"Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas is a lyrical poem about time and its fleeting ways. The speaker in this poem reminisces about his childhood home and how society forces himself and untold numbers to join the realm of adulthood early. He gives off the "If I knew then what I know now..." vibe throughout as he realizes that the youthful carefree bliss he felt has transformed into the cynicism of mature human.

Throughout the poem, the speaker compares Fern Hill to the Garden of Eden, but in this case, the snake in question represents adulthood not temptation. He alludes to this when he mentions "Adam and maiden", the blessed inhabitants of the Garden of Eden also the first man and woman to be created. The speaker is saying that being young on the farm was like the innocent Adam and Eve the Garden, except instead of Satan tricking him into eating the forbidden fruit, it's the end of his childhood that is ripped away. "And the sabbath rang slowly, in the pebbles of the holy streams" With the use of "rang" in the portion before, I think the pebbles are supposed to signify church bells, and Fern Hill was his place where he could have a "sabbath", or a holy day of rest. The farm is a holy place where the speaker's youth was preserved. He talks about the "first light" and how the sun was created, not flat-out saying it, but giving us the image of God's seven-day creation. He isn't directly referencing the Bible itself in any of these images, but he uses Fern Hill as a sacred spot and his own personal place of worship. 

    With one specific image, you can see the progression of this poem: the color green. The speaker starts out very honestly and simply by describing his feelings, "As happy as the grass is green", and of course this otherworldly place has incredible, iridescent grass! The color represents happiness, innocence, and his uncomplicated way and view of life. This carries into the next stanza when he says he was green and untroubled, and again as he was green and golden. Gold is a color of wealth, in this case emotional satisfaction. In stanza three it changes and suddenly his innocence and feeling of blithe is eaten by the green fire. This is a statement illustrates the fragility of happiness, and how instantly it can be annihilated. At this point, green has become a motif for his emotional wellbeing. In stanza five, the children are green and golden, and being led out of grace. He is explains that children will eventually have to grow up, and in the same line, they are being led out of their childhood. The swift transformation reflects how fast children grow into maturity. In the final stanza, he is green and dying. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker was young and in the 'spring' of his youth, but now, green is being associated with rot, symbolizing the death and decay of his early life. Understanding in the last vestiges of life, his time a kid was swiftly pulled away from him, forcing the narrator to acknowledge his inescapable chains of time.

Types of Poetry Formatting- Iamic, Anapest, Dactyl, Trochee, Spondee

Iambic

Definition: A metrical foot. It is a unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Example: "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" -Richard III by William Shakespeare

Explanation: The unstressed syllable in this case is the short (-a) sound before the stressed syllable (Horse). In the third sentence, the pattern continues as "My kingdom for a horse!" the bolded being the stressed syllables, and the unstressed remaining natural. 

Anapest:
Definition: a metrical foot used in formal poetry. Each foot has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. 
Example: "On the far-away Island of Sala-ma-Sond, Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond. A nice little pond. It was clean. It was neat. The water was warm. There was plenty to eat." -Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss
Explanation: In these couple lines, Dr. Seuss is displaying Anapestic Tetrameter. The first two syllables, for example, are unstressed (on, the) while the third syllable is stressed (far). It happens again in the next three syllables, starting with (a-way) and ending on the strong -I sound from Island. The line has four sets of this pattern (which is why it's a tetrameter), making each line contain 12 syllables. 

Dactyl:

Definition: a metrical foot. It is known as the "backwards Anapest" because it's a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. 

Example: "Just for a handful of silver he left us; Just for a riband to stick in his coat." -The Lost Leader by Robert Fry.

Explanation: The first syllable in the line is stressed (just) but the next to are unstressed (for, a). It happens again in the next three syllables, with one stressed (hand-) and the next two unstressed (-ful, of). It is the opposite of what is above. 

Trochee: 

Definition: a metrical foot. It includes one stressed syllable followed by one short or unstressed syllable.

Example: "Should you ask me, whence these stories? Whence these legends and traditions, with the odours of the forest, with the dew and damp of meadows." - The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Explanation: This passage is almost completely written in trochees. Words like: should, ask, whence, and the beginning syllable of stories (sto-) are stressed, but the words in between them like: you, me, these, and the ending syllable of stories (-ies) are unstressed. This pattern continues with "Whence these legends and traditions," the stressed being bolded, and unstressed remaining natural. 

