Showing 2891 - 2900 of 2973 Literature annotations

The Remedy

Jones, Richard

Last Updated: Jul-09-1996
Annotated by:
Stanford, Ann Folwell

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

The speaker of this long poem is recovering from seven weeks of pneumonia, during which time he has been completely bedridden. On the day of the poem, he has just arisen and makes preparations to cook a pot of tomato soup with herbs and vegetables from his (now overgrown) garden. The poem describes the beginning of the day when the speaker gathers the food from the garden, later in the day when he applies various natural remedies, and the evening when he finally drinks the soup.

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Insomniac

Plath, Sylvia

Last Updated: Jun-14-1996
Annotated by:
Coulehan, Jack

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

The insomniac looks at the sky ("a sort of carbon paper") and "suffers his desert pillow." Projected in front of him are his life's embarrassments and bad memories. "He is immune to pills." He listens all night to "invisible cats . . . / howling like women." The sun rises, the city awakes, and people everywhere "Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed."

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The Pull

Olds, Sharon

Last Updated: Jun-06-1996
Annotated by:
Donley, Carol

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

The narrator of this poem seems to be starving herself to death to be with her father who has died recently. She talks of " . . . flirting with my father, / his cadaver the only body this thin / I have seen--I am walking around like his corpse . . . . " Her eating disorder may be a form of grieving. She has lost her will to live.

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When Fat Girls Dream

Haddaway, J. L.

Last Updated: May-23-1996
Annotated by:
Donley, Carol

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

The poem says fat girls don’t dream they are Marilyn Monroe; instead their dreams are "much smaller: a dance with a man not a blind drunk, a folding chair that won’t cringe . . . . " Or perhaps they can step "into the arms of a man with Ruben’s eyes."

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The Song the Dwarf Sings

Rilke, Rainer Maria

Last Updated: May-23-1996
Annotated by:
Donley, Carol

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

This sad poem, in the dwarf’s voice, describes the pain of having "crooked blood" and hands that "hop around sluggishly / like toads after a rain." The dwarf wonders why God doesn’t just throw him out on the dump because his body is so distorted and worn out.

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An Early Afterlife

Pastan, Linda

Last Updated: May-21-1996
Annotated by:
Aull, Felice

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

In Linda Pastan's poem from her latest collection of the same name, the narrator proposes to prepare for the parting that comes with death while "in the fallacy of perfect health . . . ." Now, while there is time, dear ones could behave toward each other with all the loving tenderness befitting a preparation for permanent loss. Then the "ragged things that are coming next . . . would be like postscripts . . . Nothing could touch us."

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The Grave of Keats

Mitchell, S. (Silas) Weir

Last Updated: May-01-1996
Annotated by:
Coulehan, Jack

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

The poet stands in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome, beside the grave of John Keats, on which the epitaph is written: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." The poet addresses the cemetery ("Fair little city of the pilgrim dead"), commenting on the beauty of the place and of its music: "Sing in the pure security of bliss." Yet, even this serene place cannot comfort the poet, who has inherited "the anguish of the doubt / Writ on this gravestone."

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Small Man

Hirsch, Eugene

Last Updated: Apr-16-1996
Annotated by:
Donley, Carol

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

A small man challenges the popular misconception that he is too small to give women love.

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The Meal

Olds, Sharon

Last Updated: Apr-16-1996
Annotated by:
Donley, Carol

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

This poem is narrated by a school girl watching her anorexic mother force herself to eat cottage cheese so she can stay alive for her daughter. Apparently the mother's mother has also died young (at age twenty or so), and this mother at forty has no will to live, but forces herself to survive for the sake of her child.

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Fat People at the Amusement Park

Tomlinson, Rawdon

Last Updated: Apr-16-1996
Annotated by:
Donley, Carol

Primary Category: Literature / Poetry

Genre: Poem

Summary:

This short poem describes the weightlessness that fat people experience on amusement park rides.

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