PoemoftheWeek

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Ktd222 I have no idea what you mean here. First of all, Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt did not compose any verses (at least not in this poem – I have no idea if they wrote limericks to each other in private). They are two people to whom Hecht has dedicated his poem. Do you actually read what people post?

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Good, you focus on that background information and not the poem.

How else would you read the opening lines:
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses,

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Ktd222
Do you actually read what people post? I provided information about them in #946. They are not participants in the poem, if that is what the garbled comments above are actually saying. Earlier you said, “If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose (sic) to know?” and then added, “Have you heard of the word 'assumption' and the phrase 'use what your (sic) given'?” Correct me if I am wrong but you appear to be saying that we should only focus on what is provided in the poem. Yet now you have no qualms about making a statement like “the Ghost (sic) continually seem to try to rise”. Where is the evidence for this? What does it mean, anyway? Are you suggesting in some way that Hecht’s purpose in this poem is to show us the true way to God and offer us some kind of religious hope? There is no hope offered. All light has been extinguished, which is why I said that I found the poem unanswerable.

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Ya, I read your post, with a spark of analysis here and there, and then your posts were drowned in useless information.
Why don't you read these lines from the poem:
No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.
Its all there. And what is going on in this last stanza correlates back to the first ritual. I'm really sorry you can't see the movement in the poem.

There is hope offered. The person with 'legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap bubbled and burst' seems to still hold firm to his 'faith' in the midst of all the pain the person is experiencing.

But the Jews also seem to go through a sort of horrific ending to their lives, yet I don't hear any of them reaffirming and standing behind their faith.

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Originally Posted by “ktd222”

Good, you focus on that background information and not the poem.

How else would you read the opening lines:
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses,

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First of all, I wouldn’t set it out differently from the way the poet has done:

More Light! More Light!
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt

Composed in the Tower before his execution

Then I would consider the possibility that Composed could be an adjective as well as a verb.

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Originally Posted by “ktd222”

I have read none of the sort.

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Perhaps you should consider doing so?

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Originally Posted by “ktd222”

-which makes me think your the one who goes on the internet and finds an answer that matches yours before you give people the post to the site.

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I don’t need to go searching for anything other than the verbatim quotations (I like to offer accurate quotation): I’ve read a lot of books, you see.

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Originally Posted by “ktd222”

Geez, look who is analyzing the poem like it's a history report.

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The fact that Hecht has dedicated his poem to two actual historical characters, has quoted the dying words of a third and bases his poem on a historical event is obviously irrelevant and a poem about the atrocities of the Holocaust should equally obviously not consider historical reality – poems exist in an ahistorical, aesthetic void, don’t they?

As I said earlier, when in a hole…

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Originally Posted by ktd222

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.
Its all there. And what is going on in this last stanza correlates back to the first ritual. I'm really sorry you can't see the movement in the poem.

There is hope offered. The person with 'legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap bubbled and burst' seems to still hold firm to his 'faith' in the midst of all the pain the person is experiencing.

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It is strange. We quote the same part and get different lessons from it.
I thought that the idea was that hope did not help him, faith did not help because no kind light came, and that the last stanza confirms that lack of hope. I thought the poems title asking for light was an echo of his plea.
So I can´t see the movement you refer to - at least not in the same way as you do.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

and then your posts were drowned in useless information.

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:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm sure Hecht would agree with you. That's why he bothered to mention Arendt and quote Goethe.

Miss Jones, take a letter:

“Dear Mr. Hecht, I liked your poem but where are the similes and metaphors, where is the onomatopoeia, where is the opportunity to reduce it to a technical exercise in literary criticism? I’ve just learned how to scan poetry but you blind me with historical information. How do you expect me to sound clever when you insist on mentioning such useless things? Still, it’s a nice poem about hope.”

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

First of all, I wouldn’t set it out differently from the way the poet has done:

More Light! More Light!
For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt

Composed in the Tower before his execution

Then I would consider the possibility that Composed could be an adjective as well as a verb.

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The same poem that I printed out has those two lines above as part of the same stanza.

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Perhaps you should consider doing so?

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No, seems to have messed you up pretty good.

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I don’t need to go searching for anything other than the verbatim quotations (I like to offer accurate quotation): I’ve read a lot of books, you see.

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Wow, good for you buddy...and?

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The fact that Hecht has dedicated his poem to two actual historical characters, has quoted the dying words of a third and bases his poem on a historical event is obviously irrelevant and a poem about the atrocities of the Holocaust should equally obviously not consider historical reality – poems exist in an ahistorical, aesthetic void, don’t they?

As I said earlier, when in a hole…

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As I showed in my post, the copy I have have the two lines you mentioned in the same stanza which changes the meaning of the opening lines.
If I look at the poem with the opening two lines as is, then yes, the poem becomes a dedication; but that still doesn't take away that it's 'moving verses'.
Yes, it is irrelevant. It's a poem, and poems have poetic elements: thats what I'm looking for more than background information.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

Yes, it is irrelevant. It's a poem, and poems have poetic elements: thats what I'm looking for more than background information.

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That hole just keeps getting bigger - you'll soon be through to the Earth's core. Be careful your shovel doesn't melt. :D

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Originally Posted by Isagel

I thought that the idea was that hope did not help him, faith did not help because no kind light came, and that the last stanza confirms that lack of hope. I thought the poems title asking for light was an echo of his plea.

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And in this you are right, of course.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm sure Hecht would agree with you. That's why he bothered to mention Arendt and quote Goethe.

Miss Jones, take a letter:

“Dear Mr. Hecht, I liked your poem but where are the similes and metaphors, where is the onomatopoeia, where is the opportunity to reduce it to a technical exercise in literary criticism? I’ve just learned how to scan poetry but you blind me with historical information. How do you expect me to sound clever when you insist on mentioning such useless things? Still, it’s a nice poem about hope.”

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Where is Goethe in the poem?
Yes, I think he would appreciate a person who is able to see what type of poetic elements he uses.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I’ve just learned how to scan poetry but you blind me with historical information. How do you expect me to sound clever when you insist on mentioning such useless things? Still, it’s a nice poem about hope.”

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Its sad to say but what I've just learned about poetry seems to be more than you know about poetry.

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Originally Posted by ktd222

If I look at the poem with the opening two lines as is, then yes, the poem becomes a dedication; but that still doesn't take away that it's 'moving verses'.

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The moving verses were composed about the martyr, in a Tower, and only highlight the, in an essence, detached thinking of those who gave the scene its 'pitiful dignity'. This is contrasted in the historically realistic view taken of the Holocaust situation.

Unnamable,

you seem to have forgotten a poem about the 'horizontal'. :lol:

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Originally Posted by chmpman

The moving verses were composed about the martyr, in a Tower, and only highlight the, in an essence, detached thinking of those who gave the scene its 'pitiful dignity'. This is contrasted in the historically realistic view taken of the Holocaust situation.

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Who composed the 'moving verses'?
Composed in the Tower before his execution
These moving verses, and being brought at that time
Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus:
"I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime."

edit: do you think this could be the same verse that the martyr is declaring?

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Originally Posted by Isagel

It is strange. We quote the same part and get different lessons from it.
I thought that the idea was that hope did not help him, faith did not help because no kind light came, and that the last stanza confirms that lack of hope. I thought the poems title asking for light was an echo of his plea.
So I can´t see the movement you refer to - at least not in the same way as you do.

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Its not suppose to be a literal light in which you witness while living on earth.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

That hole just keeps getting bigger - you'll soon be through to the Earth's core. Be careful your shovel doesn't melt. :D

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I'm underneath the ton of bull your shoveling over me. Will someone please lend a hand?