Spondee: 

Definition: a metrical foot. It is two stressed syllables, but the spondee does not typically support a metrical line. Instead, spondees are irregular feet based on another type of foot.

Example: "If I do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings," -Othello by Shakespeare

Explanation: In this case, "heart-strings" would be a spondee because it is too awkward to be said iambicly. Usually, a spondee is preceded with a curse word, insult, or something of that variety. 

"The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field" Explication

In "The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field" by Robert Hugo, a man sees a mentally "handicapped" boy being talked about by audience members, and it makes him remember things that he himself felt guilty for. "The dim boy claps because the others clap, The polite word, handicapped, is muttered in the stands," In my opinion, the author  is using this line to making a statement about our society: we go along with the crowd when we don't know what to do, much like this poor boy does in this poem. The line "Isn't it wrong, the way the mind moves back" is the author saying that, even though they are talking about a mentally disabled boy, they still retreat back to the safe word of "handicapped" and do the "socially acceptable" thing. He is saying that even though we have no problem talking down to someone below us, heave forbid we use the wrong words doing it.

Through the mention of the "stands", the score of the game (5 to 3), and the fact that the poem is set at "Spurgin Road Field" or "West Side Field" as it's named now, the author is telling us he is watching a baseball game in 1946. But, the author is referring to two different baseball games in this poem: the one he is watching at Union Station and the one from his childhood where the people are talking about the small boy. When he remembers the game he went to when he was younger, he starts to reminisce about his past, and seeing the people talk about the dim boy brought back memories of things he was ashamed of. Like watching that little girl get beaten by her father. When the author says he laughs at such things, it was more out of disbelief than comic relief. I think he was laughing because if you were poverty-struck in the 1940's this wasn't an uncommon thing to witness, and he thinks it's disconcerting that it had become just "one of those things." He was using sarcasm that takes the form of irony to make his point, because laughing is NOT someone's usual reaction to that kind of scenario.

"The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field" is a sad poem about segregating the disabled from the physically enabled. It talks about the cruelty conformity can bring forth in a society because everyone just does what people expect without considering the consequences.

Punk Pantoum Explication For Real

The Punk Revolution started in the 1960's, but didn't really take off until the 1970's. Contrary to popular belief, punk is not a fashion trend, nor simply a genre of music; it is a way of life. It is a group of people who create their own reality with rules that fit what they believe, a people who do not conform, or subsidize our government or anyone else's. Punk isn't something learned, or that you are raised into, it is a personal choice to say no to what others expect.

The main idea behind Pamela Stewarts "Punk Pantoum" is a man trying to convince his lover to commit suicide with him. The first line reads "Tonight I'll walk the razor along your throat" and goes onto to talk about the beauty of death, like how she'll wear "blood jewels and last week's ochre bruise" or how no one else will experience death the same way because it's "a new song for just you and me". Also in this stanza lies the first reference to drugs; a popular street name for heroin is "horse" the use of which causes serious damage to muscle tissues, resulting in splotchy markings on your skin. Maybe last week's ochre bruise?

In the third stanza, the man says "Bitch, let's be proud to live at Eutaw Place" Eutaw Place is a square in Baltimore that used to be known as Gibson Street, and has always been a wealthy neighborhood. By using this location, the author is illustrating that it wasn't the poor or lower class who were swept into this belief system, more often than not, it was the upper to middle class folks. On the other hand, the speaker might be saying that they shouldn't let where they're from define who they are, and choose their own fate.

"George will bring his snake and the skirt Divine threw out" is the last line in the third stanza. During the seventies, a popular name for a drug dealer was a "Street Snake", which makes this the second drug reference in the poem. But along with a drug reference, there is a religious reference, too. Divine was a famous drag queen during the seventies, but I think this name was specifically chosen to be an allusion for God, because He is commonly referred to as 'the Divine' in many Bible passages. Another even less obvious reference was in the first stanza, when the poet mentioned the sawdust next to the horse. In 1967, the "sawdust trail" came to be. It was a pathway created by ministers for revival meetings, and the sawdust was used to hold down the dust from the dirt floors, and muffle the sounds of shuffling feet. Coincidently, the majority of these revival meetings were solely attended by hippies and "recovering" punks. I use these two examples not because the narrator is a holy man, but because it shows how highly he regards the thought of Death. The man doesn't want to conform, but how can you fight something that is all around you? You run away, and sometimes Death is the only place you can go where He can't follow you. The narrator wants to love his girl completely unbothered, and is using drugs to get as close to that place as he can. Maybe that stopped being enough for him, and Death seems like his only escape.

