Aww, how sweet?

I found the poem My Mistress' Eyes very odd. I first thought that the poem was going to discuss love. However, instead of complimenting his mistress, he points out all of her faults. He takes every romantic attribute of a woman and says that his mistress is the opposite. This seemed weird to me. Poetic writing is usually romantic, whether it discusses love or not. I thought it was interesting that Shakespeare would purposefully do the exact opposite. The last couple lines confused me though. I couldn't really tell what he was saying. One of the interpretations I considered was that, even thought she had all these faults, their love was true and heaven-sent.

To His Coy Mistress

I enjoyed the poem To His Coy Mistress but there was one line in particular that kind of confused me. It is line 11:
"My vegetable love should grow".
The phrase vegetable love didn't make sense to me. I just couldn't find the meaning of it as I read. My first thought was actually of the vegetative state of some who don't have brain function. But that idea was contradicted by the word grow. When a person is vegetative, they are not moving forward or changing. They cannot grow. But the speaker is hoping for his love to grow. These opposing ideas confused me.

Figurative Language

The poem Getting Out really sparked my interest. I caught on very quickly that this was describing a divorced couple. I thought that the author's use of figurative language to convey this meaning was very effective. In just the first line, the speaker compares their relationship to that of inmates in jail. This simile shows how intensely unpleasant the relationship was. The couple was imprisioned without release from each other. At first that seemed dramatic and a bit drastic. But it makes sense when you look at it. They were kind of indifferent to each other, each tortured by the situation. They were trapped.

Symbolism

I found the poem Crossing the Bar very intriguing. My favorite aspect of it was the obvious symbolism. Crossing the bar is symbolic of death. There are many other important symbols throughout the work. For instance, my favorite symbol was in line 15 and 16:

"I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar."

The word Pilot is a reference to God. I thought that the author really emphasized this meaning my capitalizing Pilot. It was an interesting tactic. It also refers to being asleep in the second stanza. Sleep has been a recurring symbol of death in the poems we have studied thus far. The mention of it in this poem strengthens the overall symbolism of death.

Madness vs. Sense

When I first read this poem I was very excited because I thought that I finally understood a Dickinson poem. I was wrong.
My first assumption was that the poem was a reflection on insanity. The other works of hers that I'm familiar with are bizarre and some address insanity. It seemed like a logical explanation. I would have never guessed that she was discussing society and its approach to personal opinions. I actually appreciated it a lot more once I knew the meaning. I think her message is really important in today's society. Today's generation must move past pressure from the media and their peers and learn to think for themselves.

APO 96225

This poem reminded me a great deal of "The Things They Carried." The two works have very similar themes. Both discuss those left behind during a war and their response to it. Especially in APO 96225, those left behind are portrayed as extremely naive. The soldier's parents think that they can handle the cruelty and reality of war, but they can't (or refuse to) comprehend it. I think the author is trying to illustrate the differences in the realities faced by soldiers and by civilians. I don't think you can truly understand the terrors of war unless you have seen them.
These worlds are completely different and its hard for occupants of one to understand the realities of the other.

Sorting Laundry: Allusion

In line 27, Ritchie utilizes an interesting allusion. Lines 25-27 are:

"And what's shrunk
is tough to discard
even for Goodwill."

I found this line intriguing for a couple of reasons. First of all, this allusion shows what poor condition some of these clothes were in. They were even beneath Goodwill. The reference to this institution caught me off guard. I didn't know Goodwill had such a long history. I couldn't find the exact year that the poem was written, but Elisavietta Ritchie was born in 1932 so I would guess the mid 1900s. She approaches it as a familiar image and institution. This surprised me. I thought Goodwills were relatively new. It turns out that Goodwill was started in 1902 as an urban outreach ministry.