What makes a great poem?
Raw is the first thing that pops into my head. Great poetry is always raw. It makes you feel things. A great poem will elicit all sorts of emotions as you read and analyze it. It should spur a connection with you.
The best types of poems have great metaphors, too. I’m a sucker for that feeling you get when you uncover a mind-blowing metaphor in poetry. Also, I have always loved the way simple phrases in poetry will resonate with me when they encapsulate a complex generality. (All the best ones do! Coincidence??) I think that is fairly important too. Another thing that will make it great is when there is one line in particular that resonates with you more than the rest.
A great poem should eloquently and effectively express an idea. It should make you stop and reread it three more times to appreciate (or analyze) it. It’s crazy the effect words can have. This brings me to another point, diction!! If the poem isn’t throwing around complex words and elaborated allusions only genius, cultured people can recognize, is it really a great poem worthy of your time??
One great poem I have had the chance to read is "Mr. Flood’s Party" by Edwin Arlington Robinson. (Definitely recommend!!) I think that poem has so much depth depicted through a short, wonderful yet sad narrative. I think it easily falls into all the categories I previously stated.
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall"
When I first read this my first thought was about Trump’s dumb wall. The more I kept reading it, there more that message stayed with me. I really liked how this poem has so much depth. The whole poem is a giant metaphor.
I really enjoyed this poem as it talks about how these people built this wall in order to fix their issues. I like it. The two neighbors only come together this one time to fix the separation they have. The diction works and flows well. “ Good fences make good neighbors.”
This poem even rhymes! (I love when poems rhyme).
The wall is the issue. Its gaps are its flaws. Both natural and human events/error break the wall. So maybe even nature doesn't agree with the wall. This wall keeps things in and/or keeps things out. The narrator’s neighbor wants the wall while the narrator doesn't care for it/want it but does it because the neighbor wants it. The ideas of conformity, the divisions humans will create, and the measure they will take to do so strongly resonated with me.
Overall, the poem is straightforward and the imagery painted a fairly clear picture for us. It was a lot of fun analyzing this poem. I think it was well written and expressed a variety of ideas. Home Burial was a close second.
“Worst” seems kind of harsh so I am going to say “The Death of The Hired Man” was my least favorite poem. Though I don't think this was my least favorite because it fell into the bad poem category. I didn’t like this poem mostly due to the high expectations I had beforehand. It all had to do with the poem and the first line. These expectations seem silly now as I did not take into account the time period. The title was really interesting but the poem turned out to be about a couple on the farm talking about the hired man, a worker named Silas. It was a little too long too. It had a lot of dialogue which I am not a huge fan of it in poetry. I think with all that dialogue he probably should have just written it as a short story. I think I would have liked this more if it were a short story. Of course, it had the familiar nature and rural setting that Robert Frost has in all of his poems. I didn't really feel anything when reading this that was probably a major factor in why it is so low in my list. I also didn't really relate to it. In all, I just didn't take much from this.
