I enjoyed reading the poem "Cherrylog Road" by James Dickey. While I was reading, I could visualize the scenes and what was taking place in the poem. When I'm reading a piece of writing, I enjoy being able to imagine the events to the point where I can see everything that is taking place. In "Cherrylog Road", I can get into the poem and really understand what is taking place. I thought this poem was easy to read, unlike some of the other James Dickey poems.Which also is a reason why I could visualize the scenes more than the other ones. Also he wrote the text so nicely, that the poem almost seemed realistic and familiar. Almost like we see this in are everyday life. Which the majority of us do not. We all know what he's talking about, for example, the different car parts he describes in the poem,he puts it into content like we experienced this before.
I enjoyed the ninth and tenth stanza, where Dickey was describing the image of the mice in the junkyard. The mice seemed to be doing a scavenger hunt, and bringing back the goodies for the others.
"Loosening the screws,
Carrying off headlights,
Sparkplugs, bumbers,
Cracked mirros and ger knobs,
getting ready, already
To go back with something to show".
In this part of the poem, it's almost describing the mice lifetyle. The mice stealing the car parts, kind of symbolizes the animal they really are. When we have mices in our houses today, they always try and get food, and take whatever they want and can, and it's similar to what their doing in the mans junkyard. Overall, I really liked reading this poem, by James Dickey. One other poem I enjoyed reading was "A Dog Sleeping on My Feet" by Dickey.
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I also liked the description in the poem. The words that Dickey chose seemed very influential to me and cause a strong visual. First of all the title attracted me, and "Cherrylog Road" immediately puts a picture into my head. Although by just reading the title there isn't any detailed description, but it makes me think of a small dirt road in a little town. Then when Dickey goes on into further detail, I am able to picture the things that he describes. I like how you said that he described the a mouse's lifestyle because it's definately true, they are gatherers basically.
I agree with you that "Cherrylog Road" is very easy to read and understand. He uses such description that I can in fact imagine myself being there. If I can visualize a poem in my head than I know that I will eventually be able to interpret the poem in detail. I think that the reason why I don't usually understand poetry is because the poets that I have read don't use the type of description that Dickey uses and therefore I enjoyed reading all of his poems because he used the same types of descriptions for each one.
I agree with your feelings about word choice and being able to feel the emotion that the poet is trying to convey. I think this makes poetry much easier to understand when you can picture it and even better if you can feel that same emotion being described. Poetry is not my strong point, and Dickey made it much easier to understand by creating titles that were accurate to the text.
Nicole,
Although I enjoyed the passage of the mice in which you pointed out, I felt that it was symbolic of a person’s lifestyle instead. For example, I feel that the mouse that is described in the poem is symbolic of the girl Doris Holbrook, whereas the snake is symbolic of the boy that is telling the story, who is waiting for her in the story. I also believe that since the boy is the snake which is black, and the girl is a mouse which is often thought to be white, the girl represents innocence and the boy represents evil. I feel that since the boy is the predator, this is symbolic of the fact that he is taking advantage of the innocent girl and that she is going “back with something to show” meaning that she will no longer be the same after their little rendezvous. Her innocence will be lost. Another example that shows this is the passage: “…her lips’ new trembling I would hold to me soon, soon.” I feel that you can most definitely clearly see the story as you stated and in the end both the boy and girl ride off satisfied in opposite directions.
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