Siren Song 

Margaret Atwood

This is the one song everyone

would like to learn: the song

that is irresistible:

the song that forces men

to leap overboard in squadrons

even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows

because anyone who has heard it

is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret

and if I do, will you get me

out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,

to you, only to you.

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

at last. Alas

it is a boring song

but it works every time

Atwood's use of the siren in her poem has incredible significance. A Greek mythological beast, the sirens were feared for their ability to wreck ships and kill hundreds with nothing more than their voice, singing a "siren's song" that was said to be irresistible to even the strongest of fortitude. In this poem, the siren is not only a literal siren and the narrator, as we soon find out, but also symbolic of love itself. The poem is an allegory, as it delves deep into the effects love has on humans and the way our society handles such emotion. It suggests how easily we fall victim to the "damsel in distress" stereotype, as the siren song is nothing more than a cry for help, albeit a flattering one. The need to save the damsel evokes our suppressed warrior spirit, fueling the desire to be the knight in shining armor the author thinks lays dormant within all of us. This desire quite easily leads to rash actions, culminating in becoming yet another "beached skull". All of this is the result of love. Love is deceptive and dangerous. Like courting a siren in a rocky cove.

Weighing the Dog - Gates Sweeney

It is awkward for me and bewildering for him
as I hold him in my arms in the small bathroom,
balancing our weight on the shaky blue scale,

but this is the way to weigh a dog and easier
than training him to sit obediently on one spot
with his tongue out, waiting for the cookie.

With pencil and paper I subtract my weight
from our total to find out the remainder that is his,
and I start to wonder if there is an analogy here.

It could not have to do with my leaving you
though I never figured out what you amounted to
until I subtracted myself from our combination.

You held me in your arms more than I held you
through all those awkward and bewildering months
and now we are both lost in strange and distant neighborhoods.

The beginning of this poem uses an actual dog as the subject, but by the end of the poem, the dog is no longer the entire picture, it's actually something much more complex. Near the end, the speaker explains how he left someone and how that effected him as a person. The last line explains how the two have separated to two different paths. Throughout the entire poem, the tone is found to be uncomfortable, which is heavily aided by the lack of a rhyme scheme, which creates an awkward feeling while reading. By doing this, the author may have been trying to convey the way life goes on and how it isn't smooth but it's rather awkward and bumpy. I think the author believes that natural love has bumps in it and it can be awkward sometimes, and I think I agree. 

Love Poem-Sydney Taylor

True Love
Robert Penn Warren

In silence the heart raves.  It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning.  I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled.  In a big black Buick,
Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat
In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like
Beauty. It stops your heart.  It
Thickens your blood.  It stops your breath.  It

Makes you feel dirty.  You need a hot bath. 
I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.
I thought I would die if she saw me.

How could I exist in the same world with that brightness?
Two years later she smiled at me.  She
Named my name. I thought I would wake up dead.

Her grown brothers walked with the bent-knee
Swagger of horsemen.  They were slick-faced.
Told jokes in the barbershop. Did no work.

Their father was what is called a drunkard.
Whatever he was he stayed on the third floor
Of the big white farmhouse under the maples for twenty-five years.

He never came down.  They brought everything up to him.
I did not know what a mortgage was.
His wife was a good, Christian woman, and prayed.

When the daughter got married, the old man came down wearing
An old tail coat, the pleated shirt yellowing.
The sons propped him.  I saw the wedding.  There were

Engraved invitations, it was so fashionable.  I thought
I would cry.  I lay in bed that night
And wondered if she would cry when something was done to her.

The mortgage was foreclosed. That last word was whispered.
She never came back.  The family
Sort of drifted off.  Nobody wears shiny boots like that now.

But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives
In a beautiful house, far away.
She called my name once.  I didn’t even know she knew it.

This poem by author Robert Penn Warren, from Kentucky, is about a man who loves a woman from afar. Never really having a conversation with her or getting to know her, just observing and loving the idea of what she was to him. Her father was a drunkard, her mother was a Christian, and her brothers were horsemen. The narrator loved her for years, even though he never truly knew her and was heartbroken when she was married off and moved away to live in a beautiful house like he knew she was meant to.

The speaker says things about love like "it stops your heart, it thickens your blood, it stops your breath" because his love for her beauty takes over every part of him when he sees her. He seems too scared to approach her and actually tell her how he feels and how beautiful he thinks she is, saying "I thought I would die if she saw me". He is probably too worried to lose his perfect image, his perfect idea of what she is and who she is if he actually speaks to her.

