Sign for my Father, Who Stressed the Bunt

Sign for my Father, Who Stressed the Bunt by David Bottoms

On the rough cut diamond,
the hand-cut field below the dog lot and barn,
we rehearsed the strict techbique
of bunting. I watched from the infield,
the mound, the backstop
as your left hand climbed the bat, your legs
and shoulders squared toward the pitcher.
You could drop it like a seed
down either base line. I admired your style,
but not enough to take my eyes off the bank
that served as our center-field fence.

Years passed, three leagues of organized ball.,
now few lives. I could homer
into the garden beyond the bank,
into the left-field lot of Carmichael Motors,
and still you stressed the same technique,
the crouch and spring, the lead arm absorbing
just enough impact. That whole tiresome pitch
about basics never changing ,
and I never learned what you were laying down.

Like a hand brushed across the bill of a cap,
let this be the sign
I'm getting a grip on the sacrifice.

First I have to say that I love this poem because it is about baseball :)

So this poem is three stanzas long. The first has eleven lines, the second nine, and the third three. Nothing really stuck out to me when it came to structure, it was pretty straight forward.

The reason I llike this poem so much is that it teaches a very important life lesson through something that I can relate to. It teaches that scarifice is needed in order to gain something in life just like a scarifice bunt is needed to score more runs. I like how in the first stanza it talks about the hand made field that he played on, this kind of showed the scarfice his father made from him.

What the mirror said

What the mirror said by Lucille Clifton

listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
someone needs directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!

One thing that stuck out to me was that nothing was capitalized. It is one stanza with 21 lines. Some lines only consist of one word. This for me emphasizes the word. The author repeats the word "listens" three times within the poem; it is like the mirror is trying to tell the girl something but she just won't listen.

I think that this poem is saying that there is a lot more than young girls than just looks. And by looking in a "mirror" young women can reflect and see that there is so much more on the inside that makes them beautiful.

A Poison Tree

A Poison Tree by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears.
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles.
And with soft, deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night
Till it bore an apple bright:
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

So first I noticed that this poem rhymed; it has an abab pattern. Then there is four stanzas that consist of four lines each. Nothing structurley stuck out to me. I noticed that the auther used some colons and semi-colons but other than that I didn't see much.

I liked this poem because it reminds me of what my mother always tells me: that if I have a problem with someone that I need to confront them and not talk behind their back because it only makes it worse.

"I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow."

I love this because it is so true! It is a lot easier to confront a friend who you are more confortable with than a person who you are less confortable.

I really enjoyed this poem.