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#poetry analysis
berk-brain-rot · 1 month
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Brain worm of the day: Christian symbolism without preaching Christianity.
Literally just that, Berk can write a book, with a Christian story (Lazarus) on the title cover, and carry that story metaphorically through the entire book, while never making me, a person with severe trauma due to Christianity, ever feel triggered.
Because it's just symbolism, it's just metaphors, and to be quite frank, sometimes it's fueling my religious blasphemy:
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That's it, that's all you get for the day, they're good at what they do, and what they do is sometimes weaving Christian symbolism with Greek mythology with a fictional angel with a single episode of the fictional angels show with their own personal grieving process until you're not actually sure where one of those starts and one of those ends.
As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.
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lunarrosette · 9 months
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@doodler-rights asked so now I’m gonna ramble abt how perfect to poem Beth Chose for the rad fact was!!
The poem in question:
I met a ghost, but he didn't want my head,
He only wanted to know the way to Denver.
I met a devil, but he didn't want my soul,
He only wanted to borrow my bike awhile.
I met a vampire, but he didn't want my blood,
He only wanted two nickels for a dime.
I keep meeting all the right people—
At all the wrong times.
So there are a couple interpretations one could take from the poem but I’m just gonna box them into the pessimistic interpretation and the optimistic interpretation and both scary and Terri fit each interpretation respectively
I’m going to start with Terri’s because it’s the most straight forward! The optimist interpretation basically is these things that have these scary connotations surrounding them are no more different than any other human so everyone should be treat with kindness and humility despite what previously feeling one may hold. This fits pretty well with Terri’s view point she’s an optimist, she makes friends easily and treats everyone with kindness! However the last lines are what really gets me “I keep meeting all the right people— // At all the wrong times.” This is still pretty straightforward as well, she met and spoke with terry when she was Terri and not scary, right person wrong time! And in that fashion it displayed how good of a father terry would’ve been to Terri but it was the wrong time
Now for the scary interpretation! There are layers here, I’m gonna start with the more straightforward one which is with Willy. Willy is a monster but scary never met him as one, he was just a normal guy to her that seemed like he wanted to help her and cared abt her or to translate it to the poem “I met [Willy Stampler], but he didn't want [to manipulate me], // He only wanted to [be the father I never had].” So in this pessimistic interpretation it’s taking the idea that these “monsters” are lying and hiding their true colors, which is further backed up by the ending “I keep meeting all the right people— // At all the wrong times.” The wrong times being before they show their true colors. The next layer with scary is her relationship with terry jr! Scary sees terry as a threat, as evidence that her father is never coming back, as some guy trying to be what she needed and wanted too late so safe to say that could mean she sees him as a “monster”. But he has pure intentions. To her he seems like a ghost who wants her head but just wants the way to Denver. But scary doesn’t care because she doesn’t want to accept the fact the her bio dad is a piece of shit and isn’t going to come back to fix it. But as the last lines say (the last lines are just perfect for scary’s relationships I’m sorry) they met at the wrong time. They could’ve had a great stepfather daughter relationship if terry came into her life after scary accepted the things abt her bio dad. He was the right father for her but they met at the wrong time
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dxrlinggxd · 2 years
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analysing the lyrics to 'august' by taylor swift
this is gonna be a long post but i put a lot of effort into it so i hope you like it <3
before i begin, let me explain the folklore love triangle to the unaware. taylor swift's 8th album, folklore, has a love triangle, with all 3 characters getting a song from their povs. the basic story is this: betty and james are together, james sees betty dance with another guy at a school dance (and to add to it, he has social anxiety). he's upset, and while he's leaving, he runs into augustine. he and augustine have a summer fling, but betty finds out and is mad at him. james then breaks things off with augustine and tries to win betty back. the ending is left up to the audience's interpretation.
