April Rain

Of you I thought when the day rain.
April sun shun,‘til you overcast.
I met you on a similar day, a rain day,
the streets of Edinburgh cold.

When the day rain.

Near you, my prim-rose soul.
Heard ever a crimson primrose
Bloom in rainy autumn? Not me.

When the day rain.

But to you, my bleeding bud blossoms.
Your warm Soul, wild prim-rose;
To life (bring) in all he traverse

When the day rain.

Glen Coe down Scotland’s borders —
Your smile disorders seasons

When the day rain.

A pilgrimage, like a pilgrim I would go,
Singing hymns, at the altar of your soul.
Come… alter, re-alter, mind and body.
Sanctify fidelity of my devoted Being.

When the day rain.

And two hands held for prayer.
Yes, it is! It were! Of Love embody;

Two Souls naked in hallow communion.
He is no other, and none like him,

When the day rain.

Your mouth, lips, the tongue,
Enunciating. You are poetry!
And I waited to hear you say:
“My luve is like a red, red rose.”

When the day rain.

But I, overcasted your thoughts.
Of who I was, left you clouded.

When the day rain.

Let it, echo, throughout my Eden;
When Adam came, and gave me my name.
I will answer back, “Adam. Adam.”

But Adam must have Eve.
I saw, but Paradise no more.

When the day rain.

The rain fall with me —
rose-coloured lens intact.
The sun, shining, over on East.
In California, there is no sun

When the day rain.

Sharing the rain, bunched primroses.
Drops sleeping on petals; first to bloom.
Mine I left stinging, to my lips.
Embrace cold I imagined you gave.
Of what could, would, never have been.

When the day rain.

All my petals gone dull; frost bitten.
Macabre scent emit is, and not mine.
Each brown petal speaks for Adam.

When the day rain. When the day rain.

Of you I thought when the day rain.
The day rained, and I thought of you.
—-

My poem “April Rain” is a parody of Rumi’s “Like This.” I knew I wanted to use Rumi’s poem after reading both his poem and biography. Reading about Rumi and Hafez’s relationship I found to be one of the tragic things of life, to lose someone so closely without a goodbye or knowing what had happened to them — to suddenly disappear. The emotions he evokes in his love poems, primarily through “Like This” I felt entranced by the passionate sensuality he brings to his audience.

The inspiration for my poem came from my time studying abroad in Edinburgh. For the first time I experienced what it was like to fall in love. It was impossible to ever be with them, but it was through being friends with them that I had discovered much about who I am. We met in one of my class discussions; they were framed within the classroom door’s window when I first spotted them, and out of coincidence we had the same class. Furthering this, we became partners for a discussion assignment where the friendship first began. We had traveled around Scotland, and I learned much about him and myself. The last time I had seen him was after our adventure from the Scottish borders. We were in Waverley station where we parted and I watch him disappear in the crowd. There were many aspects in the poem that were an inspiration from that experience, but the speaker of the poem should certainly not be confused with me. They simply helped shape the content of the poem through the emotions.

This poem is the most vulnerable I’ve ever written and shown to the public, but I chose the emotions of this experience into a poem because of its vulnerability. Rumi, like all poets, create incredible poems of emotional experiences because they let themselves be vulnerable; an emotional experience I hope to reflect.

Aspects of my poem that are similar to Rumi’s “Like This” are the free verse form, love in connection with spirituality, the natural experience of love, repetitions, and sensuality. What I had wanted to replicate is that sense of divine love to someone. Though there are many differences to my poem to Rumi’s. The situational content itself being very different to Rumi’s. I wrote the poem as both a parody and a response to “Like This,” by being its opposite. A spiritual love that is romanticized.

I also wanted to have the freedom to use my voice, to try and create my own meaning by borrowing from Rumi’s themes, form, and meaning primarily between the speaker’s relationship with Hafez rather than trying to attempt being Rumi. That is why I paid close attention to syntax. Each word is intentional to make the poem stand for itself but still hold those thematic elements of spiritual love. Punctuation I focused on also as it was lacking in “Like This,” which might be due to translation, so I utilized punctuation to help give an extra element to the poem.

