Curiosity

Alastair Reid

may have killed the cat; more likely

the cat was just unlucky, or else curious

to see what death was like, having no cause

to go on licking paws, or fathering

litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious

is dangerous enough.  To distrust

what is always said, what seems,

to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,

leave home, smell rats, have hunches

do not endear cats to those doggy circles

where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches

are the order of things, and where prevails

much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it.  Curiosity

will not cause us to die—

only lack of it will.

Never to want to see

the other side of the hill

or that improbable country

where living is an idyll

(although a probable hell)

would kill us all.

Only the curious

have, if they live, a tale

I conected with this poem in a couple spots. the first was the "cats fathering litter upon litter" part just because that is what we have alwasy said my cat did before he came to our house.  Our family always says that our cat probably has hundreds of little babies everywhere. i also connected with the part that says lack of curiosity causes us to die. i connected with this because i am not a very curious person. i disagree with this statement because i am still alive and my lack of curiosity will not kill me. it does not cause people to die i think curiosity does. i will live like the dogs who are just okay with what happens to them it is just something that happens and they do not have to ask why just accept it. curious people die all the time because of their curiosity. for example ournalists get themsleves killed all the time due to their stories which are their curiosity's actually i am not sure that really happens i just watch way too much tv and that happens in tv a lot. i do not watch the news so i am not sure if it happens. but i think my point it still valid that people get killed because of their curiosity all the time. so i disagree with this poem but i did like it. the way it is put it very beautiful and i wish i could write like that. especially the last line "only the curious have, if they live, a tale" i do not like the implacation that it is necassary to be curious to live but it is worded well. i think that means that the author is a very good writer because i strongly disagree with the words but i appreciate the way they are laid out.

Ethics

Ethics

Linda Pastan
(b. 1932)

In ethics class so many years ago
our teacher asked this question every fall:
if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save,  a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn’t many
years left anyhow?  Restless on hard chairs
caring little for pictures or old age
we’d opt one year for life, the next for art
and always half-heartedly.  Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother’s face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum.
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews
the burden of responsibility.
This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself.  The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn
darker even than winter – the browns of earth,
though earth’s most radiant elements burn
through the canvas.  I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children.


I cannot believe that anyone would chose to save a painting over a woman. i do not care how old she is or if she dies one second after they get her out of the building because human life is more important than a painting. No matter who painted i and that he is dead it is just a painting. The old woman is living and breathing and has a family or friends who care about her. Think of going to your grandmothers funeral and then a woman walking up to you and saying "i am really sorry but the Rembrandt was just more important than your grandmothers life." I just cannot fathom anyone choosing a painting over anyone's life. There are reprints of every famous painting that look the same but a picture of  a woman would not suffice. I do not understand the last line though. "I know now that woman
and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children."
What does that mean?

On Reading Poems to a Senior Class At South High

This poem is for last week i totally forgot.

Before
I opened my mouth
I noticed them sitting there
as orderly as frozen fish
in a package.

Slowly water began to fill the room
though I did not notice it
till it reached
my ears

and then I heard the sounds
of fish in an aquarium
and I knew that though I had
tried to drown them
with my words
that they had only opened up
like gills for them
and let me in.

Together we swam around the room
like thirty tails whacking words
till the bell rang
puncturing
a hole in the door

where we all leaked out

They went to another class
I suppose and I home

where Queen Elizabeth
my cat met me
and licked my fins
till they were hands again.


I think this poem is from the point of view of the teacher. The teacher is talking about poetry and does not think any of the students care or want to listen, but without her noticing she has caught their attention and they are starting to get intrigued. The whole class is listening to the teacher probably having an intense discussion and they are "swimming" around the room together. then the class ends and everything becomes normal again. This is saying that this does not happen all the time that the students normally just sit there uninterested but this class they became interested. that is why it is almost a fairytale and why she compares them to fish. and it explains why at the end of the poem the teacher goes back to his house and everything is normal again that is why the cat is in the story because the cat gives the end of the poem a normalcy for the author/teacher.   i did not really like this poem. i just did not find it interesting maybe it is because i cannot relate to the point of view the poem is told from.

Thanksgiving poem

It is a circle poem.