[note: taylor has used he/him pronouns for james & she/her pronouns for both betty and augustine, so those are what i will be using in this analysis.]
betty's song is 'cardigan', james' song is 'betty' & augustine's song is 'august'.
i'm going to be doing a deep dive into the lyrics of august, happy reading <3
salt air and the rust on your door, i never needed anything more
the opening line sets the scene. they're near the sea, at a beach, possibly staying in a cabin, a typical setting for a summer romance. augustine says 'your door', not 'the door'. already, he (james) is the one with the upper hand. it's his door, his cabin, his terms, but that's all she's ever needed. she's going along with whatever he wants because she'd do anything & put up with anything if it means being able to be with him.
whispers of "are you sure? never have i ever before"
whispers. this is augustine recollecting what happens, and even when she's reminiscing, they're whispering. the moment is in private. it's precious. there is a fond, longing undertone. even after what has happened, she'd still do anything to get that back. the 'never have i ever before' probably means that this is either her or both of their first time having sex. never have i ever is also a popular teen game, so that lays down a light, playful atmosphere. it's a happy memory.
and the whispers themselves: this could either be 1) a conversation between her & james, or 2) one of them saying both sentences. the "are you sure" sounds like asking for consent. they're probably losing their virginities to each other. either way, one thing is clear: uncertainty is a prominent theme in this memory. they don't know what they're doing, but there's a thrill to the unknown, to the riskiness of it all.
"but i can see us lost in the memory, august slipped away into a moment in time, 'cause it was never mine"
to her, this memory exists outside of time. just thinking about it makes her feel everything she did then. however, she also knows that despite how attached she is to it, she has lost the memory to time. she's holding onto whatever she can, but the truth is, it's gone. it was never even hers. the worst part is that even back then, she knew it never belonged to her. she knew she was nothing but a distraction, a lapse in judgement, but she went with it anyway, because she took whatever she could get. she'd rather be a distraction than be nothing.
"and i can see us twisted in bedsheets, august sipped away like a bottle of wine, 'cause you were never mine"
again, adding to the "never have i ever before" part- they slept together. losing one's virginity is a major experience, and that, coupled with the fact that the experience was with james, makes this something she remembers every single detail of.
when teens drink alcohol, it's rarely wine. it's usually beer, or vodka, but never wine. the usage of wine shows how they were trying to be adults, pretending that they were making a mature decision by being together when really, they weren't.
it was sipped away like a bottle of wine. slowly, they got drunk on august. they took sips, and went about it slowly, day by day, until there was nothing left and they had to face reality. if we're taking it literally, they probably spent the entire summer drinking and hooking up.
and finally, "'cause you were never mine." the first part of the chorus ends with "'cause it (august) was never mine", as if blaming the month, the season, and/or time itself. she was blaming fate. here, though, she switches. it's as if, while reminiscing, she has come to terms with the fact that the problem here wasn't with august, it was with them. with him. it wasn't august that was never hers, it was james.
the difference between 'slipped away' and 'sipped away' is stark. one says that it was fleeting and happened quickly & the other says they took their time with it and enjoyed it. the tone of the memory changes with the emotion that augustine reminisces them with. we must remember that both james & augustine (who narrate what happened) are unreliable narrators.
another interesting detail is this: in the previous line, she says "lost in the memory", which is very vague. she isn't delving into the details, just brushing it off, saying "oh, yeah, it was a nice time i guess, but it's in the past now". she follows that up with "it was never mine". in the second line, however, she gets specific, like she's actually thinking over what happened. "twisted in bedsheets" is a specific memory. and when she really lets herself think about what happened, she needs to accept that HE, not it, was never hers.
"your back beneath the sun, wishing i could write my name on it"
again, visual imagery. the picture being painted here appears to be after james and augustine sleep together. augustine must've woken up before him because she's looking at how his back looks in the sun. she wishes she could do something as public as writing her name on it. it's a metaphor for not wanting to have to be a secret, but she knew, even while drowsy and possibly hungover (remember the mention of wine), that it could never be.
also interesting is that "your back" could also be her saying "you're back". it doesn't make sense in the complete context of the line, but thinking of it as an exclamation, a secret exhale hidden within the lyrics is heartbreaking.
"will you call when you're back at school? i remember thinking i had you"
she's either older than him (which would be weird and illegal because james is 17), goes to a different school, or they never interact at school. for the sake of analysis, i'm going to assume it's the 3rd one, but it's open to interpretation.
which means they weren't friends at school. they did not hang out in the same groups. she doesn't even expect him to acknowledge her in public, all she wants to know is if he might call her. in private. she hates being a secret, but she's begging him to let her be one because all the bare minimum is enough to get her by.
the second line is sadder when you remember that just before this, she was wishing she could write her name on his back, but knowing that she couldn't. she KNEW, the whole time, that this was just a fling for him, but deep down she a part of her still thought he truly cared for her, that she was as important to him as he was to her.