The speaker in Rumi’s “Like This” is confident about that sense of spiritual love, my speaker lacks that confidence and jumps all over. They compare their love to Adam, the “warm Soul,” God, even the nationalistic identity of Scotland. This brings about the borders of love itself – the speaker resides in California, with his love in Scotland. This border also continues with the identity of the speaker, the “prim-rose” being that ambiguity of the speaker’s gender and their identity overall, questioning it but never passing the border to fully understand themselves. The hyphenation of “prim-rose” is both that division, but also what the speaker also desires as they seek to become the traditional symbol of a rose.

This poem also is Europeanized, mainly to reflect the blindness of the speaker themselves as they “fall” to California and furthering that border of their identity: American-Scottish. With the Quran being used in Rumi’s “Like This” I implemented Christian themes both to reflect Scotland and America’s history with Christianity, and the colonial history in which the West brings with religion. Nonetheless, I chose a poem for my medium as I felt it more accurately helped display syntax evoking certain emotions, and as a way for me to experiment with language.

Phillip Gallo

I am the Poppy

When I first read this poem while doing the assignment, I was so impressed that I decided to recreate the emotions of the poem exactly as I felt the poem. And that’s what I recreated ‘The Rose and The Poppy.’ The main point of my poem is Poppy. Therefore, I wrote the poem in the shape of a ‘flower’ resembling Poppy. The order of reading this poem is not fixed; the audience can read it as they want.

In the original poem ‘The Rose and The Poppy’, the poet strongly asserts the poppy’s uniqueness in contrast to the rose. Furthermore, the poet explains the original beauty of the poppy. Hence, I compared the various colors of the Rose to the orange color of the Poppy. And I wrote about the uniqueness of the poppy. Additionally, I recreated every beautiful phrase from the original poem as I understood them while reading. For example, the original poem explains the beauty of the rose using the past and the future timeline. I really like this method, because it means the rose is very common and everyone can remember all the moments with their rose. So, I twist this part and emphasize the symbol of the rose, love.

The lines at the top of the flower petals all represent the differences between the Rose and the Poppy. The part corresponding to the stigma of the flower describes the Poppy itself. The lines at the bottom of the petals all highlight the characteristics of Poppy. Particularly, since the original poem does not mention the narcotic addiction that Poppies are known for, I incorporated this aspect to emphasize Poppy’s free will and identity. A poppy is a flower that someday has to wilt and drop its leaves into the ground. So, when someone sees poppies in the field, one can only see the flower and stem. Inspired by this, I wrote the stem section exactly as in the original poem. Because the entire words in the original poem gave me the feeling of the poppy’s personality and free will. In the stem part, while the original poem mentions ‘scenting rooms,’ I changed it to ‘Nature’ to emphasize the free will of Poppy. Since the Poppy is a part of the flower that I mentioned, it cannot last forever. And the feeling that it will wither someday, ‘Rotting into umber,’ is included to capture the essence of the original poem.

~Jisoo Jang

The Sensual Form

The meaning of Julia Alvarez’s “Sometimes the Words Are So Close” is enhanced from the drafts by showing the “many drafts” to reflect the speaker finding themselves through many trial-and-errors. This is a petrarchan sonnet, because the rhyming scheme follows that of the petrarchan rules but also the volta that occurs on line 9, “Why do I get confused living it through?” (Alvarez 9). The audience partakes in this confusion as they read through the enjambment from lines 1-8 because of its lack of punctuations, in which shifts with the rhetorical question. The speaker also mentions they are more who they are when “down on paper” (2). The drafts Alvarez made become an artform reflecting the creation of the poem, the audience can see the authentic struggle of an individual trying to seek the right words that reflects their emotions. Alvarez writes many scribbles, crosses, and self-critical comments like “pretentious” that echoes the running sentence – a running thought of a speaker whose anxieties find relief in writing.

The speaker also speaks to the audience, “I once was in many drafts as you” (12). The audience is referred to as a rough sketch of a poem where each individual is refining and editing what gives them meaning, what they want, and who they are. The speaker acknowledges this too, but the sonnet takes a form of its own by the speaker by giving it a gender; “who touches this poem touches a woman” (14). And that is seen through the edits made in the drafts, a sensual experience of a female speaker who defines themselves through the poem’s form. The edits as well enhance that meaning as she tries to find the right words that reflect the meaning of her poem. It is with certainty, especially throughout the rough drafts, that the poem’s form is a woman’s as Alveraz ensured the poem ends in this manner. Her utilization of the sonnet form could be to reflect the female speaker defining herself against the patriarchal control of the sonnet, in which she encourages her audience whose words are “close” to the audience to define themselves as well. Nonetheless, it is through the drafts that reflects a human process of understanding one’s identity and establishing it despite the odds.

