The Bagel

David Ignatow

I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as if it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
and rolling down the street
head over heels, one complete somersault
after another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself.

The speaker of this poem is a man chasing after his bagel, after it has rolled away. He is frustrated with his bagel because he dropped it and then ended up falling, rolling and doing a somersault, but he is also happy because he caught it. In this poem the reader can imagine the way the man is rolling because he is compared to the bagel when it rolls (simile). The reader can also imagine how the man is running "bent low, gritting my teeth" he is focused on grabbing that bagel. In this poem, there is a simile, and not much other figurative language.

The meaning of this poem is to not get frustrated with someone or something until you have been in his, her, or its same situation. The man is annoyed by the bagel when it starts rolling and he continues to be until he starts rolling like the bagel. Then his mood changes to happy.

Poems

Hackett Avenue

by John Koethe

I used to like connections:
Leaves floating on the water
Like faces floating on the surface of a dream,
On the surface of a swimming pool
Once the holocaust was complete.
And then I passed through stages of belief
And unbelief, desire and restraint.
I found myself repeating certain themes
Ad interim, until they began to seem quaint
And I began to feel myself a victim of coincidence,
Inhabiting a film whose real title was my name --
Inhabiting a realm of fabulous constructions
Made entirely of words, all words
I should have known, and should have connected
Until they meant whatever I might mean.
But they're just fragments really,
No more than that.
A coast away,
And then across an ocean fifty years away,
I felt an ashen figure gliding through the leaves
-- Bewitchment of intelligence by leaves --
A body floating clothed, facedown,
A not-so-old philosopher dying in his bed
-- At least I thought I felt those things.
But then the line went dead
And I was back here in the cave, another ghost
Inhabiting the fourth part of the soul
And waiting, and still waiting, for the sun to come up.
Tell them I've had a wonderful life.
Tell Mr. DeMille I'm ready for my close-up.


I think that the poet is trying to tell us all of the bad things that he has seen in his life and what effect they have had on him like when he was talking about how he liked comparisons then used the leaf analogy to describe the Holocaust by saying "I used to like connections:Leaves floating on the water like faces floating on the surface of a dream,On the surface of a swimming pool once the holocaust was complete."
I think that the meaning of this poem was to show us that there are terrible things in this world and that they can take there toll on us as people. When the poet saw the dead man in the room and he felt nothing yet he tried, I think that he had become hardened by all the death that he had seen. If I saw a dead body I would have felt something but since he had seen death before he had become used to it. Therefore the meaning is that death takes a toll on us.


Exquisite Politics

by Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton

The perfect voter has a smile but no eyes,
maybe not even a nose or hair on his or her toes,
maybe not even a single sperm cell, ovum, little paramecium.
Politics is a slug copulating in a Poughkeepsie garden.
Politics is a grain of rice stuck in the mouth
of a king. I voted for a clump of cells,
anything to believe in, true as rain, sure as red wheat.
I carried my ballots around like smokes, pondered big questions,
resources and need, stars and planets, prehistoric
languages. I sat on Alice's mushroom in Central Park,
smoked longingly in the direction of the mayor's mansion.
Someday I won't politic anymore, my big heart will stop
loving America and I'll leave her as easy as a marriage,
splitting our assets, hoping to get the advantage
before the other side yells: Wow! America,
Vespucci's first name and home of free and brave, Te amo.

I think that the authors are trying to tell us that voters can be clue less. "perfect voter has a smile but no eyes". I think what the authors are trying to tell us with this quote is that the idea of a perfect voter is a person voting on what that person hears. They are saying that most people don't even form their own opinions, that they are blind. "no eyes" I think they are saying that one day that will stop and they will open their eyes to what is happening in politics.
I think that the meaning of the poem is that something needs to change. That the clueless voting needs to stop. People need to pick a candidate based on their own opinions not the opinions of others. I think the authors are trying to convey that if the mindless voting doesn't stop people are going to give up on our country and leave it. They are saying that people need to tune in and start paying attention to the issues not the opinions.

Awesome Poetry Words

Apostrophe: "Why God! Why Me!" You can't actully see God but you talk to him like he is there.

Anthropomorism: The talking donkey yelled at the farmer.

Irony: A boy bet his friend that he could blow open the door, and at the time he blew the door opened because someone opened it from the other side.

Metaphor: Your heart is like the sun on a hot day.

Metonymy: I'm "ringing" Your not ringing, your phone is.

Paradox: Saying that your the greatest basketballer but not making the school team.

Personification- When an a idea or thing is given the form of a person. For example the idea of love can be represented by Cupid.

Simile- When two different things are compared. For example saying that "your eyes are like the deep blue sea" would be a simile.

Synecdoche- "all for one and one for all" (the three musketeers) would be an example of a synecdoche.

Tautology- unnecessarily wordy- an example would be "the big, huge, enormous, gargantuan, planet.

Understatement- to show or reference something as less than it is. "the earthquake in Haiti was minor with little damage" would be an understatement.

Who We Are And What We Do

We are John H, Jake H, Alison B, and Cody M. We are the students of Ms. Hart's English class. We have decided to start this blog to educate the general public about the advanced poetry work we do. Through this blog we hope to convey our concept's of some of history's greatest poems.

I'm Jake H. to me it is most interesting to decipher the hidden meanings of poems. I get a great felling of accomplishment when I finally crack a poem. It is like a puzzle.

I'm Alison B, and for me writing poetry is the best. I can express what and how I'm feeling through a few simple words in a poem.

Hello! I'm John H, and I enjoy reading poetry because it is relaxing. I can sit back and just relax with a poem in my hand.

I love to read poetry because it gives me something to do since I'm short on friends and I hope when I'm older I become ta super star poet like Robert Frost. And I'm Cody M.

We have so far in this exciting unit on poetry learned the basic skills of analyzing a poem. Some of theses skills include identifying the diction, speaker, connotation and the meaning. We would like to learn how to write our own poems with all the correct parts to make our poems go down in history!