Pie
Apple
Fall
Beige
suits
Work
Smart
Math
Geometry
Circle
Diameter
3.145
Pi

A Work of Artifice

artifice: crafty or subtle deception
the title comes from the tree having its potential greatly reduced but the tree does not know this. The tree could become so much more but the trees caretaker "carefully" made sure the tree would never become what it has the possibility to become. The poet is making a statement on how this happens to women and this can bee seen in the last line where the poem stops talking about the tree and starts to transition into women by saying the line "the bound feet, the crippled brain, the hair in curlers." women from a young age have their ability "carefully" so that the women do not even realize it because it is so subtle. it is said that women are lucky to be able to stay home and watch children and have the money brought home by their husbands. the author says this in the line 
"It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in."
The women could go out and do so much with their lives they could be scientists or engineers or doctors but it is their "nature to be domestic and weak."  The women should feel blessed that their lives have been made simple by everyone else after all they "have a pot to grow in." Never to grow beyond that pot they know just how far they can go before they are stopped and then they just stay there never reaching their full potential. But the women are always safe they always have their pot. 
  I love the line "the hands you love to touch." Because the Poet did not write this poem for women she wrote it so the men could see. She did not want women to read it she wanted men to read it and see that they were capping the potential of women everywhere. She wrote it so the men could relate to this problem it is not just women everywhere to them it is not an unrealistic thing the problem has a face. the problem takes the face of their wives or mothers the women in their world's that mean the most to them. They can ignore a faceless problem but they cannot ignore their loved ones.  My favorite line is "the hair in curlers" because who would think that curled hair is a sign of being women being held down. But it is true women curl their hair so it looks good so they can find a guy. This shows that it is not just the men who are holding women down it is also women. Mothers teach girls how to curl their hair so they can go into the world and find a husband who loves their curled hair and obtain their cozy little pots to grow in. 

The secret

I do not understand why this poem is broken up like this. all the stanzas do not seem to end on a complete thought. some end on a complete thought like the first but some don't like the second. The line "I love them for finding what i can't " i think says that the reason he writes poetry is to try to find his own meaning for life and he cannot seem to find it. but the author is happy that even though he cannot find it for a second he can help someone else to find meaning. I like how simple this poem is. she just says what she wants to say there are no big words or stuff that confuses. Denise just says it and says it nicely. It makes me think she is probably not stuck up like some people who feel they need to use huge words to make them look smarter. she is not trying to hide her ideas behind fancy things because she does not think they are good enough. she has something to say if you don't like it it is no skin of her back.

Unveiling

I really like this poem it puts a lot of vivid images in my head.When i read this i picture an old woman who has lost many family members and is not sad about it she is content and just knows that someday she will be there with them. I picture this poem as her looking back, she has grandchildren and a daughter and she still has a lot of love but she also has lost a lot. she is not scared for death she is just ready for it to happen when it happens. This poem also makes me think of my family. it makes me think of the "adult table" and the "kid table" at family gatherings. or how my parents and family used to spell the words out when they did not want the children to get it. we knew we were not supposed to know because if we were they would tell us bu that did not stop the kids from wondering and wanting to know what was being talked about. i know this poem is sad because of the death but i see it as content.

Even If You Weren't My Father

I really like the idea of this poem. The idea of i love you because you are my dad but that you are so great even if you were not i would love you just as much. it is his flaws that make the daughter love him so much. like his flaw where he is chasing downs his other daughter and realizes what he is doing and stops and just hugs the daughter. that the fact that he stops makes it alright that he was doing it in the first place. i do not like the way the author goes about saying this. it really bothers me that he is "hunting down his helpless child" i do not see this as a thing a father should be doing. that is why i also dislike the poem. maybe i am just from a generation so i do not understand tough love and spanking and such but it bothers me a child is terrified of her father. A child should NEVER be terrified of her father. i hope this was a generational thing and that it does not happen anymore because it should not. I almost do not like the fact she looks past all his imperfections and calls him the best man. people should be held accountable for their actions and  she does not even care that he was hunting his child. it reminds me of something Max said. He said that once people die we make them saints in our heads. like every bad thing they did no longer matters and only the good is remembered, which bothers me a lot. people should be remember for what they do all the time not just the great parts of their lives. people make mistakes and we should not condemn them for their mistakes but they must be held accountable. It is like what happened with Micheal Jackson. When he was alive all i ever heard about him was how he was a pedophile and a bad guy, but then once he dies all people have to say is great things. This is what i think the poet was doing she was making her father out to be better than he was in her head. she thinks her dad was great when in all reality i can tell even in the poem he was not that great. But what is even weirder is that i like the poem overall even though i really dislike the content so i guess i am doing the same thing with this poem. i would say this is a good poem even though i don't like most of it just because i like the idea behind it so i am looking past the flaws of the poem and making it better in my head. i guess this poem is my sainted "father". i guess that makes me a hypocrite for disliking it but doing the same thing. : )

