Poem of the Week

[Scheherazade]

* We will post a new poem every week to be discussed by our members.

* Please post a new poem only on a Monday (please wait till it is Monday in your corner of the world) and state the week the poem is posted for.

* The same person cannot post another poem within the same month.

* When you participate in this thread, please keep in mind that there will be opinions that are different from yours. We are not here to persuade others or to make them think like ourselves but simply to share our own interpretations and views with each other.

* Any off topic posts are likely to be edited/deleted.

* PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHT LAWS: READ THIS BEFORE POSTING:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=17515

Here is the first poem for June 9 - 16:


An Apple Gathering

I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother's home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!

I let me neighbours pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.

Christina Rossetti

[JBI]

Is the purpose here to discuss the poem in depth?

[Scheherazade]

Yes. Discuss it, share your thoughts, feelings and so on.

[Niamh]

I'll have a read over it later!

[dramasnot6]

I think we can all,at some point in our lives,relate to this poem.
She captures very well what one feels after one experiences a loss of love. You see happy couples with melancholy and envy, feeling like it was only just the other day that you were one of them.
It should also be noted that she uses the motif of full and empty baskets, as if that powerful love that once filled your entire being can,tipped downward by a few words and painful moments, be spilled onto the earth and never be felt again.
It's not a complicated poem but it serves the function it sets out to achieve simply, accessibly, and charmingly. I rather like the simple,charmingly melancholic voice of the poem, through it she constructs a realistic young lady persona,with whom I can identify with.

*has put in her two cents*

[Nightshade]

well yay! ...about time we had another thread like this I sued to really enjoy this
Ok I like it ..... not sure what it means but I do like it

[dramasnot6]

Seeing as the week is coming to the end, I thought I should do the poem justice by offering up some last-minute interpretation....

Upon re-reading this poem, one could also interpret An Apple Gathering as social commentary about the roles and expectations of women. This is particularly apparent in Stanza 2, when her neighbours are said to mock her.
The apples,in this interpretation, symbolise fertility-as women are carrying full baskets of apples,mocking her "barrenness" as represented by the empty basket(she has no 'fruit' or fertility). This is reinforced by the imagery of "plump Gertrude", hinting at pregnancy and health. This imagery can even be compared to the semiotics of pagan religions, in which the harvest time symbolised the fertility of both the women and the earth.
I don't know if I should go so far as to interpret the poem as commenting on women's identities, in that women aren't complete unless accompanied by a man ("a stronger hand than hers").

[JBI]

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible.
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Emily Dickinson

[Il Penseroso]

Well, in the first stanza I think the obvious striking element in it is the odd personification of Death as "kindly" stopping, gentlemanly like, to carry in carriage the speaker of the poem. The speaker's traits seem hinted at most strongly, IMO, as constrasted with Death's unhurried aspect and "civility." Her rashness (if you want to call it that) is directly stated in the first line and only indirectly apparent throughout the rest. The end of the poem seems to imply that the recognition of eternity was an early experience in her life, from which she is distanced temporally but linked to through recollection and a feeling that the human lifespan is miniscule in comparison with the full extent of time.

The odd mixture of a relationship pattern (an intimate carriage ride) with the ironic twist that Immortality is being carried also in the carriage (or perhaps is apparent from her position in the carriage) probably has the obvious religious valence, but also could be suggestive of a personal feeling she may have toward her own life. (I don't have enough of a detailed knowledge of her biography to go much further here).

Anyhow, just some initial (incomplete) thoughts to get the conversation rolling.

[Nightshade]

Emily Dickenson! I love this poem!

[AuntShecky]

RE: The Emily D. poem of the week. I remember a passage in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
which states that every word of this particular poem can
be "sung" to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas."
Try it!

[qimissung]

I'm fond of Emily Dickinson and her amazing ability to put big ideas in small packages, like watching a hundred clowns jump out of the tiny car at the circus. I think my favorite thing about this poem is the idea of death "kindly" stopping, as though he is doing her a favor. I think in large part, most people still have a fear or horror of death, so the idea that death is doing us a favor remains a rather novel one, in my humble opinion.

[dramasnot6]

I too love this poem of hers.
Her stanza on passing the children reminds me of It's A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong when he sings "I hear babies cry, and I watch 'em grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know".

[V.Jayalakshmi]

Dear Members,
Yes, I like this thread.The reviews/comments by dramasnot6 is very apt except for that about the poem by Christina Rosseetti where a reference to role by women is indicated.was that warraned?After all a simple intrepretation of lost love would be enough?Though I am asking for a discussion on a previous week's poem can someone discuss this.Thank you.

[dramasnot6]

The reviews/comments by dramasnot6 is very apt except for that about the poem by Christina Rosseetti where a reference to role by women is indicated.was that warraned?After all a simple intrepretation of lost love would be enough?Though I am asking for a discussion on a previous week's poem can someone discuss this.Thank you.

Thank you...
Since when does the world of literary analysis have an 'enough'?
If you disagree with my interpretation, I am curious to hear your own 'discussion' on the matter. The diversity of thought and feeling that accompanies poetry is a great reason why,to me, it is a beautiful literary genre.