Poetry

I never was into poetry much, I prefer music. "Where words fail, music speaks", that was a quote from the poet Hans Christian Andersen. I guess that, in a sense, they are the same thing if you think about it. Poetry is alright though, it makes you think, come up with motives; reflect on similar situations you've experienced.

I've probably read more poetry this past week than I have in my whole life. Honestly the only poet I knew from this section was Robert Frost, but I discovered many other poets like Carl Sandburg, T. S. Elliot, and Sylvia Plath from the reading. Out of the new authors I've read, Edwin Robinson would be my favorite. Why? I don't know exactly. I could relate to his character Miniver Cheevy but not so much as wanting to be born in the middle ages or drinking my problems away.

I didn't care very much for Sandburg's poems, the only one I liked was "Grass". There is much personification used in his writing and I liked that he made the grass as a sort of undertaker. "Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all".

While Sandburg's poetry is rather simple, I had a hard time trying to wrap my head around the works of Sylvia and Anne Sexton. From what I had read about them in the Anthology, they liked to use imagination; a lot of imagination. It was difficult to understand the messages that they were trying to convey. From what I've gathered their poems mainly focus around death, pain, and hatred. Of course not all of their poems are absorbed by those three things, like the poem Anne had wrote for her daughter "Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman". "Lady Lazarus was probably my favorite of Plath's. Their styles of writing are... interesting to say the least.

T. S. Elliot. I had to think about this one. I didn't hate his work but I didn't like it either. "The Waste Land" seemed to drag on and I just couldn't finish the poem. I thought "The Hollow Men" was alright. I remember hearing the quote from the end of the poem somewhere before. "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper". I can't remember where I heard it but it was interesting to find where it comes from.   

No Cigar Left Behind

While I was reading "The Red Badge of Courage" I noticed something peculiar in the second chapter of the novel. There is a part in the chapter where Crane mentions a horseman that has a "short, sharp-worded conversation" with the colonel of Henry's regiment. Afterwards the horseman rides off and turns to shout back at the colonel, "Don't forget that box of cigars!" after which, the colonel mumbles something . Henry wonders what cigars had to do with anything in the war. After reading this, it reminded me of a story my high school history teacher told my class. During the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee had written down very detailed strategies for troop movements for several months to come, and made copies that he gave to his officers. At some point in the war a Union officer came across a cigar box that had a copy of General Lee's plans inside. A careless Rebel officer had used the copy to wrap his cigars with and then left them in the box and forgot about them. Seeing that they looked important he sent them off to his superior officers for further analysis. Finding the cigar box with the plans inside of it gave the north a huge advantage and helped to turn the war in their favor. When I first thought of it I wasn't sure if it was a cigar box that had the plans, but after double checking with Google I confirmed that it was. I can't say for sure if that was what Stephen Crane was referring to. He might have added that in to show that the officers were confident that they would win the battle and smoke cigars to celebrate. Though most of the fights Henry's regiment is involved in end in them retreating, they do win a few battles. It also mentions at one point that his officers say they have the rebs right where they want them. This could mean that they had found Lee's plans or it could have just been luck. The soldiers often complain about how badly they were getting "licked". Still, it's very interesting that Crane mentioned the box of cigars in the story.