Punk Pantoum

Who is the speaker? Define and describe the speaker and his/her voice. What does the speaker say? Who is the audience? Are other characters involved?

Blake Fletcher

AP English

Punk Pantoum

       The speaker in Punk Pantoum is a woman who is very much into the philosophy of punk music. Punk music is rather dark and gloomy but at the same time there are these messages of like eternal love. She seems to want to kill her boyfriend and herself but still being together. Her voice is dark but at the same time she is telling him how much she loved him the first time she met him.

         The punk culture is kind of crazy. In the Punk Pantoum there is this idea of romance in killing, and committing suicide. This dark yet beautiful thought of eternal love seems to be the major idea that is trying to be portrayed in this poem. When the speaker says “I knew I loved you then, with your blistered face and tracks.” is a prime example of the sick and twisted way of expressing love. Instead of saying I realized then in your darkest moment even when your face was all messed up from being burnt that I loved you; she says that she loved him with his blistered face. That is not the most artistic way of describing your love for someone. The quote also shows a little bit of light on the punk life style. Track is another word for song on an album so maybe the person played music and maybe he got her into the punk life style.

         The dark and gloomy punk lifestyle is just as much speaking of eternal love in this Pantoum as it is sick and demented. Yes, the speaker is talking about slitting her boyfriend and her throats, but she also ends with saying that she loves him in line 23. This could be a reference to even though she wants to kill him, maybe she wants to spend all of eternity with him and this is her way of expressing that.

God's Grandeur

Blake Fletcher

AP English

God’s Grandeur

1.     I think the theme of this poem could possibly be something to do with death. I say this because the last line. The last two words in the poem are “bright wings” this just makes me think of an angel.

2.     I don’t understand the simile in line 2? Lines 7 and 8 could be a symbol of the men’s hard work and his shoes wearing out. The smell of sweat and the smudge could be sweat as well. It could represent the end of a hard days work. Lines 11 and 12 could be a symbol for the fact that nothing happens throughout the night. I don’t really understand this poem I have read it like eight times now and I just don’t see a symbol here.

3.     I think that the phrase “wreck his rod” could possibly mean that even though people harvest from these olive plants they don’t die and maybe they grow on a rod that lives through the harvest. The term “spent” could have another meaning of dying like I will never be spent or I will never be worn out. The term “bent” could be a way of saying horizon because they where talking about the sunset and sunrise so maybe this is just continued from the line before.

The Flea Explication

Blake Fletcher

AP English

October 25, 2011

The Flea Explication

Who is the speaker? Define and describe the speaker and his/her voice. What does the speaker say? Who is the audience? Are other characters involved?

The Flea reveals a speaker who seems to be trying to find his way into his girlfriend’s pants. He makes comparisons to things that are pretty far fetched. Then the tone changes to be somewhat dark. The entire time the only audience seems to be a flea and this woman.

When the speaker compares the fact that the flea bit him and his girlfriend to some sort of connection that is equal to or greater than marriage. It shows he is either very much going out on a limb for this pickup line or somewhat delusional. He is trying to seduce this woman by comparing the fact that the flea has bitten both of them so their blood has mixed inside of it.

The speaker seems to be a man who is searching for love. You can see this through his voice in the beginning because he is trying to make a love connection thought an idea that because they where both bitten by a flea that they are now connected. His voice in the end of the poem changes to a darker more scary voice after the woman kills the flea and says that they are both stronger because of the death of the flea.

The speaker in the poem the flea is a desperate man who is searching for love. His ways of trying to get this love are questionable and not taken well by the woman in the poem who crushes his love metaphor quite literally. This in turn makes the speaker lose his patience or possibly his reasoning and makes him become a little darker. The darker voice from the speaker completely changes the tone of the poem.

The Flea

Blake Fletcher

AP English

The Flea

1.     Just before the poem began both of the people in the poem where bitten by a flea. I think that the women in the poem tries to kill the flea between the first and second stanza. I think that the women kills the flea between the second and third stanze. She acts like by killing the flea it has made both of them stronger.

2.     The past relationship between the speaker and the women seems to be that they are a couple. She “killed” the speaker when she killed the flea. He is still alive because she only killed a flea that he compared himself to. His objective in the poem is to get some action.

3.     The speaker says that because the flea sucked both his and the women’s blood that their blood is now considered significant because when a women and a males blood where meshed it usually meant the woman’s first lover. So he suggests that they should get funky because of this flea.

4.     Parents grudge could connect to the fact that pre marital sex was extremely frowned upon in that time. The three sins the woman commits are murder, Suicide, and sacrilege.

