Poetry Response #6: Wallflowers by Donna Vorreyer

Wallflowers 

By: Donna Vorreyer 

I heard a word today I'd never heard before-

I wondered where it had been all my life.

I welcomed it, wooed it with my pen,

let it know it was loved.

They say if you use a word three times, it's yours.

What happens to ones that no one speaks?

Do they wait bitterly,

hollow-eyed orphans in Dickensian bedrooms,

longing for someone to say,

"yes, you . . . you're the one?

Or do they wait patiently, shy shadows

at the high school dance,

knowing that, given the slightest chance,

someday they'll bloom?

I want to make room for all of them,

to be the Ellis Island of diction-

give me your tired, your poor,

your gegenshein, your zoanthropy-

all those words without a home,

come out and play- live in my poem.

     Wallflowers by Donna Vorreyer is a very beautiful poem as it uses different metaphors to create a strong feeling about the way we use words. Words that may not be known are gegenshein and zoanthropy.

Gegenshein is a patch of very faint nebulous light sometimes seen in the night sky opposite the sun, thought to be sunlight reflected form gas and dust. Zoanthropy is the delusion that you have assumed the form of an animal. She uses another poetry writer in order to portray her purpose. As other writers may use a word once but not enough to make it a word. The words are almost portrayed as a person which brings more strength and light to the poem. As they are waiting to be developed and to be wanted by others. The words are like people coming form foreign countries to America in order to be part of a better society. The author wants to be home for those unwanted words. She is taking them in so that they can have a home and play with the other just as commonly used words. This poem yes is talking about words but we could also look at it in a sense of ourselves and how we are treated. How we want to be loved by others and feel like we are just as special as anyone else. This poem does a great job in giving both feels on self as well as words used.

Poetry Response #5: The Halo That Would Not Light by Lucie Brock-Broido

The Halo That Would Not Light

By: Lucie Brock-Broido

When, after many years, the raptor beak

Let loose of you,

                                                     He dropped your tiny body

In the scarab-colored hollow

                                                             Of a carriage, left you like a finch

Wrapped in its nest of linens wound

With linden leaves in a child's cardboard box.

Tonight the wind is hover-

Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back

And forth with no one in them 

As certain and invisible as

                                                  Red scarves silking endlessly

From a magician's hollow hat

                                                        And the spectacular catastrophe 

Of your endless childhood

                                            Is done.

     The Halo That Would Not Light by Lucie Brock-Broido, is a very well written poem almost about a bad childhood rather than a good one. The title of this poem starts the tone. "The Halo" almost brings in a sense of a guardian Angel; then putting the whole title together of "The Halo That Would Not Light," leads me to think almost of an Angel that never showed up. The guardian Angel that we hope to be watching over us, didn't ever seem to be there throughout their childhood. The beginning of the poem is speaking of the years of childhood finally passing but then moves into the things that mad that childhood not so good. The second, third, and forth stanza feel like abandonment. Like a child who was left out in the cold with no one to hold or love them. "Wrapped in its nest of linens wound With linden leaves in a child's cardboard box." This part almost seems like Christ figure, as Jesus was born in a manger and rapped in linden cloths. It then brings us to the fear that comes in the night as the wind blows. "Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back and forth with no one in them As certain and invisible as Red scarves silking endlessly." This part reminds me of horror movies, as the swings go back and and the scarves that blow in the wind. Stanzas eight and nine bring us to a "spectacular catastrophe," to she that a childhood could be spectacular but it must have been tragic to seem so endless. The last stanza of "Is done." Brings us peace as in childhood the Angel may not have been there, but hopefully in the light of the end of this childhood we can finally find peace. 

Poetry Response #4: Beginning Again by Franz Wright

Beginning Again

By: Franz Wright

"If I could stop talking, completely

cease talking for a year, I might begin

to get well," he muttered.

Off alone again performing

brain surgery on himself

in a small badly lit

room with no mirror. A room

whose floor ceiling ans walls

are all mirrors, what a mess

oh my God-

And still

 it stands,

the question

not how begin

again, but rather

Why?

So we sit there

together

the mountain

and me, Li Po

said, until only the mountain

remains.

     Beginning Again by Franz Wright, is very well done in portraying a struggle within themselves to become a new, almost better, person. He explains his difficulty in changing with the metaphor of "performing brain surgery on himself in a small badly lit room with no mirror.He also explains it as, "A room whose floor ceiling and walls are all mirrors, what a mess oh my God." Both of these show the difficulties in trying to change in two different ways. The first give almost impossibles as if he is trying to change his brain on his own and fix what is wrong but with the complications of doing brain surgery with no way to see what he is doing. The second is in a room of all mirrors as we try to get away from the reflection he is now and can't. The second stanza he is getting the the hard question of how does he change and begin again. Moving onto the third stanza he asks why, what's the point on trying to begin again in the first place. Then he comes to a conclusion in trying to begin again. He listens to Li Po to sit on a mountain until only the mountain remains. Once you can become one with the mountain and it only remains then you can begin yet again. 

Li Po was a poet from the 700 CE in Sezchawn, China. He also really liked the mountains.     

Poetry Response #3: Mr Fear by Lawrence Raab

Mr Fear by Lawrence Raab

He follows us, he keeps track.

Each day his lists are longer.

Here, death, and here,

something like it.

Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams,

what do you have for me tonight?

And he looks through his sack,

his black sack of troubles.

Maybe he smiles when he finds

the right one. Maybe he's sorry.

Tell me, Mr. Fear,

what must I carry

away form your dream.

Make it small, please.

Let it fit in my pocket,

let it fall through

the hole in my pocket.

Fear, let me have

a small brown bat

and a purse of crickets

like the ones I heard

singing last night

out there in the stubbly field

before I slept, and met you.

     Mr. Fear by Lawrence Raab, is portraying our nightmares as if it were a person. Someone who takes notes of things that may frighten us during the day and then using those fears as we sleep whether it be about death or other frightening events and thoughts. Wondering what fears he will bring that evening as if he has a sack to pick from, randomly choosing the next nightmare. Wondering if he is happy to give the fearful dream or sorry because maybe it his just his job to give you this dream. We ask for small nightmares that will not be so awful or something to allow us to protect ourselves through the dark. Delightful things heard before meeting fear in splendor. This poem shows nightmares very well in how they can effect us. Almost as if someone is watching the things that frighten us the most and making it come alive in our dreams. Such as loved ones dying or people close to us leaving. When I was little I used to have nightmares of tragic events killing my family or murders chasing after me. Some of our biggest fears seems to come alive in our dreams even if we fall asleep to pleasant sounds. Mr. Fear please stay from my dreams tonight so I may sleep tight.