The simplicity and length of the poem Again written by Robert Creeley leads one to believe, upon the initial glance, that this poem will be straightforward and easy to understand. However, this is not the case when considering what this poem is actually speaking about. Throughout the fifteen lines of this poem, Creeley illustrates a journey through an average day of an average person in the modern society. Although this illustration of a journey such as this appears to be simple and boring, the poem itself is rather asking the question, “Why not do more?” This very question is something that Creeley seems to embrace in both his other writings and his life. Robert Creeley was born in Arlington, Massachusetts and worked a varied of jobs such as an ambulance driver, a chicken farmer and a publisher (218). In addition to his variety of career choices, Creeley also attended Harvard and then became instructor at Black Mountain College. Creeley’s background in being surrounded by a variety of environments connects him to the message that is in hidden inside this poem, a message of wanting to break the average routine and do something greater.
Again is set up as a poem consisting of five stanzas and each stanza consisting of three lines, or triplets. Creeley uses this particular setup for this poem to create a simplistic feel so that the message that Creeley wanted to create within the poem can be found without the necessity of in depth close reading. When this poem’s setup up is stacked against different types of poems, the reason as to why Creeley chose this type over many of the others is realized. For example, a sonnet or an ode, both different forms of poems, would not suit the needs of Creeley for a poem such as this. Reason being...
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...gives this poem a high level of appreciation and an increased level of understanding for those who read it. Due to these features of this poem, the message of wanting to break away from the daily routine and being something special that Creeley wants to convey through the poem is successfully achievable for the reader without a need for in depth close reading.
Works Cited
Creeley, Robert. "Again." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry Second Edition. By J. D. McClatchy. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage, 2003. 222-23. Print.
"Glossary Terms." Ode : Glossary Term : Learning Lab : The Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.
"Glossary Terms." Sonnet : Glossary Term : Learning Lab : The Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
McClatchy, J. D. The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry Second Edition. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage, 2003. Print.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair, eds. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
Allison, Barrows, Blake, et al. eds. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry . 3rd Shorter ed. New York: Norton, 1983. 211.
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Martin, Wendy. "An American Triptych." The Norton Poetry Workshop. Ed. James F. Knapp. Online. Accessed 9/25/01. www.wwnorton.com/introlit/poetry/abrad/critWM.htm.
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
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Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
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One particularly useful cross-disciplinary element employed in concrete poetry is the use of space. The poetry of Emmett Williams, Seiichi Nikuni, and Ilse and Pierre Garnier in particular, make use of spatial relationships in their poetry. The use of space can be employed in place of traditional grammar and syntax to convey meaning in concrete poetry, particularly when the spatial position of one element is taken into consideration with other elements of the poem. Another element that may arise from these spatial relationships is a temporal aspect that all poetry employs, but which becomes uniquely meaningful in the context of the concrete poetry of the twentieth century. Without these relationships concrete poems may appear as crude distortions of words on a page, with no significant sense or meaning to communicate. Therefore, the temporal/spatial relationships between poetic elements become necessary tools which the reader needs in order to fully understand the linguistically driven meaning behind many concrete poems.
Ellmann, Richard and O'Clair, Robert, ed. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
Meinke, Peter. “Untitled” Poetry: An Introduction. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s 2010. 89. Print
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 21. Print.
Kenyon, Jane. "Poetry 180 - The Blue Bowl." Library of Congress Home. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.
For example, in “The Rain”, the entire poem has lines that are enjambed, “Is it / that never the ease, / even the hardness, / of rain falling”(8-11). The phrase or idea talked about in one line does not end at the end of a line, it continues on for several lines and sometimes several stanzas. In addition to the poem “The Rain”, enjambment can be seen in the poem “For Love”. Examples of enjambment can be found frequently throughout this poem, but specifically from lines 15, to 18. The poem reads, “I wouldn 't either, but / what would I not / do, what prevention, what...”. The subject talked about in these three lines is not thoroughly explained in the lines given, as the poem continues it discusses different subjects that are also spread out through several lines, with no one line being about one subject. The meaning of what Creeley is trying to describe can only be found by reading several lines of the poem because of the way he structured his poems. In the article "Love and Frangibility: An Appreciation of Robert Creeley", Heather Mchugh EXPLAINS, “ First of all, he 's often miscast as a rebel against poetic forms, foot soldier in the resistance against prosodic refinement... I believe that Robert Creeley 's abstemious formality nourishes a luxury of readings”. Mchugh SAYS that the line structure that Creeley uses is