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

Dylan Thomas
Thomas wrote a variety of work all starting at a young age. He wrote short stories, poetry, broadcasts, films and an unfinished novel. Some of his poems are very straight forward and some are abstruse. Thomas did not belong to any certain niche of literature; he paved his own path that was unique to him, which made him stand out.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This poem has a straight forward meaning, but also some subtle abstract ideas as well. He uses "Do not go gentle into that good night" as a metaphor to tell his father to fight death until the last second, don't just die but fight for you life every second you can. He uses his diction and language to repeat and emphasize certain lines which help us put into perspective what this poem is about. "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "rage rage against the dying of the light" are very vivid imagery telling his father not to die so easily.
Thomas gives examples of people who "do not go gentle into that good night," which exemplify the kind of people that fight against death. These people displayed represent courage and living their life to the fullest. Thomas says to his father "curse bless me now with your fierce tears," begging his father to fight for his life. This is powerful diction which compels us to feel sympathy for the speaker and for the speakers father.
Many of the words and the overall diction in this poem seems violent and aggressive, with words like "rage" "curse" "blaze" and "fierce," but the overall meaning of the poem is not aggressive. When putting these words together the speaker creates a sympathetic feeling out of aggressive words, which has a powerful effect on us readers. The ability of this author to take words that already have a predisposed connotation and manipulate them to mean something completely different shows how the use of language and diction can create unique results.

"Marks" by Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan
Linda Pastan was a poet in college, and her senior year she won the Mademoiselle Poetry prize. after college however, she stopped writing to focus on her family. she has returned to writing since, and now her poetry mostly consists of topics covering marriage, parenting, and grief.

Marks

My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out. 

This poem is written in free verse with 12 lines in one stanza. The brevity of this poem is noticeable, and how each line only has a few words. Pastan only needs a few words to get her point across; being a mother is difficult. You must always be there when someone needs you and if it's not enough then you rarely ever get a break. She equates mothering to being in school, being graded and judged. This relates to my own life, because I realize that I do this to my own mother. Mothers have a wide range of responsibilities; making dinner, doing laundry, pleasing their husbands, and tending to their children. These responsibilities of a mother are all simultaneous, and we must not and should not expect all of these tasks to be up to one person. We must learn to appreciate what we have and who helps us do it.

The poem is about a mother trying her best and still not being recognized for her hard work. While her husband gives her a B for her work, her son says she is "average." The last line, "wait til they learn I'm dropping out" alludes to an inkling that the mother might quit. What happens when the person running the show quits? The show doesn't go on. Without a person willing to take on all these responsibilities there would be no happy family. We must recognize and appreciate all the things that our mothers do for us "behind the scenes," and realize that even though it's not advertised or seemingly the most important thing in our lives, it does mean a lot and can affect someone in more ways than one.

"Sex without Love" by Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is an American poet who is also the author of not only poetry but novels too. Her writing is usually characterized by deep and emotional feeling that leave a lasting impact on the reader. Her poems are known to cut quickly from reality to fantasy and she is known for her precision. She is a modern poet, born in 1942 and attended Stanford University.

"Sex without Love"
How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

This poem is a modern poem, because the topic is modern. I think today's time is one of the worst where people have sex without love, marry without love and have kids without love. The divorce rating is higher than ever and the nuclear family is not a common occurrence anymore, instead single parent families are considered normal. The author begins the poem with sweet diction, describing these people as "dancers gliding over each other like ice skaters," which gives a feeling of desire. Then, the author quickly cuts to describing them as meat, hooking into each other. Describing the people as meat and wine changes the mood and tone because they are no longer beautiful gliding ice skaters but instead pieces of meat ravenously making love. Olds comments on the issue of the children at birth whose mothers are going to give them away. She means that people who make love without love tend to give away their child because they don't actually want a child, they just wanted the sex. In the next line she stutters and says "come to the come to the come to the," stuttering from what is confusion. A stutter is natural when we are confused, and the author is bewildered by people who make love without love. In the first line she introduced her confusion by asking how they do it, how people have sex without love. Later int he poem Olds makes a connection of someone who has sex without love to great runners. They're both alone; a runner is alone on the road surface running. The partner is alone living a lie, making love without love and trying to pass it as true love for someone, but really they are alone. Although in the world they would be considered two bodies making love, because there is no love present each body is alone and they are alone together. Like a runner, the partner is trying to beat their own best time; they're trying to find real love.

"Daystar" by Rita Dove

Rita Dove
Born in the 1950s, Rita Dove was a gifted poet. She had an impressive academic performance, and eventually attended the University of Virginia to continue her career. SHe was named Poet Laureate of the United States in 1993, and even after retiring continued to write not only poetry but short stories as well.

"Daystar" by Rita Dove
"She wanted a little room for thinking:
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door.
So she lugged a chair behind the garage
to sit out the children's naps.
Sometimes there were things to watch-
the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
a floating maple leaf. Other days
she starred until she was assured
when she closed her eyes
she'd see only her own vivid blood.
She had a hour at best before Liza appeared
pouting from the top of the stairs.
And just what was mother doing
out back with the field mice? Why,
building a palace. Later
that night when Thomas rolled over and
lurched into her, she would open her eyes
and think of the place that was hers
for an hour-where
she was nothing,
pure nothing, in the middle of the day."