(but i can see us...you were never mine)
"back when we were still changing for the better, wanting was enough, for me, it was enough"
the first part here is a throwback to when they were younger and 'innocent'. when they'd make a mistake, it wouldn't be the end of the world, they'd just learn. that was before her august with james, because that became something she couldn't come back from. if you've heard 'betty', you know that inez, betty's friend, finds out about their fling and tells betty (and possibly more people). seeing as augustine was never a part of their group in the first place, she will likely be always remembered as the girl james cheated on betty with and nothing more than that. this is something that's going to deeply, deeply affect her, both socially and mentally.
but back then, before she'd asked him to get in her car, before the affair, before heartbreak, she'd just been a girl wanting him, and at the time that was enough for her- but it no longer is. now that she knows what it's like to have had him, she doesn't want to go back to merely liking him from a distance.
something else worth noting here is the phrasing of the line. it's as if she's pleading "what you gave me was enough for me, i promise, i don't need anything else, just please come back." or: "i was happy just liking you from the sidelines, but then you turned up and ruined my life", which would have an angry undertone. the beauty of this is that she gives no elaboration, it's just you and your imagination. interpret it how you like.
there's some more wordplay here: when she says wanting, it sounds like she's saying one thing. as in, "one thing was enough." because that's all she needed- him.
"for me, it was enough to live for the hope of it all, cancel plans just in case you'd call and say meet me behind the mall"
the "for me it was enough" makes sense as a sentence both with the line before it and the one after it. the sentiment is the same: she was happy with the arrangement. there are contrasting themes here because she's in a messy situation. she's aware she deserves better. she knows she shouldn't be settling for the bare minimum. but now that she's lost what they had, she misses it and wants it back. she doesn't need anything more than what he's ever given her. even at the time of the fling, she prioritised him so much that she'd even cancel plans in case he decided to call her (again, him being the one to call re-emphasises the fact that he's the one with the upper hand here).
"meet me behind the mall" is, taylor swift herself said, the core of the song. it highlights how secretive they were. they could always lie, say they were going to a mall to hang out with their friends or to shop, and then secretly hook up behind it. it's also interesting when you parallel it to the fact that they were also hooking up along the beach, which is a completely different setting. this implies that this affair lasted for a while. there's alliteration used here, too.
wordplay, again: meet me behind the mall also sounds like "meet me behind them all", which, again, goes to prove how staying a secret was the most important part of their relationship.
"so much for summer love and saying us, 'cause you weren't mine to lose"
a heartbreaking contrast to augustine calling what they had "summer love" is james telling betty (in the song 'betty') that what they had was "just a summer thing". and with the second part of this line, again, we're running in circles. she thinks she deserves better, she wants him back, she's being positive about it and then she isn't. but as we're nearing the end of the song, after going through the myriad of emotions and thoughts she had in the aftermath of the affair, she seems to be coming to terms with a single fact: he was never truly hers in the first place.
(chorus x2)
some wordplay: over here, the words "never mine" repeat. it almost sounds as if she's saying "never mind". as in, forget everything i've said, it's okay, i'm okay.
"remember when i pulled up and said get in the car, and then cancelled my plans just in case you'd call, back when i was living for the hope of it all (for the hope of it all), meet me behind the mall" (x3)
we think the song is over after the bridge and third chorus, but she comes swinging again. the fact that she sings this part thrice shows just how massive an impact all this has had on her. if we take the "never mind" into consideration, this hurts more because she thought she was over it, but she isn't.
she isn't ever going to forget what happened. even though she's come to terms with what has happened, she still can't stop thinking about all of it. she's still hung up, because memories don't let one off that easily.
from 'betty' we know that the fling began after augustine asked james to get into her car. we've only been getting snippets of their time together throughout the song, but now, she's replaying the entire affair, right from the beginning. the line that is sung with the most emphasis is "meet me behind the mall" because this line is what perfectly captures their relationship: lying to everyone about going to a mall and then meeting each other, the promises that he made to her about being with her only for him to ditch her the moment august ended, everything she gave up (like the plans she cancelled) just to be able to spend some time with him, and the fact that all of this was on HIS terms. he was asking her to meet him behind the mall, and now she's the one left reminding herself of all the promises he didn't keep.
before i end the analysis, i wanted to address one more thing: her name. both betty and james are named in the lyrics, but augustine isn't. we only started calling her that after taylor swift said that in her head she calls her either augusta or augustine, meaning that until then, we were all calling her 'the august girl' or 'the other girl'. the thing is, that is how probably everyone in the story thought of her as well. (earlier in the analysis, under the "back when we were still changing for the better" part, i talked a bit about this.)
taylor herself talks about this in 'folklore: the long pond studio sessions', where she says that the 'other woman' is always thought of as a bad person, with augustine, she really, genuinely liked james, trying to act cool in front of him (pulling up and being the one to ask him to get into her car, for example). augustine was intentionally left unnamed, because her story is the one that's always left out.
