In the poem “The Garden of Love” by William Blake, the speaker talks of this garden that was once beautiful and full of flowers but is now full of tombstones and graves. As readers we feel this joy and happiness in the beginning but also sorrow at the same time. We read the speaker reminisce about the green  grass he used to play in with all these flowers. We see this beautiful image which soon turns dark as the speaker returns to the garden and sees that it’s not the same as it once was. A chapel is there with locked doors and the flowers have turned into tombstones. Darkness and death have taken over this beautiful land and its not longer a garden of love but a garden of death. After reading this poem I looked back to the title and thought how is this garden a garden of love? I see from this poem more sorrow than love.

The images however make it seem more beautiful than I thought it was. We see a priest and two children kneeling in front of what I assume to be a tombstone in this garden. It wasn’t until copy Y that I could actually tell that it was a garden. This is the image I like the best because the garden in the background is very beautiful and we get a better image of the people in it. Many of the images are very dark which suits the poem better but identifying and getting a good image of the people is very difficult. I think that the different images has a big impact on the interpretation of the poem. The dark images make the poem seem dark while the brighter ones represent the love.

Archives allow people to compare and contrast many poems that were written either about the same theme or written around the same period. They allow easy access to not just the poem but other writing and illustrations related to the original work that is being studied. For this assignment we are able to not only able to read the poems but see images related to it and other works of his. Archives are also constantly being updated which allows us to access new information. Anthologies and textbooks have a lot of information but sometimes it’s too much or not exactly what we are looking for. Archives have everything we want and need in one place.

The poem that I analyzed and added to the Victorian Queer Archive was “Through the Long Night” by Edward Carpenter. In the poem Carpenter writes about “love at first sight” and falling for this young man sitting near him. We see the automatic connection between the two that is almost envious. We all wish to experience this type of love and I found it very interesting and heart felt to read about love between two men. The description of the location and scenery also adds to the beauty of their love. Many people don’t read poems about queerness and I personally found the poem to be very beautiful.

The themes that are in the poem are queer, sexual desire, and love. We as readers can sense a bit of sexual desire in the line, “You, proud curve-lipped youth.” The theme of sexual desire is more of a passionate desire to be with each other rather than just wanting to be with each other for certain reasons. Also whenever a person mentions lips on a person I think of sexual desire. Most of the poem, however, has to do with seeing each other for the first time and feeling this love. We can see this in line 6-7, “Why in a moment between me and you in the full summer afternoon did Love sweep- leading after it in procession across the lawn.” They saw each other and automatically felt this love sweep across the lawn. This poem shows how passionate and powerful love is for all people.

I first read the poem out loud to myself and found that it has a very slow, mellow tone to it. Hearing Hughes perform it confirmed my way of reading it. While listening to it, I heard the speaker slow down and emphasize certain sounds and words such as “oon.” This changes the poem by making it seem almost like a melody. Reading it to myself allowed me to visualize the scene and what was going on in the poem. I liked the lines “He made that poor piano moan with melody” and, “He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool” because I  was able to picture and visualize the sound of the piano and the playing of the piano player. I didn’t get this from hearing the recording. The recording did however allow me to hear the pride in his voice when he says “Sweet Blues” as well as his emphasis on certain words. The end of the poem gets more serious when the speaker says, “I ain’t happy no mo’ and I wish I had died.” When Hughes performs this, I was able to hear the seriousness in his voice which made this last stanza stand out to me more. The rhyme scheme of the poem is irregular but I like that in this poem because it reminds me more of a song rather than a poem itself.  The rhyming words within the poem emphasize this song like poem as well. The story within the poem is also very interesting.

Maya Angelou is an amazing poet who inspires many people. When I was younger, I saw this video and it has stuck with me ever since that day. The message within the poem is powerful and the way she presents it to the audience makes it even more powerful. She emphasize specific words and phrases such as, “and still I rise” showing how important they are, not just to the poem its’ self, but to the person saying it. She gets so deep into her poem it almost doesn’t seem like a poem very much. The way she speaks it feels as if she is having a normal conversation with the watcher. She asks the questions in the poem using her facial expressions and she laughs during the line “Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines.” She does a great job of making the poem seem serious at times and fun at others. The end of the video is the best part of it because she is so happy about herself and others rising up above everything they have endured over the years. You can see the relief and accomplishment in both her face and in her voice that it makes the poem more powerful. What’s great about the poem is that it can relate to anyone at anytime in his/her life. She talks about so many negative emotions that people give to others based on appearance or a persons attitude and she shows the readers and watchers that it’s important to rise up above all the hate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0