Civil War Photograph

http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14977

I was instantly drawn to this poem. The first thought I had was that it was similar to a found poem but with a found picture. It offered more poetic freedom as you can choose to describe the painting a certain way but it still gave me the ability to visualize what was happening in the photo.
"Flesh and blood turn mathematic." The most powerful line was the first. It is the only line that is not enjambed or has a caesura. I made it seem that this is the only thing that the poet is sure about and it is the most important thing about this picture. While it is the thing the author is sure about, it is also the most opinionated line in the poem. The poem is an illustration of how someone would usually view a photo. When you look at a picture for the first time, something catches your eye instantly, the main premise of the photograph which explains why the first line is not enjambed and powerful because that is the overall effect of the photo. Then after knowing the general idea of the photograph, you start to list the details. In the rest of the poem, the poet describes the photo in more of a continuous thought through the use of enjambment across every stanza and a caesura in almost every line. It causes the reader to continue to depict the photograph as the writer continues to view the photograph. The poem also uses a lot of technical photography terminology, but it also refers to the first line. A lot of the poem is technical versus emotional or "flesh and blood" versus "mathematic." While the war should evoke a lot of emotion of pain and torture, the poet decides to use very objective descriptions which allow the reader to make subjective interpretations. With the first line, you read the poem with some tug of emotion and even though he only uses observations in the rest of the poem, it is easy to see what he should be focusing on in the photograph- the flesh and blood instead of the mathematic.

The Insomniac's Love Song

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I hesitate to enter
deep into the realm where I fear to creep.

I know that if I let you seep
into my mind, as rent or
Keep, I will fall down to sleep

And you will then slowly peep
here and there as the inventor
of the realm where I fear to creep.

I will tape my eyelids open steep
to avoid you, the dissenter.
Now I lay me down to sleep,

I refuse the sheep
Numbered in the center,
Deep in the realm where I fear to creep.

For if I do let myself sleep or weep
the sound would not reach you till winter.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
Cuddled in the realm where I feared to creep.

Visitation: Frequent Visitor

http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14949

I didn't really choose this poem, it kind of made me choose it. I honestly didn't a lot of the poems the first time I read them and then I would keep coming back to read this one and reading it over and over again. The more I visited, the more I liked "Visitation by Eamon Grennan. This poem is personal from the beginning. It starts in the first line by addressing "you" and while that may not be the reader, we mentally are drawn to things that refer to us specifically. We are including into this personal adventure between two people: either the two friends in the poem, or you and the author. Both relationships share an intimate moment with the geese that is not necessarily monumental but by the end of the trip, you are happy you went.
The same goes with reading the poem. The poet sets it up so the when you visit, (or in other words start reading) you stay for a while. There is a heavy use of enjambment through the lines that forces you to keep reading. For example: "I thought, a lit thing bearing nothing but the self/ we see and savor but know no more the meaning of/ than I know what in the cave of its fixed gaze/ our cat is thinking." Lines often end in a preposition and while Shakespeare would have a heart attack with ending a line in such disgrace it adds to the personal feel of the poem. It was meant to read like a personal moment, not like a perfect poem.
The poem is a conversation and even more so a memoir, something that could be found in a diary. The multiple questions at the end of the poem add to the effect of an unsure relationship between the speaker and the person during the visitation. Like the geese that fly away for the south, the speaker and the ambiguous friend do not stay forever. The geese brought the speaker and the other person together and "for a little while neither cold/ nor dark but a place of visitation, and we were in it." At the end of the poem the author uses repetition to show the differences between the visitation of the geese ans the visitation of the friendship. While the geese visitation was "gone dark... cold dark" while their visitation was "neither cold/nor dark."Their time together lightened the mood of the poem.

A nearly perfect Perfect Storm (Found Poem)

Big Brother grabbing liberties
Big Brotherfication of American Life
Liberty, Security and the American Way

Unfamiliarity breeds outrage

Found Poem

Media Chase

If they hit the Sweet Spot
  Like the Kid who went through
Salt Lake Security in a Speedo
Millions will see it
    Via Youtube

Starving At Tiffany's

I will cross my heart, and hope to die. While stuck in my past obsessing. But I will not be your "Catcher in the Rye". You trained me to learn, and then to lie. As I watched our love undressing. I will cross my heart, and hope to die. You made me swear that I would not cry. I can look that unkept while suppressing. But I will not be your "Catcher in the rye". When I broke down, you still asked "why?". Though I was torching photos, digressing. I will cross my heart, and hope to die. With tickets in hand you said "lets fly!". You make me feel that I'm worth caressing? But I cannot be your "Catcher in the rye". Love was a trinket that they taught you to buy. When you claimed all of my needs depressing. I will cross my heart, and hope to die But I will not be your "Catcher in the rye".

Ten Favorite Poems

Reverie in Open Air- Rita Dove
Lyrics of Fury- Rakim
The Road Not Taken- Robert Frost
Anyone Else But You- Moldy Peaches
Mad Girl's Love Song- Sylvia Plath
Fire in Freetown- K'NAAN
Still I Rise- Maya Angelo
Starving at Tiffany's -Jeremi Handrinos
Vienna- Billy Joel
One Art- Elizabeth Bishop