What made the poem the most engaging was his usage of imagery and point of view. Something about Hall’s poem being written in the first person made it much more interactive and comical. At the start of the poem, the reader is allowed access into Hall’s mind through his first-person account and learns about what seems to be a normal day in his practice. He illustrates how he sits in the Women’s Goodness Club to drink “Harvey Bristol Cream” and “eat chicken salad with capers, with little tomato wedges” with his female audience who croon and “spank their wide hands” while smiling like Jell-O. I feel like you would not get such an in-depth description of Donald Hall’s surroundings and opinions if the poem were not written through his own eyes. The section of the poem where he returns to his hotel and lies naked on the bed “watching Godzilla Sucks Mt. Fuji,” would be completely lost from someone else’s perspective, and that is a piece of the poem that is quite hilarious. Throughout the poem, Hall’s usage of imagery was strong. As I read through To a Waterfowl I could envision everything that he was describing, from the “Women with hats like the rear ends of pink ducks”, the husbands’ whose eyes “fill with anxiety, and with little tears”, all the way to him laying on a bed “drinking bourbon from a flask disguised to look like a transistor radio.” I truly enjoyed how descriptive this poem was because descriptive imagery is something I value in writing. I like to be able to imagine what is happening as I read it, as clearly as possible.
I enjoy reading and listening to poetry more than I do writing poetry. I feel like it is a form of writing that I still somewhat struggle with. I also have limited experience writing poetry outside of a classroom setting. I find myself constantly wondering if I am even doing it right. So, while I am not extremely uncomfortable with writing poetry without guidance, it is still something that I enjoy attempting and wish I knew more about.
Thread 2:
Dream Song 14 Analysis

This poem written by John Berryman intrigued me, beginning with the structure of the first line. “Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.” It managed to set the tone for the narrators’ voice and opinion within the poem. Given the statement, it would’ve been less obtrusive to word it something similar to ‘We must not say, my friends, that life is boring.’ By purposely choosing to make the statement that life is boring first, then suggesting that we must not say so, it softens the weight of the command in the second statement.

The technique of line breaks and end stops were particularly distinct. The end stops were particularly effective in emphasizing the long vowels and the heaviness of the word yearn in lines two and three:
“After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, / we ourselves flash and yearn, / and moreover…”

Additionally evident are the distinct use of end stops in lines 15-18: “And the tranquil hills & gin, look like a drag /
And somehow a dog /
has taken itself & its tail considerably away /
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving /
behind: me, wag.

The second technique evident throughout the entire poem was the use of assonance. Many of the vowels demonstrated the subtle correspondences between correlating words of each line. For example, see the above underlined vowels in lines 15-18.

The first device used that was quite apparent was the alliteration in line 4: “and moreover my mother told me as a boy / (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored / means you have no /
Inner resources.’ I conclude now I have no /
Inner resources, because I am heavy bored.”

The alliteration was an effective prelude to the next lines that tell how his mother reiterated her point. Additionally, it is important to mention the use of another important device trochee, a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed. This was used to elongate the feeling of the words resources, heavy and bored in lines 5-7.
B) In addition, please mention your experience with writing and reading poetry, if any, and how comfortable you feel with the form in general – be honest!
In high school, I read a variety of poetry from different centuries and writers. I have written many poems, however I am not too familiar with the rules of prosody as we read in appendix a. A lot of my poetry would be considered free verse.

Thread 3:
Through his poem “Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too, Langston Hughes advocates for black Americans and hopes to challenge the prejudiced views that many white Americans held. He makes a point that black Americans were just as much a part of the war as white Americans, yet they are still treated as inferior. Hughes also points out the hypocrisy of the US sending black men abroad to fight for democracy and freedom, while still denying them those rights.
One way that Hughes does this is by structuring the poem like a letter. He starts the poem with “Dear fellow Americans,/ I write this letter/ Hoping times will be better/ When this war/ Is through.” With this, he is specifically targeting the American people as his audience. He also signs the letter “Sincerely,/ GI Joe.” This acts as a way to further cement the reality black involvement in the war into his audience’s mind. At the same time, by removing race from the signature, it reiterates the fact that black veterans and black Americans as a whole are no different than whites and should receive the same treatment as them.
The poem is in open form and Hughes’ rhyme scheme does not follow any specific pattern. Some of his rhymes include simple rhymes, such as “I’m a Tan-skinned Yank/ Driving a tank,” and double rhymes, such as “When all those foreign folks who’ve waited—/ Italians, Chinese, Danes—are liberated” and “I’ve seen my buddy lying/ Where he fell./ I’ve watched him dying.” He also utilizes slant rhymes such as “I’ve driven back/ The Germans and the Japs.”
One aspect of the poem that I found really interesting and effective at conveying Hughes’ message was his use of first person. When he uses “I” he talks not about his own experience, but the collective experience of black Americans in World War II. When Hughes write lines like “You can’t say I didn’t fight/ To smash the Fascists’ might./ You can’t say I wasn’t with you/ in each battle./ As a soldier, and a friend,” he takes on the first person perspective to show the involvement of black Americans in the war. While he personally was not at every single battle, other black people were.
Hughes also makes several allusions to the troubled racial history of the United States and events of World War II to elicit emotional responses. He makes reference to Jim Crow in the fourth, fifth, six, and eighth stanzas as well as slavery in the seventh stanza when he says “When I’ve helped this world to save,/ Shall I still be color’s slave?” Hughes also references the Holocaust in stanza seven when he writes “Or will you do me/ As the Germans did the Jews?” By commenting on these topics, Hughes points out the hypocrisy of America once again and sheds light onto the problems people of color face in America.
As a whole, I think that the poem is very powerful. Hughes utilizes imagery to depict the atrocities of war, while comparing it to the situation of black people in America. I think that the literary tools that he uses makes the poem interesting and compelling to read.
In terms of how comfortable with poetry, I read quite a bit in high school. Although, a lot of it was standard poetry curriculum such as Shakespeare and classic epics like the Odyssey. I did have a teacher who liked poetry so we read from a lot of famous poets such as Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Sylvia Plath. On my own time I have read a few poetry books, but not a lot recently and I have never written any poetry outside of school assignments.