Phillip Gallo

Unable to Move On

Claude McKay’s, “December 1919” (Pg 29) is thematically linked and a continuation to “My Mother” (Pg 26 and 27) by capturing the intense grief and loss he felt for his mother’s passing.  Both these sonnets are expressed with a sorrowful tone demonstrating that there are suppressed emotions involved related to his mother’s death. How is death involved?. From the descriptive tone McKay uses in My Mother, it is noticed that he is describing his last moment with her before she died. In the poem, he claims, “But in her quiet way she made me yield” (McKay, Pg 26, Line 3). Indicating where his mother lied, it was quiet and peaceful, knowing her current condition, made him stop to check on her. “Reluctantly, for she was breathing low.” (Mckay, Pg 26, Line 4). Before dying, people tend to lose their breath slowly because they are trying to stay alive as much time as they can. In this case, this is what’s happening to Mckay’s mother. Mckay continues by describing his mother’s eyes, mentioning, “Her eyes said: I shall last another day. But scarcely had we reached the distant place,” (Mckay, Pg 26, Line 8 and 9). This describes how his mother is not trying to die just yet for her son, but she can’t hold it much longer. How do we know she died though? Line 10 makes that statement clear by mentioning a “faint bell ringing”. When a person dies, a death bell is rung to mark the death of someone. This death bell connects back to Christian beliefs. So there is a hint of biblical terms involved in this poem. Both poems are detailed in the aspect of describing loss and grief, however, My Mother is expressed with more imagery connected to nature. This is shown in Part 2. “The dawn departs, the morning is begun, The trades come whispering from off the seas, The fields of corn are golden in the sun,” (Pg 26, Lines 1 and 3). December 1919 also demonstrates a bit of imagery, precisely describing Mckay’s urge to cry, “tears gushed from my heart, mother, And passed beyond its wall, But though the fountain reached my throat, The drops refused to fall.” (Pg 29, Lines 5-8) But, My Mother was lengthier in implying imagery compared to December 1919 which was more of a straightforward poem.

What’s the theme connection between both poems though? They’re both related to grieving and death. ’My mother’ comes in two parts while December 1919 is shorter. My Mother follows more of the traditional sonnet structure unlike December 1919. This is specifically found within its rhyming scheme and length. My mother consists of an ABAB scheme and two 14-line sonnets, while December 1919 has a broken rhyme scheme and only has 12 lines. However, what does December 1919 show? It demonstrates the great impact his mother’s death had on him. December 1919 displays the broken and grieving state he was left in by his mother’s passing. It is a recall of that moment that was told in My Mother. In My Mother, readers didn’t get much on how Mckay felt, it was more on what was going on in that moment. On the other hand, December 1919, goes more in-depth with Mckay’s feelings and how that loss marked him in life. He begins with a memory, “Last night I heard your voice, mother, The words you sang to me When I, a little barefoot boy, Knelt down against your knee.” (Mckay, Pg 29, Lines 1 and 4). By starting his poem like this, he makes it clear who he’s writing this poem for, which is his mother. From the looks of it, the rhyme scheme is already off. Its broken structure demonstrates the intense emotions he felt as he wrote it. This becomes more evident as he continues, “tears gushed from my heart, mother, And passed beyond its wall, But though the fountain reached my throat The drops refused to fall.” (Mckay, Pg 29, Lines 5 and 8). This is where the suppressed emotions are shown. He wants to cry for the loss of his mother but can’t. I also noticed that he mentioned time, “tis ten years since you died, mother, Just ten dark years of pain,” (Mckay, Pg 29, Lines 9 and 10). Unlike My Mother, Mckay makes it clear that December 1919 was written 10 years after his mother’s death. From stating “ten dark years of pan” readers are also aware of the great impact his mother’s death has caused him. He clarifies that after 10 years, Mckay still feels unable to move on from his mother’s passing. He is still hurt and filled with overwhelming emotions. December 1919 exposes the fact that he still has not moved on from the loss of his mother.  Though both poems were structurally different in rhyme scheme and length, they both relate to the loss of his mother and express the intense emotional pain and sadness McKay felt because of it.

