Poem Interp, 4: I Wandered as a Lonely Cloud by Wordsworth

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;

A poet could not be but gay,

In such a jocund company!

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

 

Analysis

The speaker “wandered lonely”, having no company since he was “float[ing] on high o’er” the other people he was around. The speaker feels as if he has better knowledge and understanding, and since he feels that he is so high, he is “as lonely as a cloud”. “A host of golden daffodils” catch his eye because they are not the same as the monotonous and rolling green “vales and hills” that he had been floating over.

The speaker begins to admire the daffodils, noticing how far they have spread around. There are “ten thousand that [he] saw at a glance”. Such a huge group of these flowers was a pleasant thing for him to see. These lively flowers are constantly “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”. The speaker compares their movements to the “twinkling on the milky way” and “sprightly” dances, showing the reader that he sees them in a somewhat magical light.

The bright and yellow daffodils have his full attention. He describes the flowers as gleeful and believes that any person could look at such joy and “not be but gay”. The speaker himself is totally filled up with the  beauty of his “jocund company”. In his elated state of mind, he is not thinking about “the wealth” of the scene he stumbled upon.

When the speaker goes back to reality, he will feel the dread of being alone again, lying on his couch. However, seeing the daffodils has caused a change in him. From this point on, anytime the speaker is “in vacant or pensive mood”, he remembers the sweet pleasure of the flowers and imagines “dancing with the daffodils”. Not only is he able to remember the time he had with his “sprightly” friends, but he can now have joy while being alone. He has the “bliss of solitude”.

Poem Interp. 3: Ispahan Carpet by Elizabeth Burge

Ispahan Carpet

 

Rough timber gallows on which the carpets are woven

By a silent, sallow, dark-eyed Persian family

Fills the room, bare but for blackened pots and jars

In the cavernous hearth. A flickering fire

Lights on the sensuous jeweled arabesques

Shadowing the makers of the webs.

 

Eight-year-old girls sit sparrowed on a plank

Rope-rising with the pattern, their unsupported bird-bones

Bent like old women. Only such little fingers,

Following the guides of coloured wool upon the warp

Left by their aunts and sisters,

Can tie such exquisitely minute knots-

One hundred to the square centimeter, says the guide proudly-

For the most desired Tabriz or Karmenshah.

 

One hundred knots in the space of my thumbnail

One hundred heartbeats of a young child’s growing

One hundred hours for the space a foot will crush down.

 

O, eyes whose whole horizon is the carpet

And it’s traditional beauty! Who can unravel

The world’s weaving?

 

My swollen hand is gentle on the greenstick shoulder

Her large eyes look back at me with a speaking darkness

 

Analysis

The poem is set in a Persian rug-making facility. Throughout the entire poem, the speaker uses deathlike and cadaverous images to describe the world around them. The speaker is a tourist who is observing and questioning the reason for the conditions in which these people’s souls are.

The speaker refers to the looms, which the eight-year-old girls use, as “rough timber gallows” that are used to hang people. The whole family acts as if they are strangers, being “silent, sallow, and dark eyed”, like all of the life has been sucked out of them. The room is naked, all except the bleak look of the “black pots and jars”.

The only colorful descriptions in the whole poem are about the fire in the hearth and the carpet that the girls are working on. The speaker only describes what the “flickering fire” light does to the carpet. Nowhere does it say that the people were warmed by it, or that is showed the hope in their eyes. It actually does the opposite, casting a shadow on “the [carpet] makers”. The fire seems as if it is there only to make the “sensuous jeweled arabesque” carpet more and more beautiful. Since everything else in the house is bleak, it is easy for the reader to assume that the life has already been taken from them to improve the look of the woven and “coloured wool”.

The speaker correlates the image of colors with life. In doing this, the speaker has made it seem as though the colorless “girls sit sparrowed on a plank” that belongs to the gallows. As they continue in their carpet weaving, the “rope [rises]”, putting them nearer and nearer to death. Soon their bones are “unsupported” and they resemble old women. This change could be analyzed with a literal approach; all of the hours of labour turn the girls' youth into a form resembling “bent…old women”. Approaching it as a metaphorical statement, their souls are hung and become decrepit, “bent like old women”. Either way, the girls themselves had been tying “exquisitely minute knots” for their own nooses.

