Poetry and Poetics–Lit 204

Langston Hughe’s work was key to the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural and intellectual revival of black music, art, politics, and scholarship. This poem is set in Lenox Avenue in New York City, capturing the music of a Black blues musician and its profound impact on the speaker. For the speaker, blues music conveys not only the power and beauty of black art, but also the enduring struggles and injustices faced by the black community. In this way, while the poem provides almost no information on the speaker, I think it’s safe to assume the speaker is Black based on how the blues music resonance with them so much. The tone of the poem is full of pain, evident in the lines, “He made that poor piano moan with melody,” “played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool,” “Ain’t got nobody but ma self.” This expresses the historical injustice embedded in the blues music. Yet, the poem also infused with a kind of relief and freedom through the blues music as the speaker cries “O Blues!” “Sweet Blues!” suggesting that this painful music elicits both anguish but is also a powerful way to resist and endure racism. 

This poem struck me with how it seamlessly incorporates black music intro its poetic form and and message on racism and art. Hughes not only describes the blues music, but also infuses it into his poetic form. Black Americans brought blues music from South Africa to urban centers in America. During the Harlem Renaissance, leaders invented new artistic and literary forms, much like how this poem doesn’t follow a traditional form as a way to express the black experience in America. While it doesn’t have an established meter or a predictable rhyme scheme, it is still able to recreate the rhythms and sounds of blues music. “Thump, thump, thump, went his food on the floor. / He played a few chords then he sand some more” uses onomatopoeia and a strong rhythm, reminiscent the blues. Most of the poem is written in rhyming couplets but lines 19-22 uses ballad stanza and lines 25-30 rhyme ABABCB, which are forms and rhyme schemes that blues singers often use in their music. This deliberate incorporation and subsequent deconstruction of blues forms within the poem mirror the intricate, improvisational essence of blues music. 

In this poem, Stevens paints a majestic image of a gold-feathered bird that sings and shines as the end is approaching. I interpreted this bird to be a phoenix because it symbolizes life, death, immortality, and resurrection. I believe Stevens is trying to make a point about existence and simply “being”, a realization the speaker has in a fleeting moment before the end when the speaker sees the bird. After having the “last thought,” the speaker sees an image of the phoenix. It is interesting when he says at the “palm at the end of the mind” because I first interpreted palm to be the palm of one’s hands which is very tangible and immediate, or it could be a palm tree which relates to nature and creates a sense of more distance. As I read on, I thought the speaker was talking about a palm tree because the bird is singing on the palm. It sings “without human feeling, a foreign song” which contrasts with the human viewer and the inhuman bird. In this way, the bird represents its own existence and “mere being” on the palm tree. Seeing the bird singing and existing makes the speaker realize that the reason we are happy or unhappy is not what we think it is. It may simply be because these feelings exist and are there because we are human. Stevens concludes with a final stanza that creates an even greater distance with the bird. In the last stanza, the bird is on the palm tree which is at the edge of space, a very vague and abstract area. In the very first line, the palm tree is said to be at the end of the mind, which is also very abstract. Perhaps it is the viewer that is in a strange place in time and space, and sees this image during the speaker’s “last thought”. The setting in which this poem takes place is fascinating to think about because where is the end of the mind and edge of space? Our thoughts are endless and space is infinite. Rather than flying through the sky, the bird stands on the palm and “The bird’s fire-fangled feather’s dangle down.” The abstract setting and the image of the bird makes me think that the speaker may be approaching death, and the vision of the phoenix induces the speaker to reflect on what life means, what it means to be. And perhaps the mere act of being is okay. 

This poem is Ezra Pound’s reinterpretation of Chinese writer Li Bai’s work. (known as Li Po by Pound). It is a letter from a young wife written to her merchant husband that has been away for five months. She recounts memories of her relationship and love for him evolving. They grew up in the same village of Chokan. At this point, they had no feelings for each other, “Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.” One she married him at the tender age of 14, she still didn’t love him. Instead she was shy and couldn’t even look or respond to him. Perhaps, they were married due to societal pressures and she was expected to act a certain way. But after a year of marriage, she fell deeply in love with him, to the point where she said: “I desired my dust to be mingled with yours / forever and forever and forever.” I found this line to be a bit disturbing because after just one year, she wishes that they will die and be together forever. It is clear that her feelings are intense, but at the same time, this thought shows that she is still young and naive. The intensity of her love that evolved so rapidly shows the unexpected and transformative power of love. It is a feeling that comes with time and changes in ways you don’t expect. After another year, the husband has left for a journey and it has been five long months so she writes a letter. It is not clear when he will return if ever, but she asks him to let her know when he will return so she will wait for him. It is also not clear how or if he will ever receive this letter in the first place. The separation of the two adds another complexity to their relationship and love. The husband’s absence makes the speaker miss him and love him even more. And the uncertainty of his return strengthens her love and longing for him. She is both sorrowful and hopeful as the seasons change, time passes, and she grows older. It is ironic she mentions that she is growing older since she is still only 16 years old during this time, but perhaps it is the speaker acknowledging the passage of time and her own mortality in the face of love, devotion, and anticipation. 

Hopkins begins the sonnet with a plethora of poetic patterning such as alliteration and assonance. This is evident in the first two lines when the speaker says “morning morning’s minion” and “kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon” with rich repetition of m and d letters. It is only after these vivid descriptions that the speaker introduces the central subject of the poem: the Falcon, specifically a Windhover. This technique shows the profound impact the bird has on the speaker, when they “caught” a rare sight of the bird in the morning. At the same time, it builds suspense for the reader in finding out what is so mesmerizing that the speaker is looking at. Hopkins continues to masterfully use poetic language in the first octet to bring the sight to life. The fast-paced, continuous rhymes, enjambment serves to capture the breathtaking beauty of the Windhover.

The sestet shifts to place the beauty and bravery of the bird into a broader context, as the poem is dedicated To Christ Our Lord. The sestet is written in present tense, unlike than the past tense of the octet which is a memory the speaker had of the bird. Rather than sensory details, the speaker speaks in a more spiritual and mysterious way, which was a bit more difficult for me to interpret. The metaphorical portrayal of “fire” is “a billion / Times told lovelier, more dangerous” and “gash gold-vermillion” creates a more divine image of existence, elevating the bird beyond its aerial presence. The Windhover is just one of God’s many creations of nature, and the speaker’s awe of its beauty in the sky is a testament their appreciation of God’s power.