the same poem.
© By Alicia Click
While You Were Sleeping
While you were sleeping I felt your heart beating.
While you were sleeping in my head love was repeating.
While you were sleeping all I could do was smile.
While you were sleeping I watched you for a while.
While you were sleeping I always held your hand.
While you were sleeping I knew where my heart would land.
While you were sleeping you would hold me near.
While you were sleeping I would cry all my tears.
While you were sleeping from you I knew I wouldn’t part.
While you were sleeping I gave to you my heart.
http://www.poetryamerica.com/read_poems.asp?id=444053
I chose this poem to analyze for blog number 9 because when I first read it I was really touched. The love that the speaker seems to feel for the “signified” person is pure and beautiful. This poem contains poetic devices such as repetition. Like we learned in class last week: if the repetition occurs in the same part of the line it is called anaphora. This poem displays great anaphora by repeating “While you were sleeping” at the beginning of every line. The rhyme scheme in this poem made it really flow. I think that the rhyme scheme is a very important technique in poetry. It makes a poem fun and easy to read.
The poem is very beautiful and easy to understand. There are no complex lines or statements, and it is easy to see that the speaker is very simply telling his or her lover that they are head over heels in love, something that he or she is sure will last forever. That makes this poem such good poetry.
EVERYTHING
By: Michael Buble
You’re a falling star, you’re the get away car.
You’re the line in the sand when I go too far.
You’re the swimming pool, on an August day.
And you’re the perfect thing to say.
And you play it coy but it’s kinda cute.
Ah, when you smile at me you know exactly what you do.
Baby don’t pretend that you don’t know it’s true.
’cause you can see it when I look at you.
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It’s you, it’s you, you make me sing.
You’re every line, you’re every word, you’re everything.
You’re a carousel, you’re a wishing well,
And you light me up, when you ring my bell.
You’re a mystery, you’re from outer space,
You’re every minute of my everyday.
And I can’t believe, uh that I’m your man,
And I get to kiss you baby just because I can.
Whatever comes our way, ah we’ll see it through,
And you know that’s what our love can do.
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times
It’s you, it’s you, you make me sing.
You’re every line, you’re every word, you’re everything.
You’re every song, and I sing along.
‘Cause you’re my everything.
Yeah, yeah
<3 Okay! So how many people do you know have someone that love them this much! This song is so beautiful and you can feel the beauty and the love from the singer the instant you hear or read this. It is completely adorable when in the fourth stanza he says:
You’re a carousel, you’re a wishing well,
And you light me up, when you ring my bell.
You’re a mystery, you’re from outer space,
You’re every minute of my everyday.
It shows how love can be almost very “child-like”. All these things he is comparing his love to are things that as a child we love. It sounds so innocent and pure. She is that for him, she is that “swimming pool on an August day” and she is “the perfect thing to say”. She is EVERYTHING!
And I can’t believe, uh that I’m your man,
And I get to kiss you baby just because I can.
Whatever comes our way, ah we’ll see it through,
And you know that’s what our love can do
Those lines are so CUTE! How sweet is it that he is saying this to his love! I can only hope to find a love this pure and beautiful, and this song will always be one of my all time favorite songs ever!
Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!
Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Scale BY: Shel Silverstein
If I could only see the scale,
I’m sure that it would state
That I’ve lost ounces… maybe pounds
Or even tons or weight.
“You’d better eat some pancakes–
You’re as skinny as a rail”.
I’m sure thats what the scale would say…
If I could see the scale.
I choose this poem to analyse because I think it is a classic children’s poem. It makes you chuckle as soon as you finish reading it. Although he never truely says the reason the speaker cannot see the scale, Silverstein is very subtley hinting that the speaker is fat. Even as a child, it is easy to imagine a man standing on the scale and looking down. Too bad he can’t see over his beer belly! I think it was a vey good technique for Silverstein to use. He never said the reason for something and left it up to the readers imagination, which for children, helps them learn better. I am cursious to hear about other people’s thoughts as to why the speaker can’t see the scale. For some reason that is the only thing that comes to my mind… Maybe I don’t have a creative enough imagination?
Overall silly poem that is interesting and fun to read, as are all his other poems.
Bed in Summer BY: Robert Louis Stevenson
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like to much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
I choose Stevenson’s “Bed in Summer” to show that children’s poems are more then just mere rhyming lines. Literally, the speaker is talking about how he or she is forced to go to bed at a certain bedtime, and how in summer the sun is still out at that time. In winter, at 8 o’clock, it is dark and gloomy outside, but in summer, at 8 o’clock, it is still sunny and beautiful out. The speaker is in bed at a certain time and can still hear the older children and adults outside having fun before it gets dark out. It is something he or she doesn’t understand yet.
The choice of the speaker is an important part of the poem. The poem draws to many different age groups, because as children we feel the same way. Getting older, we look back and realize how we used to think as children, when we didn’t understand the way the world worked.
