Analysis Of May Swenson's Poem 'The Centaur'

As I reread and discussed this poem in class, I noticed the sexual language and meaning behind the poem, which deepened my appreciation for the poem. I believe my experience shares many of the same types of emotions as the sensuality Mary Oliver is describing, only in a different context. Oliver writes about how, “fear shouts, / excitement shouts, back / and forth” (7). This description applies to both sexuality and experiencing great and awesome acts of nature. This relates to one of Oliver’s themes, experiencing nature and its parallels to our experiences.

W.H. Auden and Bruce Dawe, in their respective poems ‘Stop All The Clocks’ and ‘Suburban Lovers’, depict two different reactions to love. Auden’s use of an A, A, B, B, rhyme scheme creates rhythm through each of his 4 stanaz. Contrastingly, Dawe uses syllabic rhythm such as “on the fleet diesel that interprets them, like music on a roller-piano as they move, over the rhythmic rails”. Dawe also uses alliteration to create this similar pattern such as “breeze blowing”, “cliff of kissing” and “sandstone sustaining”. Both of these techniques create tone within each poem allowing the reader to reflect the mood of each poem. Auden’s rhyme scheme portrays a tone of sadness and grief in its simple structure and Dawe reflecting a tone of joy and longing

In May Swenson’s poem “The Centaur,” she talks about a little girl that uses her enormous mind to imagine herself transforming into a horse. The girl is in a whole new world of her imagination as she rides through the hills of her backyard. Swenson allows readers to take part in the transformation from human to horse that the adolescent girl described undergoes, thus emphasizing the importance of childhood and imagination on the woman's identity and how strong and intelligent they could be.

Spring is the season of growth, revival and beginnings. In the poems “Spring and All” by William Carlos Williams and “For Jane Meyers” by Louise Gluck, the poets talk about this very season. In fact, the two poems are contradictory, in that, Williams writes about the bleakness of winter and the awakening of spring. On the other hand, Gluck’s romantic poetry associates the natural renewal of spring with bereavement and death. Both poets use abundant imagery, symbolism, metaphors, different tones, and similes, to affirm their contending attitudes towards the season. Consequently, although the poems are about the same subject, the demeanor of the poets are varied.

People often tell little fibs, otherwise known as white lies, that they do not think will ever matter. At the time the lies may not seem like a big deal but in the end things can change. Later on down the road, most of these lies come back to haunt the person who tells them. One example of this can be found in the poem “White Lies”. The speaker of this poem tells little lies to hide her true identity.

Analyzing different mediums can enhance an individual’s overall appreciation and understanding of a particular idea or story. While analysis of a painting can reveal the mood of the artwork, an analysis of a poem can reveal the author’s tone. Much more then that, analysis provides an opportunity to explore each work in an attempt to understand human nature through each author’s perspective. While exploring the painting “Ulysses and the Sirens” by J.W. Waterhouse and the poem “The siren song” by Margaret Atwood, a universal truth presents itself. While the painting focuses on the thematic idea of Odysseus being stubborn while his men care for his safety to get home, the poem holds a different view. In contrast, the thematic statement from the poem discusses the idea that the Siren hates singing and being in a bird suit, but is asking for help but it’s still tempting to hear the song. Although differing in point of view, both the painting and the poem explore an aspect of human nature that are relevant to society today. There are two different authors for the painting and the poem. However, the two are different when compared to each

In the article “Susan B Anthony Dares to Vote!” and the poem “Making Sarah Cry,” both texts share the common theme of being different. In “Susan B Anthony Dares to Vote,” Susan is made fun of for being a different gender. In “Making Sarah Cry,” Sarah is made fun of for being slower and not as intelligent as the others. Although they share the common theme of being different, they each show the theme very differently by how the main character influences society.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched-they must be felt by the heart" Helen Keller once said.The poems I am analyzing is Ode To Enchanted Light by Pablo Neruda and Sleeping in the forest" by Mary Oliver.In "Ode to enchanted light", poet Pablo Neruda touches upon, passion for life, nature, and the world.The author uses this through the use of metaphors, similes, and personification.In "Sleeping in the forest" the author touches upon elements of nature.The author also uses similes, personification, and etc.

