Week 12 Discussion

Williams writes that a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun. To me, that means as if a poem is an open-ended question asked of the reader, that a reader must answer with their interpretation of the poem. I choose to interpret “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W. B. Yeats due to its beautiful imagery and the sense of longing it paints. For the narrator is longing for the beautiful sounds and peace of Innisfree, and fantasize about the life that they could have there. They have it all planned out: from the material of which the cabin would be made of (“clay and wattles,” how many bean-rows they would plant (nine), and the hive for which they would care for. It is a poem of longing for the slow, self-sufficient lifestyle where one could look and listen at time passing, instead of rushing through life and missing the sights and sounds. Rather than just a passing fancy, the sound of the “lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore” is something they hear in the “deep heart’s core,” a stark contrast from the static, lifeless grey of the pavement.

In the article “How to Read a Poem” William Carlos says, “a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun”. This means that William wants us to understand the poem. The poem I have choose is “The Mother” written by Gwendolyn Brooks. In the first sentence I could understand what the poem is about. In the first stanza states, “Abortions will not let you forget. The poem speaks about a mother who had abortions and the author talk to her unborn children. While I been reading it too many times, I could see that the poem has rhyme and visually imagery. In the second stanza, you can see that there’s repetition with the “I”. And also, in the last stanza “I loved you”. Imagery, Brooks shows what her unborn children could have in lines 4-10 and she show emotions about the grief of her unborn children. Again, finishing to “a reader must “complete” what the poet has begun”. The summary of the poem was about a mother describing what her children could have when growing up and do. A mother expressing her emotions about her unborn children.

In my mind what it means to “complete” what the poet had begun is just another way of saying that you fully understand what was just read, or maybe finish the stanza of what was just said. Some stanzas end abruptly and it’s our job as the readers to finish what was going to be said or what would make sense. The poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks is a straightforward poem so it’s not too hard to put the pieces together. “We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.” I know that based on what was said and what was said earlier in the poem that it’s about teenagers who don’t care about anything and skip school. Based on the year the poem was published, they may be black.

With specific reference to one of this week’s poems, explain how you “completed” what the poet set in motion. In your answer, be sure to refer specifically to the article and to quote from your chosen poem to illustrate your response. According to the article “How to Read a Poem” written by the poet William Carlos Williams, one of the challenges of reading a poem is the ability of entering the imaginative play of a poem, therefore bringing our own perspective and point of view into the meaning of the poem. And that, successful poems are a matter of how the readers will perceive the reading, “completing” ideas that may not have been in the writer’s mind while the creation of the poem. Based on that, I’ve decided to analyze the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, by William Butler Yeats. The reason why I’ve picked this poem, comes from a personal discontent towards living in the city on my mid 20’s, and the challenges to overcome as a lower class immigrant on a highly capitalist country as United States. My perspective towards this poem is the necessity of living a carefree, peaceful life away from the city. Where ideally, one would produce everything they need in order to survive, lay down and wake up to the nature and their surroundings. The poem states “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, / And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: / Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; / And live alone in the bee-loud glade” (Yeats, lines 1-4). Where “Innisfree” is perceived as an ideal state of mind, or place. And within this state of mind, or place, the poet finds himself to be self sufficient in all forms, […]

The article “How to Read a Poem” says that a reader must “complete” what the poem has begun. This could mean that the reader has to find the meaning of a poem through certain reading strategies. Reading the poem aloud multiple times helped me get a better understanding of it. The poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, by William Butler Yeats, discusses how the speaker longs to build a life on Innisfree, where he would be able to find peace in nature. Innisfree can symbolize the ideal image of nature and offers a deep spiritual fulfillment that an urban city can’t. Innisfree offers the speaker an escape from reality, like a daydream. The poem states“And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow”. What Yeats mean when peace comes like a “slow drop” is that achieving a peaceful life is a long and slow but calming process that requires patience. However, the urban life is preventing the speaker from creating a peaceful life. The poem states. “While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey I hear it in the deep heart’s core”, the “roadway” and “pavements” symbolize the boredom that comes with urban life. The gray color of the pavement shows how dull the city can be. The speaker demonstrates how the ugliness of urban life is unlike the beauty of nature by how he describes them.

In “White Lies”, Natasha Trethewey writes about how she would “pass” for white when she was a child. The title itself has a double meaning. The term “white lie” generally refers to a harmless lie, however in this poem she is literally lying about being white. I had to “complete” what Trethewey has begun here in understanding that her “white lies” were not actually harmless. In the article “How to Read a Poem”, the author explains “this act of completion begins when you enter the imaginative play of a poem” (Hirsch). When I read Trethewey describing herself as a child lying about living in the better part of town and wearing store-bought dresses as opposed to handmade ones, my first reaction was sympathy. It is understandable for a child to pretend she has nicer things and at this point in the poem, the lies still seem innocent. It is when she writes “like the time a white girl said (squeezing my hand), Now we have three of us in this class” that is becomes apparent these lies are wrong. This line shows that there is a clear racial divide and Trethewey is not just playing pretend, she is denying her identity.

The poem that I have selected for this weeks discussion is “White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey.  This poem highlights the struggles of adversity that a little african american girl is dealing with while growing up.  I have identified this from when the author states, “I could easily tell the white folks that we lived uptown, not in that pink and green shanty-fled shotgun section along the tracks. I could act like my homemade dresses came straight out the window of Maison Blanche” (7-15). The author clearly feels ashamed of her families “status” in the world being that she attends school in a melting pot of socio-economic statuses and demographics.  Therefore, she feels the need to tell “white lies”.   You can also draw this point from, “She laid her hands on me, then washed out my mouth with Ivory soap. This is to purify, she said, and cleanse your lying tongue. Believing her, I swallowed suds thinking they’d work from the inside out.” (22-29), where the author uses dramatic irony to show how the girl feels not only ashamed of her status in school, but also her race.  This poem is very saddening to me but is put together in an extremely clever and thoughtful manner. Therefore, I have completed the poem by starting with what imagery it presents and bringing it into my point of view.

