Week Three Readings.

I really enjoyed this period of transendentalists and Gothic writing some of my favorite. I really love Walt Whitman. I feel with his writing, especially in Song of Myself, is so powerful and timeless. It sounds like something I would hear from a poet of today's time period. in the section 24, its like a celebration of himself. I quote, " I dote on myself, there is a lot of me and all so luscious, Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy." I love these lines!!! I know in class we discussed a little bit about whether he might have been gay or bi-sexual, but I don't think when he was alive that there was even a term for that. So, maybe he was just a person who loved without limits. There was no limitation on gender or feelings, so his writing was free; without boundaries that defined him. I also love Emily Dickinson for the same reason why we all love her. She is the queen of illusiveness. WHO is she? Her use of dashes are, to me, one of her most distinct writing quirks that sets her apart. in her poem 448, she uses the dashes and it made me feel like the people in the tombs were gasping for air to chat before their mouths were covered up with the moss. I quote:

"And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night-
We talked between the Rooms-
Until the Moss had reached our lips-
And covered up- Our names-"

One poet from this time that I find intreguing, but not a favorite is Edgar Allan Poe. He is too gothic for my taste. I do appreciate his writing and do like it, but I wouldn't say he's in my top ten. I feel that his poems are dark and full of beautiful imagery. In The Tell-Tale Heart, his discriptive words makes the reader feel the intensity of the situation. I quote, " When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing the old man lie down, I resolved to open a little- a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So, I opened it- you can not imagine how stealthily, stealthily- until, at length, a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye." I just enjoy when he helps me, as the reader, picture this in my head by describing the scene with dark- mood inticing words and dark- mood inticing images.