A Little Intro To My Journal

Professor Nicosia -

First of all, let me apologize a thousand times for getting this to you so late. It's been a very hectic week with the last week of classes and my mom and brother in Poland. The funeral service was on Wednesday for my Grandmother, and it was just a gloomy day even though I didn't have much time to be gloomy as I was running around trying to get everything done. I don't know what's worse...if I would have sat around and moped all day, or if my busy schedule kept me from being sad. I'm more or less back to normal, but I'm afraid to go home, as I'm sure my memories will start welling up when I realize she'll no longer be with me.

As for the journal, here it is, all shiny and cool. I have to say that your class is among the greatest I have taken at Montclair State University, and has really opened my eyes to the wonders of poetry. Before this class, I really was not a fan of poetry at all, but my ways of thinking have completely changed. Your class has also given my heart some warmth, as I'm sure you'll be able to see, it was quite cold and cynical at the beginning of the semester (I hated romance poems). I love poems now, and have an entirely different outlook on the genre.

I hope that after this class, you and I will still keep contact, as you have been a very helpful and motivational professor for me. Have a great holiday season, and I hope to see you around!

-Bernadette

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

I'm not entirely sure what this poem is about, but the title intrigued me. I'm assuming the speaker is a child, watching her aunt weave or knit something on a screen (do you knit or weave on a screen?) and she's knitting tigers. Why she describes the tigers as topaz is a little confusing...topaz is a reddish color, but perhaps when woven, the yarn isn't quite the color of orange, but more reddish instead. Maybe it's as vivid as topaz is, and maybe that's why she chose to use that color. I love how she personifies these tigers, which I don't think in actuality are animate objects...but on the screen they look heroic and courageous. In the third line it says "They do not fear the men beneath the tree;" which I'm assuming again, are men that are put into this picture, but it could also be seen as Aunt Jennifer herself. The tigers don't fear Aunt Jennifer, even though she is human, because she's the one who's making them.

I love the shift on thought in the second stanza too. Poor Aunt Jennifer seems old and frail. I hope she gets to finish her piece.

Then the poem is ended with a hint of happiness almost. Even after Aunt Jennifer dies (which further emphasizes my theory that she is old and will be gone soon) the stuff she has birthed will live on. The tigers will look no different no matter what happens.

This is a really touching poem for me, because my grandma was a handy person who loved to make art s and crafts like these. And now, even though she's gone, what she has done for me will always be there. My grandma was big on keeping things neat and organized, and labeled. There are boxes all over the house with her handwriting on it, specifying what's in each of those boxes. Her handwriting appears strong and invulnerable. Even though she's gone, the strength she projected through her hand-work will always be there.

Not Waving but Drowning - Stevie Smith

The reason I like this poem, and find it fascinating, is that I can tell there's more than one way to interpret it...there's so many ways for it to be read. In fact, my interpretation of the poem changed from the beginning to the end, and by the end I had an entirely different view of what was going on. By the end, I saw the dead man as someone who had been yearning for attention and tender loving care all this life. The "not waving but drowning" is kind of like a metaphor for him profusely and desperately waving his hands for attention, but since nobody would give it to him, he'd drown in self-pity instead. The coldness that is described, is the coldness one feels when it seems that nobody cares about them. And at the third line of the third stanza, he kind of brings it all together, because he's saying that he was too disconnected from society all his life... he was a loner...kind of sad, really.

I could be entirely wrong though. This doesn't have to be a metaphor, it could be realistic. Maybe there was a guy out in the ocean who wasn't waving to anybody, but trying to signal for help. Either way, it would bounce off my other theory, because nobody cared to find out what was really going on...he drowned anyway.

I don't like the set-up of the second stanza...it's a bit discomforting. It's not balanced or equal. It's a hard stanza to read, because you don't know where to pause to make a good rhyme scheme. I do like when poets put parentheses in their poems...I LOVE parentheses because you can just go astray from your thoughts, or give a little anecdote, without ruining the structure of everything else....parentheses might be my favorite punctuation mark.