--
that's the end of the analysis. thank you so much for reading till the end. please let me know if there's anything i left out, i'll add it and credit you.
and to everyone out there who's had their heart broken, regardless of which side of the story you were on, i'm sorry. we all deserve people who acknowledge our existence, at the very least. we deserve to be remembered, to be talked about, to have our emails replied to. we deserve better than the bare minimum, but the sad part is, we don't necessarily even get the bare minimum in the first place. we're all breaking each other's hearts and sobbing into our pillows about it and breaking each other's hearts all over again. i don't know if love is real, or if at some point the cycle stops, but i do know this: spotify is free. as is youtube. and amazon music. and soundcloud. go plug those earphones in and knock yourself out.
@taylorswift @taylornation
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habshihalwa · 1 year
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charge of the light brigade ~ alfred tennyson
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poem analysis
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sophieeeikli · 1 year
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Blood & Brothers: A Close Reading and Analysis of Dante Émile's "Dioscuri"
Blood and Brothers: A Close Reading of “Dioscuri” by @orpheuslament​. By Sophie E. Eikli. Available on Substack.
The world is formed anew, as is our vocabulary. Tumblr poet Dante Émile begins his piece with a title, Dioscuri, which holds no meaning as can be divined through English language save for a single title given to a unique dynamic. The word refers specifically to that dynamic of those poorly fated twins from Greek mythology; Castor and Pollux. They are the masculine in the divine-and-mortal set of twins, having been born alongside Helen and Clytemnestra out of the nonconsensual union of Zeus and Leda. The word itself comes from the Greek ‘Dioskouroi’ meaning ‘Sons of Zeus’. The word may also whisper of similarity to the English ‘obscure’, something which is definitely present in the piece by Émile.  
The piece begins in conversation with a seemingly invisible speaker. “Your blood is my blood is your blood is my blood,” uttered by an unknown voice to an unknown recipient. This sentence is repeated twice more in the poem, at the middle and at the closure. The pronoun ‘your’, is also repeated steadily over the course of the piece, while “I” is never named- save for the invisible, yet heady I present in the repetition of “my” in the line which has already been named. This proves the existence of a first-person speaker kept tantalisingly out of the reader’s grip, without revealing its identity. Is it Émile commenting through his own work, projecting to a specific person in an act of poetic espionage? Is it Pollux to his mortal and less radiant twin? Is it Castor to the son born as what he is not; glory and divinity? My suspicion is that the truth lies somewhere between the latter options, and that the unsureness is deliberate. Castor and Pollux’s blood is the same, not just genetically but in reality. The line “your mother never looks you in the eye” could indicate that it is Castor speaking to Pollux, but this is something that cannot, and should not be, confirmed. Although fraternal, they both carry the traits and evidence of a fated conception.
Aside from its title, the poem walks a fine line between pretentious and relatable as the meat of its text keeps it grounded in modernity. There are no heady Greek words, nor are there Latin ones. And yet it brims over with the past. Émile begins by thrusting the name of Castor into the present in an act of bait-and-switch, placing the two of them in the setting of a motel bathroom, and yet the present is scarcely mentioned again. The poem laps back through time, going from a “motel bathroom” to the reflection of their “once [having been] a light to sailors” until the devastating final blow that delivers Castor and Pollux to Hades. The piece exists within a context of Greek antiquity. The present is not gone, but it barely registers against the weight of the past.
To all who grazed the Tumblr poetry sphere of the mid-to-late 2010’s, tell me if this sounds familiar: Dionysus in the present, owning a bar. Aphrodite, a stripper. Zeus, a marine or some other authority.