Friggin Love Poem

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Edna St. Vincent

This poor lady doesn't sound like she's had a very good experience with love or relationships at all. It sounds to me as an older Taylor Swift. "Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath" Well isn't that what all those sappy love movies all tell us, that love fills our lungs with air? "I might be driven to sell your love for peace//Or trade the memory of this night for food// It well may be. I do not think I would." It sounds like toward the end of Vincent's heated rant that she has come to some sort of peace with the fact that love can end in good ways and that it all is not burdensome. She explicitly states throughout her piece that love is full of tribulations and frustration.
I think that love is something we all aspire to find. It is full of happiness and sadness and frustration and peace. It is not all burdensome, and its really not burdensome at all. And if you find yourself burdened by someone or something you should know then and there that it is not love, and they are not for you. But relationships help us to grow as people. So a challenge isn't bad now and then. Ms. Vincent has just had bad experiences I guess.

"Love is not all" Love Poetry Blog Post Emily Salamanca

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would. '

-Edna St. Vincent Millay [1931]



Millay implements a sonnet form in order to draw upon Shakespeare and his love sonnets, however, unlike Shakespeare, she begins by defining what love is not, rather than what love is. To Millay, love is not a physically necessary material. One can not reach for love like one can reach for a glass of water or a soft pillow. Yet, love is necessary. For the first six lines, Millay describes what love can not do and can not be. Then, in line seven, she provides a contrast. "Yet many a man is making friends with death / Even as I speak, for lack of love alone." In this, she says that without love, there is only death to be friend with. Death, being the end of life, is the only opportunity to escape love. Thus, love is life and life is love. In the following line, Millay gives a hypothetical of what would happen if she found herself breaking away from love. "Pinned down by pain and moaning for release," has an obvious sexual tone, showing that death and/or hatred, rather than love, has taken over her full body. Then, she directly addresses her lover and says, "I might be driven to sell your love for peace," thus indicating a rocky relationship that is riddled with both love and hatred. Finally, in the volta of the poem, she admits that in this scenario, she might trade necessary spiritual love for necessary physical nourishment, but then tells us that she would not. Love is more important to her than excess food. Love fills her in a way physical things can not.

I do not have the same experience as Millay, but I would certainly put love before excess in my life. She seems to have her head on straight with love as she admits that it would be a hard decision choosing between love and physical well being, but I think in general, I would tend to put love before myself. As a human being, it is not easy to not always think of myself before others, but I consciously try to put others first. This is my best attempt at the love of which Millay writes.


Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Love is Not All” (Sonnet XXX)," from Collected Poems. Copyright 1931, 1934, 1939, © 1958 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. 

Love Poem - Anthony Tamasi

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, 
   The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
   Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry.

Herrick describes love as something that should happen right away when one is young, before having "lost but once your prime." He asserts that life goes too fast, that while one that "smiles today // Tomorrow will be dying." This pessimistic attitude towards life contributes to his argument that one should marry early or they will forever be alone, waiting for love to find them once they are out of their prime.

I do not agree with this attitude; it does not matter when you marry I believe once you are a financially independent individual. Everyone is different and love comes at different times for everyone. Not everybody will find the love of their life when they are in their early 20s. The world is big and sometimes it takes a little longer, perhaps until you are out of your prime. But whether you are in your prime or not does not matter either, because true love, what marriage should be based around, is accepting of someones imperfections. 

Herrick, Robert. "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time." Literature and Composition. By Carol Jago. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 672. Print.

Love Poem Blog Post - Kayla Beebout

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron

 

She walks in beauty, like the night

   Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

   Which heaven to gaudy day denied.

 

One shade the more, one ray the less,

   Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

   Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

   How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

   But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

   A heart whose love is innocent!

 

This poem by Lord Byron is a classic example of the Romantic era ideal of love.  He paints a picture of a beautiful and innocent girl, with whom he has fallen in love.  All three of his stanzas use alternating rhymes (ex. ababab), which lends a sort of lyricism to the entire poem, which lends itself to the poetic standards of the time.  The imagery, however, does not fit this standard.  He compares this woman to the night, and twilight.  Usually, women of the time were compared to flowers or spring.  This shows Byron’s own nonconformity and the “darkness” many people saw inside of him.  He was a dark Romantic figure, the literal Byronic hero, so of course his poetry would reflect those qualities.  He also seems to say that his ideal is better than other ideals of the time, saying that she is “mellowed to that tender light / Which heaven to gaudy day denied” (ll. 5-6).  He emphasizes these unusual qualities with alliteration, making them flow naturally within the poem.

