Rainer Maria Rilke - You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived 
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost 
from the start, 
I don't even know what songs 
would please you. I have given up trying 
to recognize you in the surging wave of 
the next moment. All the immense 
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt 
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and 
unsuspected turns in the path, 
and those powerful lands that were once 
pulsing with the life of the gods-- 
all rise within me to mean 
you, who forever elude me. 

You, Beloved, who are all 
the gardens I have ever gazed at, 
longing. An open window 
in a country house-- , and you almost 
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-- 
you had just walked down them and vanished. 
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors 
were still dizzy with your presence and, 
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same 

bird echoed through both of us 
yesterday, separate, in the evening... 

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/you-who-never-arrived/

On December 4, 1875, Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague, When he was born his parents were unhappy within their marriage . Rilke’s childhood was unhappy.His parents put him in military school with the thought that he become an officer. With the help of his uncle, who saw that Rilke was a highly talented child, Rilke left his military academy and entered a German preparatory school. By the time he enrolled in Charles University in Prague in 1895, he knew that he would pursue a literary career: he had already published his first volume of poetry, Leben und Lieder, the previous year. At the turn of 1895-96, Rilke published his second collection,Larenopfer (Sacrifice to the Lares). A third collection,Traumgekrönt (Dream-Crowned) followed in 1896. That same year, Rilke decided to leave the university for Munich, Germany, and later made his first trip to Italy.

SPEAKER: Based on what we know about the speaker from the poem, our speaker is in love with whom ever he's speaking to. The feelings between the two have clearly been built over a period of time or just a quick connection.

IMAGERY: "All the immense 

images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt 

landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and 

unsuspected turns in the path" The speaker is using the sense sight. This part of the poem is just another view from the speaker and whom ever the speaker is talking about.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: "You, Beloved, who are all 

the gardens I have ever gazed at, 

longing" is a metaphor. The speaker is comparing whom ever he/she is speaking about and comparing them to scenery. "Streets that I chanced upon,-- 

you had just walked down them and vanished." which is a metaphor. The speaker is comparing this person leaving to someone disappearing in a magic act. 

TONE: The tone of the poem is passionate with a touch of being shy. The speaker is constantly comparing the person to the beautiful world around our speaker. Whenever he meets the person, he never says what he's thinking.

THEME: When having feelings for someone we should be brave and speak up. Our speaker was at first shy, later finding the person being met felt the same way. The speaker thought through his/her feelings to find the many characteristics he/she (our speaker) admired or enjoyed about the person. Many times the speaker is comparing them to the world around them.

For my  project I did the following poem : The Beggar

bnhttp://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/lermontov/gratitude.html

The Beggar

By gates of an abode, blessed,
A man stood, asking for donation,
A beggar, cruelly oppressed
By hunger, thirst and deprivation.

He asked just for a piece of bread,
And all his looks were full of anguish,
And was a cold stone laid
Into his stretched arm, thin and languished.

Thus I prayed vainly for your love,
With bitter tears, pine and fervor,
Thus my best senses, that have thrived,
Were victimized by you forever!

Biographical Information:

• Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian.
• Born October 15, 1814 in & Died July 27, 19841 at the age of 26
• The cause of his death was a gunshot from Nikolai Martynov
• In Russian poetry there were many names but, Lermontov and Pushkin were bigger than life itself.
• His real name is Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

Speaker:The Speaker of the poem is a first person who explains the bitterness of man who is looking for some type of happiness.

Imagery-”And all his looks were full of anguish” I think the reader mentions this in the poem after all you can see the man pain. “He asked just for a piece of bread” The man only wanted a piece of bread that's all he asked for he was starving, sad and helpless.

Figurative Language- And all his looks were full of anguish(metaphor) Into his stretched arm, thin and languished(metaphor).

Tone- I feel that this poem tone is downhearted in the poem it states a homeless man, who lives by asking for money or food. The man seems to be suffering with emptiness of food in his system, looking wear down suffering because of something.

