Poemtry

Okay, so this blog post is about poetry.  Don't ask how I came up with the title, it just popped into my head.  So.  I couldn't think of any particular poems to write a post about, so I used a website Ms. Robbins said to use.  It went by the link of http://www.poetryfoundation.org.  When I got to it, it had a number of ways it could be used to search for a poem.  By title, author, category, etc.  I chose to look by category.  The category I chose was 'Cycle of Life', and within that category, I chose the sub-category of (take one guess) 'Death'.  As I was looking through, I noticed that within the sub-category, 'Death', there happened to be a poem we read in ELA class today called Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, by Dylan Thomas.  I just made a mental note about this to discuss it with the class when/if possible.  Also, I noticed a poem, again in the sub-category of 'Death', that my class happened to read in social studies some time ago, by the name of O Captain! My Captain!, and happened to be by a poet named Walt Whitman.

Anyway, neither of these were the poem I chose.  The poem I chose was a poem I selected randomly, but also because it was a poem that I felt I had some things to say about.  I'll tell you firsthand it's a Haiku, in American style (it doesn't follow the incredibly strict rules of the Japanese), and it's by someone named Bill Knott.  It's got a simple title: Death.  So original, right?  Anyway, here is how the poem goes.

Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest.   

They will place my hands like this.   

It will look as though I am flying into myself.

Observation(s)
So that's the poem.  At first it doesn't quite seem to be about death, but it doesn't take long (or at least it didn't take long for me, although it should be taken into consideration that I know Death in many, many forms) to realize that it is.  Anyway, what the poem is saying physically is that the speaker is "falling asleep", and crossing his hands, and that it will look as though he/she is "flying into themselves".

Inference(s)
What I'm inferring is that by "going to sleep", the speaker means "dying", and when he/she says "they will place my hands like this", I think it means that when he/she dies, his/her hands will be left or placed in that position.  The one line that took me some time to uncover was the last one, and I still don't have it fully uncovered, but I can make an inference on it.  I think it may mean that when the speaker is laid to rest, he/she will be in a position, whether mentally or physically (most likely the former), where he/she will look like they're free.  To say it in other words, just like the word 'gold' can be translated to mean 'treasure', 'flying' can translate to mean 'free', mentally and/or physically.

Interpretation(s)
So, from combining my observations and inferences together, I can interpret that the poem is obviously about death, and I don't know if you will interpret the same things I did from my observations and inferences, but I guess you could say my interpretations are not really all that terrible.  Anyway, I also interpreted that in the poem, the speaker is making the switch from life to death, and then making the switch from death to afterlife, as a, let's say, 'free spirit or soul'.  Also, I interpreted that the speaker, as he/she is leaving life behind, he/she is watching his/her own funeral/burial, and seeing how it is done.  But I don't know.  Those are just my interpretations from my inferences and my observations.  I think you should make your own interpretations from your own inferences and your own observations.

Extension(s)
I really said it all in my last few paragraphs, but, because apparently it is necessary, I will extend a bit further.  I almost feel like the haiku is just a single stanza in a full-length poem (or let's just say a type of poem that is a bit longer than a haiku) about what I interpreted, or in other words about the ending of the speaker's life, the beginning and end of their death, and then their entrance into the afterlife, whatever you may interpret that as.

So that's basically it.  I wanted to write about song lyrics, but apparently that's coming up, so I'll do a nice epic post for that which I daresay will be my best post to date.