The meaning of Sunglight by Paulina Ergas

S parkling

U V rays

N ectar

L ambent

I lluminating

G olden

H ot

T orrid

Growing up, everyone is always exposed to acrostic poems. I have used them to make cards, or even speeches. Though, I have never considered an acrostic poem, to actually be a creative poem. I decided to challenge my childhood work and put thought into writing an acrostic poem. I wrote about the sunlight, and essentially took everyones first thoughts on the sun and turned them into imagery words. I used two senses,: seeing and feeling. I did find it difficult to write this poem, because it is hard to find words that describe the subject for every letter.

The Man in the Moon by Paulina Ergas

There once was a man in the moon,

Who could barely even sing a tune.

Though out from his throat,

He belted a note,

And the stars didn’t return until June.

Most of the poems that I had written previous to this one were very lovely, but more serious. I wanted something humorous and light and remembered learning how to write limericks from previous school years. A limerick is a poem where the first, second, and last lines rhyme, and the third and fourth rhyme. There is the metrical foot consisting of two unaccented or short syllables followed by one stressed or long syllable: da-da-dum; the first two lines are three anapests, the second two are two anapests, and the last line is three. Limericks are usually funny as well. I wrote about the man in the moon trying to sing, but scaring all the stars away because he was so bad. I always found poems about people attempting to sing and are bad, funny, because I don't exactly have the nicest voice in the world. This poem may be relate able to a lot of people!

In the Peace of the Night by Paulina Ergas

Lucid white moonlight

Stirs whispers across world

Coyotes howl

Here is a haiku that I wrote. A haiku has 5-7-5 syllables in each line. I wrote about the calm and quite of the night. When the night comes to mind, the first think I always think about is the silent night, where the wolves howl in the moon. However, I tried to spin if off, and make it more relate able to where we are now (Vancouver) and replaced wolves with coyotes. I used alliteration in the second line, with the letter 'S' in the first three words. Using this abled the readers to appeal to the hearing sense, and imagine the whispers spreading through the night. I really enjoyed writing this haiku.

As the Day Turns In by Paulina Ergas

Tinged with speckled pink

Golden orb sinks beneath ground

As the day turns in

Stars plaster the charcoal sky

Shadows dance in the moonlight

So I decided that a nice way to start and end my calendar would be to have poems that contrast the two subjects of my theme, day and night. This poem is called a Tanka, and it is the first one of this type that I have written. The syllables in each line are 5-7-5-7-7. I started the poem out by describing the sun setting, with a pink sky, and then converted it into a dark grey sky with shadows and stars. I wanted the poem to flow nicely so I didn't change the mood of day and night, they are both calm, just the scene and images alter. I really enjoyed writing the Tanka, just like i enjoy writing Haikus. They are two of my favorite poems.

THEME

DAY AND NIGHT

Night and Day by Lisa Piper

Diamonds cover

The velvet sky
Twinkling just enough
To show off their elegance
Gracefully dancing
Around the most
Beautiful pearl
So bright
She lights the heavens
And all the earth
She stands above
Dark segments of cotton
Intermittently obscure
Her sparkling luster
As the wind silently
Pushes them
Across the midnight sky
Soon the pearl begins
Gently falling
Toward the horizon
As a golden ring
Appears on the opposite
End of the world

The poem, Day and Night by Lisa Piper is a free verse poem as it has no proper rhyme scheme. It is about the exchange of the moon and stars to the sun, or the changing from night to day. I really enjoyed some of the images created in my head from this poem. For instance, the 'Diamonds covering the velvet sky", "the beautiful pearl", or the "golden ring". "Diamonds cover the velvet sky twinkling just enough to show off their elegance gracefully dancing," was the perfect use of a personification to create beautiful imagery. The whole poem seems like a personification with the line, "Soon the pearl begins gently falling," as well.

The Sun Rising, John Donne

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

The Sun Rising, a poem by John Donne, is an aubade poem which is a a song or poem about lovers separating at dawn. The speaker and his lover are in bed together when the sunlight comes through the windows. The speaker tells the sun to leave them alone. The Speaker says that their love together is complete, and that the sun is interrupting and being annoying. He then tells the sun that his lover is worth more than anything the sun can ever find outside their bedroom. In the end, he says the sun is old and so it should rest because its duty is to warm the world and since they are the world has been completed. The speaker continues and then cleverly adds how it has centered itself upon the room of his love and so they are the sun, the center of the universe. Some poetic devices used are apostrophes. The sun is being characterized as a “busy old fool” and “saucy pedantic wretch”. Now, since an aubade is about lovers separating at dawn, i think that the sign is a symbol of an intruder, and is what is separating them at dawn.

Sunshine

Suns luminous rays

Setting the world a blaze

Sparking rolling waves

This poem I wrote is a haiku which has 5 lines, 5-7-5 syllables. I was trying to depict the the sun shining on the world, making the sea sparkle and the world an orange-yellow color, to represent the sunlight. I used the letter S at the beginning of every line to create a sort of alliteration where you can hear the sun sizzling. As well, the words at the end of each line rhyme so the poem runs smoothly.