And yet, the end of the poem seems to move back into the conventional language of the time, describing a shy and innocent girl, the paradigm of goodness.  The one unusual line in this stanza is the second to last: “A mind at peace with all below” (l. 17).  This line means that she is utterly at peace with her appearance, which was on odd thing for the time.  Usually, women were always watching their appearances, hoping to attract a husband.  And yet, this innocent woman is totally at peace with herself.  Byron seems to be perfectly comfortable with this, and even praises this quality about her, saying that he is rejecting the artificiality of the time.

In some senses, I agree with Byron’s idea of love: he loves her in a way that many men of the time did not.  He takes into account more than simply her physical beauty or social standing (which is not even hinted at within the poem).  However, he still focuses quite a bit on her appearance and physical charms.  For me, love should be about what a person is truly like.  “Love at first sight” is based solely on appearance, which is a fleeting and temporal love, ready to be replaced whenever someone more attractive walks by.  Love is understanding a person intimately and being prepared to do anything for them, no matter what they look like on the outside.

Gordon, George. "She Walks in Beauty." Literature and Composition. Ed. Carol Jago, Renee H. Shea, Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin Aufses. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. 673. Print.

Poem- Skylar Mays

She walks in Beauty- Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The first stanza of this poem starts each line with iambic and ends with trochaic. The second stanza does the opposite in order to suggest a new idea is being presented. And the last stanza is a free verse which shows a new trail of thinking. Overall the first stanza talks about the beauty of an unnamed woman, while the second talks about how imbalances that could disrupt her beauty as well as her grace. The third stanza on the other hand talks about how it is not just her beauty and grace that makes her wonderful but also her consciousness and participation in good deeds which overall leads to a pure and innocent love. Another thing to note is the use of the dark and light imagery which suggest her greatness falls in the light, but at dark times she is still able to shine.

Personally I like this poem because it is able to look past her beauty and talk about what's in her head. He shows general interest in this woman but does not claim to love her, and so I'm not positive what his views are on love and I can't either agree or disagree.

Love Poetry - Kate Sommer

I am analyzing "Love is not all" by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Not yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

This poem discusses how people tend to believe that love is everything they need in live whereas it's not even close. A lot of the time when a person falls in love they become completely swept up in the relationship and the feelings they receive from that person or that relationship. This poem discusses that love will not make you breathe or give you food or a home . Love is a feeling and while it's a great one it's not a tangible thing that can make you survive.
I think it's important to love and to be loved, whether that's through a romantic relationship, a friendship, or through family. But I also think it's important to remember to be realistic. Love won't feed you or pay the bills and you can't let that feeling overtake your life because if you do it could ruin it. It's important to find a balance between love and reality.

Love poetry- Isabelle Rinker

I decided to analyze Shakespeare's Sonnet 40 (I'm not sure if we were supposed to use a poem from Jago, but this is one I found on poetryfoundation.org and I'm hoping it will work!)

"Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.

    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

    Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes."

 

 The poet writes about his beloved, focusing on the different perspectives of love. He discusses the theme of love, not only how it is relevant in his life, regarding his beloved. It could be seen as humble, as it states "although thou steal thee all my poverty", referring to his own poverty in a humble manner.

His attitude toward love in this sample is a bit negative and bitter. He is heartbroken, after giving everything he had to his beloved. His diction is graceful, yet negative, which could quite possibly reflect not only his beloved, but his attitude toward love in general.

He uses iambic pentameter throughout and a traditional sonnet structure (ABABCDCDEFEFGG).

I would say my attitude toward love somewhat reflects Shakespeare's attitude in this poem: appreciative toward love and not necessarily bitter, but cautious toward who he loves, due to being "played" in the past. In the poem that I wrote for class, the tone throughout my piece demonstrates this, however, focusing on a different situation, and the reflective, not bitter, but cautious attitude.

Editors, T. (n.d.). Sonnet  40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all. Retrieved February 15, 2016, from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180772

The Frogs Performance Review - Kayla Beebout

When Aristophanes wrote The Frogs, I doubt he thought that millennia later, audiences would still be laughing over the comedy.  The play has changed a bit since then—the cultural references and songs have been updated to be relevant to modern audiences—but the story is still as witty as ever.  Henry Clay High School’s performance, directed by Kristian Junker and Kiefer Shuler, was a highly entertaining rendition.

