City Eclogue Response

While Ed Robertson's style of poetry is sometimes obfuscated and difficult to understand, it is clear that the common themes between them (whether or not they relate to each other directly) are the industrial side of a city and its following attributes.  This is understandable, as it is shown many times that Ed Robertson grew up in Pittsburgh and as a result, it makes sense that he would give some insight on the various aspects of an urban city and the results of industrial colonization.  The method of which Robertson chooses is difficult not because of the content, but rather the format, as at first glance, one becomes confused because of the large spaces between certain lines, use, misuse, or lack of punctuation, and the stanza formats.  This shows that rules are meant to be broken, and that poems can emphasize or disregard certain conventions to poetry entirely, while still creating something insightful and meaningful.  The method of metaphors and imagery are very effective in conveying various aspects of an urban city.

It is unclear to me whether or not there is a direct narrative between the poems, however there is a common theme: living in a city and the various aspects and hang-ups that come with this.  Though this is apparent, other themes are explored as well, be they segregation, urban colonization, or even returning to nature.  It explores segregation specifically in numerous ways, utilizing racial slurs and blatant racism to emphasize a point about this issue, such as in poem 9 of "Beauty's Standing".  It effectively conveys the "return to nature" aspect of many poems, alluding to aspects of nature by comparing them to industrial structures.

Ultimately, City Eclogue serves its purpose in describing a move to a big industrial city as an African American.  I particularly enjoyed the poem on page 112, titled "Psalm", as it really paints a picture of bloodshed at the time, and blaming God for these misdeeds.  The interpretation is relatively vague, yet I interpret this poem as killing as a result of social issues, particularly racism and segregation.  "... buildings jumped and lives fell over and shattered, the blood wine and glass all over the ground of any social fabric spread between people    certain dishes of issue   dropped abruptly and concluded" was a quote from this work that stood out to me, as it eloquently described the blood shed sparked by social injustice and prejudice.  Ed Robertson effectively conveyed various issues in a biting and powerful manner, while toppling various poetry and writing conventions in the process.

Shakespeare's 118 Sonnet

So, this sonnet (and pretty much all of Shakespeare's other sonnets) underlines an aspect of love.  For a while, I wasn't sure which one it was, but then I realized the parallels he drew to appetite and disease.  It seems that he is saying that his love has reached a period after marriage where his eyes tend to wander onto other women.  It seems that his love is not as strong as it once was, and as a result, he says he must spice up his love by seeing other women.  This poem effectively displays the conflict of lust versus love as Shakespeare maintains an apologetic tone throughout the work for his thoughts or actions.

He equates this problem to sickness, and how he must partake of preventative medicine in order for these actions to not take place in the future.  He states that he wanted to change his healthy lifestyle with his lover to one that is more sickly in that he wished to cheat on his lover.  He wanted to make his life more difficult by over complicating it with a lover's strife and to spice up his taste for women.  It is difficult to ascertain the motives behind his actions, however he seems to be apologetic in his actions and wishes to return to "health" in that he wishes to return to his faithfulness to his lover.

The initial ideal behind this poem proves to be problematic, as his love is no longer unwavering for his spouse, but he seems to solve this by saying that he won't be unfaithful in the future.  He states that he effectively "purges" himself of future desires and lustful actions.  Though the language itself was difficult, as it was not modern, through closer inspection this poem conveys its meaning through its imagery. Ultimately, this writing conveys his lust and past desire, but also his current remorse for his actions and his wish to purge these actions from ever happening in the future.

This sonnet contradicts Shakespeare's previous declarations about love in his previous sonnets, as in a previous sonnet in the packet, he claims that love is unwavering.  He is a hypocrite here because in this sonnet his love does indeed waver as he apologetically states his desire for others within a relationship.  Perhaps he is stating that at a certain point in a relationship, your eyes tend to wander towards other women, effectively ruining the healthy relationship that you already had.  Regardless of the sentiment given in this sonnet, Shakespeare remains a hypocrite when juxtaposing his previous works to this one.

Intro Post

My name's Trevor Leu.

I'm a freshman at EMU who is majoring in Psychology.

I once lived in South Lyon but now commute from Canton.

This is my blog for Creative Writing 201, where I will post stuff relating to that.

This one time, I did 15 chin-ups.