Those who had a Tumblr account in the mid-2010’s may be aware of the pervasiveness of Classical Greece within the poetics of that time. Many of them are gone now, their blogs reduced to half-memories and deactivated urls. While some of them, such as New Zealand’s Darshana Suresh, went on to publish a book, I have no idea if any of them continued to write. Because of time, and disappearance, and ghosts, I cannot find the exact poems to reference. Therefore, I can only ask for your belief in the fact that one thing was almost always present in a Tumblr poet’s portfolio: the Ancient Greeks in the present, haunted by a lack of belief. This is not a denigration of that poetry in the slightest; as a teenager I found myself uniquely represented in the ambitious poetry of fellow teenaged and young adult poets who often suffered with mental health problems of their own. It was also a heavily queer environment, in which there was no question at all regarding the relationship between Akilles and Patroklus. There existed a genuine artistry and love for the source material that marked it as an artistically unique subsection of poetry.
Another uniting force for the Tumblr poet community was its metaphorical patron saint; Richard Siken. An absolute crescendo of his time, Siken released the collection Crush when he was barely 19 in 2005. Even today his work entertains a sense of immortality, often being used in so-called web weaves (e.g; “Sorry / about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.”(Little Beast)). Even I have a not-so-hypothetical desire for a Siken tattoo on my left arm. His work is manic, bordering on surrealistic as he blends time and space, but more than anything it is intensely physical. There are many, many times in Crush where the word ‘blood’ is used. Hearts are swallowed, cows fall from the sky like rain, houses and people are burned at regular intervals. There is also a very heavy presence of second person in his poetry.
In several ways, Dioscuri feels like a testament and subversion of these things. There is the heavy presence of the past within Émile’s poem, but it is manipulated in a way that contrasts those poems from 2015. Unlike the pieces of which I think, which could alternately place Dionysus at a bar or Ikaros in a First World War fighter, Émile begins in the present and pushes backwards into the past. The thick love of these brothers is constant and unbearable, with Pollux eventually resolving to pull his mortal brother with him into the stars. The language, too, leans progressively more into the Antique with epithets such as “God-sent white bird” – which is interestingly used to describe the “dove” that “you once buried”, rather than another white bird which is their father in the myth of Leda. – being paired with reflections on the soul dualism (“A soul splits in two, / that which has always been yours to share”) which Plato credits to Zeus in his Symposium. While a line near the beginning of the poem asks “Who in Hell knows who speaks first”, the ending describes one waking “Down in Hades.”
And yet the present does exist, reaching through Pollux’s grief for his brother killed in Troy. “I’m not reaching Heaven if it’s not with my brother,” he says to his “old man”, Zeus. While it could be a meditation on the skies to which Castor and Pollux eventually become stars, Heaven’s capitalisation leads one to wonder whether it is not a reflection of the immortality of that brotherly bond, pushing back out from that motel bathroom at the beginning of the poem. Whether it is not Pollux’s bloody and codependent love for his brother that breaches time, space, body. There is blood all over this poem, and inside of it.
There is blood everywhere, and one cannot help but notice that some of it belongs to Richard Siken. Some of the lines seem to be subconscious redirection of Siken’s images. Although it may be overreaching, one could see the “wild horses running through your hair at night” as an honouring of Siken’s “How it was late, and no one could sleep. The horses running / until that they forget that they are horses.” (Scheherezade). There is also something very resemblant in the demand to “Keep the shattered moonlight under your pillow”, which could resemble the physicality of Siken’s “Look at the light through the windowpane” (Scheherezade). Faces don’t just become bloody, but are bloody already. A bloodied fist meets a pre-bloodied nose. Catastrophe is written into the DNA of the poem right until the fateful cry of mortal Castor: What have you done, what have you done. Not a question, for the answer is known by both. The answer is them both.
For such is the love of brothers and of twins in Émile’s poem. Their love is codependent and damaging, but no more damaging than the conception that made them. The poem demands that one apologise to their mother while simultaneously reminding that “it’s not your fault if things always end this way”. They hide under covers in the motel just as they hide together in the night sky. They guard each other in every reality and every plane.
To end, I have only one request of our dear poet:
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
Credits given to:
Dioscuri by Dante Émile
Little Beast, Scheherezade & others by Richard Siken
Darshana Suresh and other Tumblr poets
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pawswithprose · 1 year
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poetry analysis for the first day of December
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dailypoetryforyou · 11 months
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A Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
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Lets have a chat about Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, first published in 1916.
This classic poem is a masterful example of Frost's use of imagery and metaphor to explore the theme of choices and their consequences.
The poem begins with a description of a "yellow wood" and a fork in the road, setting up the central metaphor of the two paths as symbols of life's choices. The speaker is torn between them, "sorry I could not travel both," and his hesitation is conveyed through the use of repetition and long, meandering lines.
