1Paragraph response help?
Thanks for those who help!
The Hereafter
Some people as they die grow fierce, afraid.
They see a bright light, offer frantic prayers,
and try to climb them, like Jacob's ladder, up
to heaven. Others, never wavering,
inhabit heaven years before they die,
so certain of their grace they can describe,
down to the gingerbread around the eaves,
the cottage God has saved for them. For hours
they'll talk of how the willow will not weep,
the flowering Judas not betray. They'll talk
of how they'll finally learn to play the flute
and speak good French.
Still others know they'll rot
and their flesh turn to earth, which will become
live oaks, spreading their leaves in August light.
The green cathedral glow that shines through them
will light grandchildren playing hide-and-seek
inside the grove. My next-door neighbor says
he's glad the buzzards will at last give wings
to those of us who've envied swifts as they
swoop, twist, and race through tight mosquito runs.
And some—my brother's one—anticipate
the grave as if it were a chair pulled up
before a fire on winter nights. His ghost,
he thinks, will slouch into the velvet cushion,
a bourbon and branch water in its hand.
I've even met a man who says the soul
will come back in another skin—the way
a renter moves from house to house. Myself,
I'd like to come back as my father's hound.
Or something fast: a deer, a rust-red fox.
For so long I have thought of us as nails
God drives into the oak floor of this world,
it's hard to comprehend the hammer turned
to claw me out. I'm joking, mostly. I love
the possibilities—not one or two
but all of them. So if I had to choose,
pick only one and let the others go,
my death would be less strange, less rich, less like
a dizzying swig of fine rotgut. I roll
the busthead, slow, across my tongue and taste
the copper coils, the mockingbird that died
from fumes and plunged, wings spread, into the mash.
And underneath it all, just barely there,
I find the scorched-nut hint of corn that grew
in fields I walked, flourished beneath a sun
that warmed my skin, swaying in a changing wind
that tousled, stung, caressed, and toppled me.
Andrew Hudgins
Comments
In these three verse paragraphs in a loose iambic pentameter, Andrew Hudgins meditates on different ideas of an afterlife, other people's and his own.
The first paragraph lists some common notions of 'Heaven', the eagerly anticipated heaven of evangelical Christians who are impatient to die (offer frantic prayers,/and try to climb them), and the calmer heaven of more mainstream faiths who settle into the idea of imminent salvation as they age (so certain of their grace they can describe/...../the cottage God has saved for them). Hudgins also acknowledges a Deist heaven, people who imagine themselves going back to nature as their bodies rot, and becoming in some mystical sense oak trees or buzzards.
In the second paragraph Hudgins explores two non-theistic heavens. His brother will look forward to death as an end to labour, and one of Hudgin's friends believes in reincarnation. Hudgins says (for no obvious reason) that he would like to come back as his father's hunting dog. (Hudgins seems to have forgotten that when he is dead, his father will also be dead).
In the third paragraph Hudgins asserts his belief in a theistic God (I have thought of us as nails/God drives into the oak floor of this world,) but nonetheless decides he can choose between these different ideas of an afterlife (most of which are very far from standard Christian notions).
Hudgins decides he wants death to be ordinary (my death would be less strange), and - since he happens to be drinking bourbon when he has this thought (Busthead is a type of whiskey, notice how skillfully Hudgins has managed a product placement in this poem), he remembers that life itself is a constant communication with death, since whiskey itself is made of grain which has 'died' (as corn mash, and in this case a bird also seems to have drowned in the still).
The poem is warmly reassuring. It tells us that we don't need to worry about death, since death is just a regular kind of a thing. It also tells us that we shouldn't fret about whether there is an afterlife or not, since God must be kindly, and will allow us to choose the sort of death we want - like shoppers pick their favourite breakfast cereals in a Wal-Mart.
The poem is advertising: it lulls your critical faculties in order to sell you a reassuring lie (the Busthead product placement was no accident). It is nice, something no real poem ever is.
Try the link for a real poem dealing with the same subject matter. But don't show it to your poetry mistress, she wouldn't like it.
Hello Mo, Your instructor has saddled you with a rough one. This piece is lengthy and stuffed with area of interest language such because the fishing technicalities and extended family references. Basically, this is a tale approximately an upside-down Father-Son courting wherein the son is shrewd and the daddy bumbling. There is a lot more right here, just like the racially encouraged cliche references to Scots (humans from Scotland, no longer Scotch, that's a drink) and the Presbyter. You can determine this out. Read it (nonetheless painful) 2 or 3 extra instances and it is going to click on. RB
One bit of advice never call a verses "paragraph" a paragraph. Always refer to it as a stanza or a verse. You can lose marks in tests for doing that. Just a bit of advice there. Jacobs ladder is literally a ladder to heaven so you should refer to that and explain a general knowledge about it. I'm not actually sure i'm not really a poetry expert but hey I gave you those tips.
Basically this poem is dicussing the different perspectives that human beings may or may not share concerning death. Some strongly believe in an eternal life after death, while others believe they are already living their heaven. These same groups of people may or may not be looking forward to death. Some may fear it while others welcome it. Its the authors way of reaching out to his audience and trying to get them to react to these questions. What is our purpose? Who is God and does he have a plan for us? All abstruseties that we will never truly know the answers to.