I really enjoy this poem because it seems so true. Women are always expected to do the laundry, cook the meals, clean, take care of the family and so on, but are women really able to do what they want? Gallagher seems like her life is going by so fast doing the daily chores and running around that she never has time to just sit down and make poetry. Women get so caught up doing the daily “chores” that they loose touch with what really makes them happy and don’t have time for the things they have passion for.

This poem reminds me of the song “we’ve only got 100 years to live” because it seems like the narrator has lost track of time and is now looking at his family and seeing how’d they’ve aged and grown. He is in the garden with his family; his wife the old woman has sagging breasts and a wrinkled face. He is confused as to how someone can age so quickly when he feels as if no time at all has passed, when in fact years have flown by. The story being told seems as if it is a story that has been and continues to be passed on for generations. The yearn to kiss his sweet explaining lips is that he is continuing tradition and he has raised such a gentleman and couldn’t be more proud.

When I first read this poem it reminded me so much of visiting Ellis Island because the title includes the word “Immigrants”. After reading through the poem a couple times I realized that it’s talking about the process in which immigrants had to go through in order to come to America. The crowds of people pointing you in different directions and different lines to stand in, you are either allowed to go through some doors or denied. If you get accepted to pass through the door you have to pass another test to get through the next door. The line “Things look at you doubly and you must look back and let them happen” makes me think that in order to become American and treated equally, one must endure the harsh reality of the here and now and be treated as a foreigner. If you want to become American and live the “better and privileged life” then you have to forget your values and be humiliated by tests in order to be respected as an American. Once you pass through the door you’re not accepted, you’re just in line for the next door.

I picture a luxurious street in Florida with the sun blaring and people in their designer bathing suits and expensive accessories. Then this hairless dog strolls by and stops everything grabbing everyone’s attention.  When it talks about how they deal with the beggars by throwing them in the tidal rivers it makes me think of this street or town trying to rid of the ugly things, the things that nobody wants to see and what they ignore. After dark the streets don’t belong to the fabulous, rich people anymore, the beggars and hairless dogs come around at night so they won’t be seen and looked down on by the upper class. If they throw the beggars into the tidal rivers, then one must wonder how harshly they must treat the most hideous looking creatures. Not only do they get rid of the ugly things in their town, but they laugh and make fun of them for not being able to have the luxuries they have. All these people care about is looking good and what the next event is that they can dress up and show off their riches. Their cold-heartedness is ignorance and the beggars and hairless dogs are not to blame.

The shape of this poem is very odd and its broken up in weird places. I think this poem is about speaking your feelings. The speaker goes to a party and sees the girl he likes, but he doesn’t talk to her. He goes to the party and just rambles on about nothing to some stranger he doesnt want to talk to, thinking about the girl. He is so afraid to talk to his love that when she talks to him, he doesn’t mention anything about his feelings towards her. He continues to have “scrambled eggs” and the same non-meaningful conversation with the girl instead of changing it up and having sunny side up eggs and asking her out.

I really enjoy this poem, and it seems to have a life lesson involved in it. When the poet was angry at someone and told that someone of his anger, the anger disappeared. But when he didn’t tell his foe that he was mad, his anger grew and everyday it built up into something bigger. He became so attached to that anger that he felt sad about it, and even happy about it. One day that anger grew so much that he decided to get revenge. The poisonous apple he grew tempted the foe, as he intended, and the foe ate it, killing him. This poem goes to show that if you keep pushing down your emotions then they will build up into something much greater than you intended; and to think you could prevent it from happening by talking about your feelings.

This poem makes me think of a love sick boy who cannot get this girl out of his head. She is burned into his head and heart and that burn will leave a scar and be there forever. I dont understand why he uses all the imagery of her burning and people watching, it’s a little disturbing. All of the things that he describes as her burning are things that when given the appropriate accompaniment, it will catch on fire quickly. He mentions how she burns at day break and at night fall, but I can’t distinguish the differences between the images.

When we went over this poem in class I was so taken back by the depth it went into. When I first looked at the poem I could understand how it was a loss of innocense and about death with the seasons, but I didn’t know that the speaker was being so harsh to the young girl. His tone made the idea of her weeping for herself very bitter and cold, like adult hearts.

This poem reminds me of a haiku (I don’t know if I spelled that right) because it seems to be just giving words like

Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else.

I wanted to read this poem because of the title “Ariel” and it made me think of the Disney movie The Little Mermaid. The first half of the poem gives dark, black images, then it changes to “white godiva” and images of innocence, like the child. I am still working on the meaning of the poem, but her style of writing is different than what I’ve seen. Please let me know if you come across a clue = )

First time I started reading this poem, I thought that it was going to be as upbeat as the first stanza, but as I read on the words started to become more death-like. I liked this poem because it really paints me a picture of the ship coming up to the dock and people cheering and the bells ringing. The captain being dead caught me by surprise, and it seemed to have caught the narrator by surprise too because he thought he was dreaming it. He calls the captain his father, which I thought was sort of odd. It seems as though he is trying to force and maybe bribe the captain to “wake up” by saying  for you they call, for you the flag is flung, for you the shores are crowding. Although the Captain died, the ship came home safely and maybe the captain felt all was right in his life after getting the crew home, and it was his time to go.