#19

Japan
Today I pass the time reading a favorite haiku, the few words over and over. It feels like eating the same small, perfect grape again and again. I walk through the house reciting it and leave its letters falling through the air of every room. I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it. I say it in front of a painting of the sea. I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf. I listen to myself saying it, then I say it without listening, then I hear it without saying it. And when the dog looks up at me, I kneel down on the floor and whisper it into each of his long white ears. It's the one about the one-ton temple bell with the moth sleeping on its surface, and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating pressure of the moth on the surface of the iron bell. When I say it at the window, the bell is the world and I am the moth resting there. When I say it at the mirror, I am the heavy bell and the moth is life with its papery wings. And later, when I say it to you in the dark, you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you, and the moth has flown from its line and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
Billy Collins

The reason I dislike this poem is because it's boring. To expand more on that the flow of the poem isn't smooth. When I think of poems, I think of soothing effects. Yet, with the title of the poem being Japan, I would want to feel more of meditation and calming retreats, but with this poem I sense more of fear and loneliness. Although there are diiferents types of poems, this one shows the intense side of writing. At times the writer tries to incoperate soft metaphors and similes to take away from the complicated yet edgy descriptive writing. The poem is nice, it's just not one that makes me want to read through completely, sit back and analyze.

#18

As I lay I Wonder
If Staying Up Late At Night Is Worth It.
Are The Cups Of Caffeine Really Working?
If No-Doz Is Really A Good Choice?

As I Lay I Wonder
Do The Papers Really Show My Intellectual Abilities?
Can The Professors Really Tell I Did The Work?
Or Am I Just Another Average Student To Cross Their Paths?

As I Lay I Wonder
Are You Really Tutoring Me?
Or Is There Something You See?
Waiting On You To Tell Me.

As I Lay I Wonder
If College St Is Where I Wanna Be,
Yes Is What I Replied!
To The Pathetic Past I See.

This poem reflects the questions of an intelligent college student that starts to experience academic success. Lately his grades have been started to slack and he questions his abilities to remain steadfast in his studies. However, he realizes that he was given a second chance. He remembers that school is his outlet from the fast life. He remembers that he wants to set examples for his younger siblings and family members. Those images that were not bestowed upon him. His past is something he doesn't want to deal with. Yet he realizes that its his motivation towards his successful FUTURE.

#17

This week we read Billy Collins Picnic, Lightning. I really did not like this collections of poems as much as, Maire Howe The Good Thief. Most of Billy Collins throughout Picnic Lightning are very positive and he takes things out of everyday lightning and writes it into a poem that show a lot of meaning. I did find a poem that I enjoyed reading, if was the first in the book.

A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal - Billy Collins
"A Poet . . . never speaks directly, as to someone at the breakfast table." — Yeats

Every morning I sit across from you
at the same small table,
the sun all over the breakfast things—
curve of a blue-and-white pitcher,a dish of berries—
me in a sweatshirt or robe,
you invisible.

Most days, we are suspended
over a deep pool of silence.
I stare straight through you or look out the window at the garden,
the powerful sky,
a cloud passing behind a tree.

There is no need to pass the toast,
the pot of jam,
or pour you a cup of tea,
and I can hide behind the paper,
rotate in its drum of calamitous news.

But some days I may notice
a little door swinging open in
the morning air,
and maybe the tea leaves
or some dream will be stuck
to the china slope of the hour—


then I will lean forward,
elbows on the table,
with something to tell you,
and you will look up, as always,
your spoon dripping milk, ready to listen.

There are couple things that I admire about this poem. First, I do love the use of hyphen throughout this poem. I guess mainly because I really don't know how to use them but I like to see how other people use them. Also on that note, It was nice to see someone else besides Emily Dickinson use them because she is notorious for the use of hyphens. Next, I also like that this is a poem of contradictions. He is trying to decide if he should tell the woman or the other person who I assume he is eating breakfast with what he is thinking or how he is feeling. He just does not know how to do that or even approach the topic at the breakfast table. Finally, I also like how he refers to a bowl of cereal because that is real common in the American society. All most everyone has had a bowl of cereal at their house or even in a school cafeteria.