To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Comment

1. What do "fire" and "ice" refer to in the first two lines? What trope does the poet use to reach his purport?

2. What do the same words refer to when Frost uses them for the second time?

3. What kind of result do both of these bring about?

4. What does the poem imply will cause the end of the world? What stylistic device helps to reach your conclusion?

Exercise 5.3. Read the poem Desert Places by Robert Frost, which shows his understanding of the terror of self-knowledge.

Snow falling and night falling fast oh fast

In a field I looked into going past,

And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,

But a few weeks and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it – it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness

Will he more lonely ere it will be less –

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars - on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

Comment

1. What mood is created by the description in stanza 1? Why are "weeds and stubble" appropriate to this mood? How does the rhythm of the poem function for the purpose? (for help pay attention to the suggestive sound power, e.g. in "fast oh fast")

2. What does the speaker mean by saying that the woods "have" the field?

3. Why does the speaker's presence not "count"?

4. The word "includes" comes from the Latin root claudere, "to shut". What would "includes" mean if literary translated? What does "unawares" modify? Could it modify two words? Give your reasons.

5. Is stanza 3 a description of the scene being looked at, of the speaker, or both? Explain your answer. (Here pay attention to the role of alliteration)

6. What is the common idea suggested by white snow, black night, and "desert places"?

7. In the first part of the poem, "desert places" seem to refer to scenes of loneliness. What do you think it means in the last line of the poem?

8. Speak about Frost's understanding of the possible terror of self-knowledge.

Exercise 5.4. Read the poem Design by Robert Frost, which proves that he was not a kindly nature poet. He looked closely enough at the nature world to see that it is essentially cruel.

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, olding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth –

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches' broth –

A snow-drop spider, a flower loke froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appaul? –

If design govern in a thing so small.

Comment

1. Note that this poem is a sonnet. Find out the role of the sonnet form and and say why, in your opinion, the poet chose this form of poetry to express his idea.

2. What subject does each of the two parts deal with?

3. In lines 1-3 what colour are the spider, flower, and moth? What connotations does this leit-motif colour usually have? Why is the presence of this colour ironic here?

4. The flower the speaker sees is a heal-all. Why is its name ironic in the poem? The heal-all is ormally a blue flower. What effect does a white heal-all create?

5. Now find the necessary tropes for the decriptions of the spider and the moth and consider them. What does each description suggest and why is the suggestion ironic?

6. What has white come to mean in the poem? What then does the question in the lines 9-10 mean?

7. What answer is first given to the question in lines 11 and 12? Explain the last line of the poem.

8. Explain the tone of "ready to begin the morning right" and how this tone is related to the whole poem. How does it reveal Frost's implications for the relationship between God and His creation?

Exercise 5.5. Read the poem “ maggie and milly and molly and may ” by E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) whose aim was to force the reader to experience a poem as a poetic performance rather than a prose statement. While reading, pay attention to the lilting rhythm and melodious sounds created by the words; then think about the statement the poem makes.

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thin

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may come home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.

Comment

1. Notice how carefully the poem has been constructed. The first couplet introduces the actors and sets a scene while the final couplet makes a comment. What do the middle four couplets deal with? How does a shell sing? What is “ a stranded star”?

2. In less capable hands this lyric might easily have slipped into a singsong beat. It escapes such a pitfall primarily because of the variety in meter. How do lines differ in length and beat? Where does the poet changed placement of the conjunction “and”?

3. The rhyme is also varied. Which stanzas have exact rhymes? What end rhymes do you find elsewhere? What illustration do you find?

4. What is each girl like? In what sense do the girls find themselves in the sea? Why do you think the girls’ names are spelled without the first capital letter?

5. Give your impressions of the poem.

Exercise 5.6. Read the poem “!” by E.E. Cummings. The strange-looking arrangement of words in this poem will make sense if you first read the words outside the insertion in brackets and then read those inside. Then think of the poem as a whole.

!

o (rounD) moon, how

do

you (rouND

er

than roUnd) float;

who

lly & (rOunder than)

go

:ldenly (Round

est)

?

Comment

1. The typographical stunt used by Cummings is really a serious attempt to make things happen simultaneously, to appeal to the eye and ear at the same time, to close the gap between the reader’s experience of the poem and the poet’s expression of that experience. Could the two thoughts outside and inside the parentheses occur simultaneously to someone observing the scene?

2. What emotions are suggested by the punctuation marks at the beginning and the end?

3. The division of words in this poem may at first seem arbitrary. But what verb is emphasized by the division of the word ‘goldenly’? what rhyme is emphasized? What effect does the division have on the speed with which you read the word?

4. What progression do you see in the words enclosed by parentheses? Does the shape of the parenthesis marks coincide with the subject matter of the poem? What vowel sound is emphasized throughout the poem? What is the significance of its topographical shape?

5. What sense can you make of the capital letters in this poem?

6. Sum up everything and speak of the poem as a whole.

Exercise 5.7. Remembering how insertion worked in the previous poem, read the poem “l(a” by E.E. Cummings.

l(a

le

af

fa

ll

s)

one

l

iness

Comment

1. Consider first the insertion of the poem. What statement is made? Does the spacing of the words correspond visually to the idea being expressed?

2. Now read the main word of the poem, which is outside the insertion. How is this abstract word related to the insertion? (Notice that the poet is not making a simple comparison; rather the word outside and inside the brackets are meant to be experienced simultaneously.)

3. What idea is implied? How does the visual separation of the letters reinforce the main idea?

4. How does the isolation of the syllable “one” add to the theme?

5. Give your impression of the poem.

Exercise 5.8. Read the lyrics of the song The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me by Tom Waits (1949 –), a famous American musician and actor. Think what idea lies behind these simple words of a drunken man.

The ocean doesn’t want me today

But I’ll be back tomorrow to play

And the strangles will take me

Down deep in their brine

The mischievous brain-gels

Down into the endless blue wine

I’ll open my head and let out

All of the time.

I’d love to go drowning

And to stay and to stay

But the ocean doesn’t want me today

I’ll go in up to here

It can’t possibly hurt

All they will find is my beer

And my shirt.

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