Allusion: a figure of speech, reference/representation of/to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art. M.H. Abrams defined allusion as "a brief reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place or event, or to another literary work or passage"
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. (1)
Functioon: This section is added to The Love of Alfred Prufrock, it comes from Dante's Divine comedy, which is the story of a mans journey into hell, purgatory, and then heaven. T.S. Elliot included this exerpt perhaps to clue us into what torment the speaker is in. EH is faced with a terrible fate. roughly translated it says, If I thought that that I was replying to someone who would ever return to the world, this flame would cease to flicker. But since no one ever returns from these depths alive, if what I've heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy." It gives a gloomy feel to the poem, and anticipation for what will come.

punk

ok, stick with me here
punk pantoum is the story of a rebelious teenager (no way right?), but thats the last normalcy youll find. The boy is being beeten by his father, who does not understand his sons rebelious ways. (last weeks ochre bruise) The family is very well off, Eutaw Place is a historic district in Baltimore, and the family owned horses. He is upset, so he starts talking to his girlfriend about how he will kill one of his fathers horses to get his revenge. She calms him down though, and he sees that she is right, he was overreacting, he thanks her by reminding her of the time they metat the flower market, they were both high (eating Sandoz oranges). Sandoz is a company that makes drugs. As for the razor, maybe they're just into some kinky sex? None of my buisness.
ps. theres some connection between tracks and horses, but i cant put my finger on it.

Allusion: a figure of speech, reference/representation of/to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art. M.H. Abrams defined allusion as "a brief reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place or event, or to another literary work or passage"

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. (1)

Function: MUST GO TO LUNCH>>> SEE LATER ENTRY

rage rage that gentle night

Do Not Go Gentle Into The Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The Villanelle form is uses not only repetition to drill certain lines into your cerebellum, but also uses a constant rhyme scheme, in which the first and last lines of each tercet always rhyme. This rhyme scheme represents the beginning, the unimportant middle, and the grand finale, which is where the bedridden father lays. The poem represents a child who kneels at his fathers bedside, unable to let go even though his dad has lived a good life. He descends from the wise men, to the good men, to the wild men, to the grave men, and eventually to his father, so perhaps his father did not lead such a spectacular life after all. He describes how each type of man goes into the night, yet they always say either "do not go gentle into that good night" or "Rage rage against the dying of the light" the fact that both of these lines are used in his fathers paragraph is a good indication that his father did not survive his illness.

Imagery: Imagery is descriptive language that evokes sensory experience (in any or all sense modes), and is intended to make the reader feel more interested and more emotionally involved in the work by creating a mental image of the subject.

example: after apple-picking
"Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend."

In after apple picking, the speaker is done with his life's work of apple picking, whether you interpret this as an allegory for being done with his life's work is your own opinion. in either case, he uses fine tuned imagery to describe what he believes he will dream once he finally gets his sleep. He uses the sense of touch and sight to evoke an ache in ones soles, and an intimate connection with the apples. By evoking similar emotions to what he is feeling, the speaker attempts to let you see through his eyes and walk in his shoes.

toneage

Robert Frost- The Telephone
When I was just as far as I could walk
From here to-day,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
Do you remember what it was you said?'

This poem is confusing for such a short and un-complex poem. Taken literally it would appear to be the poem of a madman who is hearing voices. I looked further into this poem, and believe that in fact this poem is a criticism of the use of the telephone, that the use of telephones are not as special as face to face conversations. Furthermore, there is more room for mis-interpretation when using a telephone, and this piece is the description of one of these such interpretations.
When read in this way the mocking of the telephone users (possibly lovers) becomes almost comical and the madness is less apparent.

John Donne- The flea
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

This is my favorite poem....EVER.
THe poem begins in a pleading but intelligent manner, instead of convincing his girlfriend to have sex with him by wooing her, he has decided to use logic to convince her that it is not only what he wants, but it is actually the morally right thing to do. He speaks of how the tick has already shared their fluids, as they would in sex, and so it is not big deal. The situational iron is unmistakeable in the poem, used to create a hilarious masterpiece. Yet in the end, he is almost frustrated at his determined advances rejection. The speaker begins to use words like "cruel" and "guilty" i believe in a desperate attempt to satisfy himself through guilt-tripping his girlfriend. the poem descends from the light teasing and nagging comical boyfriend, to the jealous, angry, frustrated, future ex-boyfriend.

