Reading Myself

Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just,
struck matches that brought my blood to a boil;
I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire-
somehow never wrote something to go back to.
Can I suppose I am finished with wax flowers
and have earned my grass on the minor slopes of Parnassus....
No honeycomb is built without a bee
adding circle to circle, cell to cell,
the wax and honey of a mausoleum-
this round dome proves its maker is alive,
the corpse of the insect lives embalmed in honey,
prays that its perishable work live long
enough for the sweet-tooth bear to desecrate-
this open book...my open coffin.

 At the beginning he is saying that like many people he had too much pride.  I do not understand what wax flowers are i googled them and it just showed a bunch of websites that teach a person how to wax flowers. it might mean that he is done with things that will not die because wax flowers are stuck the way they are forever and he does not want that. this also might connect with the end because he says the stuff about perishable  work so he wants the work to be able to die but he hopes it will last long enough for someone to appreaciate it. I like where the poet compares a bee hive to a life-long work of art. That when you are working on something so long that you become so into it that you cannot separate yourself from it. The thing you are working on so hard and trying to make perfect becomes your coffin. Like the bee that works its whole life on making the hive that it dies in it and becomes almost a part of it. this is what the author is saying that when an artist or poet or writer is working on something so hard they will eventually not be able to stop and when they die they become a part of it and that is what they are remembered for. Artists of any form are remembered for their works and that is why their works become their mausoleums. The thing you come to see when you want to see someone but they are dead. All artists want their work to live on long after they are gone and that is why he says that the bee hopes its perishable work will live long.

The Cat

I think the cat in this poem is the women and he calls her a cat because cats do not like to be controlled. That is what the author is saying i think that he tried to control her but she could not be controlled and left. Cats leave for no reason they like to be free and roam outside they could have everything and yet still run away. I think this is shown in the line " i said to her do not go why want nothing? but a window was opened and she went," there was nothing outside for her and the man could provide anything but she had to roam. I like the lines about her dissolving because it has such imagery. It really made me picture a woman walking away and slowly you cannot see her anymore.  I do not know why it is repeated maybe because that is how the author felt he was so shocked that he could not even comprehend what happens. like in movies when the actor repeats things over and over again because they do not really think it really just happened. the last stanza. I think he is saying that we all feel a need to roam and that we all do not like being controlled that is why he said "you can here her sometimes...you listen intently to your own self. My favorite line is " i said to her do no go you'll be trapped and bewitched and will suffer in vain." this is so meaningful i think because it sounds like a desperate man who loves her and is just trying to make her stay. this puts the image into my head of the women and the man and the women has her hand on the door about to walk out and this is his hopeless last cry to try to make her stay even though he knows she will not stay. She then walks out the door into, "the black night, she just dissolves."

Untitled by Stephan Crane

i interpret this poem as a man coming upon a creature in the desert and the creature is eating his own heart. I think this poem is very good because it is short but it manages to put a very vivid picture into peoples heads. I think that maybe because it is so short is why it is so very able to put a picture into peoples heads. it is just long enough to give you an idea of what is happening but the lack of very descriptive words makes the reader put in his own idea and make of it what he or she wants. The poet has made it perfectly long enough to make people really see it in their own way. In class we talked about this poem and everyone said that he used the desert because it is barren and lifeless. But i think he used the desert because it has so much going on and so much life in it but you just have to look a little deeper. In my head i see a little the  Lord of the Rings character. i cannot remember the name but he has the ring at the beginning and it ruins him and turns him into the little gross creature. This makes me interpret the poem as that the creature used to be a man but his heart turned bitter for whatever reason and that has turned him into a creature like the lord of the rings creature. He does no know what to do with his bitter heart and is just holding onto it. i think that his bitter heart has taken such a toll on him that he is now complexity a creature and in the end he does what beasts do and eats what is in front of him. Even though he cannot stop himself from doing this he knows that he still in fact likes his heart just for the mere fact that it is his heart. and i think that is where the desert comes in and just because he looks like a beast and is acting like a beast does not mean he is actually a beast he used to be a beast but for whatever reason his heart grew bitter and slowly but surely that became his downfall form which he could not get up from.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

assent- agree
stark-extreme
discerning- discriminating
divine- god like
 demur- object

Much Madness is god like Sense --
To a discriminating Eye --
Much Sense -- the extreme Madness --
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail --
agree -- and you are sane --
disagree-- you're straightway dangerous --
And handled with a Chain --

madness is everywhere and to be called sane you must agree 

with the majority and if you do not then you are insane and 

considered hazardous. to be normal in the world you have to 

stay out of the way and not object to anything. i think Emily 

Dickinson in saying that you should demur even though there will 

be consequences. I think this because she says that much sense 

is the starkest madness so that what the majority considers sane 

is actually very insane. I think she is making a statement to 

make your own path instead of following others.