For the Sleeprwalkers

I really like this poem. I used to sleepwalk :) I have never thought of sleepwalking like this but it is so true. It does take implicit trust to be able to stand up and walk around without opening your eyes. It is amazing how people walk like they would if they were awake but they are asleep.  A sleepwalker just trusts their surroundings not worrying about everything. you never hear of anyone who dies from sleepwalking. people can actually function while sleepwalking. I watched a show about sleepwalkers and one person actually drove down the street while still asleep. my favorite line in the poem is "we have to learn to trust our hearts like that. we have to learn the desperate faith of sleepwalkers..." it is so true if people trusted like that all the time life would be very different.

Lost Brother

I do not like this poem. I especially hate the first two lines: " i knew the tree was my lost brother when i heard he was cut down."  These lines make me think of how no one really cares until things are gone. Those lines remind me of the song If I Die Young by The Band Perry  a line in the song says "A penny for my thoughts, oh no I’ll sell them for a dollar They're worth so much more after I’m a goner And maybe then you’ll hear the words I been singin’ Funny when you're dead how people start listenin’"    i dislike how the author does not care about the tree, his "lost brother" until the tree has been cut down. I do not understand the line that says "I am prepared to live as long as he did." I think it means that the author is ready to live as long as he should. for example, the author is okay with dying when it is his time. that may be wrong but whatever. The author is also not referring to a single tree which i thought was weird. he is referring to trees as a whole. the line that says "at impossible locations" shows this. A tree is rooted in one spot and therefore can't be in different locations. so he must be talking about many trees.

Innaculation

I think this poem is about a preacher or pastor who was studying small pox and he listened to his slave about how the people in his home pace made it so the people did not get small pox. Then Cotton mathers, the preacher, used this in order to save a lot of people and start using the inncoulation process on many people. I think it is cool that the preacher respected his slave enough to listen to him and try using it on other people.

The Halo that would not light

I think the title means that the person who died never really got a chance at life so they never had a chance to do good to get their halo to light.
This poem is really sad. when i think about poetry this is what i think of. a poem with such strong emotion that it is obvious that it is the author just trying to make sense of what has happened in the only way they can.
My favorite line is "the spectacular catastrophe of your endless childhood is done"
i like the contradiction in spectacular catastrophe because even though the life was so short it was a catastrophe the child was here long enough for it to be spectacular to see them. :(

Still Memory

I know the whole class pretty much thought that this was a sad and depressing  poem, but i think it is actually a kind of happy one. i am probably wrong but whatever. I see the narrator as being happy because he is able to be in the past at least in his dreams. He is happy because in his dreams both his parents are alive and just doing what they normally did. those are his favorite memories of them and in his dreams he is ably to keep them forever and i see that as a really happy thing. being able to keep loved ones in our mids forever no matter how long ago they left us. no matter what the narrator knows he will always have that. he will always be able to go to sleep and be with his loved ones.

My Fear by Lawrence Raab

i think this poem is about how when we get older we get more fearful of things. that is why the line ""each day his lists are longer" because every day people get more afraid of more things. and the author is saying they do not know how the "person" who deals out the fear is sorry or happy to do so but it happens. the author is asking for fears that are small and go away quickly and ones that he can deal with easily but in the end he does not know what kind of fears he will get. The author personifies fears by making someone give them too each person. this may be because it is easier for the author to think fears are given then to think that they are all in his head and he came up with them all by himself.

