Oscar Wilde's "Symphony in Yellow"

This is an interpretation of the poem "Symphony in Yellow," which can be found here.

How one might picture a bus like
a butterfly had they ever seen "The
Magic School Bus" as a child. 

One key detail that strikes me in this poem is that the reader should assume from the title that the piece is about a symphony, yet there are no adjectives indicating any sounds. However, Wilde seems to be representing the music through vivid aesthetic descriptions of the speeds and colors of the things that might be seen around the Thames River. The reader begins to think that he or she has synesthesia while reading these three stanzas, feeling the slow, tranquil movement of these objects and seeing the music in colors, just as the bus crossing the bridge “Crawls like a yellow butterfly.” Like in most music, the pace is sometimes changed in instances like when the occasional person walks by who “Shows like a little restless midge.” To exhibit change in the music’s mood and tone, the speaker contrasts the golden images with the dark “shadowy wharf” and “The thick fog [that] hangs along the quay,” and ultimately the yellow scenery evolves into a pale green color when the speaker steps into the cool Thames that “Lies like a rod of rippled jade,” constantly moving, yet always staying in place.

"Awakening" - A Poem in Response to Billy Collins's "Morning"

This is a poem I wrote in response to "Morning" by Billy Collins; a copy of his piece and an audio clip of he reading it can be found at poetryfoundation.org. It isn't written on the same subject but was inspired by his depictions of different times of day. It's a first draft and not my best work, but it's a start after my writing hiatus.

• • •

Awakening

The mornings were nice

when waking with him.

We stirred with the first signs of life,

musical yawning and cat stretches,

then dozed off again

entangled in arms.

We would be roused again

as blue sky afternoon began to peep

from under fog covers

and Ra slipped his golden fingers

through the blinds,

like a mother, coaxing us out of bed.

Our stomachs would chortle,

anticipating fresh coffee and oatmeal.

But some force kept us in bed.

I didn’t want to take my head

off such warm, bony pillow. His heartbeat

thrummed strong in my ear

as I listened to his steady breathing

in and out,

in and out.

That’s all it ever amounts to now.

It’s come to be expected,

and it hurts, sometimes

like serrated scissors

are gnawing inside. I clench my jaw

to keep my breath from escaping

in groans, waiting

until he finishes

and leaves

and I can just be

alone.

The mornings after

he is gone will always the same.

My room trashed with sandwich wrappers

scattered across the desk

where the textbooks should have been

and empty espresso cups strewn over the side table,

toppled and lined with mold.

The wrinkled sheets

are of ice, tucked under my comforter,

and snow blankets my bed.

Hesitation freezes me, my joints

rusted shut knowing I must crawl out

into the chill of this empty little dorm room.

The vacant bed opposite

where a roommate should have been

(another story not worth words)

seems to stare, that naked mattress,

mysteriously stained, just like mine

and all others you’d find in resident halls,

by strangers I’ll never meet.

The people outside, even ones I know,

seem stranger yet as I get to know them;

I have no time for them,

nor for me.
But then I find myself
wishing for that pillow with a heartbeat.

Emily Dickinson's "We Grow Accustomed to the Dark"

Like many of Dickinson’s poems, this gem discovered after her death is written using vividly clear images to render ambiguous messages. My immediate interpretation was that it was perhaps about a person’s journey through life. In many ways, living is like walking through a dark forest, with futures lurking ahead unknown and surprises waiting and jumping out as you “hit a Tree / Directly in the Forehead.” As we go along, we get better at dealing with it, “and Life steps almost straight.” Upon further reading, I came to think that it could be about uncertainty in general. When we are most confused during “Those Evenings of the Brain— / When not a Moon disclose a sign—” and a trauma stares us directly in the face, how do we react? We persevere, the poem seems to say, and keep going, and eventually we will all “learn to see,” reaching understandings and coming up with solutions to the problems at hand.

You don't have to take my word for it. This once lost poem is now available to read free to everyone here.

A rare image of Dickinson with a friend was recently discovered, and it is only the second photograph of her known to exist. from the Amherst College Archives

Writing Exercise: "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings"

During a ferocious storm, an angel fell from the sky and was sucked into the mud, unable to move. A man named Pelayo eventually stumbled upon him and pulled him out, only to imprison him in a dung encrusted chicken coop. Common folk visited from far and wide so they might see this servant of God. However, the spectators soon lost interest because he could only perform small miracles. Their attention was diverted to a traveling freak show featuring a woman with a tarantula's body as the main act. After living with Pelayo's family for a while, the man from Heaven soon sprouted new wings and flew off in awkward flaps. As quickly as the angel became a sensation, he was forgotten.