Uneffusive Circumspect Wallflowers

I thought this poem was really fun and light. I didn’t have to beat this poem with a pipe to understand it. This poem was about words and how often we use them. I know this is really random but when I was little I always personified my stuffed animals and wanted to make room for all of them. That why I never had too many because I would become so conflicted with having to sleep and play with all of them equally and didn’t want to exclude anyone. I know I only use big words when I’m trying to impress someone. On a deeper level I did realize that as a human I do want to get picked to. Everyone wants to get picked sometime, and feel loved. There is no rhyme scheme to this poem. The poem is also is full of commas and questions.

Mr. Fear......................BOO!

The first thing I thought was who Mr. Fear is is he scary or a scardy cat? As I started to read "He follows us, he keeps track each day his list are longer." From my American childhood I automatically think Santa! But were in AP lit and I doubt we would get a poem on Santa. I also think of the lord because, he is always watching us and keeping track of our sins. "Maybe he smiles when he finds the right one. Maybe he’s sorry." This made me think of the lord to because when he see us starving, hurt, diagnosed with cancer, and all the other pain, is he happy because he know that is what will make us strong or sad because we are broken.

Personally I don't believe in free will, so to me the lines "and he looks through his sack, his black sack of troubles" I pictured fate personified. He reaches his hand in and pulls out, who you are and how your life will be. "Make it small please." Everyone always hope that they have a small amount of hardships and troubles to deal with in their life. This poem is an allegory and a personification.

Mr. Fear has taken vacancy in my mind and refuses to leave thanks to Lawrence Raab.

In Blackwater Woods

Today in class Toni presented this poem and, I really like it and wanted to blog it while it was fresh in my mind. You asked in class if we thought this poem was literally about a forest, I think this poem is about life and how much you need to appreciate it. To me a forest is a perfect symbol for life and death.

The first stanza "Look, the trees are turning their own bodies in to pillars of light..." I can of course as a native to Colorado I can picture the pillars of light between trees as the sun goes down. But to me this makes me think of how towards the end of my life I always picture my view of the mortal world fade in to the gates of heaven. For that split moment I hope that the two worlds overlap. To me that one hope alone is almost enough to want to live for.

In stanzas 5 and 6 "Every year everything I have learned in my lifetime leads back to this..." shows how in your life if you are a master at physics or a trash man your life always leads you to an end. No matter how much you try to avoid it death comes knocking. That reminds me of a quote I love from Futurama "Thanks to denial I’m immortal!” I know personally one way to cope with death for me is through complete denial. That brings me to the three things "love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go." These are skills to confront your own mortality. To love what is mortal, you must love life and not be bitter that it will be taken away from you, and to love life in general. To me what makes life worth living are images I am very fond of images from nature, these beautiful natural sanctuary’s are mostly mortal and will perish but with an image I can forever see the beauty in what once was, just like human history. To hold it against your bones you must embrace life and experience it. The last is the hardest when time comes to let it go let it go. I'm sure we have all wondered what our last thoughts will be and what death is like and that’s the most relatable thing in the world. Every human on earth will know what it is like to die, and we will all be forced to let go. I really enjoyed this poem and even though the content is so dark after reading it I felt
*The pictures are of natury things I took that just make me think of life :]