The poem is in the form of a four line verse with an almost constant AA BB rhyme. The line lengths are constant but some lines do run on into the next. The rhythm of the poem begins with a slow pace, this is suggested by the word "lumbering" in line 1, then the piece begins to slowly pick up the tempo at line 13. This tempo to me then builds with each successive line until a climax is reached with line 24. The poet then purposely puts the brakes on the tempo by using repetition of the word "fade" line 25, after which the tempo is the same as at the beginning. The religious theme to this poem is made by the use of similes and metaphors in the horses descriptions. An example being their comparison to seraphims of gold (line 11), seraphim's of course being an order of angels. Another being the use the word bossy (line 15), a reference perhaps to the carved wooden bosses found high in the vaulting of Gothic Church ceilings. He sets a creepy mood to the piece by the process of alliteration using the letter "m" (line 12) to lower the tempo and tone prior to the fourth verse. It is here when the tempo begins to gain momentum, another piece of alliteration is used in the form of the expression "broad-breasted" (line 14), which instills the idea that these creatures are big and so should make a larger impact to us as they overpower the sinking sun. From now on the horses are taking on more and more almost mythological properties, "glowing with mysterious fire" (line 19), and

As a forerunner to the free-love movement, late eighteenth century poet, engraver, and artist, William Blake (1757-1827), has clear sexual overtones in many of his poems, and he layers his work with sexual double entendres and symbolism. Within the discussion of sexuality in his work Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake seems to take a complicated view of women. His speakers use constructs of contraries, specifically innocence/ experience and male/female. Of the latter sex, he experiments with the passive (dependent, docile, virtuous) and active (independent, evil, a threat to the masculine) female subjects. Blake’s use of personification specifically of nature and botany suggest the use of nature to discuss human society. In Songs

In the poem, May uses the Greek mythological creature, the Centaur, as a symbol of the girl pretending to ride the horse and then became the horse himself. A centaur is a half-man half-horse creature. Centaurs are strong creatures they stand for being strong, brave, and they have a hard identity which reflects the girl's identity of having all these characteristics. Swenson makes it seem as though the girl herself is a Centaur. In words and phrases like: “my hair flopped to the side like the mane of a horse”(line 29 to 30), “I shied and skittered and reared”(line 33),”I was the horse and the rider”(line 38), ”spanked my own behind”(line 40 ), and “my two hoofs beat a gallop along the bank”(line 41 to 42 ) . All these symbolize that the girl is imagining to be a horse and a human at the same time like a centaur.At the end when her mother said: “why is your mouth all green ?”(line 71 ) it shows how the girl has a very high level of imagination that while she was imagining to be

Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman’s life legacy and at the same time the most praised and condemned book of poetry. Although fearful of social scorn, there are several poems in Leaves of Grass that are more explicit in showing the homoerotic imagery, whereas there are several subtle – should I say “implicit” – images woven into the fabric of the book. It is not strange, then, that he created many different identities in order to remain safe. What Whitman faced in writing his poetry was the difficulty in describing and resonating manly and homosexual love. He was to find another voice of his, a rhetoric device, and his effort took two forms: simplified, and subverted word play.

Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.

Now I intend to turn my attention to concrete examples from Walt Whitman's poetry to provide some evidence of that sexuality played an important role in his poetry, and there are possible readings to find traces for that. Of course, we cannot only rely on selected

Emily Dickinson’s poetry is hard to apprehend. She can express a variety of emotions and interpretations in just a few words. Even though she spent the last twenty years of her life isolated in her family’s house, she had a powerful imagination to write about love in ways that even her audience ever thought to express. In two of her poems, "This is my letter to the World” and "To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee," Dickinson expresses her sympathetic love for nature.