This Is The Hay Thata No Many Planted by Elizabeth Coatsworth

This poem, was very interesting. It had a completely different meaning then what I had pictured. It talked about a man who never planted hay, but as we discussed in class, it really was not about a man. It rather talked about a cow which can be refered to as a sea cow/manatees. This poem really made you think about hay, when hay was a metaphor to sea weed which you could find in the salty ocean.

This poem had very ironic parts that were found. The poem states, " Many a cow shall taste pale sea-weed/ twined in the stalks of the wild salt hay." This line was really confusing. In class I was really confused about a cow and sea-weed and the connection between them. After discussing this I finally realized that a cow that is near the water is refered to a sea cow/manatees. This then changed the meaning of the poem. I then realized the really meaning of the poem. It was discussing the sea weed we can find on the bottom of the salty ocean water. I knew that it was talking about the beach scenary, but could not make the connection between hay and the beach which caused a lot of confusion. This poem has rhyme scheme also, that is found in Shakespeare's poetry. ( ab, bc).

This poem made much sense when we discussed it in class. It was confusing, but was cleared up. There were so many aspects of this poem that were consisted in this poem that we discovered at the end of the class. Some examples are rhyme scheme, reconnecting the story of a beach with cows and hay with the sea weed on a beach and manatees. So this had many ironic situations that lead to so many interesting parts.

"Swear It" by: Marge Piercy

This poem really represented what we see in today's society. We see an image of discrimination. Even though, discrimination happened many years ago, we still see it today. The poem, puts in persepective on how we just judge people by there covers. We do not really look for the personality of someone who has a different background, or one who has a different religion or ethnicity. We just jump to conclusions and that is what the poem was talking about.

In the fourth and fifth stanza, we can prove that we label people. The poem states, "...- often those who label us into narrow jars with salt and vinegar, saying, People like them, meaning me and mine." This is a very important line in the poem. It shows that we all label and we are all steriotypical. We classify people either by ethnicity, religion, or race, before we REALLY get to know the person. We always assume, they are different, they have different skin color, or they do not believe in what I believe. We see this everyday in our society when other are put down because they have something different about them.

This story fits into this poem really well. In psychology class, we were talking about a man ( I don't remember his name), who was black and was taking the subway home in New York late at night. There was a women who had many bags and I believe two children with her. In this man's religion it is polite to help a women. We discussed all the possiblities, what happened if he did not help her, we concluded that he would go against his religion. We also made the point that because he was a black, would the women be afraid and get the cops who might take his life because of his assisstance. There were so many possibilities. In the end, the man did not help the women because he was afraid of losing his life. The man went back on his religion because he just stood there. In this story, there was no discrimination, but the man had to decide whether to save his life or to take a risk not knowing the reaction of the women if he assisted he in any way. What would happen if you were in this situation? Would you like a black man come up to you late at night, in New York in a subway station? There are so many ways that the women could have been discrimating him because she was afraid.

We always judge a book by its cover. I believe that this problem of labeling people will never go away. Even though in the past couple of years, it might be not to important, but we will see this all the time. Every where you go people label others on what they see and not what they know. If only one day, everybody could be friendly with everyone and not judge a book by its cover, the world would be a better place to live in.

"An Empty Suit" by Robert Philips

In this poem, Philips uses very descriptive adjectives to describe a suit. The suit is being described and explained with many different stanzas telling the reader how the suit has aged. In all the stanzas, there is a specific detail that explains another important characteristic of the man. As the man was reading the poem and listening carefully to the words, it sounded as if a real man was living in the situation where the suit represented a very important part in his world until the end explained that he was a dead man.

As we read this poem, we learned something new about this man. In the first stanza, we learned this man was a big man. In the second stanza, we learn that he is very stylish, who wore a designer suit; he was also a very Italian man. In the third and fourth stanza, we see the man describing the suit that he wore and the colors the suit was. In the fifth stanza, we can assume that he was a smoker becuase of the cigarette burns found on the suit. In the sixth stanza, we can see that he was either getting old or getting sick because he did not have time to attend the dry cleaners. In the seventh stanza, we see the man lost weight because the frayed bottom on the trousers. In the eighth stanza, we see the man has to take medicine and pills. In the nineth stanza, there we see an image of a lip stick smudge. This represents that someone might be there in the presents of this old man taking care of him. The last stanza shows us, as the reader that the suit hangs in a thrift store and the man pasted away.

As we can see, the poem told us a story. A story of a suit and a man that had a life that lead to death. This poem was like a downward spiral. The downard spiral of making it seem that there is a man present then just a wierd fall where we find that the man is really not there. The poem in all was very good, but yet it was very confusing to the fact that it made you believe one thing, but then a sudden twist to the story. I really liked this poem because it had you guessing what was going to happen next.