Claudia Dominguez

Memory of Her

Poems, La Paloma in London and A Memory of June by Claude McKay, both tell a story of a fleeting romance. La Paloma in London, is a typical Shakespearean sonnet. The first quatrain follows the abab rhyme scheme with the words, light, fun, night, and done. The remaining two quatrains also follow the Shakespearan sonnets, rhyme schemes. The final two lines are a perfect couplet. The last word in each line rhymes: Glory, and Diory. The volta occurs earlier than is expected of a Shakespearean sonnet. Rather than occurring right before the rhyming couplet, it occurs on line 9, with the word Harlem. Up until this point, the speaker is out with his friends in Soho, having a good time. But upon hearing La Paloma on a guitar, the speaker is transported to an encounter he had with a Cuban woman. He reminisces dancing with the woman and her “coffee colored eyes keen glancing aslant at [his]” (McKay 78). In the final line, he proclaims he loved her. One of the five dominant themes of Shakespearean sonnets is a man expressing his love for a woman. It makes sense then, why McKay chose a Shakespearean sonnet, to tell the story of a man who cannot help but be reminded of an encounter he had with a woman, long past. It reveals the depth of his feelings for her. A Memory of June tells a similar story. Like in the previous poem, the speaker is transported to an encounter he had with a woman every time it is June. Unlike the first poem, this speaker talks of passion and sensuality. Just from their arms locked, he could feel their “warm flesh pulsing with love’s pain” (McKay 79). This speaks to their desire to be together intimately. So much so, it is painful. When intimate, the speaker says the woman’s “brown burning body was a lute, whereon my passion played his fevered song” (McKay 79). Here, the speaker tells of the pleasure he gave her. But, like the previous poem, the speaker and the woman go their separate ways and he is left with only the memory of her. This poem does not have many components of a Shakespearean sonnet. It is not 14 lines, but 23. But the first quatrain follows the abab rhyming scheme. Every quatrain, apart from the second, follows the same rhyming scheme as the first. This draws attention to the second quatrain, which I believe to be where the volta is. It is the moment when the speaker is transported to his summer fling. The volta served the same purpose for the previous poem. While A Memory of June does not follow the Shakespearean sonnet to a T, I believe it was done to express the difference of his love affair from the man in La Paloma in London. They both loved the women, no doubt, but the man from A Memory of June, had a romance filled with extreme passion, and deep intimacy. The other man’s romance seemed simpler, hence the Shakespearean sonnet.

Bella Cortez

Pretty and Ugly

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are Nothing like the Sun”, meaning is enhanced by Catherine Tate’s classroom performance by mocking the traditional conventions of love in love poetry.

Throughout the sonnet, Shakespeare mainly relies on hyperbole and imagery to describe the love he has towards his mistress. Instead of comparing, the speaker contrasts her to nature. Traditionally, poets are likely to compare their lover to nature to complement their physical appearance and personality, however by the speaker doing the opposite, he’s stating he loves his mistress more than he loves his beloved, who possibly could be his wife. The overall situation is showing infidelity. How so? The biggest hint is this poem is about a mistress. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are numerous definitions, but one in particular states that a mistress is, “A woman other than his wife with whom a married man has a continuing sexual relationship.”  From what is observed through the sonnet is Shakespeare uses a lot of imagery to describe this mistress. He starts off with, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” (Shakespeare, Line 1). Just by calling her “mistress” the readers can identify that this ‘love’ poem isn’t the traditional love poem. The speaker is talking about an extramarital relationship, which in some perspectives, is considered unfaithful and absurd. He continues by stating, “eyes are nothing like the sun.” (Line 1) The sun is bright. From stating her eyes are not the sun, the speaker is indicating her eyes are not bright or shiny. So, is he claiming her eyes are dull? Isn’t this the opposite of a compliment towards a woman? It’s not the only example of imagery he provides, he continues with “Coral is far more red than her lips red;” (Line 2). For some, red lips are an attractive and beautiful feature in women. From stating, “Coral is far red than her lips-” (Line 2). He’s basically claiming her red lips are not as attractive or as vibrant as coral.  This is where hyperbole appears. The speaker becomes exaggerated when describing his mistress’ physical attributes, to make the differences more apparent between the beauty of nature and hers. The imagery gives readers a possible visual on how his mistress looks which isn’t really pleasing. He mentions, “If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun.” (Line 3). The era and place this sonnet were written in should also be considered since it will provide a deeper understanding on how these physical details are being negative. In England, precisely around the 1600’s, the whiter a woman was and the redder her lips were the more beautiful they were considered. In this case, this poem, is describing the complete opposite, it is a woman with dull eyes, light red lips, tannish breasts, and unruly black hair. Does it stop there? No. The speaker trails off to the color of her cheeks next, stating, “I have seen roses demasked, red, and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks.” (Shakespeare, Lines 5 and 6). A rose is the traditional symbol of love and beauty, to say that there are no such roses in her cheeks- Is he calling his mistress ugly?  Is he trying to humiliate her? Compliment her? Does he even love her? He even goes on to describing her breath, mentioning, “And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” (Lines 7 and 8). He’s even saying her breath isn’t pleasant and stinks. There is exaggeration happening with these lines since he’s stating some perfumes are better to smell than her breath, but why is he saying this? The things he says are quite horrendous, however by stating such things, the speaker is giving his mistress her place. He’s seeing her as who she is and is not describing her with common nature comparisons love poems give when describing their lovers. That’s how Shakespeare mocks traditional love poems. Though it’s ugly, the speaker is demonstrating that his mistress’ beauty is one of a kind, and something that popular attributes that most love poems use cannot describe.

