Adrienne Rich

Obviously the poem "Power" is talking about Curie, but I think the writer may not have just been talking about her but talking about anyone who has made great sacrifices to accomplish something. Rich says "her wounds came from the same source as her power". She had great ideas and accomplished a lot, but in order to do that she basically gave her life. Her power was her intelligence. I think everyone sacrifices something to accomplish what they want. Many of us sacrifice time with our family in order to work and go to school, so that we can get a degree. That is not near the extreme of sacrificing life, but I think we can all relate in a way. The power may be referring to the power to sacrifice. How much is someone willing to sacrifice? I guess it would depend on the results that would come out of it.


Dianna

Philip Levine

I get the feeling that Levine is talking about people destroying the earth. "Earth is calling in her little ones" and "all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth" are the phrases that made me think this. I could be very wrong, while I was reading this that is what I thought of. And the phrase "they lion grow" makes me think that Levine is referring to the need for more. People always want more, and will get it even if it means destroying the earth for it. We tear downs trees, and allow cars and factories to pollute the air, and the more we have the more the want grows.

Dianna

Robert Lowell

"Skunk Hour" seems to be talking about a small town that has lost a lot of it's people and seems now that the only life you see is a skunk. It could be that this is a tourist town and it is out of season so there are no tourists right now. Or it could be a town that has just went down economically. The line that says "the season's ill" makes me think that it is a tourist town and it always seems dead and dreary when there are no visitors. I am sure there are many towns like this that are very lively during the season, but then seem so dead that even the skunks aren't scared to come out.

Dianna

Donald Barthelme

"The Balloon" was a very odd story. I have no idea what the balloon symbolized. There was one phrase in the story that said situations imply sets of circumstances leading to a resolution. The author says that the balloon was not a situation. I think that it would have been a situation. I am sure that people were trying to find a resolution to the circumstance of the balloon. Even though the people did not understand the balloon. They even realized that they would never understand the meaning of the balloon.
I think I completely understand how the people felt. They did not understand the meaning of the balloon or what to do with it. I do not understand the meaning of this story. And just like the people in the story some will interpret the balloon differently or not at all. Some people who read this story will have a meaning for it. No one really knows for sure except the person who wrote it(or the person who placed the balloon in the city).

Dianna

John Updike

I thought this story was kind of crazy. At first I get this picture in my head of this old man looking at these young girls, and I thought who would write such a creepy story. After I figured out that the man was a young man, I still thought the story was creepy. The way he described the girls and just really watched them. I seemed to still picture them to be very young. I guess this is what goes through every man's mind when he sees some girls in bathing suits, but he was almost obsessed with them. He even quit his job at the end to sort of defend his honor. I just thought the whole story was odd. He only quit because he was hoping that the girls would see it, but the girls did not see it so his quiting was in vein. It would have made more sense to talk to the boss about the way he handled it, if he really felt strongly that it was handled in an inappropriate way. I think this story proves the point that a man will do anything for a pretty girl.

I also thought the part where he said the chubby girl looked better from behind was hilarious. It was just so blunt. It just goes to show that you never really know what someone is thinking.

Dianna

Sylvia Plath

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/books/24plath.html

I actually found this article when I was researching Plath's poems. I took a literature course last year and that was my first time reading Sylvia Plath's poems. My instructor told the class that Plath took her own life by sticking her head in the oven. I thought that was just a horrible way to kill yourself. I found this article about her son who committed suicide in 2009. He was also a poet. He suffered from depression and attempted suicide before just like his mother. I also found out that his step mother also commited suicide and killed her own daughter six years after Plath killed herself. I have to imagine that these are horrible memories, but I wonder why it seems to be a never ending cycle.

I also noticed that many of these poets committed suicide. 3 of the 4 confessional poets we are reading right now committed suicide. I wonder why. I know all of them suffered from depression and some of them were heavy drinkers but what pushes to the edge. These are very intelligent people so how do they get to the point of killing themselves and even in such horrible ways like Plath.

Dianna

Anne Sexton

After researching "Her Kind" I found out that it started out as "Night Voice on a Broomstick" and went through several revisions. Some of the analysis I read talked about how Sexton was comparing herself to a witch because of her depression and the things it caused her to do. She may have felt the things were evil or that she was not accepted for them. Just like a witch would be. She is not the same as women of society's standard. Witches were outcasts, feared, and disliked. I guess this is how she felt. She felt misunderstood just like a witch.


Dianna