Poetry Precis 2- "The Blue Bowl"

    In the poem "The Blue Bowl", Jane Kenyon uses symbolism to aid in crafting a harsh yet realistic tone through which she is able to convey the irony and hardship of losing someone in life. The first stanza begins with the symbol of the cat being buried "with his bowl", portraying death in an ironic light. The idea of the speaker burying her cat with his own bowl shows the irony of death as what is now being used to conclude his life was once a necessity which kept him alive. Further exploring the irony of death in the third stanza, the speaker writes "we stood and brushed each other off",  explaining how although it is the one who died that ultimately suffers the worst consequence, it seems that the ones left living suffer more as they are left to mourn and cope with the pain. Finally, as the last line of the poem, the speaker writes 'It stormed all night; now it clears, and a robin burbles from a dripping bush like a neighbor who means well but always says the wrong thing", in which she uses a simile to create a parable to explain how it is nearly impossible to console someone after they have lost a loved one and that many attempts to comfort mourners result in awkward and uncomfortable situations. From start to finish, the message of death and the irony and hardships that come along with it are reemphasized by the speaker of "The Blue Bowl" as she uses symbols as tools to make her point.

Poetry Precis 1- "Introduction to Poetry"

      In Billy Collin's "Introduction to Poetry", Collins uses exaggerated metaphors and fictional ideas to convey the message that poetry is not something that is meant to be torturous as he presents his points in a slightly sarcastic yet passionate tone. The speaker begins in the first stanza by introducing his topic in the first line saying "I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide", metaphorically telling the reader that he or she believes that poetry should be viewed in a way that its underpinnings can be exposed so that its readers can see it for its true beauty. The following stanza continues with this theme as the speaker adds more metaphors that explain how poetry should be explored, for example "drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out" and "walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch." All of these metaphors share a common meaning which the speaker hopes to relay and that is that poems are meant to be explored in a free and nonrestrictive manner. The fourth stanza then takes a turn and says "But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it" and the final ends with how "they begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means". These last stanzas make the speaker's last point as they  explain that rather than interpreting poems in a natural and intellectually challenging way, readers of poetry seem to do the opposite when they try to force meaning out of poetry. By explaining the difference between digging for meaning and uncovering meaning in poetry, the speaker makes his message clear that poetry interpretation is not meant to be a torturous or harsh experience rather it should be an adventurous and enlightening journey.