"Incident" -Countee Cullen

One major element that drew me to this poem was the persona. The speaker is a black eight-year old, and I am white, but the childlike honesty of these words had a completely empathetic impact on me. In the first stanza, the speaker is "heart-filled, head-filled with glee," and when she smiles at a boy staring at her, "he poked out/ His tongue, and called me, "Nigger." This no-longer-PC slur found an interesting place in the language of this poem; in fact, this word is what really hit me hard. Clearly, it is a non-traditional word in the world of aesthetic poetry, but it is exactly what's necessary to drive the point home. Words do hurt us, but we can still turn that pain into something beautiful, as the speaker/ poet has done here. This is how I found myself in this piece. I am not black; however, I was once eight years old, and remember the impact that hateful words can have on a child and even adults. You can't forget direct degradations of your own "self," and we are forced to live with all of the insults. Still, we have to learn from these emotional scars, because they will create who we ultimately are.

"I am" - John Clare

This poem is poignant for several reasons; first, it reflects the very real human emotions of despair and longing. The speaker expresses feelings of isolation from the very first line: "I am: yet what I am none cares or knows," and continues to produce a string of forlorn and distressed images. "The nothingness of scorn and noise" shows a distaste for the superficiality and superfluity of life. In that same stanza, however, the speaker dejectedly points out "the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;" here, we can see that the speaker similarly holds him(or her)self in low regard. The end of the poem expresses a desperate longing for peace; essentially an escape from life. The speaker tells us, "I long... to abide with my Creator, God,/ As I in childhood sweetly slept." This wish for innocence is something we all experience as we grow older; while the speaker may seem hopeful, a person can never return to his childlike state. In this way, we could say that the speaker would be better served by coming to terms with life and finding some worth in it and himself. The persona is interesting and the speaker seems to be working through his feelings when he says "Even the dearest that I love the best,/ Are strange- nay, rather stranger than the rest." This poem is, in a way, in the form of stream of consciousness. The speaker expresses his thoughts and emotions impulsively and irrationally, which indicates that these words do not relay the whole of his sentiments towards life. I find myself in this poem, because there are countless times in my life that I have felt completely dejected and detached- especially growing up. This poem reminds me of the way I used to write in my journal without thinking, just writing what I felt. That kind of emotionally-charged, completely subjective writing was always therapeutic, though certainly not an accurate representation of my thoughts in their totality.

"When We Two Parted" - Lord Byron

On the surface, it seems as though this poem is simply the speaker lamenting over a lost love. However, the relationship is not very specific, and it seems as though Byron is expressing the fact that love can delude and disappoint us, even when we desperately want it not to. There are many allusions to death, and perhaps Byron's anxieties about failed love reflect his anxieties about death. His grief is a private one, as he tells us "in silence I grieve." Even if we'd like to have love by the ends of our lives, dying is still a very private affair as well. The speaker reflects the fact that he is very alone and isolated. In losing the love he speaks of, a part of him has died. He seems to be full of dread and feeling even closer to his own inevitable death.

"No Coward Soul is Mine" -Emily Bronte

What really struck me about this poem was the fact that the speaker contradicts herself. She begins by speaking of "Heaven's glories," "O God within my breast," and the "Allmight ever-present Deity," and goes on to say "vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts." In the beginning, she seems to be praising God through one of these "worthless" creeds, but then takes on a more existential point of view. We see that her view of God is not a Kevin Costtner look-alike floating overhead on a throne of clouds; instead, her Almighty God is all that was, is, and that which will be. It's interesting that she says "what thou art may never be destroyed," if you consider this infinite force to be a type of energy. Scientifically, the laws of conservation say that energy cannot be created or destroyed; rather, it is simply transferred and manifested in a new way. All things that ever exist will never truly cease to be.

"Ellen West" -Frank Bidart

"Ellen West" is an interesting poem because it illustrates the life of a woman who could never satisfy herself. She is characterized by an eating disorder, which is really an isolating mental disorder and she feels as though she is a constant disappointment. She sees her “true self” as being thin, blond, and elegant. She refuses to give up her ideal, despite what the doctors say, and continuously sets herself up for failure in doing so. When I was a teenager, I used to despise my body. My problem was that I was too thin, and people my age actually teased me about it. Years later, I still find myself wishing I looked differently, but this feeling is only fleeting. I’ve finally come to terms with who I am, and even if I suddenly gained 20 pounds I’d still be the same person. Fixating on your appearance can only detract from your ultimate happiness.

"Up" -Margaret Atwood

I found myself in this poem quite easily, because the speaker expresses sentiments and asks questions that I have had to face myself. To me, this piece seemed to reflect Matthew Arnold’s idea that lyric can be a “dialogue of the mind with itself,” because throughout the entire poem, the speaker seems to be struggling to come to terms with her past so she can face the future. At the end of the poem, she asks if you were lying on your deathbed with one hour to live, “who is it, exactly, you have needed all these years to forgive?” This question is left open-ended and if it is not exactly a revelation, it is at least a call for a revelation. The speaker doesn’t preach or propose an answer, but presents readers with the chance to evaluate themselves.

"Reservation Love Song" -Sherman Alexie

This poem describes a kind of "new-fashioned" love that is different from the conventional views of romance, but reflects a certain kind of devotion that can only be described as "love." I find myself in this piece because, to be honest, it is almost unrealistic to expect a “head-over-heels” romance to last very long. It is equally hard to imagine finding that perfect person who will take care of me as best he can, respect me, and promise to always do so. In this crazy “divorce-age,” nothing seems to last forever. The fact that this poem expresses a connection to “grandmother” reflects a respect for unconditional love, though the speaker expresses it in a non-traditional fashion. Societal and social norms change with the times, but the idea of loving someone unconditionally is essentially timeless.