I found myself draw to the poem “Here a Pretty Baby Lies.” I
think I found this poem interesting because these four simple lines have a lot
of meaning. The fact the writer can go from making you think of a sleeping
baby, to realizing the baby is actually dead. He changes your whole perspective
on this poem with the last line of the poem, “Th’easy earth that covers her”
(Herrick). This line shows the baby is in fact dead and not asleep in a crib,
the writer just chooses these lines perfectly. I didn’t, however, care too much
for Randall Jarrell’s “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”. I am not sure why,
I just couldn’t find myself to grab a hold of it, and I had a hard time
understanding it fully. It just didn’t catch my attention, the wording or maybe
the subject of it. I just couldn’t find myself too interested in it. Both these
poems have no rhyme scheme, with when I always thought of poetry I thought it
was a must to have rhyming lines, but both poets do not use one. They just
write deep poems and put themselves into their work.
I really enjoyed your interpretation of the poem “Here a Pretty Baby Lies”. The way the poet managed to write so beautifully about such a tragic event. I thought I was reading about a sleeping baby, and was surprised to find out that in fact the poet was writing about a baby who had died. Throughout the entire poem I thought the baby was alive, and was shocked by the last line, that revealed the baby was actually dead. I was also not drawn to Randall Jackson’s poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”. I found it confusing and struggled to understand the meaning. I enjoy your comment on the fact that poems do not have to always rhyme. I also, was under the impression that rhymes had to rhyme. Great job.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that you had trouble with "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" because it is similar to "Here a Pretty Baby Lies" in the sense that the start of the poem is nothing like the ending. I found it interesting that the gunner describes what it is like being in the ball turret of a bomber and then at the end gives the true fate of ball turret gunners. I did like your interpretation of "Here a Pretty Baby Lies" though. It is a very depressing poem when read through. Its amazing how deep it was for only having 4 lines. It is interesting how a whole poems meaning can change with one line.
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