Frost-bitten to death in the middle of a lonely Winter.

Loneliness.
Sadness.
Winter.
Death.
Decay.
Frost- bitten.

An inspirational message was never the goal for Robert Frost. No, this man and his deep emotions sat in a lonely house in the woods right off of a road less traveled because he wanted to keep it that way-- lonely. While this narrative isn't suggesting the true life of Robert Frost, it is suggesting a theme for his poetry. He went through death, depression, and madness and his poems reflect and evoke those awful emotions on their readers. As a rule (as with all rules, there are exceptions), Frost's speakers are either alone physically and/or mentally. One such poem is "An Old Man's Winter Night." In this poem, an older man who lived on a farm by himself was being observed by the nature outside who "looked darkly in at him." Words such as "empty, "loss" "darkly" "no one but himself" "frost" "snow"  evoke immense emotions, which Frost clearly wants his reader to feel. You see a lonely man looking out, and nature looking in.

A. E Stallings wrote a poem titled "Whethering" that carries many reminiscent themes from Frost. The speaker of the poem is "Haunted" from "something formless that fidgets beyond the window's benighted mirror." Although she has kids, they are asleep and she is clearly alone, thinking of "choices that we didn't make and never wanted, as though by the dead and misbegotten." A similar emotion of loneliness and frailty is exposed. A frost-bitten poem of lonely, miserable death and regret. 

A Volcano. Past and Present.

In reading Emily Dickinson's sonnet #754, the imagery she uses surrounding the power of a gun is magnificent. She compares the power of the gun to Mt. Vesuvius, a volcano that destroyed the entire city of Pompeii in AD 79. She makes the gun seem admirable, desirable, and gives the reader a feeling of immortality. The narrator of the poem is the gun, who ends the poem concluding:

"For I have but the power to kill,
Without --the power to die--"

How mysterious, immortal and powerful!

Aaron Belz, a contemporary poet, wrote the poem Contemporary Poetry, which I'd say is quite original and telling of what the poem will be about. In his poem, Contemporary Poetry is "self-personified," like the gun in #754. The content of these two poems are vastly different and have little to do with one another. However there is one thing, one image that made me reflect upon Dickinson's poem. That image was that of the volcano. Once again, they are used in vastly different contexts, but that doesn't make it any less significant. Belz, being snide, says in the voice of Contemporary Poetry:

 "I’m sexy like that
here at the edge of your
brain’s dormant volcano.
Hey. You’re sexy too, I bet,
sitting there, reading this."

This time, the volcano is an image of useless power that is likely never to be powerful again. A contrasted use of the image of the volcano, but could it be a deliberate contrast to Dickinson? Maybe so, maybe not. Once again being snide and sarcastic, Belz writes: 

"So I won’t return to volcano
imagery but to dally in one pun
that says, if we can’t be friendshow can we be lavas?"

Volcano imagery is a thing of the past and it has no place in Contemporary Poetry. Could this be a way of placing Dickinson's poems in a different era of poetry? I'm inclined to think so.  

There is much to say concerning legitimacy

In the past, I have attempted to create blogs concerning my life and blogs concerning Spiritual matters and theology. None of these past blogs lasted longer than Frodo did without Samwise the Brave, nor were they "legitimate." An illegitimate blog? Well, sort of. As I mentioned before, the blogs lasted merely a week or two then simply turned into me just re-posting, liking, or commenting on other people's blogs. Finally, I just resorted to the all-not-so-faithful Facebook. However, this blog is required to last for a striking 15 weeks (as it is part of a grade). Maybe, just maybe, if I get into the habit blogging regularly, I might just make a sport of it. This up-and-coming- blogster will post articles, opinions, and other assignments related to Modern American Poetry. I'm about as excited as Gollum was when he saw Frodo with the One Ring. Okay, not that excited but I am actually looking forward to making the journey to become a "legitimate" blogger.