After going over most of the poems in class, really helped me understand the poems more. I went back and read some of the ones I was having trouble with and broke them down, like we did in class, and that helped me get a better understanding of the poems.
It was interesting going over the poem, "Cherrylog Road" because i thought I understood what the poem was about, but I missed a lot of what Dickey was trying to portray. I did not catch on that the old cars represented the past. The big one was I did not catch on that the narrator was waiting for his girlfriend. After I learned that, it made so much more sense to me. This poem was my favorite when I thought I knew exactly what was taking place in the poem, but after I learned the true meaning of the poem, it still is my favorite poem. I really enjoy this poem.
Another one I did not understand before our class discussion was "The Underground Stream". I was totally last when i was reading this poem, but when we went over it in class, I really understood what was going on. After our discussion, I enjoyed reading it for a second time, because I knew what was happening, and I was not completely lost.
So our class discussions on Diskey's poems really helped me get through these. I am terrible at poetry.
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I kind of have the same feelings that you do. The poems that I liked, I thought that I understood, but going over them in class I realized that I had missed a lot. "Cherrylog Road" was one of my favorite poems out of Dickey's. The first time around I at first thought that he was waiting for a girl and then when he started to talk about all of the cars I was a little confuse. Talking about it in class made me realize that the cars represented the past as well, and how he was just putting stories to go along with these cars.
I have a difficult time understanding poetry as well, and I think that class discussions are the main thing that get me to fully understand the poems. Once I understand the main purpose of the poem, then I understand the rest of it,but if I don't understand the poem by the first stanza then I most likely will not understand the whole thing. Therefore I agree with you that class discussion is essential in understanding the poems we read in class.
I also had a beeter understanding of the poem after we went over them in class. With poetry it is hard to know what is going on a lot of the time. The only poem I had any real luck in understanding before discussion was Cherrylog Road, I had to read twice to get some parts and even still missed some stuff but I did better with this one then any of the others. When I read this poem I thought that the cars maybe had something to do with him acting like a little boy playing and imagining, so I guess I wasn't too far off childhood is in your past so there's kinda a connection.
Nicole,
A lot of the deeper meanings of Dickey’s poems were lost on me the first time I read through them. But the class discussions really helped me to understand them better, also. The Sheepchild, in particular, was one I kind of missed what Dickey was saying. I understood that someone had supposedly had sexual relations with a sheep, but I didn’t understand that the teenage boys were using the story to help them hold back their sexual desires. I still think the poem is disturbing, but at least I understand it a little bit more!
I agree, first reading it I didn't get all the symbolism that is actually there until I read it the second time with the class. I also didn't get the symbolism is the car and the south until we talked about it in class. I feel like all these poems together, seem to create some of the different things when i think about the south, like relaxation and the past.
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