Close Reading, with a mix of Close Reading...

1) Ernest Hemingway “A Very Short Story”

            In Ernes Hemingway’s “A Very Short Story” he uses a sardonic tone and a very fast and short syntax to show the reader the shortness of love. The man of the relationship leaves to the US to satisfy the women’s need of love, while he is there she falls in love with an Italian, due to the fact that she is out in Italy in the war effort. Because of the very short sentences and the lack of adjectives or descriptions Hemingway makes it seem that the love story is short and not worth the details. There is also irony that Hemingway places in the title, the fact that the story is short does not mean the situation at hand is easy. Love is complicated, shown at the end of the story with the man getting gonorrhea in a taxicab. Hemingway plays with the speed and importance of love in the life of the man with the speed of the syntax and the irony in the title.

2) Patricia Grace

            In Patricia Grace’s untitled poem she uses repetition in the middle of four words. Rain which becomes “Rai-ai-ain”, Child which becomes “Chi-i-ild”, Earth which become “ea-ea-earth”. These tree word reflect the allegory of the poem, life. These tree things represent life and the creation of living things. This is juxtaposed with the death of the mother and her child in the final stanza and that once born one is dead. The syntax of the poem consists of short and concise ideas displayed in a few or even one word which shows the importance of life, that we can show this important theme in a few word that we create. The 

3) “Dis Poem”

            Throughout the poem the poem talks about itself. The poem uses a different dialect in the word “The”, “dis” which is the “poorer” use of the word. The poem uses itself to reflect the bad ideas in history, such as war, economy, and racism. The poem’s diction does not specifically state facts, but mare events. The final phrase of the poem, “ in your mind…” makes us reflect after the events mentioned. The ellipse lives us the thinking feeling that causes a self-reflection of the short and violent pass through history.

4) “Fog” by Carl Sandburg

            The poem is short consisting of only two punctuation marks, two stanzas with a total of six lines.  The shortness of the poem and its syntax shows that fog only stays for a short time. The Fog is also a symbol, a symbol for money. The conclusion of fog being money is from the fog “looking” over the “harbor” which is where economy revolves around. Also the “haunches”, the hip, is where the fog “silently” lays. The last line, says that the fog stays and moves on, but it does not leave, it continues to somewhere else.

5) “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound

            The two lines poem talks metaphorically compares the “faces in the crowd” to the “petals” on a “wet, black bough”. The metaphor is used to compare the uselessness of the people at the Metro. Like petals on a bench they are immobile, placed there by force. Yet this can all be reversed because of the use of the second word, “apparition”. Literally it means that the vision of the people at a Metro came to her, but metaphorically it shows us that the faces are not useless, but are actually powerful.

            With these ideas the reader can conclude that this is a socialist poem because of the fact that the workers usually use the Metro, and if they are forced into the uselessness, but are actually powerful in mass, is a very socialist idea.    

6) “Constantly Risking Absurdity” by Lawerence Ferlinhghetti

            The author uses a moving syntax that makes the text move to show us the dangerous acrobatics of a poet and his poems. He also uses metaphors that compare that poet with an acrobat. In the last stanza there is an illusion with Charley Chaplin that compares the poet and the actor. Charley completed his own stunts, just as an poet must do: create his own risks and poems.

7) “Comin’ Back Ower the Border” by Mary McCabe

            The poem in all ways possible pulls the reader “Back ower the border”. The dialect chosen makes the word sound like they where from the home of the author. The imagery used gives us that feeling, the use of sweet things pulls us back over the border.