In the fourth stanza, the author makes her last  drug reference: she brings up Sandoz oranges, which are pills taken to cure dementia. They can cause internal bleeding if used incorrectly, but also offer vivid hallucinations.

The last stanza, stanza six, is when the plot comes full circle. The speaker goes from talking about walking the razor across her throat, to dragging the white-hot blade across both of their throats and backs. This is a drastic tone change, and seems like a veiled threat. In the beginning of the poem, his adjective is walking, a very calm, and even mildly rhythmic word. By the last stanza, he uses dragging, which implies force and pain, basically saying that he will do what he has to do so they can be together. Quite honestly, this does make sense if you look at how much the speaker wants them to do this together, and supports the Punk's gung-ho mindset.

"Punk Pantoum" is a dark poem, full of language that people who are not submerged in the culture wouldn't understand. The unique language and obscure references offer an insight into the lives of these people, and we see a viewpoint that we may never thought of before; like the very real escape death presents, and how it is seen among people who have exhausted every other option.

Explication Fail for Punk Pantoum

So, this is what I wrote about the cultural information the poem provides, before I realized I was doing it completely wrong...considering I ignored the entire idea of the poem: a man trying to convince a woman to commit suicide with him. 

Good Job, Zoe *pats self on back*

"Punk Pantoum" by Pamela Stuart is written to put the rebellion of the punk era into perspective using obscure references, word choice, and details. What's interesting about this poem is that, even though its purpose is to inform about punk life, it uses references that are not common to people looking in from the outside: drugs are referred to through metaphors, unheard of music icons appear, and good ole fashioned taboo is abundant. In this poem, the author lets people step into the lifestyle set by those who fiercely oppose conformity, and in my opinion, the fact that most of the poem may seem like absolute gibberish shows how little people from the outside can comprehend.The unique language, how the lack of common information makes it require a bit of research, and that it is mildly out of form, is a testament  to the rebellion this poem is highlighting. 

"There's sawdust on the floor, and one dismembered horse" in 1967, "The Summer of Love", the "sawdust trail" came to be. It was a pathway used by ministers for revival meetings, attended by hippies and recovering 'punks' who thought drugs were a pathway to an ethereal experience. Sawdust specifically was used because it held down the dust of the dirt floors, and muffled the noise of shuffling feet. As I said before, these meetings were attended by the people the poem is about, and the mention of heroin or 'horse' in conjunction with this line, is referencing a drug that they used to "experience God". 

"I got three shirts from the hokey-man at dawn" a 'hokey-man' is actually a street cleaner who pulls a hand broom and trashcan along the roads, picking up garbage that large, mechanical brooms would miss. Because of the form of the pantoum poem, this line is supposedly repeated in stanza three, but instead we find "They'll look good hanging from the shirt I took at dawn". Not only did this person get the shirts from a street cleaner, he had to steal them from him. You may think that this speaks to the lowly life they live, but the next line reads "Bitch, let's be proud to live at Eutaw Place" which is a very nice street in Baltimore where musicians go to play their music. This is a contradiction because most people who partook in the punk lifestyle were middle to upper class citizens, not the lower class. So, the men and women the poem is referring too were actually quite well-off, enough so that they weren't forced to steal from street people, but did anyway. 

I'd like to point out that, including another line in this stanza, this is the third allusion to music culture from the time, which may explain the lyrical quality altering many of the repeating lines causes. 

"George will bring his snake and the skirt Divine threw out" Divine is a famous drag queen, which may help to explain why this George fellow is wearing his skirt, but the mention of such a unique musician is mainly a way to bring the reader into the world the narrator is living in. Another reason this line is interesting is because of the poet's use of 'snake'. Personally, I didn't assume right off the bat that the speaker was referring to an actual reptile, and later found out that a 'street snake' is a term for a drug dealer. The line "Eating Sadoz Oranges, we watched the ladies in their spats" affirmed this belief. Sandoz is a drug company that produces anti-dementia pills, which can cause internal bleeding if taken improperly, but can bring on vivid hallucinations. 

