Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand

The speaker says, "We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole." I move to keep myself alive in every sense of the word. I'm alive in my absence, and exist every place I've been and therefore can say that I will live even when I die. That is how I find myself in this piece. The persona is this poem speaks as I just spoke, for example, "When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body's been." There is poignancy in knowing that even when you are an unknown in the midsts of knowns and vice versa.

Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson

I believe that one can be the happiest person on earth, with all the riches and fame, and still feel like your life is nothing. No on is perfect was the message I recieved from this poem. Richard Cory was a happy man, a gentlemen, he was rich, and others envied him, but that was his public life. The most poignant part of this poem is the last line, "And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head." His private life was a living hell and not all the riches in the world could make him live a happy life. Even though he had everything to live for, he felt his life was a waste. Their is a bit of wisdom in this; a person may enjoy all the luxuries in the world but just as the days ahead are not a certainty those riches are not either and since yourself is all you have what others think of you cannot dictate the life one leads.

The Lie by Sir Walter Ralegh

The imaginative power of Ralegh is outstanding in this piece. The persona inm this piece speaks of the "soul, the body's guest" and how a soul can have all these different attributes, good and bad. I found poignancy in this piece as well because for every good aspect of the soul the author compares it to a negative thing. For example, witness the poignancy of this beautifully written stanza, "Tell zeal it wants devotion; tell love it is but lust; tell time it is but motion; tell flesh it is but dust. And wish them not reply, for thou must give the lie."

Morning Song by Sylvia Plath

The arrival of a child is like the song of the morning. The speaker is describing an infant. The poem goes on to speak of the poignancy of this child from how and why it is concieved to a mother jumping out of bed rescuing her infant because it is crying. The speaker says, "Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry took its place among the elements." I loved this description because it really does shed light on the idea that a new life is entering this world and someone is responsible for that. It is the only thing in the world, that is poignant and entails all that lyric life has to offer, that humans can control and that is the creation of a life and the destruction of one- life and death.

The Kill by Carl Phillips

I enjoyed this piece a great deal because of the poignancy in it. Sex can be both an outer body experience and as close to death as you can get and this poem confirms that feeling. Also, there is poignancy in what the speaker says about human nature and how and why a person is not willing to entrust someone else enough to have that death experience that sex can develop into. The speaker says, "We cleave most entirely to what most we fear losing. We fear loss because we understand the fact of it, its largeness, its utter indifference to whether we do, or don't ignore it."

La Migra by Pat Mora

This piece speaks on the ever so controversial issue of immigration and it is from the persona of a Mexican. The first half of the piece speaks on how the border patrol reacts to a "border crosser" and the next half is about how the border patrol officer needs the help of the immigrant he needs to get rid of. I find this extremely poignant in the fact that it is a direct shot to the opposers of legal immigration. The country wants to rid the nation of immigrants, but in reality we need there help just like this patrol officer. I'am pro-immigration so I find myself alot in this piece. The mexicans are not committing crimes; they just want to work and provide for their families. As sad as a reality as it is, the jobs that no American wants to do goes to the immigrant who could care less. So you see, they work and work and work and are really helping America rather than hurting, but you the thing is that America doesn't understand because "you can't speak Spanish."

Hanging Fire by Audre Lorde

According to the words of the poem the persona is one I could describe as triubled and in pain. The speaker repeatedly states, "momma's in the bedroom with the door closed," which can literally mean that the mother has her door closed but figuratevely may mean that this child is neglected and shuned by her own mother. This in turn leads to the poignancy about death. It is because this person is neglected that she speaks about death and dying; "what is I die before morning" and "suppose I die before graduation." She wants to die and speaks about her life and all the things she wants to accomplish but cannot because the neglect and disarray in her life is too much to fathom. I cannot say I find myself in this poem because I have every intention on living my life, but I can say that I can relate to the neglect in a way because I 'am a middle child and I never got what I wanted.

"High Windows" by Philip Larkin

The poignancy in this poem stuck me the most. The speaker proclaims, "That'll be, life; No God any more, or sweating in the dark in the dark about hell and that, or having to hide what you think of the priest. He and his lot will all go down the long slide like bloody birds." Many things are playing into this statement, pain, ire, and some relief perhaps. The speakers dreams of a his or her ideal paradise full of pleasure and nature; a world free of sorrow and worries. The speaker leaves us with this rather edenic description, "Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, and beyond it, the deep blue, that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless."

"I, Too" by Langston Hughes

The persona of this poem refers to himself as "the darker brother," singing to America about who he is. It sheds some light on the struggle for equality that people endured back in the 60's. To begin, the poet speaks on his oppressed state saying, "They said me to the kitchen when company comes.." He is being ignored and treated as if he doesn't exist, but knows that freedom is eminent. He concludes by declaring, "Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed- I, too, am America." There is an obvious level of poignancy in this piece; there is no boundaries in beauty because beauty is equality.

"Frederick Douglass" by Robert Haven

Haven is personifying the idea of freedom through the life of Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and a writer. We see how one's private life, Douglass's, is made public in order to provide testimony for this idea of freedom. Haven says, "When is it finally ours. this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all..." The idea of life and death is seen throughout this poem as well. Frederick Douglass lived through and escaped from slavery fighting for his freedom and it is for that very thing, his continuous fight for liberation, that he will be remembered. He is alive through his death; "This man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world where none is lonely, none hunted, alien, this man shall be remembered." I found myself in this poem because it is as a result of the actions from the likes of Douglass that I and everyone else in America can enjoy freedom and democracy.

