My favorite poem from this chapter is "Dream Song 14" by John Berryman. I loved the simplicity of the poem for the most part. Berryman uses very basic literary devices to just portray his boredom with his life. Berryman used personification in the first stanza, where he gives the sky the ability to flash and the sea the ability to yearn. The second literary device that Berryman uses is allusion, especially when he talks about Achilles as he directly referring Achilles to the greatest Greek warrior in the Trojan war, and the hero of Homer's Iliad. I found this poem to be very unique because Berryman organizes the tone of the poem to be very frustrated and dissatisfactory with his own life. Furthermore the poet in the poem totally inadequates the very flashy life that everyone is leading in the society and chooses to isolate himself from this ordinary life by portraying all its deficiencies. My favorite part of this poem is when the poet's mother says that her son has "no inner resources" represents the way of thinking I just mentioned above. The poet finds life very boring, actually he finds almost everything boing, as I think maybe because in the back of his mind he believes that everybody is leading the very same lives without having any uniqueness to it. The poet even finds his environment to be boring such as tranquil hills. I also found the rhyme scheme of this poem to be very interesting, especially as the poem is composed with three stanzas the long and short lines have alternative pattens which goes like: A, A, B, A, A, B which is writing a sonnet in a very short space condition. I also loved how Berryman used keen adjectives and verbs to portray the emotional potency in the poem. Berryman uses various ways to express his standpoint on the people who lives a very flashy and over-examined life, and demonstrates his exasperation to support his suicide.
Sumaita,
ReplyDeleteI loved your analysis on this poem. I agree-- the simplicity of this poem is beautiful.My favorite thing about this poem is how conversational it sounds. Nonetheless, while it is not lyrical, there is still meaning behind his words and I absolutely loved your interpretation of Berryman’s poem. I also liked how you analyzed the literary devices he used. In hindsight, Berryman captures his readers with ease because it appears that the speaker of the poem is next to the reader, just having a normal conversation about the tediousness of life.
Sumaita,
ReplyDeleteYour analysis is fantastic and I agree with the interpretation about the poet and his outlook on life. I also really liked that bit of psychoanalysis you added with "in the back of his mind...any uniqueness to it". I too get a sense of "me versus other people" in this poem.
If I had to add something that can back up your analysis, I would say that Berryman's increasing use of ampersands instead of the word "and" give you a visual cue to how bored he is. It's almost like he's using that punctuational shortcut in order to speed the poem along because he's halfway through and he's already bored of it.