I went to the first showing of the play, on Wednesday, January 27^th at 8 pm, but the actresses already seemed comfortable in their roles and with each other.  The goddess Diane (Emily Spencer) was portrayed with all the haughtiness and flightiness of the character in mythology.  Her quest to Hades dressed as Hercules to retrieve a long-dead dramatist is comical, and she portrays it as such.  However, everyone has people they wish to bring back from the dead, and the serious part of the character was not neglected.  Diane was willing to face many dangers in order to accomplish her goal; Spencer managed to show the balance between cowardice and sheer determination that make the character real.  Xanthias (Jade Kropp), Diane’s slave, was the comedic center of the play.  His role is the archetypal fool, and Kropp was obviously embracing the role.  She engaged the audience several times, telling jokes and asking for opinions.  Sometimes this technique can feel forced, but Kropp made it seem perfectly natural, as if we were watching just as she was.  Her chemistry with Spencer also brought an added element of comedy to the play.  When one thinks about slaves in Aristophanes’ day, one doesn’t imagine them as insolent and courageous, and yet Kropp again makes this seem normal.  However, Kropp’s adopted British accent was slightly off-putting, and could make her lines difficult to understand at times.

Hercules (Rachael Gilbert), a man’s man, was portrayed well.  Gilbert seemed perfectly comfortable in the role, even persevering through a wardrobe malfunction (her toga coming undone at the shoulder).   After a moment, she passed this off as a normal occurrence, and Spencer quickly remedied the issue.  The encounter with the Deadman (Emily Crum) was humorous, even though it was hard to understand the significance of the conversation without a thorough understanding of mythology.

Charon (Alyssa Payton), the boatman to Hades, was perfectly sarcastic and dreary.  Payton perfectly portrayed the annoyance of someone trying to guide someone clueless through ordinary tasks.  And then the frog chorus for which the play was named (Isabel Jenkins, Raiffa Syamil, Jade Curless, and Ji-Hae Kim) came onto the stage.  The frogs sang their croaking song, perfectly synchronized and coordinated—except Frog #4.  Kim was the absent-minded, clumsy frog, the one who brought the real humor to the quartet.  She managed to be funny and cute, while the other frogs attempted to bring her into sync with exasperation.  Their song was beautifully done; all four could sing very well.

Within Hades, the characters were just as well-done.  The priestess Diane encounters (Isabel Jenkins) brings irony to the scene, as she refuses to speak to the goddess.  The fact that she was still wearing her frog costume under her cloak implied that the priestess’ haughtiness came from Diane’s rude treatment of the frogs earlier.  The two women who accost Diane, thinking she is Hercules (Maya Creamer and Ji-Hae Kim) add a new dimension of humor—while Diane thought she would be more successful if she dressed like Hercules (who, of course, had invaded Hades before), this actually impeded her progress.  The two women have some grievances with Hercules, and Creamer and Kim play their banter well.  They seem to be just like the gossips one would expect in an ancient marketplace, and illustrate the hidden dangers of taking someone else’s identity.  And then, at last, Diane gives Xanthias the costume, but they are cornered by three residents of Hades who were looking for an intruder (Rachael Gilbert, Emily Crum, and Alyssa Payton).  The resulting tests to determine which of the two is the true deity bring another element into the play.  Xanthias and Diane both pass the test, but Xanthias is supposed to be only a slave.  If both can pass the test of pain, then is there a real difference between them?

The set was very simplistic; there were two panels to represent doors, and that was really it.  However, this worked well.  It brought the attention to the actresses instead of the set, and elaborate set pieces were not needed for the play.  The lighting was simple as well, although it changed to more red and orange hues when Diane and Xanthias entered Hades.  The togas were made from towels and fabric draped over the actresses, but that was enough to evoke the old Greco-Roman tradition.  The only times microphones were used were when someone was singing or playing music offstage, but the actresses were easily heard in the small theater.  Also, the modern references and songs, which seem like they would detract from the performance, actually added to the humor of the play, and the ridiculousness of the characters.

The play ended abruptly, but that was what Aristophanes intended.  The actresses did well with this ending, making it feel like it had a resolution.  Overall, this was a very well done performance, especially considering the ages of the actresses.  They performed very much like professionals, and even managed to move past the small mistakes they made along the way.  For a small-scale high school performance, they did a very good job.  I would give this performance a B overall, though, because of the bits of the play that were harder to understand and the mistakes that were made.