5.     The woman triumphs in killing the fly because it establishes that she is against sleeping with the man. It stops this insane pickup line. Though it angers the speaker and changes his outlook on the situation completely. He turns very dark in the end.

6.     I assume that the speaker may rape the women after the last three lines because it is extremely negative, and very dark. He says “When thou yield’st to me” almost like a demand.

7.     Both of these poems start off as positive ways to hit on a girl but in the end of the flea it gets very gloomy and dark. That differs from “The Apparition” stays positive in tone the whole time.

My last Duchess

Blake Fletcher

AP English

My Last Duchess

1. officious |əˈfi sh əs|

adjective

assertive of authority in an annoyingly domineering way, esp. with regard to petty or trivial matters

 munificent |myoŏˈnifəsənt; myə-|

adjective

(of a gift or sum of money) larger or more generous than is usual or necessary

2. The Duke seems to be talking to a person who has come to negotiate a marriage with the duke. I think that the Duke talking about the duchess is a side story or a digression.

3. The Duke is a scary guy who seems to think himself better than anyone else and everything he does is the right thing to do. The way he thinks of himself is the complete opposite he does think he is better than everyone else and he thinks everything he does and says is just.

4. The duke seems to be dissatisfied with his last duchess because she was a flirt. He seems to be a very settle down type gent. I think that he is upset that maybe his last duchess did not want to be with him and maybe showed it by being more friendly with other guys. It could have been sexual jealousy.

5. The Italian renaissance is shown in this poem by the arranged marriages and the painting showing power. I think that the Duke is genuinely upset looking at the photo but not so much for her death but more because she didn’t love him.

6. I think that the Duke had the duchess killed. I think this because he said “[he] gave commands; / Then all smiles stopped together.” That just strikes me as having someone killed. I am glad though that Browning did not reveal what happened because it leaves the poem more capable of being interpreted differently.

Traveling Through The Dark

Blake Fletcher
AP English

Traveling through the dark

1.     He is a man who hit a deer while driving down a narrow dark road. He seems to be a terrible person. I say this because he could have tried to save the fawn but he didn’t. I think he says my only swerving because of two things. He couldn’t swerve to avoid the deer or he would have crashed. So he chose not to swerve so he may regret that for killing the doe and the fawn.

2.     The Images that pop from this poem are kind of gloomy like the picture of a narrow dark road that claims the life of many things.

3.     No I cannot find any instance in this poem where lines two and four in each stanza are not connected with some sort of end rime. Accept for the D sounds in the end words for the first stanza. 

After Apple Picking

Imagery - 771-774. Look at the poem "After Apple-Picking". Answer the questions 1-6 at the end of the poem, and then in your blog briefly discuss what you believe the poem is about and use images from the poem to back up your ideas.

1.     Robert Frost portrays the experience so vividly by showing the speakers passion for apple picking. The speaker cannot stop thinking about the stress that comes with apple picking. The images the speaker’s ideals provoke are almost surreal and beautiful and at the same time there is some sort of  underlying stress.

2.     The speaker has a negative outlook on his job. He talks about being overtired. He says he has had to much apple picking. He dreams of apple picking he can’t stop thinking about it. He speaks of the apples as if he is almost disgusted by it.

3.     Help?

4.     I think that the reoccurring use of the word sleep is a direct link to the significance of sleep to the speaker. I think that it is more then just literal sleep. I think that the speaker is almost afraid of sleep because his dreams are the same as his every day grind. He sees apples all of the time and seeing it in his dreams I think upsets him or is off putting to him.

5.     A. I think that the ladder being pointed to the heavens could possibly be foreboding to a possible death.

B.  I think that the season changing is also a depressing thought because winter is usually somewhat connected with death with all the trees dying and leaves falling and grass dead. It has an overall gloomy meaning.

C. The harvesting could be interpreted also as possibly coming to an end. You harvest apples at the end of the season just before they start to fall because that is when they are harvested best. Possibly the harvester is reaching the end of his life and god is getting ready to harvest him.

D. Maybe the thing that shocked the harvester in the pane of glass was seeing himself. Maybe much of his life has gotten away from him and he is just starting to notice it.

6. A woodchuck sleeps for the winter like a bear. A human sleeps for a night. There is a major time difference between them.

            I think that this is the story of a man who has been doing his job for a very long time. Possibly longer than he ever anticipated being there. One day he sees his reflection and realizes he wasted much of his life. He realizes that apple picking is tedious and his whole life has been consumed by it. There may be a possibility that death is lurking for this man.