Remy: Journal #4

1)   The chapter that helped me the most was chapter 3 Making the Line (I).  This was the most helpful because it made me focus more on how I write my poems in the sense of meter and sound. When I looked at poems I liked it was mostly because of their rhyme or how they sounded based on their structure. I learned that how its written can really affect the vibe of the poem. If it’s choppy and rhymey it will have a different feel than a smooth and longer sounding one. It was really cool how they drew out the changes in stress and unstressed with the lines and dots. Marking out the stresses will really help me with the sounds of my poems, so that’s a helpful technique that I learned.

2)   A poem that I really liked was The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. It was such a simple and short poem. But it sort of leaves me wondering and thinking what more the wheelbarrow could be used for. It taught me that I don’t have to be descriptive and elaborate. I don’t have to spell out a meaning. The meaning of the poem should vary by the reader, Williams did a great job of this by leaving this poem wide open “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow” I thought it was interesting when he split the word wheelbarrow. This whole poem just left me wondering and thinking about it. I really liked how he did that with something so simple.