Theme- The message of this poem is to realize when you see a person experiencing hurt try to help them. If they look like there suffering from physical pain all you can do is pray for the unsuccessful existence.

bnhttp://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/lermontov/gratitude.html

Pablo Neruda Soneto 93 ( Autumn Russell)

Poetry Blog Project: Honors

http://www.ciudadseva.com/textos/poesia/ha/neruda/100sone/93.htm


Soneto XCIII

Si alguna vez tu pecho se detiene,
si algo deja de andar ardiendo por tus venas,
si tu voz en tu boca se va sin ser palabra,
si tus manos se olvidan de volar y se duermen,
Matilde, amor, deja tus labios entreabiertos
porque ese último beso debe durar conmigo,
debe quedar inmóvil para siempre en tu boca
para que así también me acompañe en mi muerte.
Me moriré besando tu loca boca fría,
abrazando el racimo perdido de tu cuerpo,
y buscando la luz de tus ojos cerrados.
Y así cuando la tierra reciba nuestro abrazo
iremos confundidos en una sola muerte
a vivir para siempre la eternidad de un beso.

 Biography;

“Pablo Neruda” or Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, was a Chilean poet who was known for his extremely passionate love poems. He became actually known as a “poet” at age 10. Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Pablo served term for the Chilean Communist Party, as their Senator, during his lifetime. He was put in the hospital but went back home because he believed who had injected him with at unknown substance was trying to kill him. He died approximately six and a half hours after the injection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda

Summary of the poem:

This is an intense and passionate poem. Pablo wrote it about his third wife, Matilde Urrutia. Pablo is explaining that despite his intimate love for his wife, he would still be torn if she died. He also has seemed to have accepted the fact that death is a part of life and he wants his wife’s last kiss to “linger” with him. He is representing their love with a kiss, and wants their kiss (love) to last forever .


Imagery and figurative language;
“Si tus manos se olvidan de volar y se duermen” or “If your hands forget how to fly and they sleep” This , along with the other three quotes I chose from this poem, helps
to further explain the story the author is trying to tell about his passionate , “till death do us part” relationship with his wife .

“si tu voz en tu boca se va sin ser palabra” or “if the voice in your mouth escapes without becoming word” Pablo goes on to vividly describe the parts of her he would miss the most while slowly hinting the reader that he is talking about her dying , and how much he would fall apart without him .

“...porque ese último beso debe durar conmigo” or “because that final kiss should linger with me”Throughout this poem, there is a huge use of exaggerated statements known as hyperbole. Neruda takes common occurrences and gives them extremely dramatic elements which provide the poem with a personal connection . The reader almost gains an inside view on who Pablo was and how his relations with his wife were .

Tone :
This poem is very sentimental in many ways; it displays a very emotional front given by the author. Pablo includes an extremely somber tone that helps express to the reader how he would feel if his wife died. The romantic but yet poignant tone of this poem demonstrates Neruda’s love for his wife.

Theme:
Pablo is making a statement about him and his wife Matilde . He explains that they can never be separated because their love (in this case represented by a kiss) will hold them together for eternity. He explains how much it would kill him if she died and that he doesn’t want to live without her. He also wants her to know that when she dies that he will miss intimately. He continues until the end of the poem explaining how
there love will never die , which is significant considering she was his third wife.
Other:
An example of an assonance in this poem is “Me moriré besando tu loca boca fría”.
This line is catchy and leaves the reader repeated it over and over in there brain . “It would kill me to kiss your crazy cold lips” . Although this poem doesn't rhyme, it has a tempo to it that give it a sense of tone. Without the tempo Pablo write it with , the poem probably wouldn't flow the way it does. Every line is able to roll off the edge of your tongue and smoothly connect to the next one . It gives the poem a soft methodic sense that engulfs the reader in the words.



Sonnet 93
If some time your chest stops, if something stops
running, stops burning through your veins,
if the voice in your mouth escapes without becoming word,
If your hands forget to fly, and they sleep,
Matilde my love, leave your lips half-open:
because that final kiss should linger with me,
it should stay still, forever, in your mouth,
so that it goes with me, too, in my death.
I will die kissing your crazy cold mouth,
caressing the lost buds of your body,
looking for the light of your closed eyes.
And so when the earth received our embrace
we will go blended in a single death, forever
living the eternity of a kiss.