Though the guide is proud of the work that the Persian family has done, the speaker questions the morality of the situation. The whole third stanza is the speaker realizing how unimportant the making of these “most desired” rugs are. The speaker questions the carpets beauty. “Who”, they wonder, “has decided what is beautiful and what is not? Is a human soul not as beautiful as a rug”? She simultaneously questions the tradition of the carpet makers. She wonders why they, as human souls, would ever ask themselves “who [is capable] of unraveling the world’s weaving”. Why would bad traditions have to be kept?

The speaker lays her “swollen” hand on the fragile girl’s shoulder. The reader can see that the speaker is disgusted with her full and plump condition in comparison to the Persian families’ condition when she describes her hand as swollen; it is something unnecessarily large. The girls' souls are doomed because they are following a beaten path and no one sees the harm in their carpet making. When the speaker does show their kindness and sympathy, all they get in return is a gaze filled “with a speaking darkness”.

Song Interp. 2: Sister Disco by The Who

 

Sister Disco

As I walked through that hospital door

I was sewn up like a coat

I got a smile from the bite of the wind

Watched the fresh fall of snow

 

I knew then that my life took a turn

I felt strong and secure

And with adhesive tape over my nose

I felt almost demure

 

Goodbye Sister Disco

With your flashing trash lamps

Goodbye Sister Disco

And to your clubs and your tramps

 

Goodbye Sister Disco

My dancing's left you behind

Goodbye, now you're solo

Black plastic; deaf, dumb and blind

 

Bye, goodbye Sister Disco, Now I go

I go where the music where the music fits my soul

And I, I will never let go, I'll never let go

'Til the echo of the street fight has dissolved

 

I will choose nightmares and cold stormy seas

I will take over your grief and disease

I'll stay beside you and comfort your soul

When you are lonely and broken and old

 

Now I walk with a man in my face

Ooh, a woman in my hair

I've got you all lookin' out though my eyes

My feet are a prayer

 

Goodbye Sister Disco

With your flashing trash lamps

Goodbye Sister Disco

And to your clubs and your tramps

 

Goodbye Sister Disco

My dancing's left you behind

Goodbye, now you're solo

Black plastic; deaf, dumb and blind

 

Analysis

In this song, disco is personified as a troublesome woman. The narrator has had a coming to, realizing that he doesn’t like disco anymore, because it’s bad. Though some may see disco music as something that’s good, he feels that it encourages “grief and disease” with its “black plastic” characteristics. To the narrator, disco is simply a thing of the past. When disco is mentioned in this song, the term refers to the whole disco style of living as well as the music.

The song starts out with the narrator entering a hospital. When he says that he “was sewn up like a coat”, the reader can assume that he went into the hospital because he had some bad wounds. Right in the first stanza, the narrator refers to the happy feelings he got “from the bite of the [changing] wind”. He also describes his observation of the “fresh fall of [white, pure] snow” inside of a hospital. He is reflecting on the change that is going on within himself.

He “knew then that [his] life took a turn”. Even though he had just been hurt, he “fe[lt] strong and secure…almost demure”. The reader understands why he feels this way when he next mentions that he has “left [sister disco] behind”. He hates disco’s “flashing trash lamps, clubs” and whores. He is glad to leave her solo. When the narrator says, “my dancing’s left you behind”, the reader can get a mental picture of the situation. He is dancing in his joy towards the music that “fits his soul” (rock and roll), and in so doing he leaves sad disco all alone. He hopes to stop all of the “street fight[ing]” that disco had created. A street fight may have been what put him in the hospital.

Further explaining his dislike for disco, the narrator “choose[s the] nightmares and cold stormy seas” that would come with soul reflecting music rather than choose the fake and evil disco. He feels he is better for not picking disco since he will be able to “stay beside [it] and comfort [it’s ignored] soul” when everyone else chooses not to have disco, too. He is now complete; he has sense and expirience “in [his] face” and understanding love “in [his] hair”.

Song Interp. 1: Silas Stingy by The Who

Silas Stingy lyrics

Once upon a time there lived an old miser man

By the name of Silas Stingy

He carried all his money in a little black box

Which was heavy as a rock

With a big padlock

All the little kids would shout

When Silas was about

 

[Chorus:]

Money, money, money bags

Money, money, money bags

There goes mingy Stingy

There goes mingy Stingy

Money, money, money bags

Money, money, money bags

There goes mingy Stingy

There goes mingy Stingy

 

Silas didn't eat, which was just as well

He would starve himself for a penny

He wore old clothes and he never washed

'Cause soap cost a lot

And the dirt kept him hot

All the little kids would shout

When Silas was about

 

