Final Favorite

My Final favorite poem was "Child Development" by Billy Collins. I choose this one poem above the others because it's silly. It has a child like innocence and humor from childhood. The speaker use words that children use as insults like "Dumb Goopyhead" and "Big Sewerface" that give the poem a lighter happier tone. The poem also delivers an important message that you cant care to much about what others think which is difficult for most people to do. Like children have always known you cant be afraid to express you're feelings.

You Are Tired (I Think) by E.E. Cummings

You Are Tired (I Think)

By E.E. Cummings

You are tired,

(I think)

Of the always puzzle of living and doing;

And so am I.

Come with me, then,

And we'll leave it far and far away—

(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,

(I think)

And broke the toys you were fondest of,

And are a little tired now;

Tired of things that break, and—

Just tired.

So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,

And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—

Open to me!

For I will show you the places Nobody knows,

And, if you like,

The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!

I'll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,

That floats forever and a day;

I'll sing you the jacinth song

Of the probable stars;

I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,

Until I find the Only Flower,

Which shall keep (I think) your little heart

While the moon comes out of the sea.

Analysis:

• The poem is a man offering a woman to run away with him. However the offer to run away is not as important to the meaning of the poem as is what they are running away from. The speaker guesses that the woman is tired, tired of always moving in a busy life style and tired of things that break, such as a broken heart. The speakers offer is filled with temptation to leave behind everything one wishes they could stop and take a break from and to find a better place where they can be happy.

Theme:

• The theme of the poem is that everyone needs a break now and then. Life can get boring and dull and sometimes one needs to escape to a place where they can rest and be happy.

Personal Connection:

• I liked this poem because it was relatable to a lot of people. Most people at some point in there lives need a break from their lives at some point and wish they could be whisked away to another place just to take a break.

No Man Is an Island by John Donne

No Man is an Island
by John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. 

Vocabulary:

• Promontory- A high point of land or rock projecting into the sea or other water beyond the line of the coast; a headland.

Analysis:

• The poem is saying that every man is apart of mankind. Everyone makes up the human race. And while there are a lot of us in the world we are all important and if one of us dies we loose an important part of us. The poem says that we are never alone in the world we are all together as one big continent.

Theme:

• The poems theme is that everyone is important in the world and that everyone makes the world what it is.

Personal Connection:

• I enjoyed this poem because it reminds people that they aren't the only ones and that they always have someone to lean on. It also reminds you to appreciate everyone because everyone is important . 

Child Development by Billy Collins

Child Development
by Billy Collins
As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants

Vocabulary:

• Navaho-1.a member of a North American Indian people of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah 2.the language of this people, belonging to the Athapascan group of the Na-Dene phylum
• Invective- Vehement or violent denunciation, censure or reproach.

Analysis:

• As children get older they enter the stage of name calling, the speaker says that there isn't much meaning behind just the way kids behave and they often get scolded for it. They are scolded for being mean when really they mean nothing by it while adults are the real mean ones. Their name calling is done behind closed doors and in secrecy, there is actual meaning behind these words and while adults yell at there children they know they are the ones with bad behavior and that they should be scolded not the children. Secretly adults know they are being silly because while children say what they want then and there adults hide hide it and save it for later inevitably saying the same things as the child had in other words.

Theme:

• The theme of the poem is that people shouldn't care as much about how other people view them. Adults hide behind closed doors to call names in order to keep up a positive image. This caring of what other people think doesn't allow people to express themselves as most young children so freely do.

Personal Connection:

• I liked this poem because it showed some of the humor of childhood while relating it back to this ideal adults have that you must be perfect. This ideal doesn't allow for people to be themselves and this poem points out that it is a silly notion to care so much about what other people think.

Merry-Go-Round by Langston Hughes

Merry-Go-Round by Langston Hughes

Where is the Jim Crow section 
On this merry-go-round, 
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from 
White and colored 
Can't sit side by side. 
Down South on the train 
There's a Jim Crow car. 
On the bus we're put in the back—
But there ain't no back 
To a merry-go-round! 
Where's the horse 
For a kid that's black?

Vocabulary:

• Jim Crow Section- Section for African Americans after the Jim Crow laws were passed so blacks would remain separate but equal.

Analysis:

• The poem touches on the sensitive section of racism. The speaker, a child from down south, has grown up around racism and that is all he knows. Now that he is at a carnival,in the North, a new question arises to him, where can he sit on the merry go round? As a black child he has been put in the back and set aside but he can't be put in the back on a merry go round because there is no back, it is just a circle. The merry go round is a simple joy of childhood just like being able to sit where you want is a simple joy to everyday life. This child is deprived of that joy and the merry go round makes it apparent that everybody should have the right to sit where they please and go where they please regardless of the color of there skin.

Theme:

• The theme of the poem is that racism is senseless, if something as innocent as a merry go round is not subjected to racism than something as innocent as a child should not be either.

Personal Connection: 

• I liked this poem because it took something that has caused so many problems through out history and took it to the prospective of a child. To adults the issue seemed much more complicated but in the poem the author makes the issue seem silly and insignificant by taking it from a complex idea as most adults viewed into the simplicity of a child wondering where to sit on a merry go round.

"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.


Vocabulary:

• Suffice- to be enough or adequate, as for needs, purposes, etc.

Analysis: 

• The poem's speaker talks about the world and the possible causes of the world's end; fire and ice. It questions whether the world will be destroyed in flames or frozen in ice.However the speaker also has a different meaning he relates the 2 elements, fire and ice, to emotions. Fire being passion and desire while ice is hatred. Relating the elements to emotions shows the reader the world in the context of the poem also means human connection and relationships. Like the world can perish in fire or ice a relationship can be burned out through passion or through hate. The speaker talks of his own life saying he has experienced both sides of the matter and decided that though the elements are very different they can each be equally as damaging.

Theme:

• The theme is a warning to man that while desire and hate are common emotions and can drive us to do many things in life they can also be dangerous. Too much desire or too much hate can bring an end to something good like relationships and connections between people.

Personal Connection:

• I liked the poem because it asked the question how will the world end but it also related the worlds end to humanity and how just like fire and ice humans have a big impact on the out come of things in the long run.