As he considers the two paths, the speaker notes that "Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same." This line is a prime example of Frost's use of irony, as the two paths are ultimately revealed to be equally well-traveled and equally valid choices. The speaker's final choice is therefore less important than his willingness to make a choice and take responsibility for it.
But the poem's final lines, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference," have been widely misinterpreted as a celebration of individualism and nonconformity. In reality, the poem's true message is more complex. While the speaker does take a less common path, it is not necessarily the "right" or "better" path. Rather, it is simply the one he chose, and he will look back on his decision "with a sigh" and wonder what might have been.
Ultimately, "The Road Not Taken" is a timeless meditation on the choices we make in life and their lasting impact. Through its use of metaphor, irony, and repetition, Frost creates a poem that is both accessible and deeply thought-provoking. So the next time you find yourself at a crossroads, take a page from Frost's book and make the choice that feels right to you, even if it means taking the road less traveled.(don't go chasing waterfalls)
Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" has had a profound influence on both writing and poetry since its publication in 1916. One reason for this is the poem's universal theme of choice and its consequences, which resonates with readers of all ages and backgrounds. The idea of making difficult choices and wondering what might have been is a timeless human experience that has been explored in countless works of literature throughout history.
In addition, the poem's use of vivid imagery and metaphor has been widely admired and emulated by other writers. Frost's ability to create a sense of place and atmosphere through his description of the yellow wood and the two diverging paths has inspired generations of poets to use concrete imagery to evoke emotions and ideas.
Furthermore, it has become so popular and widelyread that it has taken on a life of its own, with many people misinterpreting its message as a celebration of individualism and nonconformity. This has led to countless parodies, homages, and references in popular culture, from the television show "The Simpsons" (ikr) to the film "Dead Poets Society."(great film)
Overall, "The Road Not Taken" remains a touchstone of modern poetry, with its themes and literary techniques continuing to inspire and influence writers today.
For those who haven't read "The Road Not Taken" here you go!!
The Road Not Taken 
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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mvrcki · 10 months
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a valentine - edgar allen poe
*ੈ✩‧₊˚
this was such a beautiful and underrated poem, as most of poe's poems are <3
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weeklypoetry · 7 months
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Sappho, Fragment 34 Voigt
ἄστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάνναν
ἂψ ἀπυκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδος
ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπη
γᾶν <ἐπὶ παῖσαν>
****
ἀργυρία
Poetic translation:
The gleaming stars all about the shining moon Hide their bright faces, when full-orbed and splendid In the sky she floats, flooding the shadowed earth ⁠with clear silver light.
Literal translation: The stars about the fair moon lose their bright beauty when she, almost full, shines [on all] earth with silver.
Free of any human interaction, somehow still full of Sappho's typical melanchony, it offers a personified view of the cosmos like embarassed little girls watching in awe as a woung woman shines bright with silver. Because the stars are clearly the focus, the first word we can see and what I think the reader should relate to; we all pale in comparison to bright, shiny full moon, so gracious to bathe of all us in her light - and the stars are, here, no less human.
For italian speakers, I higly recommend this analysis by the University of Bologna, that goes into finer detail than I ever could.
Certainly my very favorite of all of Sappho's work. I'm already a sucker for nocturnals - Sappho and Leopardi, long loves of mine, feed me well in that regard - and this one takes the cake. Also one of the firsts of hers I've ever had to translare, which doesn't helo lessen my enjoyment for sure. The beauty in her fragments is also in the unsaid, unseen; was the silver surely the light, or is there in the line we're missing, some other feminine noun to complete it? It also makes me kind of mad, solely because a lot of poetry sites out there dealing with ancient greek poetry conviniently forget to inform that we don't actually have the whole poem, a lot of it are just guesses (even if based on studies and evidences) and meaning isn't as clear as they make it seem. For example, almost none of the sites i've searched through for a translation mentioned that "on all" the earth isn't in the text, but was assumed through studies and is often marked as such in greek. Or that there's a whole missing line between that and "silver".
Regardless, I hope that this translitteration and translation can be of satisfaction, especially to those much more expert in this subject than little ol me.
↑ the analysis link again, for easier clicking.