[chorus]

 

In the back of his head

Was a voice that said

"Someone will steal it all

You'll be lying in the gutter with an empty box

The thieves will be having a ball"

 

[chorus]

 

He bought a safe to put the box in

And a house to put the safe in

And a watchdog on a chain to make quite sure

And his face was very funny

When he counted up his money

And he realized he hadn't any more

 

Analysis

From the very first words, “Once upon a time”, the reader can tell that this song will tell a story that is meant to teach a lesson, just as all stories that start out with those same words do. The writer uses the name of the “old miser man” to describe his characteristics, since the reader is likely to see the character in that light if his name describes him that way. The fact that the children, which have long been depicted as symbols for purity, happiness, and livliness, recognized and taunted Silas because of his strange habit makes him seem a little sinister. The image of a “black box” and the fact that he “didn’t eat” add to his sinister appearance, raising images of evil, sin, and secrets into the readers mind. These are all very story-like, sing-song attributes.

The alliteration used makes the fact that “Silas Stingy” is stingy more obvious. The reader is also told that he puts every bit of “his money in a little black box”, which is a very stingy act. The box he stores his money in is as “heavy as a rock”, which allows the reader to assume that he had a lot of money in the box. The box also has “a big padlock” to keep out “the thieves” hand and possibly his own, since he is stingy.

He never took care of himself, even though he could; “He would [rather] starve himself for a penny”. Because he “didn’t eat…wore old clothes and never washed”, others, like “little kids”, feel fine calling him “mingy Stingy”. Since Silas has replaced his love for people with his love for money. Silas Stingy can help his appearance but chooses not to since his love for money is so severe. This act almost encourages their jokes; “he would [ruin his name] for a penny”.

The reader never observes any words spoken to Silas other than the name-calling that the children do, and that is most likely because he is socially awkward. In this poem, he has no relationships with other people. If this is true, then the reader can understand why he would only harbor feelings of paranoia toward people. His paranoia has “a voice [in the back of his head]” telling him he will lose all of his money to the people he hates, and they “will be having a ball”.

In his state of paranoia, he buys many different objects for his money’s security, “realiz[ing] he hadn’t any more” only after he had counted it. Money can be used as a very loose symbol in this poem for anything material. The moral of this poem is that being “stingy” does no good, especially when it makes a person crazy enough to ignore their own morals.  I have no idea what the social implications were that might have inspired this poem. I do know that 1967 was the last year that the American dollar was actually worth a dollar, and that everyone (in any decade) meets a stingy person.

Cultural Arts Event 3: Talent Show

Summary of the Fort Dorchester 2008 Talent Show

They called us from our classes to head to the gym. The gym. When I bought the ticket I was totally ignorant of the fact that the talent show was in the gym. I still can’t believe that they would stuff all of us in such a close space. When I got to the gym, I was looking around for a familiar face in that huge crowd. When I finally found someone, we went and got a seat.

We sat there for a long time before anything started, and we saw the tail end of the practice section that the first group performing was going to do. Little did I know that that first sign of repetition was going to foreshadow a whole two plus hours of the talent show. The music signaled the beginning of the show.

The next part is sort of hazy to me. My want to leave was distracting me from listening to the whole thing. There were a couple of dance groups that went first. It was group dancing, and  remember that the boy group did something strange with their red ties, laying them across their eyes.

There were other groups, too. This one guy did some break dancing by himself, and that was pretty cool. There were only a handful of performances that stood out, all of the rest just blended together in a stew of wagging behinds, sexual movements, and heavy base tones. Periodically, the audience would be blessed with the presence of some hot MTV or rap star.

 

Analysis

I have never really enjoyed talent shows or pep rallies, and I’ve given them a fair shot, too. I have been to at least three of them the whole time I’ve attended Fort Dorchester. The only reason students go to the pep rallies and the like, unless they need a cultural arts event, is to get out of class. The students that get a ticket to get out of class are typically rambunctious. When someone gets a whole bunch of people like that together, its very noisy, super rowdy, and not my scene.

This go around was bothersome, particularly because I was forced to listen to the same thing over and over again. Most of the performers were either hip-hop dancing or singing a song. I was expecting to hear at least a little diversity, but when any new genre or style came to be played, I couldn’t hear them.

