I like Poe's flow so I chose a poem by him that I had never read before.
Dreamland in the first read was a dismal place with a dreary landscape, not unlike California's Central Valley. Lots of imagery and a somewhat comfortable rhyming scheme mask the deeper meaning. In the seventh read, it's clear that dreamland is a place of isolation for Poe. He mentions having just arrived there and makes the observations of imagery and before mentioning his departure he makes it clear that if your soul is damned you'll be happy there but if not, then it can seem like the worst place in the nightmare world.
Emily Dickinson is popular so I read A Bird Came Down.
The first read makes it seem childish and a bit like Animal Planet. By the seventh read, however, I felt as if the bird were a person going about their own life and Emily cautiously tried to partake in his life. Then, he flew away. Perhaps like a man Emily Dickinson had loved. Does reading these poems seven times create a meaning out of nothing?
This time I looked for somebody I hadn't heard of. Lemme say that A Corn-Song by Paul Laurence Dunbar was the most moving poem I read today.
First read it sounds like an attempt to bring some scenery to a boring history chapter about American slavery. Then I read it again and noticed the strength of the poem's rhythm and diction. Using educated speech to describe what the " was feeling was a good move because it created a switch of the imagination when you read the lyrics of the slave song in their own accent. As for why it was so moving...I suppose it evoked the sentiment that there are many people who experience the same situations and, because of their own perspectives, their grass must seem a little brittle.
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