For my project I looked at the following poem "Tiny Feet" by Gabriela Mistral. The full poem is here:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tiny-feet/

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), pseudonym for Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, was born in Vicuña, Chile. The daughter of a poet, she began to write poetry as a village schoolteacher after a passionate romance with a railway employee who committed suicide. She taught elementary and secondary school for many years until her poetry made her famous. She played an important role in the educational systems of Mexico and Chile, was active in cultural committees of the League of Nations, and was Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon. She held honorary degrees from the Universities of Florence and Guatemala and was an honorary member of various cultural societies in Chile as well as in the United States, Spain, and Cuba. 

The speaker in the poem obviously has a connection to children. The speaker is speaking to children but the message is supposed to get to everyone. The speaker is talking about a child's feet and how precious they are. But how could people see them and not want to protect them and cherish them. Also how the "feet" of children are abused and that man is blind and ignore them. But children are courageous and they bring light and happiness.

"A blossom of bright light" the speaker is speaking figuratively about how the child is a bright light wherever they go. The speaker is using imagery to describe it. "Tiny wounded feet" I don't believe that the speaker is literally talking about actual child's feet. I think it represents abuse against children. "Your bleeding little soles a redolent tuberose grows", when the speaker talks about a tuberose growing from a child feet it's not actually a real rose the speaker is speaking in a figurative language. The impact they have gives the poem more feel and helps to actually imagine tiny child's feet actually representing a real life problem. The poem doesn't state the issue clearly but using the language it get's across a message.

The tone of the poem is desperate, pleading, and a certain sadness. The speaker is upset that a tiny child could go unnoticed by people. That a child is being abused and obviously the speaker has feelings toward this issue.

I believe the theme of the poem isn't literally about child's feet. I think the feet represent like abuse of children. If I were to choose a theme about the poem it would be that people should notice more the real problem. This poem calls the people's attention to protect and give importance to children. They are the most vulnerable member of the society and as older people, we are responsible for giving them shelter, security and support. I think the poem is speaking about child prostitution.

The poem is broken down into 5 stanza's and the length of each stanza is different. And at the 1st, 3rd, and 5th stanza's of the poem the speakers stresses the fact that people are ignorant of the child and that they do not see. In the 2nd and 4th stanza it's describing the beat up feet and how they yet still walk courageously. The placement of each stanza in the poem I believe directly effects the meaning of the poem. Throughout you can see that the speaker is stressing the fact that people are ignorant. That exposes the author's purpose, to inform about the issue. The placement affects the mood of the poem also, by reemphasizing the abuse and how people are ignorant is portrays more sadness.
                                                                                    

Tonight I can write the saddest lines By Pablo Neruda

image link:  https://pionline.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/pablo-neruda-translations-by-m-o-mc/ 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines By Pablo Neruda 

 Tonight I can write the saddest lines. 

Write, for example,'The night is shattered 

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.' 

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. 

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. 

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms 

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. 

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too. 

How could one not have loved her great still eyes. 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. 

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. 

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. 

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. 

What does it matter that my love could not keep her. 

The night is shattered and she is not with me. 

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. 

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. 

My sight searches for her as though to go to her. 

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. 

The same night whitening the same trees. 

We, of that time, are no longer the same. 

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. 

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. 

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. 

Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes. 

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. 

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. 

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms 

my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her. 

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer 

and these the last verses that I write for her.    

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was the pen name and later legal name adopted by Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes y Basoalto  when he became a contributor to the literary journal "Selva Austral" in 1920. Pablo Neruda led a life filled with political and poetic activities in which he written and published many works of his, his first being Crepusculario in 1923. From 1927-1935 the government put him in charge of various honorary consulships which took him to many places including Singapore, Madrid and Buenos Aries to name a few. In the year 1971 he was awarded a noble prize for literature.

Speaker:
In "Tonight I can write the saddest lines" the speaker is viewed as if he is reminiscing or indulging the memory of a lover that has gone with another. It seems fair to say that we wont judge him of his remembrance of her as it seems to us that the time in which they had was one of the best for him.

