Elegies

I enjoyed what we did in class with Alexie. Hearing the poems read out loud help me to not only understand them better, but also it makes them come alive more and seem more real and personal. I'm starting to understand Alexie's symbolism more and see patterns in his writing. I like how he continues to get more and more personal. In Elegies the way that he sets up the poem is good because I think the first line "This is a poem for people who died in stupid ways" catches the reader's attentioin. At first some of the stupid deaths almost come across comicly. I think he does this to keep the readers attention then the deaths start to feel more tragic, and at the end of the poem he gets very personal about his sister and the ending really is devastating. We talked about the trajectory of the poem in class and we said it goes from background to more personal, and I also think it goes from more mediocre feelings to feelings of tragedy. I think the poem Fire as verb and noun is also set up very creatively. When reading the poem you feel fire almost as an emotion and then you also have an image of fire in mind so it appeals to the reader in more than one sense. I also enjoyed learning about the symbolism in tattoo tears.