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traggalicious · 3 months
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AYRGRHFFFHFH poem annotation has me in tears during english lmfao i fucking love this poem,,, the nature metaphor, the pure enamoured love evident in the focus on the lover, the first line, the double meaning of ‘your love, my love’ as a statement of it being *their* love but also addressing the lover 😭😭,,, the devotion and adoration in presenting the lover as a force of nature, as someone healing and rejuvenating and beautiful…. Me and fuckin WHO im sobbing 😭
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mbtiblogfun · 1 year
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In Honor of National Poetry Month...
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This is a Sylvia Plath appreciation post!
As you all may or may not know already—April is National Poetry Month, so I decided why not take this opportunity to talk about acclaimed poet Sylvia Plath. She's one of my favorites, and many people also agree she was an INFP! How cool is that? Her work is amazing, and she's inspired many other artists like Lana Del Rey. I have yet to read The Bell Jar still, but for now I'll talk about my favorite poems of hers: "Mirror" and "Mad Girl's Love Song."
Mirror
What I love about this poem the most would definitely be the imagery, because it's so beautiful. I also like how she compares the pink speckled wall to her heart. Overall my favorite lines are "Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is." These lines really just speak to me, because I love how she's describing herself as a mirror in the way other people look into it. I also really like the imagery of the lake. To me it was unexpected, but clever. Like she's not a physical mirror but the lake is also a mirror by definition because it also reveals your reflection if you look at the surface.
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Mad Girl's Love Song
I love this poem for the same reason I love Mirror: the imagery haha. And honestly literally every about it just sticks with me. Also this poem is really relatable to me lol. When she said "I think I made you up inside my head" it really hit hard cus a lot of times I also question if I'm really in love with someone or if I'm in love with the romanticized version of them in my head.
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Anyway that's all! Hope you like it! :)
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berk-brain-rot · 1 month
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Brain worm of the day:
The way Berk uses difference in punctuation specifically between poems as a whole.
So in a previous post I did an incredibly overly detailed babble of words into how Berk uses capitalization for individual words that provide not just emphasis, but sometimes change their entire meaning from that of a verb to a proper noun/entity.
This isn't the only way they use capitalization though. Berk's poems in Lazarus Rises seem to follow a couple different levels of grammatical rule breaking basically. Some of their poems follow basic grammar sentence structure:
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What I mean by that is that capitalization occurs in the same way it would for normal sentences, with the first letter of a sentence and all I's being capitalized, as well as with periods concluding each sentences.
Sometimes they follow a form of normal sentence structure:
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Their I's are still capitalized and they still use periods, but the beginning of sentences aren't capitalized. Not only that but the sentences themselves don't follow a normal sentence structure in the form of subject-verb-object, they seem to begin and end wherever emphasis or a spoken pause would be needed.
Sometimes though they completely throw the rules out the window:
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In the case of this poem they don't capitalize a single letter or use a single period until the very end of their poem:
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Now here's the thing, this could all be Berk just messing around with style (they're entitled to playing around with it but honestly a lot of the ways Berk writes seems entirely too well thought out and specifically chosen for that to make sense to me). This could be Berk just deciding the shift key was too heavy that day (which I would argue is in itself a choice that would carry through to your poems). This could have no greater meaning to it (press x to doubt).
But regardless of whether this was all intentional (and I very much would argue it is, at least subconsciously) the fact that Berk writes in this way provides more layers to gain from their poems.
In the case of their poem X. periods hold a significance whenever they choose to use them. They provide emphasis that might not have otherwise been given, they provide a dictation for how their poems might be read aloud, they provide another layer of meaning.
The same can be said for their lack of capitalization.
"One day, I will move on from my grief." is incredibly different from "one day, I will move on from my grief." The first case could be seen on a hallmark card honestly. It's not wrong, but I kind of immediately want to throw it away in annoyance at feeling misunderstood.
But in the second case?? You can literally feel the exhaustion.
This second line means something to me. This second line comes from someone who actually gets what it's like to grieve, who gets that to put it into polite terms, is really fucking hard.
When they throw away all grammar rules though???
Their poem XIII does this :
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Tell me you didn't get to the end of that poem, and get knocked out of your chair. Look me in the eyes, and lie to me, because of course you're on the ground.
"You are not alone." hits you like a sledgehammer. Nothing else in that poem follows normal grammar. There is not a single other period or capitalized letter. So when you read that statement you can almost feel Berk trying to lovingly slam you with the idea of friendship and caring and sharing in pain together so that we are never alone again.
