"In The Golden Park That Day..." by Lawerence Ferlinghetti

I love this poem!!!


This poem is more than a day at the park although the park serves a certain symbolic element within the poem
"which was the meadow of the world" 
was repeated more than once throughout the poem. The meadow for me represents the journey of life. For me the grapes serves as a special significance because I am Muslim and grapes are very special in the Quran it is mentioned eight times it is a fruit that is good for the purification of the heart and blood. The fact that the woman is feeding such a fruit to the squirrels I feel like this represents her paying homage to the world, giving back purification in the cycle of life. 
They come to a place in the meadow 

 "at a very still spot where the trees dreamed/

 and seemed to have been waiting thru all time/

 for them"
I feel like this is very significant but I will get back to that in a moment. The couple eats oranges and takes the peels and puts them into a basket brought especially for the purpose of the disposal in the peels as if they want to dispose of them properly.  Like we would take special care in the burial of a loved one. The fact that the trees "dreamt" is special because eating oranges in dreams represent negative vibes, dissatisfaction, illness in the family or seperation/loss or a love. The couple does not look at each other the entire time which could indicate that they are so used to doing this together that they have run out of things to say and they just enjoy the company of one another. THe flute is an old beaten up one which I believe is a representation of the man's old age. Even though the flute is never played the flute in many cultures represents different things the most common is celestial music, the spirit, and calling forth the spirit, announcement of passing, unity of life, nature, masculine virility and sometimes anguish. I believe that all of those things are present within this poem. Because once the man lays down and after awhile the woman turns to him 

"without any particular expression/

except a certain awful look/

of terrible depression"

I believe this is her realization of his passing. I believe this whole poem was set up to death every element in some way is indicating death.

Kudos Ferlinghetti!!!

Allen Ginsberg

I feel that those two poems have some kind of connection between them so I decided to write about both of them....


"America"
In this poem "America" Ginsberg is speaking in a monologue as if he is directly addressing America at some points in the poem I felt that it was an in-your-face kind of attitude. This poem seems to make make the author come off as bias and matter of factual. I felt like it was meant to be a long rant of a joke told by a drunk person who didn't really mean to say it. However I felt that Ginsberg has a personal strong feelings included in the poem. It was long and mostly dealt with American history, a lot of it political including the Cold War

"America you don't want to go to war/ it's them bad Russians/

Them Russians them Russians and them China men./

And them Russians"

It's like he was using strong sarcasm to take low blows at America but at the same time he had some hope by asking:

"When will you end the human war?"

I feel like he has a love hate relationship with America he loves and has optimism for the country. It's almost as if he bares some guilt for the country itself. There is one point in the poem where he shares a long personal memory

"America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they 

sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy."

a recollection of the times when his memory wasn't jaded

It seems as if he was pointing out his own personal flaws or what would be considered a flaw to America and shining a mirror to America to see there own flaws. I felt it was written in a rebellious and humorous state of mind. Overall I have a love hate relationship with Ginsberg poetry I could never figure out quite why but I respect this poem especially for the time it was written in, his boldness and I always love a poet who doesn't follow standards.


"Homework"
This poem to me was ironic in the fact that it is entitled "Homework" and it is about doing laundry. I felt that this was significant in the sense of one of two things: doing your homework to find out information than airing out the dirty laundry. OR if you did your homework you would do your laundry. Of course the poem is speaking of a environmental issues. The point here I feel is that not one place or person plays a significant role in the damage being done. Together as a whole with small contribution to the problem makes it a collective problem.
Allen Ginsberg seems to address serious topic in a light hearted humorous way, perhaps it is true that we must laugh to keep ourselves from crying. When I read this poem for some reason I felt a certain level of distain as if the tone was in complete disgust. I felt this poem was more straight to the point unlike the other poem "America" which included a lot of history, details and personal feelings. This poem for me was more focused or course shorter but for me the discontent was more in the tone of the poem than in the words.

"The Day Lady Died" Frank O'Hara

This poem at first may seem like a bunch of mundane chain of events but in fact this is the very essence of the poem. This poem is his personal experience of the day Billie Holiday died, Billie Holiday was more times than often referred to as the lady who sung the blues she died in 1959 and Mal Waldron was her pianist for about three years before she died. Much of his poem is very factual about his day and you can tell by the way he starts off "It is 12:20 in New York a Friday" that he sort of wrote this poem on the go as if he had a napkin and scribbled down a couple of perspective notes. The poem seems like there is no point leading to nowhere but from the eyes of the poet every detail that is included is significant in telling the reader a story. The very end is where we see everything come into perspective

"and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it/

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT

while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing" 

        This is the very moment when he finds out that Billie Holiday died, after his long day of getting his shoe shined, going to the bank, going to the store we finally come full circle he sees the paper and he has a flashback of perhaps the first time he ever heard her sing. In the men's bathroom he can hear singing almost in a whisper and he stops breathing. For many the poem can seem unimportant but in the end it draws a common interest which is Billie Holiday as she had probably taken most peoples breathe away, anyone who was a fan probably can remember what they did the day they found out she died and that is what makes this poem so significant because it has a universal effect.

"Sex Without Love" Sharon Olds

I must say that I loved this poem, the contrast in the poem was phenomenal! I think that Brian Sutton took the words right out of my mouth by stating that this poem is "a contrast between emotional coldness and physical heat;" there is an aspect that is address which are morals conflicting with human sexuality which I feel Olds did amazingly in incorporating the imagery within this poem. The fact that Olds began this poem with a such a question: 
"How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love?"

As if she couldn't possibly fathom this possibility herself, you can tell from the way she describes the sexual act that she thinks of this to be a sacred thing between two people. The fact that she mentions God on several occasions also reflects her strong opinion on this matter. I feel like she is saying that if you love God how could you indulge in such a sacred act with someone who you don't love and she also mentions a counter aspect which I feel she made a good point and did an effortless job at it. In the very last lines of the poem was perfection as far as ending the poem:

"just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time."In the end if you don't have love then the sex is over and your left with just yourself, no love, no faith in God.

"Birches" Robert Frost

The poem "Birches" by Robert Frost is a poem of imagination, and escapism, earth and heaven, youth and age. The speaker in the poem seems to be in a nostalgic state of mind and having a conflict within himself. I feel as if the tree is representing his life as he has become weary through time like the tree "I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay" the boy he imagines would represent the youth that he craves again. The Earthly elements that had throughout time bent the tree over to me symbolizes life's trials, at some point the speaker has to accept life as it is, to come back to reality so to speak.  "But I was going to say when Truth broke in/With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm" her we see the element of Earth as he refers to mother nature. I feel this poem in many ways relates to "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop in a sense were it is human vs nature and the aging of nature. Nature doesn't understand time but through nature humans can establish some kind of empathy or gain insight to their own lives. The feel the speaker finds his sanity through imagination and death. "I'd like to get away from earth awhile/And then come back to it and begin over./May no fate willfully misunderstand me/And half grant what I wish and snatch me away/Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:" For he has grown old and weary like the tree through but choose to escape it by imagining the youthful will to live.