Beginning again

I think this poem is about a person who was addicted to drugs or alcohol. The person is in something like rehab and that is why they are having to do brain surgery on them self they are trying to correct whatever in their brain caused them to need the alcohol or drugs. that is why the author says it is not how but why that is more important because when you have become addicted you have to find the reason you turned too it in the first place or no matter what you will go back to the drug or alcohol. i think the whole in a room without any mirrors but the whole room is a mirror is because the person is in a room with nothing else to do except look in himself so while in a blank room all he can see is himself. i think the last part about the mtn means that the addiction is so much bigger than the person and in the end he does not expect to be able to conquer it all he can do is try.

Wallflowers

To me, the overall poem means that words are not much  if no one uses them. They are sad and just sitting there waiting to be used. The writer is telling us that we should use words that are not commonly used. The like that says "they say that if you use a word three times it is yours" confuses me. i do not understand what it means and why it is in the poem. i really like the line that says "what happens to the words that no one speaks." I feel like this was her reason for writing the poem. She had a question and she wrote a poem to try to understand it for herself. I like this poem because i like reading a point of view from someone who is so passionate about words. She sees the words like they are flowers and i like think that i really interesting because i do not and i had never really thought of words as flowers before.

Heart of darkness

This book was super difficult for me to read. It was frustrating because it was so short yet it took me so long to read. I had to re-read a lot and I had to keep stopping because it was too hard to focus on for long periods of time.  The actual book was confusing to me and i am not sure i really understood any of it. I do not understand why everyone was so obsessed with Mr. Kurtz. :I also do not understand the whole concept. Are there a bunch of men just sailing around an the narrator is just telling a story?

The Great Gatsby

I did not like this book because it was too much of a soap opera. the plot and the characters were so far out there that i could not relate to either. Nothing was believable from this book. Daisy was so stupid and air-headed that i do not know why anyone would like her; let alone two guys. I hope people did not act like her or any of the other characters in that time. Tom was so rude and selfish that he went in the middle of dinner to talk to his mistress on the phone. Everyone was constantly drinking and no one was ever afraid of getting caught. Gatsby is the only person in the book who puts someone before himself. In the beginning of the book i thought this was selfish just because he likes the way Daisy made him feel or something, but in the end he says he will take the fall for hitting Tom's mistress when in no way could he get something good for doing so. I disliked every character in the book and they were so unbelievable that it made it hard for me to read the book because i did not want to hear anymore about the atrocious characters.

The Kite Runner

I like the book because i feel like the characters all seem like real people. They all have flaws and attributes.

Baba- He is a great businessman and would do anything for other people. he is also a bad dad and ignores Amir because he feels bad that he cannot be a father to Hassan. Baba also cares way too much what people think, he will not be a father to Hassan because he is afraid of what people will think.

Amir- He is very smart and excels at writing and coming up with stories and in the end goes through a great deal of pain and trials in order to save his nephew. He has the most flaws. He is a coward, has a sense of superiority, he puts himself above everyone else, and spends all his time trying to get his father to love him, and he takes from people without trying to give anything in return.

Hassan- Loves everyone, is a really happy person, and knows what his place is in the world. He understands that he is a servant and does all his chores and when other people come around he knows he cannot play with Amir because he is "lower" than him in class, but he also does not hold that against Amir. Hassan's unconditional love is also a flaw because he will go to any length for someone who would not do the same for him. He saves Amir but Amir will not save Hassan when the situation becomes reversed. Hassan only sees the best in people so he never realizes how Amir is constantly lying to him.  

Rahim Khan- He keeps Baba's secret about Hassan, he always tries to make Amir feel loved, he always keeps everyones secrets,  and he tries to get Baba to pay attention to Amir. Rahim Khan knows everybody's secrets yet he does nothing to try to help the people involved. He knows that Amir saw what happened to Hassan but he never tries to talk to him and get him to talk to Hassan or do anything that would help lessen the situation. Only right before his death does he try to help Sohrab even though he knew he was in an orphanage for a long time. 

I liked the book because Khaled Hosseini made the characters seem like real people with both good and bad qualities.