Driving Up the Ohio River on Route 2 in Late Fall

Larry Smith, who wrote this poem describes the scenery you can find near a river and during late fall. You can see the different colors of many different things. In the poem, we see the river as a blue/greenish color. We see the "field of alfalfa bordered in brush turn golden brown." We see the the images of empty factories with the color of brick. We see the image of a pick up truck being blue. These images are symbolic because we see light colors that lead to dark colors like the brick found on the empty factories which leads to death or cold colors. To whom, the river is set away from the rest of society.

The main point I found important to this poem was that we could see the images of life and death. In the second to last stanza, "a women carries her baby and grocery bag." This shows that people took care of the people in there life. They nutured and bought the necessities they needed. We also see images of of life and death by the mood of the poem. The mood of the poem is soft and like melancholy. Melancholy is a depressing stage. We see in the poem that it is "Late Fall," as stated in the poem title, and as the poem moves on, that they are looking at the scenery before the winter comes. In the poem, life is the late fall and then death is the winter that is approaching.

As we can see, this poem dealt with a lot of life and death situations. The poem pays much attention to the little details that are within the big picture. This poem was really interesting because it was not a hard poem. It was not like you had to dig for the meaning, but you have to thing outside the box and just think about the picture of walking in the park on the day in fall, but just when it is going to get to winter and lead to death. It taught me to pay attention to just the small things in the big picture and not so much the big picture in general.

"Everything Happens Twice" by Eve Robillard

This poem to me was rather weird, and it really made no sense to me until we discussed it in class. The title really does not have a meaning in relation to the poem; the author does not literally mean things happen twice which is really ironic. The author-- in a very weird way-- expresses that there is a pattern of experience that happens not that things really happen twice.

In the last stanza, "So smile at the guy who drinks too much-/the one with forget-me-not-eyes/Sleep with the one who calls you/ by another woman's name," we see a sense of hopelessness. This stanza really distrubed the poem. After the last stanza was read, this is where I really got confused. After discussing the stanza, it all came together. The last stanza we can picture a women who is in a relationship and the relationship is bringing down this women's self esteem. This is where the author was maybe talking about how why you would want to end a relationship when all these men are going to be the same. This whole stanza was talking about hopelessness and that every relationship is going to be the same.


This poem had a very good lesson to learn, but it was a very difficult to understand. We all learned today that the same event does not repeat, but there is a pattern of experienece. We all hope there is something different, a change that nothing will be the same. We do not want to learn from our mistakes even though we should learn from a situation. We all hope for change and that nothing will be the same, hopefully we all learned that lesson today in class.

"Dance Suite: Hip Hop" by W.D Sndograss

In this poem, "Dance Suite: Hip Hop," first looked a little imitating. The set up was weird and unusual. In the poem, that is a rap makes many people look at everything as optimistic. They talk about about the different problems we see in society and how they are getting worse. It also talks about how we, the society accept all these bad things that are happening. It reminded me of the New York atmosphere. "Oil's on the water;spray's on the pumpkin." This line simply is stating that we are spilling oil onto the water source we have ,and we are spraying pesticides on the food that we eat. This is casuing everything to become unhealthy for us.

In the poem, their are two parts, the performance and and the background or the audience. "Nuts and bolts/ charged by volts/Jumpstart into spastic jerks and jolts; /Gears and notches/Grinding crotches/Juicing up the parts of the fools that we watch." This stanza we can refer it to being the dancing stanza. This is where the performance takes place. We can see an image of people dancing to the rythem. "Sidewalks full of garbage; / pictures in the news/Mayor's on the radio spouting about excuses;/Bars on the storefronts, landlords on their way;/ Cops have got their spring list -they'll make it pay." This stanza refers to the background or the audience. This is what we see everyday and this is what makes this poem real. It is that we have to see this everyday so that is our audience. This is all the problems we see in our society today. Together, the performance and the background or audience make up the dance suit.

I really liked this poem becuase it was an upbeat poem, that grabbed your attention really fast. I love to dance, so I really enjoyed the whole theme of dance between each verse. I also like how the author put real facts, that we see everyday into a rap that could be different. It was not like your everyday poem, but it was a poem in a different form. This poem reminded me of New York City. Seeing the streets full of garbage and then seeing the dancing in the theatre or on the street. You see it all in New York, that is why this poem relates so well with New York. This poem also looks at it from a younger perspective which is seeing streets full of dealers and girls on the curb. The author is looking at everything he sees in the view of someone younger than him. This poem can relate to us, as teenagers becasue we see these types of things everyday, at school, at home, or even with friends. So everyone I am sure can relate to this poem in some way.