Rotation 5 Blog 1
W.S. Merwin- page 221
“For the Anniversary of My Death”
The man in this poem really brings up a good point. Every year we pass up the day that our death is going to be. Without knowing which day it is. I have never thought of it this way and it really open up something. This poem does not really have a beat in it and also has no rhyme scheme. Although there is no rhythm there is a caesura in each line. This is where there is pause in the line. In the end of this poem the author talks about how once he does die he will not have to “wear strange garment” meaning he will not have to wear clothes. This poem is divided into two asymmetrical sections and the difference between the two is that the first one is talking about how strange it is that everyday could be the day that you die. The second part is talking about how dying might not be such a bad thing.
Arthur Guiterman- page 340
“On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness”
This poem is about how people kill things so they can use them for their own selfish reasons. For example the tusks of an elephant that are used in “mighty brawls” are now “billiard balls.” This poem has a rhyme scheme of A,A,B,B,C,C,D,D. Although the A,A and the D,D are slant rhymes. The title really portrays the poem well because the greatness of all the “earthly” animals and people are now simply something that someone buys for there own enjoyment.
Robert Hayden- page 341
“The Whipping”
This poem is a iambic trimeter. It is has a unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Although some parts of the poem do have anapest; for example when she says “and shouting to the neighborhood.” The “to the” makes the line a anapest. This poem is also a black verse because it is a unrhymed iambic pentameter. The speaker in this poem is an onlooker who has some relation to the women who is beating the boy. Although the author wants to make the reader feel like he has a attachment to the boy I feel like it is towards the woman who is beating the boy. I think this because it says “I no longer knew or loved…” Someone would not stop loving someone after they were being beaten but only if they were the one doing the beating.