Imagery:
The poem uses Imagery to appeal your sense of sight such as  "The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance" . Pablo Neruda also incorporates imagery that appeals to your sense of hearing "The night wind revolves in the sky and sings".

Figurative language:  Figurative language is used mainly as personification in the poem such as "the night wind revolves in the sky and sings." giving the wind human qualities. It also personifies the stars in the third line "...the blue stars shiver in the distance". 

Tone:  The poem overall has a longing and heartbroken tone. He explains the moments he used to have with his lover and how they are now long gone as he says " She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes." But he also puts in a tone of longing such as in " What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me."


Theme: The overall theme of this poem is of lost love and how he longs to have it again. While in the beginning of the poem he starts to talk about the love they used to have and how now its long gone. Though it is still ever so present in him the love he had for her , this is especially shown when he writes " love is so short, forgetting so long.". The longing part comes more towards the end saying of how an already immense night can be more immense, showing that he still wants it. 

sources-
 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-bio.html
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/pablo-neruda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda

A Man In His Life by Yehuda Amichai

A Man In His Life

by: Yehuda Amichai

http://100.best-poems.net/man-life.html

A man doesn't have time in his life

to have time for everything.

He doesn't have seasons enough to have

a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes

Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,

to laugh and cry with the same eyes,

with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,

to make love in war and war in love.

And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,

to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest

what history

takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.

When he loses he seeks, when he finds

he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves

he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul

is very professional.

Only his body remains forever

an amateur. It tries and it misses,

gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,

drunk and blind in its pleasures

and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,

Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,

the leaves growing dry on the ground,

the bare branches pointing to the place

where there's time for everything.

Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)

http://www.clker.com/cliparts/5/9/4/c/12198090531909861341man%20silhouette.svg

Biography:

• Amichai was born in Wurzburg, Germany in 1924 and emigrated to Israel when he was twelve.
• He is a modern day love poet whose poems are filled with love and grief.
• As a young man he volunteered and fought in World War II as a member of the British Army.
• Discharged from the British Army in 1946.
• Amichai published his first novel, Not of This Time, Not of This Place, in 1963.
• He died of cancer in 2000, at age 76.

http://www.library.yale.edu/judaica/site/conferences/Amichai/AmichaiBio.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Amichai

http://www.uvm.edu/~sgutman/Amichai.htm

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/yehuda-amichai

Poem Analysis:

The speaker in this poem could be one of a higher power. In the end of the poem the speaker talks of how “the bare branches pointing to the place where there’s time for everything” the branches could be pointing to the sky which could be heaven, where there’s time for everything. The speaker is talking about how there is no time for man, in earth form, to do everything. Man needs time to fully experience all there is to the physical world. The body remains on the earth for forever, but without the soul the body is of no use.

The tone of the poem is anxious, and sorrow. The speaker is talking about how man needs time to do all that he desires; however, man won’t have enough time to do so. For the reader it creates a sense of worry. You wonder, what’s next after this life, and if you’re fulfilling every second of your time on earth.

The theme of the poem is that, time is precious; therefore, achieve all that you can while you’re here. Experience the highs, and the lows, and just know that you won’t be able to slow life down. The theme really makes you think of what’s to come. The theme of this poem inspires you to reevaluate what you’ve been doing in your life. The theme also shines a light of hope that you'll continue on after life.

The poem follows a certain order. The poem begins with man starting out as young, and grows until man is of age, getting ready to die. If you interpret the beginning of this poem as man being born, the speaker is like a guardian who already knows that this man just born will not have a chance to accomplish all that he sets out to do. The speaker also uses an point of view of an observer. The way the speaker talks of man can lead us to interpret that the speaker knows more than man knows. The speaker seems to know more which could lead us to think they are of a higher or divine power. This contributes to the poem because you look to divine powers for guidance and help, so in a sense the speaker is helping man understand why he won't be able to achieve everything.

