City Eclogue

Reading the book City Eclogue really frustrated me. I don't enjoy reading things if I don't understand what they are saying. These poems just seemed like they had random words put together. At least that is what it seems like to the reader. The poems were also difficult to read based on the fact that some were spread out on the pages. Some sentences ended where they didn't sound right or there were some words that were not even complete. I know we weren't supposed to analyze each poem and really understand what they were trying to say but it is really frustrating to keep reading what seems like just random words to me. Some of the poems I was able to understand a little about what it was saying based on the title. Sometimes, I did not even know where one poem started and where the other ended.

The language and the usage  of the language is what I looked at most because I couldn't pay attention to the meaning. My favorite usage of language is personification. Making an object come to life with human qualities. In the poem "Urban Nature", the line that says "the bus stop posture in the interval" is a personification in that they are putting posture with a bus stop. How does a bus stop have a posture? Posture is something very human-like and the bus stop is just a bus stop.

There are some poems that have very positive images and I even saw that while skimming through the poem. Using words suck as 'lovely', 'butterflies', 'blossoms', and 'sweetness' such as "Painting from Science for Hui Ka-Kwong" used, just puts good images in your head. Even though I cannot understand what is going on in the poem, I can assume that it is something good and not something negative. Other poems are the exact opposite, you can just tell that they will be negative according to their language used. In "Height and Deep Song", there is language such as 'disaster', 'ledge', 'crying', and 'screaming' which may indicate that something bad or negative is happening here.

The poem "Idyll" is a good example of how the poem is spread out on the page and sometimes very difficult to read and understand that way. I feel that I may miss a line or a word because my eyes are not trained to read that way. I think it was kind of fun though to try and read like that but I focused more on trying to read in order then actually focusing on what the poem was saying or any of the language. The phrases are all different lengths as well so I feel like it does not flow as nicely as the others. Also in "Idyll" the first line has two words and then there are three lines together after that and then two words again and then just on line. I didn't know where to take a breath or pause because there really isn't a whole lot of punctuation in the poem.

This kind of poetry may be for some people, but I'm thinking it may not be for me.