homework for the 22nd

While reading through the assigned readings, I found that I didn't really connect with any of them besides the songs. Even in the songs, I found that I mainly liked "the River". I liked how he made himself really embody the person that he was as the speaker. I think it was pretty clear what he was discussing throughout the song but, due to the assignment, I will give the interpretation I thought of for the song.
It starts out with the background where he meets Mary at seventeen years old. When he gets to the part about he and Mary jumping into the river, it definitely could be a straight-forward thing. Yet, if you look at it in a symbolic sense, the river could also be life in general. He and Mary got together and dove right into life by having sex. By doing this, they get swept up in the river of life and have to get married to make themselves, or their parents, feel better about the pregnancy. The wedding was so spur of the moment that it was done at a courthouse and may have even been an eloping between the two. No one came and there were no decorations. Again, the author makes reference to diving into the river and going for a ride on it which again shows the river of life symbol. To support the baby and his new wife, the speaker tries to get a job which is very difficult to do due to the flood that the book mentions as a historical flood in the area the song takes place in. Things that the speaker found important like maybe school, how cool he was, and other things are now unimportant on this "ride down the river" due to his new wife and child. At the very end of the poem, the speaker remembers how things used to be and admits to how much he misses them when he says the memories haunt him. The river of life that he once found so fun has dried up and he isn't going anywhere. The last line seems like he is reflecting on how much fun life used to be and how he and Mary would "ride the river" all the time but now, life is dry of its adventure, fun, and excitement. A very sad story if I do say so myself.

homework for Jan 15th

After reading the poems for this week, I thought the one I connected with the most was "A Call" by Seamus Heaney. In A Call, I saw the speaker as maybe just the author recounting an event to the audience, who could be an interviewer of some sort, about a call he made to someone. In my interpretation, I saw this as a call to his parents when he was maybe college aged or beyond. I may have made this interpretation because, of course, I am in college and can relate to calling home only to have my mom tell me how dad is outside and having to go fetch him to talk. I felt like the author's tone was a little torn though since he mentions the nice day and the calmness of the wait as the woman goes to get the man but also there are references to death and the "grave ticking" of the clocks. It made me wonder, though, why the author would go from visualizing this man being happy to be gardening while sad nonetheless to thinking of death due to clock ticking. I liked that the author made this poem have no rhyming scheme. I feel that, if he had made it rhyme, some of the great visuals he gives us would've lost some of their vividness.

The other poem I enjoyed was "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I missed the fact at first but, after looking back, I noticed that this was an Italian style of Sonnet due to the 8 lines being grouped together with the rhyme scheme of abbaabba. For a lot of the poem, you could see a definite religious background in the speaker whether they were the author or not. He talked very literally about how God made the earth so wonderful and yet mankind has made it less awesome in the way that we use it. There really seemed to be disgust that many people have moved away from God to deal with their own lives. Apparently even when the world needs help, mankind won't go back to God. I interpretted that when I paraphrased line 4: "Why do men then now not reck his rod?" Now, I know the book says that this is in reference to God's punishment but I couldn't help but think of the Psalm that discusses God leading us and the rod and staff comforting us. Due to this, I saw the line more as "Why won't the world remember God?" That, of course, could be completely wrong. I still like the thought that I got from the poem where even though man turns his back on God to focus on his own life, God is still there replenishing the earth's awesomeness and waiting for mankind to come back to religion.

Welcome

Welcome to my English 250 blog. I hope you enjoy reading. I'm sure it'll be super exciting.