Don’t get me wrong, the first couple of songs that had been played or danced to were great. At the beginning of the show, the blasting base tones in the rap music made my heart vibrate. The first couple of dances were kind of cool. Later though, was when the sight became repititious and boring. When the crowd would start talking to each other when someone they didn’t know of didn’t want to hear came on, I found it incredibly rude. I wanted to listen to them, but I couldn’t hear the new things above all of the background noise.

There was a girl who tried to play an acoustic guitar, Kim and her friend sang a song, but I could barely hear the tune for the other noises and the reverb on the microphones. I was only able to hear Jerry’s rap song. Any other acoustic guitar playing, pop, or hard rock songs just floated above the audience and into barely anyone’s ears.

The dancing on average, like I said, was only moderately entertaining. The repetition makes the memory I have of the whole thing less fond, but there was another thing that bugged me about the dancing. I believe that dancing is a form of expression (I think many would agree) and only a couple of the dances were expressive. All of the other ones were generic dances that I could watch by better performers on MTV.

I saw many people leaving early, and I would have followed them if my ride had been at the school. Before the names of the winners were announced, I, along with fifty other people, headed for the double doors. When I was only five feet away from the exit, the doors started to get blocked by administrators, trapping me inside. When I was in line to buy my ticket, there was a boy standing in line in front of me looking for an extra quarter. Instead of giving him the extra cents to buy his own, I should have just said, “Here you go man, just take my ticket”, simply because I already knew better. As soon as I bought that little red sucker, I regretted it. I don’t even know who won the talent show.

Cultural Arts Event 2: The Wizard of Oz

Summary and Analysis of the Wizard of Oz, presented by Fort Dorchester High School

 There is a young girl, named Dorothy, who lives on a farm in Kansas. A big tornado sweeps through her home, taking the house that she’s in off of the land and into the sky, miles and miles away from where it was picked up. Dorothy’s house stays in one piece and ends up landing in a place called Munchkin town right on top of the “wicked witch of the east”. The town is inhabited by little “munchkins”, and they graciously thank Dorothy for helping them get rid of the witch. The witch’s sister, the “wicked witch of the west”, comes to take her sister’s magical ruby shoes and avenge her sister’s death. An ironic situation arises when Dorothy herself puts the ruby shoes on, binding herself to them, stopping the remaining wicked witch from getting anything she wants. Dorothy must go to the Wizard of Oz to get home, and she meets some new friends on her way. We all know the plot.

 When I bought the tickets for the play, I thought it would be pretty similar to the movie. I set my standards too high, expecting the acting, singing, set, and script to be up to par with the film. I guess that was a little silly of me to do, since high school plays don’t usually match in quality with feature films. I was deeply disappointed in all of the said areas simply because I know that our school has the potential to put on a better show.

 First off, I have to say that I was astonished that there was no singing. Zip. The times that it was attempted, the audience received an earful of flat chant that made us want to stop them from going off to see the wizard. But it’s fine, we didn’t have to stop them ourselves. The guy in charge of sound control did it for us.

 That poor Toto. I heard that half of the time spent on getting ready for the play was used in casting for the perfect dog. Too bad the audience couldn’t tell how much the school liked the dog when he’d yelp in Dorothy’s arms or get pulled by the leash attached to her wrist that was reaching for her boquet of flowers. The owner was furious, and I’m sure Dorothy was, too. Toto could carry his voice louder than she could with hers.

 Munchkin town was thoroughly disappointing. There was nothing aesthetic, or even stimulating, about the set. The munchkins were adorable while they tripped over their hideous flimsy mushroom field that symbolized their whole city. I think that someone in the set department got “munchkin” and “smurf” mixed up. And where did the two other evil characters come from, Hocus and Pocus, or whatever? Their purposeless lines weren’t even funny, and neither was the ballerina tutu. If I was any one of the many, many children attending that show, I would have been very confused by the end of the play.

 There was one thing that I liked about this play. When the play started to get really boring and limp, there was a little mishap on the set. I was sitting there with my cheekbone on my elbow, slowly dozing off, when all of the sudden I see the most phenomenal thing that ever happened in all of the school plays that I’ve gone to see. The gates of Oz start to crumble, and it was an event just as delectable to me as the crumbling walls of Jericho were to the chosen people. Finally, after all of the bad and awkward acting from the main characters, there was something that connected them to the audience. Everybody, cast, crew, audience, was laughing. And they played it off so good, too. The Wizard of Oz himself made a reference to the set problem, blaming Dorothy for coming down and tearing up his city. The cover-up was so good that there were some older children who were asking their parents why everybody had started laughing.

