For the Sleepwalkers

    I found this poem interesting that the author would write an entire poem about sleepwalking.  This is a somewhat funny topic and I have slept-walk many times.  In his poem he often says,"we are leaving our bodies."  This is a different way of looking at sleepwalking because there isn't much control to it.  There must be some thought put into sleepwalking.  He says,"the worn path that leads to the stairs instead of the window."  That shows we are still thinking even though we don't seem to have any control of it.  He uses some alliteration during the poem when he says, "We have to learn," a couple times and he also uses other words such as, "our, darkness, and so much."  This poet displays his respect for sleepwalkers and how they do it in a kind of comical way. 

A Chinese Bowl

    This poem by Katha Pollitt takes a few minutes to understand.  After reading each stanza slowly, it allowed me to understand it was about memories and reminiscing of the past.  One thing that stuck out to me was the capitalization of different words.  The word at the start of a stanza would not be capitalized, but later on a word would be capitalized at the start of the next sentence, even though it had moved on to the next stanza.  Rhyming was used some in the poem such as, "move so far away, just living day by day."  The poet also uses some similes and alliteration,  "a feeling gathers, heavy as rain about to fall," and, "part love, part concentration, part inner solitude."  This allows her to refer back to her childhood and write it for the reader to understand through a descriptive language.

Mr. Fear

To try and understand this poem I looked up some information about the poet.  He was born in 1946 in Massachusetts.  Is an American poet but also has written screenplays.  This also said that his poems sometimes talked about human doubt.  I didn't really understand what that meant but I'm guessing it is kind of a negative way of looking at life.  In the poem the main thing that sticks out to me is that he used a lot of personification.  To use personification he adds it in a few different places such as when he gives human characteristics to fear, dreams and crickets.  For example he says, "...a purse of crickets like the ones I heard singing last night."  By doing this he creates a more lively and interesting poem to read.