Blog Entry Week 2

Out of all the readings assigned for class tomorrow, the ones that I enjoyed the most were from the book. My favorite poem was "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens. Although I struggled to come away with a clear understanding of the meaning behind it I really liked the imagery used and the description of winter. The understanding that I came to so far, although I am still somewhat confused, and most likely off base, is that Wallace was commenting on the power of perception.  At first read I thought the description of winter was beautiful, but the more I read it the more it became a description of the speakers state of mind, than a description of an actual wintry place. The speaker felt very isolated and disconnected from the world about him. To me the poem seems to contrast what is actually present in this world of emptiness, and what the speaker of the poem imagines and perceives there to be in the world. The last line "the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is" seems to me to show that ultimately there is little distinction between perception and reality, but the speaker exists only in what he perceives. In a sense it seems kind of sad, because the speaker is removed from his own experience of life.  The other poem I struggled to find the meaning of was "Between". As many times as I read it I could not seem to make any sense out of it. On the whole "Between" was probably one of my least favorite poems I've read, for some reason I just couldn't get past the structure and what I found to be random selection of the subjects chosen. Hopefully, with the discussion in class I will be able to make better sense of it. See you all tomorrow!

Jenny