Showing 141 - 150 of 484 annotations in the genre "Poem"

Totally

Hoagland, Tony

Last Updated: Jul-10-2006
Annotated by:
Aull, Felice

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

This is a poem that celebrates the divided self and disconnection. The speaker wonders whether his tendency to be scattered--to not "find out till tomorrow / what you felt today"--is natural, is in fact, "what makes our species great." Is this "dividedness" what allowed "surgeon Keats to find a perfect rhyme / wrist-deep in the disorder / of an open abdomen"? The poem ends with another kind of disconnectedness: a deliberate separation of self from "the whole world in unison" that is preparing itself for the onset of winter: "I have this strange conviction / that I am going to be born."

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Abstinence

Cecil, Richard

Last Updated: Jun-28-2006
Annotated by:
Dittrich, Lisa

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

The poem describes how drinking skewed the speaker’s perspective on life (blurring night and day distinctions, etc.) and isolated him from others. The poem goes on to illuminate the speaker’s recovery, the result not of an Alcoholics Anonymous-type "higher power" but of the speaker’s own dark epiphany: "I recognized the night as night and chose it."

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An Abortion

O'Hara, Frank

Last Updated: Jun-15-2006
Annotated by:
Aull, Felice

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

The narrator is both sympathetic observer and harsh judge, evoking the conflicting emotions, and human and ethical considerations surrounding the abortion of a fetus. The choice and juxtaposition of words is powerful and shocking: "more monster than murdered . . . autumn in our terrible breath."

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Notes from the Delivery Room

Pastan, Linda

Last Updated: May-17-2006
Annotated by:
Aull, Felice

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry — Secondary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

Amusing, and lovingly told in the first person, the poem describes the comically embarrassing physicality of giving birth and considers the profound implications of this life event: the sex act from which conception originates, the anguish of losing a child; the fearful joy of welcoming a new life into the world. During labor, the mother is also aware that the doctors expect her to perform, "the audience grows restive," but in the end they are of no consequence as it is "just me, quite barefoot / greeting my barefoot child."

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In the Hospital

Goedicke, Patricia

Last Updated: May-17-2006
Annotated by:
Chen, Irene
Aull, Felice

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

A woman with breast cancer describes dealing with doctors and medical procedures, from facing "embarrassing questions" to the finality of the mastectomy itself. She copes passively with the procedures by escaping into a fantasy world; but when it is time for the doctors to remove her breast, she assumes an active role and "[gives] it to them."

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Lady Lazarus

Plath, Sylvia

Last Updated: May-17-2006
Annotated by:
Aull, Felice
Chen, Irene

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

A 30 year-old woman describes with chilling power her three suicide attempts. She compares herself to a cat with nine lives and to a concentration camp victim; yet "dying / is an art . . . / I do it exceptionally well." The doctors/men that save her are the enemy, and she warns them to "beware."

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The Girl

Olds, Sharon

Last Updated: May-17-2006
Annotated by:
Wear, Delese

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

This is a graphic, highly-imaged portrayal of rape involving two twelve-year-old girls.

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First Menstruation

Bass, Ellen

Last Updated: May-17-2006
Annotated by:
Wear, Delese

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

This poem describes the first period of a girl who has been waiting what seems "like a lifetime" for her period to start, only to find herself emotionally disconnected to her mother at this important rite of passage.

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Something to Look Forward To

Piercy, Marge

Last Updated: May-17-2006
Annotated by:
Wear, Delese

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

This poem is a cynical yet earthy account of menstruation and the ambivalence many women feel toward it. The narrative voice is a middle-aged woman recounting how periods have interrupted her life in various ways, some quite dramatically, others humorously. The final verse, however, provides the sardonic twist of the poem: when twelve-year-old Penny is handed a pad the "size of an ironing board cover," she cries out "Do I have to do this from now till I die?" The answer is, of course, no, at which point she replies, quite relieved, that there is something "to look forward to."

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A Woman Dead In Her Forties

Rich, Adrienne

Last Updated: May-17-2006
Annotated by:
Henderson, Schuyler

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

A Woman Dead In Her Forties is divided into eight sections, each consisting of between 5 and 10 stanzas, which vary in length from 1 to 4 lines. The poem explores bereavement due to breast cancer (perhaps of one woman, perhaps of many--and perhaps there is no difference); it also interrogates the privacies of loss. One of the tensions in the poem is between what is said and what cannot be said, both for those who are ill and those who are not, those who have died and those left behind. This is expressed in the half-conversations and snippets of memory in the narrative, as well as in the form of the poem itself with its pauses, staccato jumps, and prolonged caesuras.

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