Cultural Arts Event 1: "Hollywood Movies"

Summary and Analysis of “Hollywood Movies”

I left my house at 6:54 to head to my little sister’s school, ten minutes away, where a dance performance was starting at 7:00. Needless to say, when I got into the cafeteria it was jam packed with almost no standing room left. Parents and younger siblings filled the entire place. I shimmied my way through the crowd to find a less dense area to stand in and I waited a total of 27 seconds before the performance started.

I had come to one of these shows last semester for Christmas, and I remembered how long the head of the dance department had talked before the show (though I don’t remember anything she said). I was glad that I had missed it, even though she was wearing an afro-wig and I was curious as to why she had it on her head. I came just in time to hear the first song. This show’s theme was Hollywood movies, so all of the music and set-up had to do with Hollywood (maybe that’s what the wig was for?). They had used the same scheduling as the last time I came; the show would start off with a rendition of some famous song on guitars, then the dancers would have their turn to perform. That pattern would repeat itself the whole night. The guitar club players were all squished together in their tightly packed bleachers, laughing at the awkward position they had to lay their arms in to be able to strum. It was funny to watch.

Too bad I couldn’t hear them. I guess they were playing along with a recorded beat to keep their tempo, but the tempo was so much louder than their playing. Every now and then I could catch a little grinding sound, but that was about it for the first song. The first dance was up next, and as the dancers began filing up the stairs and onto the stage, my eyes started adjusting to what they were wearing. Their costumes were huge, bright-red t-shirts, thick wristbands, and long, rectangular American flag shorts. When they were all aligned and waiting on the “cue music”, their faces made expressions that I couldn’t help but pity. They were either so upset wearing the costumes that they were or they were upset that they had to dance in them (how, I don’t know).

The whole time they were dancing, that upset and nervous look never came off of their faces. That was pretty much how every dance performance was. The costumes were all slightly ridiculous, ranging from pajamas to scanty ice-skating outfits to what looked like a River Oak hoodlum. The dancers rarely looked like they were having fun; most were looking down at their feet, biting their lips, or flinging their stiff arms around self-consciously.

In every group of dancers there were a couple of people who were having fun. My sister was having a blast having everyone watch her while dancing on a stage, and so was another girl, in a different group, with the face of a 24 year old. All of the dancers did walk off the stage smiling though, happy with what they had just accomplished. I was glad to see that. For the rest of the night I would watch the dances, but it was almost like watching half time, or the super bowl game, for me. I was much more interested in the crowd of people that stood and sat to my left.

From the place I was standing, I was omniscient. Directly in front of me was the dance teacher. As each group was headed on stage, she would inspect them over. They would get all lined up on stage and she would stand there with both of her arms wrapped around her clipboard, putting it to her chest. When the music would start, she would start to shake her hips and wiggle her legs in a pattern that was very similar to the girls’, but not quite so obvious. It looked really funny. I asked my little sister about her later, and apparently the dance teacher does that regularly, incase a student found themselves stupefied by the crowd and needed help. I wish I would’ve seen her doing that the last time I was there!

In the middle of the show, the guitar club leader decided to ditch the drum tempos they had previously been using. The lady who was the head of the dance department started singing the lyrics to the songs that were being performed. She has a very full voice, and though it is not the best voice I’ve heard, it was very warm and strong. She would add little “whoah’s” and “umhmm’s” into the lyrics too, making people in the crowd start to nod their heads and tap their feet. It was a great thing to see, scanning the bobbing crowd in its entirety. Sometimes my eye would rest on someone’s curious or admiring face that was wondering why she hadn’t been singing earlier.

The lady who was standing next to me was doing the same thing as I was. There was a little girl with a pacifier, at about a 45-degree angle from my face, who was constantly moving. She was either dancing to the songs, kicking her feet up and down during the dances, gawking at the person with the blinking earphone behind her, or jumping up and down to try and get a view of her brother who was playing a guitar. She was so adorable. The lady next to me would laugh and giggle at the things she was doing at the same time I would. Any time she did something cute we would both turn to each other and smile. She was the one who tapped me and brought the dancing teacher to my attention.

The whole experience was enjoyable. Even though I noticed how the parents would start to head out the door right when their child had finished performing, I had a fun time. Even with that group of smart alecks that sat on the floor in the front of the cafeteria, whooping and hollering during the performance, I had a fun time. The event was no longer than it needed to be, I got to go and see my younger sister do her thang, and the people around me were so interesting.