Poetry for Week 9

My Reflections on the Poetry from Week 9



     In choosing the poems from week nine, I choose the following poems: “My Papa’s Waltz,” “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun,” “Do not go gentile into that Good Night,” “Lonely Hearts,” and “Death Be Not Proud.” I liked the poems from this week also. My favorite among them was “Lonely Hearts.”



     In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, alcoholism seemed to be the current theme of the poem. The title of the poem seemed to represent the battle with alcohol that plagued the father of the poem. In the beginning of the poem, it feels like the boy or speaker of the poem is speaking of the father. The poem also mentions the mother’s disapproval of what is going on. It also felt like the son spent a lot of time with his father in a drunken state. The boys sounds small in the last verse of the poem when it mentions he is sent to bed clinging to his father.



     In “My Mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” by William Shakespeare, it does not sound like the speaker of the poem thinks highly of the mistress at all. The poem seems to paint the mistress in a very unflattering light. The poem even mentions the breath of the mistress is foul. Even though the speaker likes to hear the mistress speak, her voice seems to have an unpleasant sound as well. The idea of the mistress in the poem is not a good one. Maybe the author is trying to paint adultery in a disgusting way by the description of the mistress.



     In “Do Not Go Gentle Into The Night” by Dylan Thomas, death seems to be the theme of the poem. In the beginning of the poem, it seemed like the speaker of the poem was telling someone to fight dying. The poem mentions that one should live to old age. The light mentioned in the poem seems to represent life. The speaker wants the dying person to keep the light and stay away from light’s disappearance. During the time of the poem, the author’s father was dying. So towards the end of the poem, it felt like the author was speaking to his father. He wants his father to fight death and to not go out gently. He wants death to not have an easy fight with his father. After experiencing my mother pass away from a dreadful disease of ALS, I can echo his pleas for his father to fight against death.



     In “Lonely Hearts” by Wendy Cope, it sounded like singles ads to me. Many of the entries sounded as if the people were lonely and looking for love. The setting of the poem seems to take place in North London. Several types of people looking for love are listed in the poem. There is a male biker, gay vegetarian, bisexual executive, Jewish single mom, and Libran non-smoker. All of these characters mentioned are looking for love and have certain requirements that interest them. The poem sounds like it is several voices speaking from several characters throughout the poem. Each of them making their bid for love because they are lonely.



     In “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne, once again the theme of death is being visited. The speaker in the poem seems to be mocking death at first. The tone is slightly aggressive as the speaker is giving the feeling of not being scared of death. As the poem goes on, the author seems to be telling the more valiant ways of death. Some die in their sleep. Some die in war. Some die of sickness. Some people die of poisons. Eventually, everyone will die. When that happens, death can no longer frighten or chase the person around. If they are not living, the death is dead.