Tired to Death, At Best

Frost's poetry is deceptively simple. At first reading, it would appear as though Frost's poetry is straightforward. However, it is not. His poetry is laced with metaphors about life, stopping to smell the roses, and what it actually means to be a good neighbor. In "After Apple-Picking" it appears as though a man has worked very hard to pick all of his apples. He states that many went to the cider-apple heap as if they meant nothing and no energy was given to them. This man has worked for a long time and wants the readers to know it. In the final lines of the poem, the man states that he is about to enter sleep. He comments that the woodchuck may look and think that the man is entering a hibernation sleep or a regular human sleep. The man narrates that it would be hard to tell because the man is simply so tired. Overall, this poem talks about apple picking, but is actually talking about the man's tiredness. It almost seems like the man dreads not picking apples. This may be a stretch, but the fact that the woodchuck would seem confused about hibernation or a regular human sleep may be because the man looks like death and has worked himself to that point. This is how simple Frost's poetry is. All of this meaning came from a couple of lines, but was easy enough to determine it from a second read or even a first one, unlike the readings from Crane.

A Mouse

This tail connects. Fat lines show armor. The long, long, longness of life through movement. Scrolls contain noises, so much noise. That's all I can hear. Clack bang click. The silence has been killed. The animals running furiously searing for their home.

Is Huck a Hero?

In the beginning of the novel, I would not have been able to say Huck Finn was a hero. He continually fought with himself about whether or not to turn Jim in. I'm grateful he has decided to go to the Phelps'. To me, it strengthened the deep friendship that Jim and Huck have formed throughout the novel. It also helped me, as a reader, to finally decide whether or not I liked Huck. I do like him. He is finally fighting for something other than his own head. It makes sense that it has taken Huck this long to decide to fight for Jim. His entire moral being has been formed already based on his time with Pap and Miss Watson. I think it shows great development when a character decides to shed his former beliefs for a new one. It strengthens Huck as a protagonist. Dealing with all of the different decisions and trying to follow Huck's rationale for each one he makes has been quite a challenge through the novel and even frustrating at times, but now it seems it's time for Huck to figure out who he is on his own without the guidance of other's decisions. Huck has ultimately become a hero. His adventure has seemed too difficult for a fourteen year old boy to be doing on his own. He has not been alone for most of the journey, but since he made the decision to go and save Jim from the Phelps' has made him a hero. He is going against what many people in the south stand for, as well as what his original beliefs were. Jim is a slave and Huck is putting himself in considerable danger to rescue Jim. It is excellent to see that Huck made this decision and move on from his past. It is making the novel much more enjoyable for me. I am interested to see how much Tom Sawyer gets in the way of Huck becoming the hero he deserves to be.

Hart Crane

I am choosing to write this post on the poem Cape Hatteras. The reason being is that I feel that this poem is rich in one of the bridges. This bridge is his literary tradition.

To begin, in the very first stanza, Crane merely puts a few words in a line and then stops. He immediately goes to the next line and maybe does a word or two and then stops again, only to continue in the next line. This, I believe, is an excellent indicator of using a different style of writing. Based on the other poems we read for class, Cape Hatteras was one of the few poems to do this. That is why I believe that he was using a different style. If he had used it in every single poem, he certainly would not be changing his style or bridging anything together. 

The poem challenges one of the great literary poets of his time, thus bridging the past style and present style together. Crane speaks directly to Walt Whitman, who would have definitely established himself as an excellent poet. Crane uses Whitman's former reputation to explain why he is better. "'-Recorders ages hence'-ah, syllables of faith" (line 47). In the following lines, Crane states that Whitman's faith is his myth. He directly challenges the themes of Whitman's poetry and goes against what Whitman believed in. 

A final note I want to make is in lines 140-155. Crane breaks up words and uses enjambed lines to show a physical movement. I find this very intriguing and I do not know of many authors who have done this successfully. I think it adds an element of physicality which I appreciate and believe shows his bridging of past elements of poetry with new ones (especially since he had not done this is any of his other poems that we've read.)

The Title

Throughout the course of American Lit-1860 to present, we will be making numerous trips to a different time. This adventure will also make us cross paths with the destinies of the characters we read as well as our own. This is the main focus to the title I selected. I also included land and space to the title because reading takes you to a completely new land, most likely unfamiliar to the reader. Space will be the final stop on the adventure until a new adventure with a new poem or novel will begin. Through the use of reading, my imagination will be running wild with new thoughts and ideas about life, the future, and my goals for these two things. When we read, reaching space is not impossible with even the smallest imagination.