Quotes:

• “What history takes years and years to do.” : History in this part of the poem is being personified. It’s personifying history as one who has much more time than man does, and that man can’t do everything.
• “He will die as figs die in autumn.”: This is a simile between man and the dying figs in fall. This is important because it’s symbolizing the end of man's life in physical form. It draws the ending to the story that time on this earth is not forever.
• “And his soul is seasoned, his soul is very professional.”: This is a personification of the soul of a man. The man is not the body on the outside, but what is on the inside. This is significant because man in his earthly body can't experience nearly as much as his soul after his body is of no further use.

KU SANG THE POET - Mika

              

                     

                                  (where he's from)--->

POET: KU SANG [ 구상 ]

   Ku sang was a Korean poet, he was considered one of Korea's most respected and trusted poets. Ku Sang was raised in Wonsan, in South Hamgyong Province which is now situated in North Korea. Ku returned to the area of his up-bringing, working as a journalist and writer. His efforts to publish his poetry just after the end of the Second World War were met with resistance from the Communist authorities and he fled to the south.^[3] Ku served as assistant director of the writers' group that was deployed to cover the activities of the South Korean military during the Korean War. He also served as editor-in-chief of The Yeongnam Ilbo, editorial writer for the Kyunghyang Shinmun, and as a lecturer on poetry at Chung-Ang University. He was a member of the Korean Academy of Arts.^[4] Ku Sang died on May 11, 2005.

Ku suffered from tuberculosis.   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Sang)

One of his many works are:

오늘/ 구상

오늘도 신비의 샘인 하루를 맞는다.

이 하루는 저 강물의 한 방울이
어느 산골짝 옹달샘에 이어져 있고아득한 푸른 바다에 이어져 있듯
과거와 미래와 현재가 하나다.

이렇듯 나의 오늘은 영원 속에 이어져
바로 시방 나는 그 영원을 살고 있다.

그래서 나는 죽고 나서부터가 아니라
오늘서부터 영원을 살아야 하고
영원에 합당한 삶을 살아야 한다.

마음이 가난한 삶을 살아야 한다.
마음을 비운 삶을 살아야 한다.

Today by Ku Sang

Today again I meet a day, a well of mystery.

Like a drop of that river extends to
a spring of a valley and then to
the faraway blue sea, for this day
the past, the future, and the present are one.

So does my today extend to eternity,
and right now I am living the eternity.

So, starting from today, I should live
eternity, not after I die,
and should live a life that deserves eternity.

I should live the life of a poor heart.
I should live the life of an empty heart.

( https://jaypsong.wordpress.com/.../today-by-ku-sang/ )

The speaker in this poem is very empty, maybe a bit saddened,the speaker is very wise and a bit selfless, it seems as though instead of letting someone take the burden for something, he himself wants to take it on for them.

The imagery of this poem to me is very vivid, "drop of the river extends to a spring of a valley and then to a faraway blue sea-" appeals to my sense of vision, it draws into the details that pull this seam together. "I should live the life of a poor heart.I should live the life of an empty heart" seems as though the speaker wants to take on the burden of someone else so that he lives in the eternity now, not after death.

   The figurative language, poet Ku sang uses, play along with the normal daily meaning of "life life now", he uses "so, staring from today, I should live eternity, not after I die, and should live a life that deserves eternity", it makes you think twice about the picture in our minds about how life is supposed to be, and how we should live it, or decide by ourselves in many different ways.The meaning of "the past, the future , and the present are one" an be taken in many different perspectives, it could mean that time is one, or that we are indeed running out of time, and are making excuses for how to "take it back'or restart the clock.
  The tone of this poem is gloomy but yet objective, it does seem a bit dark, but yet not caring about the judgement from others, just simply wanting to express emotions with words and different meaning that play on our daily use of them.It is very quizzical to the mind as it does make the reader think about their own life and reflect on what we have done today or what we will do tomorrow.
  The Poem starts out with starting a new day,a new chapter, an then it ends with something along the lines of "I should live today like its my eternity and die with a life deserving of it" the poems theme to me seems like reflection of today and our future,that time is running out and we should act wisely, and live as though today is our eternity.