Poet William Carlos Williams stated that a reader must be able to “complete” what the poet has begun. I think this refers to uncovering the meaning behind a poem that isn’t so easily mentioned. For example, in the poem “white lies” by Natasha Tretheway, she states “I could even keep quiet, quiet as kept, like the time a white girl said, Now we have three of us in this class.” In this poem we can imply that the narrator is of mixed race and she struggles with her identity. She has skin light enough to be considered white, so she chooses to pretend she is white. I think that she lies because she is ashamed of her background and I feel like she just wants to be able to fit in with the other girls, or her society in general. By uncovering the real meaning behind “white lies” is how I am able to “complete” what the poet has begun.  

In his poem called the Lake Isle of Innisfree, Willian Butler Yeats emphasizes the undeniable connection between the spiritual world of the human being and nature. The author describes the mystical world of the human phantasies where one can be saved from the vanity of the real world. The comparison of the bright colors of the Innisfree and the grey tones of the payment shows that the Isle is beckoning for people (Yeats). Only there can a person feel freedom and calmness. Harmony with nature is a critical condition of freedom of the human mind. The author ends the poem with a statement that the peace and freedom of the soul are kept deep in the heart of every person. People go to the inner salvation place such as Innisfree when it becomes difficult to face the “grey roadways” and “payments” (Yeats). In other words, people can find inner freedom in themselves at any moment. The author claims that people should “arise and go, and go to Innisfree” (Yeats). The first phrase of the poem allows the reader to complete the poem’s main idea. The name of the Isle is symbolic. “Inn” in Old English can be translated as “home” or “soul.” The implicit idea covered by the author is implemented through the name of the Island. The desirable freedom is hidden deep inside every person’s heart. Even though the grey, crowded city limits people’s freedom, this Island will always be a safe place where peace and harmony can be found. Being located in people’s cognition, this place is free of any destructing emotions or problems. Thus, the ultimate freedom of people’s souls is inside their imagination.

I chose “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks to complete the steps of poetry appreciation. By reading it several times first, I noticed this poem mostly has isometric stanzas that consist of the same length lines, except the first stanzas. Also, each two ending words of the sentences rhyme, which I thought the pauses should be there but it in fact stops at the end of the line, “we”. Nonetheless, the poem gives me an impression that is easily memorized from the rhyme and simple words. Next step is starting the conversation, and obviously the conversation can’t begin as long as I don’t post my thread. However, one question I want to discuss here is what the speaker is suggesting in the poem. At first, I thought the speaker is a host in a game because from the first stanza “THE POOL PLAYERS”, the speaker is like reading this poem particularly to them. But the consistent word “we” made me realize the speaker is the peer of the audience. Based on the behaviors in the rest stanzas, the audience is seven rebellious teenagers including the speaker herself. “THE GOLDEN SHOVEL” seems they have the best equipment to dig their potentials up, but what they have been doing is the opposite, messing up their lives. The poem ends with “We Die soon”, returning to the title “We Real Cool” with a karma that all they have is only cool. 

In William Butler Yeat’s poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” I completed the poem by imagining what Yeat describes in the poem. “I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine Bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade.” (Yeat, lines 1-4) He goes off to the Lake Isle of Innisfree to live a simple life, growing vegetables, and farming honey in a small cabin. “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.” (Yeat) He seeks a peaceful life away from his troubles and beautifully describes how it is to live in Innisfree. This poem brings memories of long trips into nature, going on day hikes, and climbing mountains. I have often taken trips out of the city to find peace outdoors, and I can understand the desire to get away from it all, as city life can be overwhelming. While it is not the same as living in a cabin in Innisfree, the reasons why people want a peaceful retreat are universal. I have completed the poem by starting with what imagery it presents and bringing it into my point of view.

Hirsch (2007) emphasizes that reading a poem is a difficult task that requires developing skills and practice over time. Thus, why for success poem, the reader may acquire additional ideas that were not present in the writer’s mind at the time of composition, and thus the poem may occasionally suggest some experience that comes close to depicting some of the ideas to the audience. Regardless, it is the reader’s responsibility to complete the task begun by the poet in their poems. One of the poems we discussed this week was W.B. Yeats’s 1865–1939 poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree. Generally, I’ve used a variety of strategies to carry out the poet’s intentions in this poem. To begin, one can glean ideas from the poem’s title and shape by reading it aloud. The title of the poem, which includes a keyword such as “Lake,” indicates that its content is about the poet’s interaction with nature, while the poem’s shape indicates that it is a brief poem. More specifically, in terms of punctuation and grammar, the poem contains an end-stopped line. For instance, “I will arise and proceed immediately to Innisfree” is a line that ends in a comma. The poem’s remaining lines all end in a comma, full stop, or semicolon. The sound and rhythm of the line also dictate where it terminates. The poem is rhymed in a four-line grouping. In the first four lines, for example, the rhyming words are “Innisfree/honey-bee” and “made/glade.” Additionally, I completed my education about the poem through a shared inquiry discussion that conveyed its messages about the harmony that exists between humans and nature. By analyzing lines such as “Nine beans-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee” in a group discussion, one can gain a better understanding of the lines, which […]

When Carlos Williams writes that a reader must “complete what the poet has began” means to feel and understand from the poet point of view. When reading “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W.B yeats I try to imagine going to a idyllic lake isle of innisfree by envisioning what he envision as he day dreams. W.B describes his happy place where he wants to escape in detail “Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;” he wants readers to understand where he wants to live and what it would be like.