Poem Response

Pantoum of the Great Depression

The poem “Pantoum of the Great Depression” was written by Donald Justice to express the emotions and experiences of the Great Depression. The Great Depression struck America during the 1930’s and devastated the country raising the unemployment rate by 25 percent. Many people became impoverished and started to work seasonally on farms picking various vegetables, cotton and fruit. Also many great novels were spawned by the depression, like Of Men and Mice or To Kill a Mocking Bird.
The poem as the name states is a pantoum, though it does breaks its structure in the last stanza. The overall mood of the poem is gloomy but peppered with the themes of patriotism and pride of the people. The images Donald Justice uses are bleak and miserable, as they are intended to convey the archetypical perception of the Great Depression. The words Donald Justice uses are strong and negative for example; tragedy, storms, catastrophe, sorrow, fear and fog. The imagery is very dark, but it is the overall meaning of the sentence which counteracts its. We can use the example of “Our lives avoided tragedy”, there might be the word tragedy in the sentence but the fact that it’s avoided takes away the power of its meaning. Beneath the lines, we can see the poems true intentions shine through. The poem is meant to give hope, tell the people that life will go on and that they might not know when the depression ends but it will have to end.
Donald Justice was born 1925 in Miami, Florida. He graduated from the University of Miami and taught poetry in the Iowa writer workshops. He won a Pulitzer for his memoir Selected Poems. Donald Justice is known for his pessimistic lyrics and for his specific use of narration and repetition.

Sonnet

When the glorious day vanishes into the night
When the stars and moon bid thee good evening
I sit forsaken and frozen with fright
From a thought that I can’t perceive its meaning

For I have found, myself to be acceptable
Yet now I fear my sweet life has run its course
As no person has deemed me suitable
They are now compelled to remove me by force

I have tried to drive these bleak thoughts away
Sleep, medicine and liquor have aided
But still into my mind they continue to stray
My mind is befuddled and heavily laded

I lay in my bed next to the lonesome light
Wishing, praying that the day deceives the night

Books & Brand

The other day, I went to the book store and bought two wonderful Victorian novels. "Great Expectations" by the lovely Charles Dickens and "The Picture of Dorian Grey" by the fascinating Oscar Wilde. I decided to start with the Dickens novel because well, I'm going alphabetically and I like to save the best for last (I love Wilde).
I happen to be a great fan, of a man who enjoys Wilde even more than I do. This man, himself is a great Stand-up comedian and has wit as sharp as Mr. Wilde's. This of course is Russell Brand, some of you may have never heard of him which I'd say is rather unlikely and others may despise him for his comments about the jonas brothers. Yet people underestimate Mr. Brand because he wears tight clothes and behaves rather fopish at times, but he is a man of true intellect, eloquence and masculinity (no he is not gay). His brand of comedy can be considered sordid (Brand tells it like it is), but it is peppered with refrences to some of the greatest literary works ever written. Which brings me back to Dickens and Wilde which have covertly made it into my favorite authors list. I can only recommend you read some of their novels, because they are nice to read and to talk about.

Scene Commentary from pages 35 – 37

The pages 35 to 37 concern Algernon and Cecily’s second private meeting, in the gardens. Most of the dialog is spoken by the two characters, though the Merriman always seems to appear when the characters dialog climaxes. This scene is especially important as it marks the first professions of love for each other.

Algernon is in a difficult position because he knows, Jack wants him away from his estate, yet he wants to stay with Cecily. After his argument with Jack, Algernon starts to converse with Cecily who under the pretence of watering her flowers had entered the garden. After Cecily utters a couple of flirtatious lines, Algernon says “…you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection” (pg.35). This entices Cecily to write down his words from dictation. We get to know a completely different side of Algernon when he professes his love to her by saying "I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly" (pg.35). From this sentence we can observe that Algernon has indeed changed and become a more romantic man, other than his usual gallivanting and womanizing self. Cecily on the other hand is a very consistent character, she is always naïve and very delusional. We get to see this when she describes her fictional engagement with Earnest over the past three months. She is so delusional that she writes herself letters and even gives herself presents meant to be from Earnest, if she weren’t so young one would believe she has a psychological disorder. But Algernon at this point is so infatuated with Cecily; he doesn’t mind/realize her immature behavior.

The situation becomes more uncomfortable when Cecily reveals similarly to Gwendolen, that she always wanted to love someone named Ernest. Algernon tries to save himself by asking Cecily if she could love him if he had another name. To his surprise she tells him “I might respect you, Ernest, I might admire your character, but I fear that I should not be able to give you my undivided attention”, Algernon decides to be re-christened and consequently runs off to find Dr. Chasuble.