Blog 8 My Interpretation

The poem that I was drawn to is Schoolsville by Billy Collins. The subject matter of the poem is a teacher and his past students. There is a lack of rhyme scheme in the poem. It is easy to understand, and I enjoyed that it was easy to comprehend. Personally I interpreted the poem as, a retired teacher reflecting on his career and past students that he has had. Throughout the poem he makes comparisons of high school to the aftermath. For example, the jocks are still hanging out with the jocks, and the nerds are still hanging out with the nerds. This is evident in the following text:

“I forgot all their last names first and their

first names last in alphabetical order.

 But the boy who always had his hand up

is an alderman and owns the haberdashery.

 The girl who signed her papers in lipstick

leans against the drugstore, smoking,

 brushing her hair like a machine “(13-19).

The boy who paid attention to class is now a business man, and the girl who was so concerned with her looks is still stuck in the same place. I enjoyed reading this poem, because it was easy to read and I did not struggle as much as I did with the other poem I chose. In the poem Hope by Lisel Mueller, I struggled with this text more than with the previous poem The subject matter of the poem is hope. In the following text:

“It hovers in dark corners

Before the lights are turned on,

It shakes sleep from its eyes

And drops from mushroom gills,

It explodes in the starry heads

Of dandelions turned sages,

It sticks to the wings of green angels

that sail from the top of maples” (1-8).

the poet reveals her attitude towards hope- she believes in hope and believes that it exists. When she describes that hope hovers in dark corners, she is presumably stating that there is always hope for light. When hope is asleep it will soon awake. Mueller also makes a great example in the following text:

“It sprouts in each occluded eye

Of the many-eyed potato,

It lives in each earthworm segment

surviving cruelty. (9-12)”

Mueller is making the statement that hope lives in everyone. That even through hard times, one must always look for hope. Even those who do not believe in hope, will eventually come to believe in it. After reading both of these poems, I realized that there is no right or wrong interpretation to poetry. Several people have read these poems, and there are countless interpretations of both.