Notes on Some of the Poems

Below are some notes to give you an example of how one annotates as they go alone reading poems. Since you are going to be making comparison points between one of these poets and one of the other texts we've read this term, I wanted to give you another model of "taking notes" on a text. Your insight as a writer and speaker comes from the more you look for an discuss as a reader. Allow note-taking to help you posit questions and find patterns in the work you are reading. 

Slow Lightning

• "To the Beastangel" (53) (Robert Hayden's "Bone-flower Elegy" reference)
• epigram: "unconscionable musics"=not right or reasonable (the inability to reason, or pin down)
• Couplets (like an elegy)
• juxtaposition 
• of obesity and beauty
• finch and mole (moles being icky)
• father and wreath 
• immaculateness versus hunger (ravenous--a bird pun)
• The crushing of the bird represents...
• power of the lover
• destruction of the innocent
• a deep sadness at such an evil act
• The "ash" reference...Christianity and Easter
• start of fasting (Lent)
• resurrection of JC
• "I ask..." points out the lovers frustration or...showing the speaker how demanding or needy he must be, is.

• "To the Angelbeast" (55)
• first line: that "music" is not always pretty, beautiful...happy
• the tension of reality versus fantasy
• the anticipation of the act versus the act itself

1. In both poems, the interchanging of two words indicates the two perspectives with which a person is looked at, and feels. Both the angel and the beast, the holy and the mortal, the fantastical and the plainness. Also, the tension between violence and peace, self-debaseness versus acceptance. These juxtapositions are seen throughout the collection, maximized in these paired poems. 
• "To rend me and redeem" are the last lines of Hayden's poem. The connection to Corral's work is in that final line of "The Bone-Flower Elegy"

• "To a Jornalero Cleaning Out My Neighbor's Garage" (61)
• lines are broken and indented with chiasmus (inversion of language, idea)
• "draft animals"=mules, horses...used in farming 
• The speaker is learned ("In graduate school") but seen as a stupid migrant (...a landlord asked, / Here to pick strawberries?") .
• A joke: "And I came from Hermosillo/ seeking gold and wealth" (sarcasm that plays off of the migrant stereotype, even with a very Spanish-sounding city...
• Juxtaposition of English rhythms and Corrido singers (ballad singers) with the slur...lots to say about this passage
• French horn=impressive, classical instrument; juxtaposes with "butcher"
• Lots of turning of phrase, never pinning down there person, showing the complexity of going back and forth between servitude and wealth.
• "the golden entrails of cattle" =golden v. guts; fantasy v. reality; cattle its own type of possible commentary...people as cattle, being in control...
• "Monologue of a Vulture's Shadow" (73)
• dominate v. submissive relationship
• the complicity of a relationship= "I long to return"
• Who is this female master? Nature, a mother?
• Perhaps the speaker's mother: "kept on the shelf of an armoire" like the picture of a child, her child. 
• "I ceased to blacken the earth" indicates feelings of sadness--that the speaker sees their position in society is to be a dark figure...
• America?
• "As my master ate, I ate" seems to indicate that in some way the speaker's personhood comes from how they are treated and dominated by the master. Also, the two are put together, a symbiotic relationship. ...

When My Brother Was an Aztec  

• "Of Course She Looked Back" (88)
• Biblical allusion to Lot's wife
• First Stanza
• "shivering city"=cold, problematic
• "like she owned it": something to do with control, tonally ____
• Second Stanza
• "could have": possibility, but also her necessity in turning back. What does her actual looking back mean, then, since she didn't have to?
• "had to": why?
• Third Stanza
• "like debris" and "broken shirts" and "busted red bells" all indicate a sad-looking place. Yet, anything else? 
• Fourth Stanza
• "noise" -- another sense, from 3rd stanza. 
• images of the noise are of sadness...helpless things: dogs, children, roosters
• Fifth stanza
• worries about what she's missing in those basic questions
• husband is a contrast, wants her to move on (she can't).
• Sixth stanza
• "like hot fruit in a persimmon orchard"=fruit of the gods, triumph, joy...how does that normal symbolism stand with the whole poem,  but also with this line? Is the "hot fruit" making a comment on the sins and the spoiledness?
• Seventh stanza
• What are all of the individual images leading you to. Why is it "Of course" that she looks back...
• If Lot's wife is often indicted in Genesis for looking back, does this poem support that indictment or justify his wife? 
• Look at the last stanza as you consider your answer. 
• Look again at the first line, which connects the reader to Lot's wife. Isn't that impactful! What can you write about that--explain the connection.

• "A Wild Life Zoo"(101) 
• wild life=separated words indicates?
• epigram: a poem, thematically indicting of life's pains...
• Prose poem form
• First stanza
• What does a lion represent? The poem centers around him (lion, not lioness) and his actions, so the allegory or meaning has to be about his actions and what causes them...
• What is shocking and ironic about "The man had earned this feast..."?
• Second stanza
• images indicate the simple power of the beast--its warning against man
• Third stanza
• "didn't want to do it--" means?
• "sleep"
• crowd's disbelief
• lion's mouth being "the six of a cathedral" gives the lion what type of character? How does the description indicate speaker sides with the lion, not the man torn apart? Explain!
• "like large pink wigwams at a war party" -- comparison of lion's mouth to a Native image means...! WRITE IT! The lion is a metaphor for white culture disturbing the "beast".
• the rest of the "zoo" metaphor is implied by the references to "pagoda" and "koi pond" -- the stealing of other peoples' cultures...
• Fourth stanza
• "like a mortal wound" infers that the wound isn't really mortal. The man really isn't  mortally impaired by his actions, no is he really wounded. But how could that be!?
• Fifth stanza
• "SWAT gear and khaki shorts" are seemingly juxtaposing images: one is of the law and one is of business, but both are together. What does that connote? White culture. Casualness put together with seriousness. A show. A play. A front. 
• "Saint Michael"=protector, leader of the army against evil! Another indictment of Christian perspective. 
• Sixth
• What were the Crusades? 
• Animals ready to get "revenge" or to "revolt"
• "I believed the lion..." means....
• This poem is a propos to Ferguson! 
• Of course a set of people looks like villains and their anger looks like hate when they are replying to subjugation. How else does one fight being dominated by another? 
• The poem's use of "the king of the animal world" is quite interesting--
• because of both its royalty connotations 
• and because of what gives the lion its royalty (the physical prowess)
• a point and two reasons come out here