Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning;
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

No, no, no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
- Stevie Smith
Looking at the structure of this poem, how some of the lines are longer then others reminded me of how someone looks when they are drowning, they are continuously bobbing up and down but as they get closer to death and as the air leaves their lungs they slowly stop bobbing. I dont know if Smith planned her poem to demonstrate this. I feel that this poem is about someone crying out for his friends and family to help him but they only see what they want to see and so he feels lost and sufficated like hes drowning in his own sorrow his own fear his own guilt all alone with no ones help.

note, passed to superman

sweet jesus, superman,
if i had seen you
dressed in your blue suit
i would have known you,
maybe that choirboy clark
can stand around
listening to stories
but not you, not with
metropolis to save
and every crook in town
filthy with kryptonite.
lord, man of steel,
i understand the cape,
the leggings, the whole
bqall of wax.
you can trust me,
there is no planet stranger
than the one im from.
- Lucille Clifton
The first time I read this poem I thought that Clifton was comparing superman to Jesus. I took the kryptonite to be people for Jesus and that in the end we were his downfall. people sins were the downfall. We are why he died on the cross. The 2nd time I read this poem I realized that Clifton was just talking about superman from the perspective of someone that he could have trusted but didnt know it at the time. There are many different ways that this poem can be taken and I think that was her purpose in writing this poem. She wrote it as if it were a bunch of thoughts one right after the other, all strung together.

What the nirror said

listen, you a wonder. you a city of a woman. you got a geography of your own. listen, somebody need directions to move around you. listen, woman, you not a noplace anonymous girl; mister with his hands on you he got his hands on some damn body! - Lucille Clifton This is another poem by Lucille Clifton. Two times in a row and there is a third in this packetas well. I feel like this poem is the male perspective of a woman. Men find women to be very confusing, so there are often jokes about needing a roadmap to figure women out and how they should act with us. Also some men use women only for pleasure, which I feel that this poem is saying at the end. The structure is very unusual. Its one big long stanza like a series of thoughts all clunged together. I feel that the way Clifton structured this poem, that she intended some words to get more emphasis then others like the word listen (repeated 3 times). I think she did this to show that sometimes what we see and believe isn't always what is happening till you look at it in a different way.

the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe such letting go is love such love is faith such faith is grace such grace is god i agreee with the leaves - Lucille Clifton We have done several poems by this author and I have enjoyed each one. I found it very intersting that not a single word in this poem was capitalized. Usually when words are capitalized it makes them stand out more, but by having no words capitalized the whole poem stands out more. Its a short poem and the four lines in the middle of the stanza all start with such. I liked that because it gave more description. I like the message that this poem has as well, sometimes in life we have to let go in order to find love. Just like when the leaves let go of the trees when Autumn comes around.