John Wakeman- Love in Brooklyn
"I love you, Horowitz," he said, and blew his nose.
She splashed her drink. "The hell you say," she said.
"Not love. You don't love me. You like my legs,
and how I make your letters nice and all.
You drank your drink too fast. You don't love me."
"You wanna bet?" he asked. "You wanna bet?
I loved you from the day they moved you up
from Payroll, last July. I watched you, right?
You sat there on that typing chair you have
and swung round like a kid. It made me shake.
Like once, in World War II, I saw a tank
slide through some trees at dawn like it was a god.
That's how you make me feel. I don't know why."
She turned towards him, then sat back and grinned,
and on the bar stool swung full circle round.
"You think I'm like a tank, you mean?" she asked.
"Some fellers tell me nicer things than that."
But then she saw his face and touched his arm
and softly said, "I'm only kidding you."
He ordered drinks, the same again, and paid.
A fat man, wordless, staring at the floor.
She took his hand in hers and pressed it hard.
And his plump fingers trembled in her lap.

Love In Brooklyn, this poem describes a couple going through hard times. The woman jests that her man does not love him, but the man in fact does. To prove his love describes her in a way that only a man who loved her could but instead of taking such wonderful flattery, she pokes fun at him again. He trembles then at the thought of her leaving him.
The poem changes tone again. Originating with a sense of nasty uncivilized fighting (naturally in brooklyn) but then leading up to an almost sad sweetness. As the man relates his girlfriend to a tank, he seems completely taken with her, absolutely helpless, even though she accuses him of only wanting her for sex. yet in the end, she holds his hand and they order drinks, it appears that the couple will work their problems out, a story of making up. THis was at great contrast with the flea and its tale of the couple breaking up.

The Grindstone by Robert Frost
Having a wheel and four legs of its own
Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone
To get it anywhere that I can see.
These hands have helped it go, a
nd even race;Not all the motion,
though, they ever lent,
Not all tke miles it may have thought it went,
Have got it one step from the starting place.
It stands beside the same old apple tree.
The shadow of the apple tree is thin
Upon it now its feet as fast in snow.
All other farm machinery's gone in,
And some of it on no more legs and wheel
Than the grindstone can boast to stand or go.
(I'm thinking chiefly of the wheelbarrow.)
For months it hasn't known the taste of steel
Washed down with rusty water in a tin..
But standing outdoors hungry, in the cold,
Except in towns at night is not a sin.
And> anyway, it's standing in the yard
Under a ruinous live apple tree
Has nothing any more to do with me,
Except that I remember how of old
One summer day, all day I drove it hard,
And someone mounted on it rode it hard
And he and I between us ground a blade
.I gave it the preliminary spin
And poured on water (tears it might have been);
And when it almost gaily jumped and flowed,
A Father-Time-like man got on and rode,
Armed with a scythe and spectacles that glowed.
He turned on will-power to increase the load
And slow me down -- and I abruptly slowed,
Like coming to a sudden railroad station.
I changed from hand to hand in desperation.
I wondered what machine of ages gone
This represented an improvement on.
'For all I knew it may have sharpened spears
And arrowheads itself. Much use.for years
Had gradually worn it an oblate
Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its gait,
Appearing to return me hate for hate;
(But I forgive it now as easily
As any other boyhood enemy
Whose pride has failed to get him anywhere).
I wondered who it was the man thought ground-
The one who held the wheel back or the one
Who gave his life to keep it going round?·
I wondered if he really thought it fair
For him to have the say when we were done.
Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned.
Not for myself was I so much concernedOh no --
Although, of course, I could have found
A better way to pass the afternoon
Than grinding discord out of a grindstone,
And beating insects at their gritty tune.
Nor was I for the man so much concerned.
Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing
It looked as if he might be badly thrown
And wounded on his blade.
So far from caring,I laughed inside,
and only cranked the faster
(It ran as if it wasn't greased but glued);
I'd welcome any moderate disaster
That might be calculated to postpone
What evidently nothing could conclude.
The thing that made me more and more afraid
Was that we'd ground it sharp and hadn't known,
And now were only wasting precious blade.
And when he raised it dripping once and tried
The creepy edge of it with wary touch
And viewed it over his glasses funny-eyed,
Only disinterestedly to decide
It needed a turn more, I could have cried
Wasn't there a danger of a turn too much?
Mightn't we make it worse instead of better?
I was for leaving something to the whettot.
What if it wasn't all it should be?
I'dBe satisfied if he'd be satisfied.