How is this whole meaning enhanced by Catherine Tate’s classroom performance though? When Catherine portrayed that insolent school girl, her attitude was very hideous from the start. Though Shakespeare was more physically descriptive, not too much on behavior they can still be connected in the aspect that both the sonnet and Catherine’s character showed a type of ugliness. She uses the poem as a way to threaten her teacher. She was very aggressive and quick when she recited it enforcing that point. Why though? Why did she use the poem? She transformed the poem’s meaning by literally breaking the beauty ideals in poetry. Even though Shakespeare’s sonnet was quite ugly with its various examples of vivid contrasting imagery, surely, he didn’t want his poem to be read in such a harsh and quick manner, so by Catherine reciting the poem in such a tone and pace, it makes the ugliness stand out more within Shakespeare’s sonnet, “My mistress’ eyes are Nothing like the Sun.”

-Claudia Dominguez

Beyond the Poetic

Catherine Tate’s recitation of Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “my mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” transforms its meaning by breaking the sonnet’s conventional form through a chaotic gender performance that opposes masculine order. The traditional situation of a sonnet involves a male speaker expressing his idealized love through poetic elements, but Shakespeare’s sonnet opposes this as the speaker refers to his “mistress” as lacking the emphasized beauty found in nature – “coral is far more red… no such roses see I in her cheeks” (Shakespeare 2, 6). The speaker brings realism by portraying how his love is incomparable to the romanticism that poetry tends to display, referring to them as a “false compare” in which the speaker provides his “mistress” with her own individuality (14). This is furthered from the volta in line 13 where the speaker shifts from presenting his love as potentially ugly, but then unveiling that true love to him is the beauty beyond the poetic metaphors or similes; it is her genuine self.

Cacophony also follows throughout the sonnet up to the 12th line, until the volta holds a change in sound and becomes euphonic, “and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare…” (13). Cacophony mimics the chaos prevalent throughout the ugliness of the twelve lines, preceding how the unpleasant sounds reflects the unpleasantness of how the speaker’s love is incomparable to anything beautiful. However, euphony ends the sonnet because it is through the identity beyond the poetic that is pleasant and beautiful.

Straightforwardly, this is a sonnet chaotically presenting itself through its ugliness by not providing the desired aestheticism expected by popular conventions. The sonnet’s chaotic imperfection orders its existence through its 14 lined, iambic pentameter that defines the identity of the sonnet/mistress. 

Catherine Tate’s gender performance is an expression of her character’s identity by embodying the chaotic mannerisms to rebel against her teacher played by David Tennant. Tate’s character opposes the order in which her teacher tries to enforce, but during her recitation does it show that the character is intelligent, despite the supposed belief that she was “dull.” Instead of a male speaker speaking in the voice of a woman, it is a female speaker. It is her femininity that creates the order of her identity, in which her chaotic manners structures who she is. She recites the sonnet in continuation without any pauses, embodying the chaos that she poses against her teacher. Thus, her “ugliness” – in terms of her personality as being perceived reprehensible by her teacher – is a definitive expression of Tate’s character reflected from the sonnet that defies conventions. 