TLDR; Berk uses all available tools they have in the written form to knock you upside the head (/pos) with an emotion. Sometimes this is the words they choose to use, sometimes this is the way they fit those words together, and sometimes they make sentence structure their bitch in a way that I'm honestly in awe of.
As always, the source is always more interesting than anything I have to say, so if you haven't yet, go read Lazarus Rises(amongst other things) and follow them on their Tumblr @icaruspendragon because they write so many cool things beyond just their published book.
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a-passing-storm · 4 months
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I'm very slowly getting back to poetry and literary analysis, and I am proud to say that my first analysis in a while was "correct" when compared to the author's intent.
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innocentlymacabre · 1 year
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I worshipped the myth I made of you, but I'm off my knees now.
— Traci Brimhall, from “Dear Eros,” Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod [ via @lifeinpoetry]
The way this text was written makes it so much more emotionally impactful. That sudden, mid-sentence, jarring cut off before "now" just absolutely sears the word into you. It lends emotional context to the temporal period of the development and it creates a moving sense of growth and grief.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm not much of a poetry guy but every time poems make use of structure as a storytelling technique I fall absolutely in love with it.
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mummelthecryptid · 2 months
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these poems are like sisters 2 me
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scrion7 · 5 months
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waterborne poetry's poetry: 1/?
Alright. We've got an entire event dedicated to my favorite two brats doing poetry together, so of course I'm gonna completely overanalyze them for no reason.
Disclaimer: Venti and Hu Tao are clearly meant and intended to be read as platonic besties. However, that sign cannot stop me from shipping it a little because I am clinically insane for these two. I may be a little biased as a result.
Also note that the original Chinese is extremely likely to have additional meanings that were lost in translation.
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Knowing Venti's, uh, Venti-ness, it would not surprise me if this is actually Hu Tao making fun of a specific incident with Drunk Venti. It's a little too specific to be anything else. It could also be a long winded dig at the resident blockhead, by combining Mora with earth in a less than elegant way. Venti would absolutely be amused by that, which may be why she said it.
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I love the fact that Hu Tao decides to completely spontaneously jump into verse for basically no reason other than to set up the Traveler to guess that they're doing poetry.
As for the poem itself, a couple lines stand out. "Two's company but three's a crowd" is a fairly common idiom meaning that a third person is unwelcome. In this context, it seems to refers to how the Traveler and Paimon prefer to travel with only each other, which is an odd thing to imply for such a character driven game. It is a distinct possibility that this line is actually about how the Traveller (& Paimon) just butted into Venti and Hu Tao's conversation... but that doesn't make sense considering the two were here to invite Xiao along, which would make Xiao the unwanted third wheel, which doesn't make sense. Especially considering it's heavily implied that they were waiting for the Traveler to come along in order to better convince Xiao. (yes it's also VenTao crumbs but I like HuXiaoVen just as much)
"often at sixes and sevens" is (according to Google) an English idiom meaning confused or disorganized. In this instance, Hu Tao is implying that the Traveler often has no idea what they're doing, which is perfectly in character for gremlin Hu Tao.
'Pieces of eight' is derived from (again according to Google) the Spanish Dollar coin, which could be physically divided into eight pieces for change. It's also heavily associated with pirates, which makes sense paired with "countless other treasures."
"They clearly must have nine lives" is clearly Hu Tao implying the Traveler is a catboy/catgirl, there's obviously no other reason why she said that other than Hu Tao being creepy as per usual.
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Paimon: What the... It just gets worse and worse!
Venti: immediately makes it worse.
Sidenote, Venti seamlessly picking up what Hu Tao is putting down is friendship/relationship goals.
As for Venti's side of the poem; "dressed to the nines" is a fairly common idiom meaning that the guests will be in formal outfits, which is a shame considering there weren't any released with the event. Also, by rhyming nines, fine, and wines, Venti is implying that he's gonna be drinking nine fine wines tonight, which is perfectly in character.
"Eight long drinks and seven shorts," combined with those nine wines, does not imply Venti's got seven pairs of pants. In this context, shorts are something similar to a shot, with tall drinks being the opposite.
"Four corners of the world" is another fairly common idiom implying the Traveler has been everywhere which...they haven't yet. Still, 5/7 isn't too bad.
"one speech each" is just a great rhyme, in my opinion. Still, it is odd that Venti's speech has WAY more rhymes that Hu Tao's, although that might just be a cultural difference. Shout out to the localization team for making these poems too!
[part 2 link coming soon (tm)]
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