Daystar is a free verse poem, organized into three different stanzas. There are rhetorical questions and hyphens throughout the poem that add to the true meaning and help convey the theme of the poem. The setting is set in a calm country home; a mother taking care of her children. The temporal setting is in the middle of the day; a time when the sun is shining and no harm can be done. A mother decides to take an hour break from her children in the backyard, thinking of her happy place. The poem tells a story of how a mother is consumed with her children. She feeds them, changes their diapers and tends to them when they cry. Ironically, the father is nowhere to be found during these tasks. Instead, the father is mentioned "lurched into her later that night." This can convey the traditional theme of the father goes to work, the mother stays home with the children and later that night the mother is expected to please the father with sex as she is told to do. She says when he lurches into her she will think of the palace she created in that hour break she had earlier, she will find a happy place to escape from her nightmare of a reality.

This poem was written in the 1980s, when women were held to certain stereotypes. This poem conveys the message from the woman's side of the story, and helps tell a rare perspective that offers insight to how the woman feels and how she deals with her struggles.

"Paper Matches" by Paulette Jiles

Paulette Jiles - A poet, novelist, journalist and a memoirist, Jiles has already published many works of literature. Her works usually entail philosophical, ironic and witty thought but can evoke deep insights. She is a modern poet and her most famous work is Enemy Woman (2002).

"Paper Matches"

My aunts washed dishes while the uncles
squirted each other on the lawn with
garden hoses. Why are we in here,
I said, and they are out there?
That’s the way it is,
said Aunt Hetty, the shriveled-up one.
I have the rages that small animals have,
being small, being animal.
Written on me was a message,
“At Your Service,”
like a book of paper matches.
One by one we were taken out
and struck.
We come bearing supper,
our heads on fire.

This poem is very modern, written in 1973. It does not have a traditional rhyme scheme, but instead uses free verse. This poem uses symbolism and a couple literal examples to support a feminist view and convey the struggles that women face. The poem is modern because it has modern examples, such as yard work and work in the kitchen. Back when this poem was written, women's traditional role was to be in the kitchen. Jiles' commentary on this belief shows through in her poem. she writes, "written on me was a message, 'At Your Service,'" which portrays how women were thought of. Women were thought of as an aid to a man, always at their beck and call. From context clues we can infer that the speaker is a child working in the kitchen with her aunts. The speaker does not understand why the men get to go out and do yard work and the women are confined to the walls of the kitchen. Aunt Hetty responds to this saying "That's the way it is," insinuating that it is social norm and it is the way it is supposed to be. While the women slave away in the house, making dinner and setting their heads on fire with effort to present supper, the men remain outside having fun and squirting each other with the garden hoses. 

I think that this poem displays the situation women can be put in, and sheds light on it. Now, women have been breaking these barriers. There are female CEOs, presidential candidates and even some men that take on the "woman's role" in homes. However, this poem reminds us of how things used to be different in the past and how our social customs have changed and evolved over the years.

"Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy was born in Detroit, and later attended the University of Michigan. She usually approaches her poetry with a feminist view or writes about topics of class or culture. She has published poetry as well as several novels. She is still continuing to write to this day, living with her husband in Cape Cod. 

Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy 

This girlchild was born as usual 
and presented dolls that did pee-pee 
and miniature GE stoves and irons 
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy. 
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said: 
You have a great big nose and fat legs. 

She was healthy, tested intelligent, 
possessed strong arms and back, 
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity. 
She went to and fro apologizing. 
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs. 

She was advised to play coy, 
exhorted to come on hearty, 
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle. 
Her good nature wore out 
like a fan belt. 
So she cut off her nose and her legs 
and offered them up. 

In the casket displayed on satin she lay 
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on, 
a turned-up putty nose, 
dressed in a pink and white nightie. 
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said. 
Consummation at last. 
To every woman a happy ending.

This poem is structured in stanzas. Each stanzas starts with a new degree of the girls condition, and each one gets worse. The poem is about a girls body image, and how people around us can impact us and lower our self esteem to the point of death. The stanzas continue to increase in the severity of her condition until the last stanza when the poem implies that the girl has died. This is organized in a way so as to show how severe this issue can be. 

I think this poem does a great job of showing a modern issue that many girls have today. We all have the pressure to be perfect and look like the girl on the magazine cover, but in truth we all have our own beauty. The girl in the poem was pestered about her body image until the point where she dies because she was trying to be what others wanted her to be. 

This poem conveys how others perception of ourselves can affect us more than what meets the eye. A snarky comment about someone's weight may seem light, but it can follow someone forever. In the poem, the girl starts out loving her body as a child, but when others make comments about how it's not what it is supposed to be then she starts noticing her imperfections. Our lives tend to revolve around who we surround ourselves with, and I think if we surround ourselves with positive people than our lives will have more positivity and spread to many more things throughout our lives. 

Ars Poetica

Ars Poetica

This poem is about what a poem should be, and how it ought to affect someone. The structure of this poem is somewhat rhymed, but also there are lines that aren't rhymed. The lines are structured in couplets, and only three of these couplets do not rhyme.  There are lines in the poem that are short, maybe two or three words and then they are either preceded or followed by lines with more words in them. This style is not traditional, but instead sparks interest within the reader and keeps us interested in the imagery of the poem.

Ars Poetica is specifically about critiquing a poem. The author is saying that a poem should be silent, and let the ones who reads it be the molder. The one who reads the poem can mold the poem into whatever they want. A poem should not be written for a specific meaning, but it should exist so that other may interpret it however they mean to. A poem should not control the reader; it should be easily molded into how the reader interprets the poem. Mute; as in not to say anything, but let the reader control what the poem says. Dumb; as in not to think for itself, but whatever the reader thinks let also the poem think that. Motionless in time; not moving in different directions, but easily pinned down to focus on one meaning. Finally, “A poem should not mean, but be.” This means that a poem should not try to force a meaning, but just exist so that others can decide for themselves how and what the poem should mean to them.