Poetry Assignment II

I had trouble today with finding a common thread between the readings. I want to say there is a common theme of creation, but its tenuous. "Loading a Boar" is a stream of consciousness poem about a particular person's creative (or not so creative) process. The moral of the story is really just what we've all heard a hundred times: write what you know.

"I Go Back to May 1937" was pretty dark. The language is very interesting because it is describing these young, innocent, beautiful college students but it does it in such a way that the feeling is one of ominous foreshadowing of a potentially bright future that will lead to a cruel life; it's very bitter in this way. The point of view is also strange, its as if the daughter of these doomed college students has some sort of control over her parents choices and even though she knows their lives will be sad and dark (as will her own) she still almost greedily chooses to "force" her parents to mate and have her. Her purpose in this seems to be a creative one in that she chooses to live in order that she can tell of her parents woe and use it as her muse.

"A Dog Has Died" is a eulogy for a simple beast. As a dog owner, I can relate. Some people try to attach these human qualities to their dogs but in this regard the author is a realist; his dog is simple, living happily, living simply. A silent companion who did no more than needed, just reminding the owner that he was, in fact, a dog. It's interesting though that even though the author is himself not religious and not a believer in a human "heaven", he does see his dog in dog-heaven, a place he will never enter, where his dog forever waits for him, tail wagging. I think his creation of this dog-heaven is a result of his feelings about his own negligence and his vanity. (I'm stretching here)

"DNA" creates an image of a child  playing with toothpicks and cardboard and glue, so close to culminating in the creation of the double-helix. The child is James Watson and he double-helix is, of course, DNA. It's really elegant the way the lines unfold, creating imagery of a form changing fluidly, striving to find the right shape. Its so achingly anticipatory, and the overall shape of the poem stanza by stanza is so beautifully symmetrical. The language is at once scientific, mathematical, religious, restless and fertile.

 My dog Ellie, who doesn't behave nearly as well as Pablo's dog.

Edit: In retrospect, the heading for our assignment "ideas/subjects for poetry and gaining insight" should give a jumping off point for finding themes...