-Phillip Gallo

The Lies of Roses

H.D’s “Sea Rose” more effectively challenges the symbolism and image that roses have built up over time by subservting what the readers expect when seeing the word rose, when compared to Adrianna Puente’s “The Rose and The Poppy.” When one begins to analyse a poem, the first thing that the reader notices would be the title, and in said title one sees the word rose; due to the constant use of roses in human culture, one immediately pictures a flower full of vitality, color, and allure and also one can think of romance. Now taking this idea and reading the first, there is a stark division between the image of a beautiful rose and a “harsh rose,” this allows for the reader to form the idea that the poem will not be singing praises of the rose, but rather attempt to deconstruct the rose. The “harsh rose” no longer gives the impression of a flower which one would want to receive but rather one which one would attempt to avoid.
This becomes further emphazied by the diction in the next line in which the rose is “marred and with stint of petals.” The manner in which the rose is described, “marred,” showcases that the rose is not the picturesque flower that comes to mind, but rather a rose which is disfigured or of subpar beauty. The flower which should symbolize one’s undying adoration for another, now has become a decrepit version of itself, thus beginning to dismantle what the rose stands for. A person attempting to woo another would not give their beloved a “meagre flower, thin, / sparse of leaf,” as this would seem like an insult rather than a proclamation of love. When one thinks of what makes a rose grand, the first image that appears would be a bouquet of roses, lush in color and leaves, the grand opposite of what is showcased in the poem. The flower which should be full of adoration has now become a twisted version of itself, and insead of inspiring admiration simply compels a look of disgust due to it “[driping] such acrid fragrance” which repels love.
Isaac Ruiz

A Rose’s Battle

I believe the most effective poem in challenging the traditional symbol of the rose was “Sea Rose,” by H.D. On the first line, “Rose, harsh rose” was being portrayed for something cruel. A rose is typically a symbol of beauty and love, but this rose is considered displeasing. On lines two through four, it states “marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf.” These lines were really focused on the rose’s appearance due to its misfigured and unappealing look which goes against what a traditional rose usually stands for its breathtaking beauty. In other words, this rose is ugly, it has little amount of petals, it is very thin, all in which imagery is present in this stanza and the whole poem. This rose in particular may be referring to a woman, despite her lack of beauty, she is unique.

Although this “rose” is described poorly, on lines five and six it states, “more precious than a wet rose.” A rose that is wet has a bright and a glitter appearance, it could be referring to a blossoming rose. So a rose that is misfigured has a higher value than a rose in blossom. It may also refer to the sea since the water reflects and glitters from bright sources such as the sun and moon. In addition, on line eight states, “you are caught in the drift” which is portraying the sea as rough, but the rose is staying firm in the drift. That being said, traditionally the rose is seen as delicate but this rose is strong and independent in the drifting sea.

Which appoints my next lines of reasoning, nine through thirteen continue to describe the environment of the sea but with the wind being rough. On lines nine and ten it states, “Stunted, with small leaf, you are flung on the sand” in which the rose or woman is tossed by the many brutal battles of the world. Even though the rose is put through a harsh environment, the rose is “lifted in the crisp sand that drives in the wind,” according to lines eleven through thirteen. In other words, through the hardships of life being thrown to this rose, it continues to stay put but also sounds like the rose is flying across the breeze, as though to say the woman wants to be free from all that life is pushing onto her. Traditionally, a rose is meant to be kept with care but this rose is kept in harsh environments that can harm it.

Furthermore, on lines fourteen through fifteen, “Can the spice-rose drip such acrid fragrance hardened in a leaf?” This is the only line that had a question mark instead of a period because it is asking of its questionable and strong fragrance. The spice-rose can be interpreted as saying that the strong fragrance is the brutal environment in the woman’s life. In addition, the poet somewhat makes it seem as though a spice-rose and a rose are to be compared. Basically to portray that the rose may look like it is losing its strength but, it is able to create its own fragrance. A rose typically has a beautiful smell but this rose is overpoweringly displeasing.

With that being said, I don’t believe Adrianna Puente really challenged the traditional symbol of the rose because it didn’t seem like it was well captured. In a sense that the rose isn’t only taking part but a poppy as well, which really drives away from the idea of a traditional rose. In addition to this, I thought the rose wasn’t really part of this poem, it mostly was speaking of the orchards, tangerines, and “Electric orange.” However, this poem did contain lots of imagery and diction. The formatting was really interesting on how “I am” was used as a repetition on the first and second paragraph, to indicate that this is what they are resembling or not.