"The Man with Night Sweats" by Thom Gunn

The persona here is dealing with some internal issue. Something that is happening is resulting in night sweats for this person. Night sweats are the reaction to the situation, therefore, a certain level of wisdom can be found in this. The wisdom and poignancy go hand in hand because the sharpest part of the piece is not given explicitly, but it is the fact that he or she is living with this thing. "A world of wonders in each challenge to the skin. i cannot but be sorry the given shield was cracked, my mind reduced to hurry, my flesh reduced and wrecked." The reaction, night sweats, tears, tantrums, and even silence is where the poignancy and wisdom are found. It is also where I and all people should find themselves; the time of solitude in which you are the only one surrounding yourself.

"America" by Allen Ginsberg

This piece is an interesting one. The persona created is exercising free speech to speak wisdom into the ears and eyes of his or her listeners. The topic of America is potent and the apparent point of view of the speaker is shared by many. He or she is questioning America'a success and it is due to a cascade effect of multiple wrong-doings. "America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don't feel good don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in the right mind."

"We Wear the Mask" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

The most poignant part of this poem is the title. We mask ourselves off from the world by changing our masks according do our day to day agenda. We masks ourselves for privacy because our own sense of self-hood relies on this mask. The speaker captures a "universal persona" through her "imaginative power." "We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes- this debt we pay to human guile..."

"Incident" by Countee Cullen

Controversy is Lyric Life. This particular piece speaks of just that. The persona of the speaker of the poem is one of disbelief and scorn. "Now I was eight and very small, and he was no whit bigger, and so I smiled, but he poked out his tongue, and called me, "Nigger." The level of elatededness of the speaker went from positive to negative in an instant. One word provides the whole message of the poem; the wisdom of the poem lies within the experience of the individual, the speaker. The creation of that very word was as a result of an incident.

"I Am" by John Claire

I Am. All that we can be in life and all that we wish to attain and hopefully someday will are products of what we know and who we are. I Am. The speaker is alone in his or her struggle through life; alone in the sense that he or she is really the only way that can relate to whatever is happening. We are alone that way as well. The world is filled with a vast amount of vanity and selfishness and not enough selflessness, and as a result we become the sole "self-consumer of our woes." The world revolves around what it knows regardless of the life cycle.

"Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person Could Believe in the War Between Races" by Lorna Dee Cervantes

Cervantes speaks of the truth of racism and prejudice's. There is wisdom and poignancy throughout the poem. The accounting of these political opinions creates the persona of the speaker; could it even be Cervantes herself? "I'am not a revolutionary. I don't even like political poems. Do you think I can believe in a war between races? I can deny it. I can forget about it when I'm safe, living on my own continent of harmony and home, but I'am not there." It is statements like this one, with a high degree of "politicalness", that I find myself in. This world would be a perfect one if the ideas of distinction and opression ceased to exist.

"A Marriage" by Michael Blumenthal

The author of this poem is obviously describing a marriage. He describes it a ceiling that needs to continuously held up by the husband and wife, if not the house will fall. The ceiling represents the shared love of the matrimony and the house describes the marriage itself. If the ceiling falls then the love is no longer shared and the marriage ceases to exist. I can relate to this poem, not because I'm married or have been before, but because I once witnessed the destruction of a house which lead to the dissolution of my parent's marriage. Blumenthal hits the nail on the ehad with this description of a marriage because that is exactly what marriage is about, carrying on when your other cannot.

"The Garden of Love" by William Blake

My initial impression of this poem, because of the title, was that it would a positive outlook on one's world of love, but instead it was more like a good dream gone bad, maybe even a nightmare. What has driven the speaker to feel this way? I can only think of some sort of heartbreak, and I say this because I immediately thought of my last relationship after reading this piece. I felt apart of the speaker's dream or account of the garden of love. "And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys & desires." That was the last stanza of the poem and it put the icing on the cake for me. That lyric penetrated me because it was so poignant; it was filled with so much pain, emotion, and a desire for things to be good again. The speaker wants it to be his or her time again, just as I did when my relationship ended.

"Up" by Margaret Atwood

The speaker of the poem is expressing a sense of confusion. Did he ar she commit some regretful act or does the speaker really have a fear of what lies out there? It seems as of he or she if having an internal battle about the pros and cons of living their own life. Sometimes they want to get UP and other times they have nothing to leave for, but death. There is nothing left to fear, but DEATH itself, and then we get up. The speaker is having a dialogue with their mind and is conjuring up these situations that will cause him or her to, "[move] an arm or the head." He or she cannot "forget all that and get up." This last line stuck with me and made me drop my jaw out of excitement, "Now here's a good one: you're lying on you deathbed. You have one hour to live. Who is it, exactly, you have needed to all these years to forgive." We will never know if the speaker needs to forgive themself for something or is it someone or something else that is hindering the speaker's productivity?

"Dusting" by Julia Alvarez

The speaker of this poem has the persona of a child; a child coming of age and becoming more aware of his of her surroundings. They want to be heard in the worst way. "Each morning I wrote my name." The speaker does this everyday only to have it dusted away by his or her mother. The last stanza of the poem proved to be the most poignant for me, "My name was swallowed in the towel...her, anonymous," that part surprised me a bit. The speaker seemed to be challenging his or her mother's authority because the name was written every morning, but the mother kept on erasing the name. The name was a way of establishing identity and a fear existed in the destruction of the "art," he or she did not want to "be like her, anonymous." I just have one question. Does the title refer to the actual erasing of the speaker's name or does it represent the dusting of the mother's identity making her anonymous?