Along with choosing the speaker, Stevenson also uses descriptive words like colors. When first reading this poem all you tend to think is that it is just a children’s poem and didn’t take much thought. I beg to differ because I think that Stevenson put much thought into this poem. The colors in the poem give us an image to see: the yellow candles, and the clear blue sky. When reading that, the reader can see the images more vibrantly than if just saying, a candle and the sky. Stevenson uses these techniques to drawn the reader into the poem, even though we would just consider it a children’s poem that may use no poetic devices.
THE BASE STEALER by: ROBERT FRANCIS
Poised between going on and back, pulled
Both ways taut like a tightrope-walker,
Fingertips pointing the opposites,
Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball
Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on,
Running a scattering of steps sidewise,
How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases,
Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird,
He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,
Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate – now!
After looking for a poem for assignment number 1, the radio essay, I found this poem fit into my category. As well as tying all of my facts together, this poem contains many literary devices which draw the reader into the poem.
Francis’ use of similies are perfect in a poem like this. He is describing a person and when describing someone or something, using comparisions is a great way for the reader to visualize the object. When describing the base runner, he says “taut like a tightrope-walker”. This comparision helps us to imagine exactly what the player looks like, while he is debating whether or not to try to steal the base. Next, he says that the player is “bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball”. The image in my head after reading that line is a bouncy ball that continually bounces. The athlete is also bouncing up and down, and back and forth, like he is uncertain of his next move.
The second literary poetic device that Francis uses is alliteration. In the seventh and eighth lines Francis says “How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases, taunts them hovers like an ecstatic bird…” This great usage of alliteration not only draws the reader in, but every word is an action word. The words describe what the baseball player is doing. Francis not only drew the reader in by describing how the player was acting and what he was doing, but he did it in a way that made me even more interested. The repitition of the “t” sound in these 2 lines was a great way to get the reader pulled into the poem.
“The Open Window” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravelled pathway
The light and shadow played.
I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air;
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.
The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates,
Who would return no more.
They walked not under the lindens,
They played not in the hall;
But shadow, and silence, and sadness
Were hanging over all.
The birds sang in the branches,
With sweet, familiar tone;
But the voices of the children
Will be heard in dreams alone!
And the boy that walked beside me,
He could not understand
Why closer in mine, ah! closer,
I pressed his warm, soft hand!
After reading this poem, I could feel the pain of the speaker. This poem is about the loss someone special. The speaker is looking through his window to see the normal sights he is used to, but over time, those things are no longer there. I saw this poem as a change over a long period of time. I pictured the speaker as an older man who is close to the end of his life, and reminiscing about the past. He used to look out the window and see his children playing, but now they are all grown up and have children of their own. He is missing their presence and feels the loss of his loved ones.
Another way to loo at the poem is that the speaker lost a loved one permanently (death). Things have changed in the house, the yard, and the whole neighborhood, and the normal sights are no longer seen due to the absence of that person.
Two poetic techniques that Longfellow uses to draw the reader in include: personifications, and imagery. The personification of the objects such as the house in lines 1 and 2 makes the poem itself seem more alive. The house “stood silent in the shade” not only shows personification, but also allows for great imagery. After reading those lines, it is very possible to see the quite, little house on top of a hill. In fact it makes it almost impossible not to imagine what the house would look like. “And on the gravelled pathway the light and shadow played.”, I’m sure the light and shadow didnot actually “play”, but something such as a breeze could account for the shadows, due to trees, moving back and forth. After continuing to read these lines, we the reader begin to analyze more and more about the poem. The imagery of the absence of the children playing outside with the dog is easy to see. I can imagine an empty swing set, a lost and lonely old dog, maybe some tumbleweed blowing in the breeze… I think that Longfellow did a great job of making the poem easy to see as we read. The personification and the imagery lend to the poem and help make the great poem that it is.
The poem is easy to relate to because no matter who you are, you have had a feeling of loss at some point in your life. When reading this poem you might either picture the speaker in a certain situation, or you might even think of a situation in your own life in which you felt lonely and hurt by the loss of a loved one.
William Shakespeare – Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee
I chose William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 as the first poem I would like to analyze for this class because since I first read this sonnet in seventh grade, it always seemed to stick in my memory. The sonnet is a beautiful sonnet and it very easy to understand. The speaker is talking about how beautiful his love is. He says she is as beautiful as a perfect summer day, and that her beauty shines like the sun. My favorite lines in this sonnet are the last three lines, which basically are stating that as long as men are alive and able to see and read these lines, then her beauty will never die; it will be alive in the poems and in the imaginations of the readers.
Some other aspects of this poem that I enjoyed were the literary figures or speech that Shakespeare uses. When talking about the sun, the summer, and the wind, Shakespeare uses personifications. He makes the simple innate objects much more lively, and very easy to imagine. When speaking about how hot the sun can shine, he calls it the eye of heaven, which first makes us think a little bit harder. The way he describes it makes it very easy for the reader to imagine those days when the sun is so strong, you can hardly bear to sit outside. As with the sun, Shakespeare also talks about the summer season like it is alive. He mentions that summer’s lease is short which is explaining that summer is too quick of a season. This poem is full of the personifications that make it so much easier to imagine and view.