Celeste Tejeda-Menera

In Bloom

Between H.D.’s “Sea Rose” and Puente’s “The Rose and The Poppy,” the former more effectively challenges the traditional symbol of the rose. Traditionally, the symbol of the rose is depicted as a perfect, crisp red rose, symbolizing a man’s love for a woman, generally that of a woman he wishes to have. It serves as a symbol of beauty and also as a stark reminder of patriarchy; both poets do well in showing how their alternate symbols represent a better form of love, with “Sea Rose” offering an imperfect, wilting rose, and “The Rose and The Poppy” offering a poppy.

“Sea Rose” rejects how a rose generally symbolizes beauty and love by writing “meagre flower, thin / sparse of leaf, / more precious / than a wet rose” (H.D. ll. 3-6). Roses, as a traditional symbol generally are perfect roses– symmetrical and perfect, slightly glistening, or as H.D. puts it, “wet.” H.D. offers a symbol of a disformed rose, with it having almost no leaves, and the actual body of the flower frail and weak, completely rejecting the usual symbol. In this, the poem challenges how the rose is seen rather than what the rose stands for; further, H.D. reverses how the symbol is presented, with it being the opposite of perfect, but still pointing out that it too can stand as a symbol of beauty by stating how precious it is. H.D. effectively changes how readers actually are viewing the rose– obviously, readers know it is a rose, and H.D. still characterizes it with the traditional meanings, but flips the symbol, casting an image of the imperfect rose within the audience’s minds, completely replacing the traditional symbol. The poem addresses the beauty symbolism through describing a flower floating through the waves, describing how it is “caught in the drift.” (H.D. li. 8). The poem does well with challenging the actual symbol by forcing readers to visualize a different kind of rose, and also addressing that it can also be beautiful by putting the rose against an ocean backdrop. H.D. almost rejects the usual symbol, and also uses an imperfect rose to signify how their poem is a rejection of patriarchy by suggesting that anything else other than the traditional symbol, even a wilting rose, is years better than the original. Thus, H.D. does well in creating a feminist message of visualizing how even though women may have less power, what they stand for is evermore perfect than that of patriarchal power. H.D. completely is able to replace the symbol with a different symbol through forcing imagery upon the reader, making the poem effective in challenging the traditional symbol of the rose, as it removes the symbol at the root and replaces it completely.

On the other hand, Puente’s “The Rose and The Poppy” attempts to completely change the audience’s perception of a symbol of love. Puente offers a poppy as a replacement to the traditional symbol of a rose, stating how it is “[r]arely chosen for / eager hands on Valentine’s day – ” (Puente ll. 18-19) but immediately contrasting it with the poppy’s inherent beauty by writing how they “[scent] rooms with our fragrance.” (Puente li. 23). Puente challenges the rose completely as a traditional symbol of love and instead offers a different flower that is commonplace but forgotten (ironically), but isn’t particularly effective in doing so. While Puente does offer the poppy as another flower to symbolize love, the poem comes across less so as a challenge to the traditional symbol than as a poem to show that there is beauty in other flowers, not just roses. While it does challenge the symbolism of beauty in its fragrance and bright colors, the poem is not effective in completely challenging the whole traditional symbol of the rose as H.D.’s poem does. “The Rose and The Poppy” only serves to provide another option to what a rose traditionally symbolizes, while H.D.’s “Sea Rose” completely challenges the symbolism by forcing readers to visualize another symbol, while “The Rose and The Poppy” simply just places a rose and poppies beside each other to compare. Even more so, since poppies generally symbolize remembrance and death, Puente suggests that a flower to represent death being equivalent for love makes it abundantly clear that she is rejecting the patriarchal symbol, almost ridiculing it in showing that death is as good as an incredibly patriarchal symbol. Puente, in her usage of the poppy as a symbol, may also be condemning the traditional symbol of a rose to death, thus leading to the poppy having a double meaning, where it signifies the death of the traditional symbol, and pointing out that the rose’s traditional symbolism is just as good as death. However, Puente only compares the two, leading it to be a tad less effective than H.D.’s poem, who completely replaces the symbol.

Isaak Puth