CITATION:

http://www.drugs.com/imprints.php?action=search&imprint=sandoz

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-05-23/news/1991143049_1_sweepers-swafford-city-clean

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/07/30/not-your-grandmothers-sawdust-trail/

Questions

1. Paraphrase the situation This is a poem about a man, sitting in a hammock, and contemplating his life. He reminisces about simplicity: how the butterfly sleeps peacefully, the leaves float in the breeze, an empty house lays undisturbed. Due to the title, which paints a picture of a relaxing afternoon, you at first get the impression this poem is a happy one. In my opinion, it's about a man suffering from extreme inner turmoil because he feels like he's going nowhere. Looking further into the light-hearted images, you find that the leaf is actually floating into a ravine, the house is unoccupied (maybe in an uninhabitable condition), the afternoon is ending, and a bird of prey flies over him, looking for its next meal. Obviously there is more to the poem than meets the eye. 
2. What do you know about the person in the poem I'd assume he isn't a wealthy man, otherwise he wouldn't be sleeping in a hammock on someone else's farm. Also, I think the lazy feeling of this poem is a testament to his character: unmotivated, and until just recently, completely fine with living a humdrum life. 
3. How did you arrive at your conclusions about the person The poem itself is nostalgic, a longing for something bigger. The person who it was written about probably felt the same way. The speaker wants to be apart of something, the same way the cows are leaving together, the leaf was once apart of a tree, the house used to be lived in, the day was still in its adolescence, the horse's were new one year ago, and the chicken hawk is looking for food for its family. 
4. What does the title tell us about the speaker The title is an exact description of the scene the narrator is putting himself in. It puts him in a perspective where he can just watch, and explains why he isn't working on the farm. 
5.  What do you notice about the descriptions of the natural world around him As I stated in the questions above, they are all simple images with much deeper meanings. One way to interpret  them is a very dark meaning: the predator-bird circling overhead, the empty house, the creeping darkness that signals the end of his day. All of these images are not enjoyable ones. Another way to look at it is him seeing the world and how everything has a purpose...yet he sits alone in a hammock. The cows are going home, the horse's fertilize the field, the chicken-hawk looks for food, so he can't help but wonder why he isn't going anywhere. 
6. What is the succession of ideas or feelings conveyed in the poem A man is watching the natural process of nature and is envious of its simplicity. Then, he begins to think about his life, and how it isn't simple at all. He sees the leaves blowing passed, the cows moving on, and the chicken-hawk looking for his home, and the speaker realizes he doesn't have a home to search for. Everything is as old as last-years horses. 
7. Question Six I still stick with what I said above, but instead of trying to fight, it ends the poem with a note of helpless obligation. He doesn't know what to do, and figures that there is nothing that he can do. 

"My Papa's Waltz" Explication

In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, dancing is being used as an extended metaphor for their father-son relationship. In the first stanza, the speaker shows that he is not having fun: the boy is dizzy from alcohol fumes, he is struggling to hold onto his father’s twirling frame, and this makes the dancing itself extremely challenging. The line “But I hung on like death” begins to form a scene, and while someone might at first imagine a boy happily standing on his father’s feet, this implies he’s being forced to cling to him so he doesn’t get thrown off. This makes the poem chaotic and violent as you experience the small boys panic, and the father’s unmindful attitude. 
In the third stanza, our narrator talks about his discomfort and the mistakes his father keeps making. Everytime the dad misses a step, hits the counter, or knocks over a pan, the boy's ear scrapes against his father's belt buckle. This makes me think of how people beat their children with a belt, and it is metaphor for his Papa’s everyday mistakes, which hurt his kid in physical and nonphysical ways. Another image the poem inserts is the boy's father’s battered knuckles, which could also be representing physical violence. This stanza is a metaphor for his Papa’s everyday tribulations, whether it be with alcohol or his temper, that hurt his kid in physical and nonphysical ways.
Finally, in the fourth stanza, the father is whisking his kid to bed while he clings to the tall man's shirt.  This shows that, even though the father is a rough man with abusive tendencies, the little boy doesn’t want the dance to end. Obviously the father is suffering from alcoholism, and this could be concluding the metaphor with a more final ending- death. Once they stop dancing, the father tries to put the boy to bed, but he adheres to his clothing, not willing to let go. Despite all of his flaws, the boy doesn’t want his father to leave him with any kind of finality.