Sparkle Sparkle Giant Sphere

Sparkle, sparkle giant sphere,

Oh I ponder when you're near.

High above the world you greet,

Like a fire shedding heat.

Sparkle, sparkle giant sphere,

Oh I ponder when you're near.

So I decided to write a parody based on the children's song, 'Twinkle, Twinkle little star'. I wrote about the sun, and how it is so high in the sky, and how everyone wonders when it will come near, so that it will heat the world (summer). Summer i thought was something very relevant to these days as it is near, and everyone always gets excited about it! I used the same repetition of the words and lines, and stuck to the same rhyme scheme as the original children's song.

To the Moon by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Art thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,

Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth, -

And ever changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy?

In the poem, To the Moon, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, it is being explained how the moon cannot compare to anything and is therefore being put on a pedestal. “Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless”, since it is on a pedestal, or ‘climbing heaven’, it is left with no one around it and is therefore without any companions. The point of comparing it to a star, and saying they are of ‘different birth’ is acknowledging that speaker is aware that the moon is indeed not a star. As well, gazing on the earth could possibly be mean looking down on the stars. What makes the moon grow weary in this poem is the fact that he has found nothing better than the stars.

Poetic devices are used, for instance “Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth” is a personification because it is referring to the moons activity. Secondly, the line “And ever changing, like a joyless eye” is a simile as it is comparing the moon to a ‘joyless eye’.

In my opinion, the message of this poem is that in the moon’s desire to be happy, he has lead himself to a path of unhappiness.

Silver by Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in silver feathered sleep

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

British poet Walter de la Mare captures a night scene in his sonnet poem. The first couplet sets the scene by letting the reader know that the time is nightime. The moon’s effect is dramatized with a personification claiming that the “moon / Walks the night.” Instead of shining, the moon is walking in silver slippers—the glow of those silver 'shoons' adds the silver color to everything it touches. As well, the poet uses various poetic devices, for example, he dramatizes the sleeping dog, by using a simile which reads, “[c]ouched in his kennel, like a log.” The things I enjoyed most was the repetition of the word silver, because the sound associated with the letter ‘s’ is one that is smooth. This poem to me feels as if everything is turning into silver softly and suttley, like a paint brushe moving over a canvas slowly and smoothly.

Stars by Robert Frost

How countlessly they congregate

O'er our tumultuous snow,

Which flows in shapes as tall as trees

When wintry winds do blow!--

As if with keenness for our fate,

Our faltering few steps on

To white rest, and a place of rest

Invisible at dawn,--

And yet with neither love nor hate,

Those stars like some snow-white

Minerva's snow-white marble eyes

Without the gift of sight

The poem Stars, by Robert Frost, is an allegory because it uses the stars as a metaphor to the human life. In line 1 the poem begins with, “How countlessly they congregate”. This shows that just like the stars, there are so many lives in the world; it is impossible to count them. Then, in line 2 it reads, “O'er our tumultuous snow”, perfectly depicting how hectic and tumultuous humans can be or behave. Following, Frost uses a simile, “Which flows in shapes as tall as trees,” which could also be referred to as alliteration due to the ‘t’ in tall and trees.

Continuing on to the second stanza, Frost writes, “Our faltering few steps on To white rest, and a place of rest Invisible at dawn,--” I think that these few lines refer to our final destination, death. And then, to end the poem, Frost continues in the very last line, “Without the gift of sight” which means that there is often failure to see how precious our lives really are; like the saying, “you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone.” This would clearly be the initial message or theme of the poem.

I enjoyed the last line of the poem, as I think that this was a very strong way to end it, and I could really picture the ‘snow-white marble eyes’ in my head as I read the line.

To the Evening Star by William Blake

Thou fair hair'd angel of the evening,

Now, while the sun rests on the mountains light,

Thy bright torch of love; Thy radiant crown

Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!

Smile on our loves; and when thou drawest the

Blue curtains, scatter thy silver dew

On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes

In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on

The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes

And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full, soon,

Dost thou withdraw; Then, the wolf rages wide,

And the lion glares thro' the dun forest.

The fleece of our flocks are covered with

Thy sacred dew; Protect them with thine influence.

The poem, To The Evening Star, by William Blake, is fourteen lines indicating it should be a sonnet, however it does not follow the traditional rhyme pattern and there is no stanza division and is therefore a free verse poem.

In my opinion, this is a romantic poem. It speaks of the evening star, or the “fair hair’d angle of the evening,” which refers to Venus, who is the goddess of love. As the poem progresses, the language seems happy and flowing, however, it is interrupted by the bad things roaming; “ then the wolf rages wide, and the lion glares thro’ the dun forest.” Regardless of the bad things that happen, I think the poem is expressing that as long as the evening star is around, which represents the mans true love, there is some peace and comfort.

My favorite line is, “speak silence with thy glimmering eyes, And wash the dusk with silver.” ‘Speak silence,’ is an example of both alliteration and an oxymoron. As well, I think that the ‘ wash the dusk with silver,’ appeals very much to your sight, and allows you to create a clear image in your head.