It was a dream

It was a dream by Lucille Clifton

in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her could i do,
oh what could I have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This.

So this poem is one stanza long and it contains 14 lines. It is also a free verse. One thing that I noticed was that she didn't capitalized anything even after punctuation. Only one "I" was capitalized. It seems that the little "i"'s are her greater self while the big "I" was her real self. "what" has its own line but I don't know the significance of that.
We all have an image of the person that we want to be and then what we really are. Maybe the author hasn't been the person that she wanted to be and not living her life to the fullest.

Introduction to Poetry

Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

they begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

I decided to do this poem just because this is what I used to do and still probably do. I have never actually looked at its structure. I noticed that all the stanzas are either two or three lines except one that is just one line: "or press an ear against its hive." I don't know the significance of this line. But the hive is the main place where the places are so maybe the author isolates it to show the importance of it.

There is no rhyme scheme which makes it free verse.

The Day Millicent Found the World

The Day Millicent Found the World by William Stafford


Every morning Millicent ventured farther
into the woods. At first she stayed
near light, the edge where bushes grew, where
her way back appeared in glimpses among
dark trunks behind her. Then by farther paths
or openings where giant pines had fallen
she explored ever deeper into
the interior, till one day she stood under a great
dome among columns, the heart of the forest, and knew:
Lost. She had achieved a mysterious world
where any direction would yield only surprise.


And now not only the giant trees were strange
but the ground at her feet had a velvet nearness;
intricate lines on bark wove messages all
around her. Long strokes of golden sunlight
shifted over her feet and hands. She felt
caught up and breathing in a great powerful embrace.
A birdcall wandered forth at leisurely intervals
from an opening on her right: "Come away, Come away."
Never, before had she let herself realize
that she was part of the world and that it would follow
Wherever she went. She was part of its breath.


Aunt Dolbee called her back that time, a high
voice tapering faintly among the farthest trees,
Milli-cent! Milli-cent! And that time she returned,
but slowly, her dress fluttering along pressing
back branches, her feet stirring up the dark smell
of moss, and her face floating forward, a stranger's
face now, with a new depth in it, into the light.

This poem consists of three stanzas with the first two have 11 lines and the last 7. I actually have trouble with this poem because I am having trouble finding structural things that stick out to me but I understand it pretty well. What I noticed after a while was the dialect in line 8 in the second stanza "Come away, Come away." I don't know whether it is saying come away from what is is comfortable or to go to what makes her comfortable. Another thing that stuck out was how in the third stanza, the third line when her aunt calls her; her name is split up with a dash "Milli-cent! Milli-cent!" I don't know whether that means anything.

Cottonmouth Country

Cottonmouth Country by Louise Gluck

Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.
And there were other signs
That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us
By land: among the pines
An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss
Reared in the polluted air.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.

So first I noticed that the poem is one stanza that consists of eight lines. The rhyme scheme is ababcdcd. One thing that that I saw was that "Death" is captialized. So maybe the author did this to show how dominat death is in this country.
Another thing that stuck out to me was the "I know." in the last line. It follows "Birth, not death, is the hard loss." So for me the "I know." says that the statement before is true with no exceptions.

Sort of a Song

Sort of a Song by William Carlos Williams


Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait
sleepless.

- though metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

So the first thing that I noticed was that this poem contained two sestet ( I think?) stanzas. When it came to rythm it was free verse. Another thing that stuck out to me was how "sleepless" was it's own line. From going from the second to last to the last line there almost seems to be a pause when reading it. For me that made what the author was saying become more real.
In the second stanza the lines "Compose. (No ideas/but in things) Invent!" really stuck out to me. I think that "(No ideas but in things)" explain what the author meant be "Compose." and "Invent!" Create art by the things that influence you.