Poem Analysis: Ted Hughes' A Childish Prank

A Childish Prank

Man’s and woman’s bodies lay without souls,

Dully gaping, foolishly staring, inert

God pondered.

The problem was so great, it dragged him asleep.

Crow laughed.

He bit the Worm, God’s only son,

Into two writhing halves.

He stuffed into man the tail half

With the wounded end hanging out.

He stuffed the head headfirst into woman

And it crept in deeper and up

To peer out through her eyes

Calling its tail-half to join up quickly, quickly

Because O it was painful.

Man awoke being dragged across the grass.

Woman awoke to see him coming,

Neither knew what had happened.

God went on sleeping.

Crow went on laughing.

Ted Hughes’ poem, “A Childish Prank”, is a great story about the origin of man and woman’s genitalia. It’s told in the form of a fable—as the Creator falls asleep out of boredom between the dull couple, Crow gets an idea to take a worm and place it on the man and woman. Using the worm as a way to symbolize fertility, Hughes describes the man’s penis, “…stuffed into man the [worm’s] tail half/ with the wounded end hanging out.” For the woman, Hughes describes how the head was stuffed into the woman, and how it called out for the tail end of the worm (thus symbolizing the need for sex). My favorite part is the last lines, how, “God went on sleeping. / Crow went on laughing.”

Poem Analysis: Wallace Stevens' The Disllusionment of Ten' O' Clock

Disillusionment of Ten o' Clock

Wallace Stevens

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers In red weather.

In Wallace Stevens’, “The Disillusionment of Ten’O’Clock”, I found the simple of the image of the night-gowns in the haunted houses beautiful yet lacking.  I do like the idea of comparing ghosts as night-gowns, and the tigers with stripes seen by drunken sailors as their interpretations of these strange spirits. But, when I look at the poem, the repetition in the middle, of how the gowns are not wearing purple gowns, green gowns, and yellow gowns begins to make the poem sound like a list. It also just breaks the flow of the poem—if anything, I wish the poem could have said how there were ghosts haunting these houses, and then the way the sailors interpreted them, rather than doing the boring list of what they weren’t. Then again, there must be some sort of underlying symbolism behind it—but for now, I don’t know what it is.

Poem Analysis: William Carlos William's The Parable of the Blind

The Parable of the Blind

William Carlos Williams
This horrible but superb painting
the parable of the blind
without a red
in the composition shows a group
of beggars leading
each other diagonally downward
across the canvas
from one side
to stumble finally into a bog
where the picture
and the composition ends back
of which no seeing man
is represented the unshaven
features of the des-
titute with their few
pitiful possessions a basin
to wash in a peasant
cottage is seen and a church spire
the faces are raised
as toward the light
there is no detail extraneous
to the composition one
follows the others stick in
hand triumphant to disaster

In William Carlos Willam’s poem, “The Parable of the Blind” (based on the painting by the same name), I found his description of what is happening in the painting to be too straightforward. While I understand that some poems can be this way, I found this one to be not as entertaining as others I’ve read. Usually, when I read a poem based on a painting, there is a sense of story that the poet will create based on the imagery they see—they won’t simply tell what they see in the painting. But, then again, the ending of the poem where he states, “where the picture of the composition ends which no man seeing…” was my favorite line, since it broke the fourth wall. It described the men walking to the corner of the frame, rather than them plunging into the bog.

Poem Analysis: Nude Descending a Staircase by X.J. Kennedy

Nude Descending a Staircase

X. J. Kennedy

Toe upon toe, a snowing flesh,
A gold of lemon, root and rind,
She sifts in sunlight down the stairs
With nothing on. Nor on her mind.

We spy beneath the banister
A constant thresh of thigh on thigh--
Her lips imprint the swinging air
That parts to let her parts go by.

One-woman waterfall, she wears
Her slow descent like a long cape
And pausing, on the final stair
Collects her motions into shape.

In “Nude Descending the Staircase”, the language used really describes the image in motion. Utilizing the phrases “one-woman waterfall”, “long cape”, and “collects her motions into shape”, the poet creates the idea that the woman is moving through space.  Another aspect that the poet takes full advantage of from the painting is how he describes the woman. He doesn’t just say that she is naked; he uses phrases, “a snowing flesh” (describing the paleness of her skin), “A constant thresh of thigh on thigh” (rather big, especially in the thighs), and “a gold of lemon” (stating that she has a glow to her, probably because of the sun shining on her).  Lastly, I enjoyed the poem’s length—rather than being this really long poem, the artist managed to skim the words down to the most necessary.

Poem Analysis: A Hand by Jane Hirschfield

A Hand

Jane Hirshfield

A hand is not four fingers and a thumb.

Nor is it palm and knuckles,
not ligaments or the fat's yellow pillow,
not tendons, star of the wristbone, meander of veins.

A hand is not the thick thatch of its lines
with their infinite dramas,
nor what it has written,
not on the page,
not on the ecstatic body. 

Nor is the hand its meadows of holding, of shaping—
not sponge of rising yeast-bread,
not rotor pin's smoothness,
not ink. 

The maple's green hands do not cup
the proliferant rain.
What empties itself falls into the place that is open.

A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question. 

Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.

I really liked Jane Hirschfield’s poem, A Hand, for many reasons. First off, I love her use of repetition in the poem with the words “A hand…” usually followed by the word “not”. It really helps create a rhythm within the poem, and helps to drive the point about what really is a hand. I also enjoyed how the poem spoke of what a hand isn’t by actually saying what most people consider a hand. It really makes the reader think—if what has been said isn’t a hand, then what exactly is a hand? What is the scope beyond it? Lastly, I really enjoyed how some the stanzas within the poem are just one line. This really creates emphasis on just what the poem wants to emphasis, as well as forces the reader to really take in the line.  

Poem--Free-Verse

The Question of the Tale

Where is the fairness?
Blushing in the muscles
Of the maiden's cheeks?
Melting in the carcass
Of a freshly killed unicorn?
Sprayed upon the armor
Of a knight abandoning the war?

Or is it in the pages,
Well-worn, but less read.