I heard a fly buzz when I died

In this poem, Emily Dickinson acts almost as if she might have ADD because of how random her thoughts are.  In some peoples cases, they can be talking about one thing and get completely side tracked and start talking about something else in an instance.  Like in the move UP, the dog is just talking normally and then he yells "Squirl!" randomly and out of context because he got distracted.  In this poem, Emily is talking about a person lying on their death bed and about to die when a fly distracts this person from dying.  Such a generic and simplistic insect was able to draw this persons attention so much at to bring them out of death, or at least that's how I interpret it.  I figured that this type of ending could be taken two ways in that the person could be very happy about this happening or the person could be very sad about this happening.  If it were to be taken in the way that the person is happy, it would be because the person was stopped from dying and gets to live a little bit longer, but if it is taken in the way that the person or audience is mad or sad about the person dying it would be because the fly stopped this specific individual from completing all of their tasks they needed to before dying or that the person that was dying was prepared and ready to die, but thanks to the fly they didn't.  Both ways seemed reasonable to me, I feel that it is just up to the reader and the way they interpret the poem to choose how they want think and feel about the ending of this poem.  I think that most of the time the poems tend to be interpreted pretty close to the same way every time this happens except for like one little part that could be taken two completely different ways and it depends on the reader and their feelings toward the subject to choose how they want the story to end.

Life.

My favorite Whitman poem is Life.  This poem talks about going through life facing the different challenges it may throw at us and how we need to keep on pushing on.  This was what I thought it meant at first at least.  I thought that it was just a little piece of wording that was there to help encourage someone to keep on keeping on.  I liked that this poem was short because I get distracted from things easily and long things of text tend to overwhelm me and this poem did not.

As I read this poem a second time I realized that it could actually be taken a whole different way.  It could be about a soldier who gave his life or a soldier that  is returning home from a war.  Whitman uses different words in his poem to make me think both ways.  It makes me think that whatever has happened or might happen is alright because it is out of our control and is life and we have to live with it and learn to deal with it and move on.

Journal 29? maybe?

For this blog, I am being asked to figure out who I am.  At first I thought that this would be very difficult, but after thinking more, I realized that I actually already know who I am; I just haven’t written it down before. 

I am Casey Michael Young. I am the son of Debbie and Curt Trampe and the late Michael Young.  I enjoy spending my time with my family and friends.  If I’m not spending my time doing either of those two things, I am probably out meeting new people.  I love to meet new people because then I never get bored of the same people.  I work at Springfield Christian School watching little kids for their extended care program after school.  It is just like Passage at Pleasant Plains, but for SCS.  I love my job because I enjoy making little kids laugh and happy.  The one thing that I never enjoy doing, which is normal for any high school student, is doing my homework.  Although it is boring and it feels like there is no point in doing it at some times, I know that if I want to be successful in life and go to a good college to get a good education, I need to work hard in high school.  I find it ironic that I am talking about college and what it takes in order to go because tomorrow morning I am going on a college visit to Judson University up near Chicago.  Before I start rambling I am going to end this blog, but this is just a little bit of who I am.

Chanting the Square Deific

Chanting the Square Deific by Walt Whitman was an interesting piece of literature because Whitman claims there is a fourth being in the accepted Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Whitman believes that the fourth is called the Soul, or at least that is what I gathered from the poem.  Although the whole idea that there is four members of the once known Trinity did not make sense to me because I am so fixed on the three since that is what I grew up believing and always have, I did understand that Whitman thought highly of himself.  So highly that in this poem he related himself to God.  The first time I read the poem it made no sense to me actually because I was unable to make the connection that Whitman was referring to himself as God.  Another thing that I noticed about this poem is Whitman has four stanza's in the poem and there are four different figures that he is talking about.  Each stanza talks about a different one of these figures and each stanza goes into detail about it.

To me, if someone were to relate themselves to God, I would say blasphemy because no one is good enough to be related to God. This is exactly what Walt Whitman did though in this poem. Whitman said, "Relentless I forgive no man, whoever sins dies, I will have that man’s life; Therefore let none expect mercy, have the season, gravitation, the appointed days, mercy? No more have I" which shows that when he says I, he is inferring that this is something God would say, but that he is saying it because he is God which is false.(Whitman) According to Christianity, God was the one who created the universe and everything in it and God is the one who knows everything about everyone and God is the one that can strike you dead for saying your as good as Him.  The only person that I would say is worthy of being like God is Jesus and Jesus didn't even say he was like his Father.  Jesus is the only human to never cuss and the only human to never sin.  Every single person on this earth has sinned before because we were born into a sinful world and it is unavoidable.  If you claim to have never sinned you are wrong and until I find someone that has never sinned, no one is worthy of claiming to be as close to God as Walt Whitman did in his poem "Chanting the Square Deific".

Whitman, Walt. "Chanting The Square Deific." The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 03 Apr. 2012

Since my internet was not working when I wrote this blog and I finally got it to work now, I decided that before I post this blog online I would look up a literary criticism since I was able to now.  I didn't have it factored in in my blog, but after reading this criticism the poem does make a lot more sense.

Oliver, Charles M. "'Chanting the Square Deific'." Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Partner Blog

In Emily Dickinson's poem "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me" from her Nature series she talks about nature (obviously) and how she sees nature in her eyes. In the second stanza Dickinson says

"The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play." (Dickinson 5-6)

What Dickinson is trying to say is that things are always better and louder and more exciting when you are up close and not far away. The brooks in this poem are louder and bigger up close instead of looking at them without hearing a peep from a good distance away. The same can be applied to many different things in life like take a baseball game for instance. It is better to sit closer to the action than it is to sit in the upper deck at the cardinal game next to a bunch of drunk guys. When your are at an amusement park the rides seem smaller and less intimidating when far away, but when you are at the front of the line looking up at the ride or on top of the ride before the big drop, you are freaking out and about ready to poop your pants because things are scarier up close. Everyone in life experiences this type of effect in their life it is just different for everyone. Roller-coaster's are the thing that are big for me while I could stand up in front of an auditorium filled with people like it was nothing, but for some people it is the other way around.

Emily Dickinson likes to write about things that are going to apply to many readers, making her writing very universal in comparison to other writers such as Thoreau or Hawthorne who seem to have a particular audience that they are writing for. This idea of universal writing is what started her into wanting to write about nature. Nature is something generally everyone can connect with because we are all apart of nature, whether it is just something as simple as a tree or storm in the city to a wild forest or desert in the urban areas. A literary critic says, "Dickinson's love of nature painted a tremendously complex picture as she tried to find in the natural world a firm understanding of the relationship between people and God and the solutions to questions of shape and continuity of the universe that she could find nowhere in her background. "(McShesney) about Emily's poetry. Sandra is saying that Emily used nature and the actions of people to try and make sense of the world we live in and how God plays a part of it. This is a part of the religious aspect of Emily Dickinson's writing that was very evident in many of her poems. Having that Christian faith background is one of the only things that may disconnect her from some readers, although there still are many Non-Christian people who love many of Dickinson's poems. This mixture of nature, human nature, and religion makes Emily Dickinson's poetry so popular and so interesting for those who get the pleasure of reading it. 


McChesney, Sandra. "A View from the Window: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson." In Harold Bloom, ed. Emily Dickinson, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=BCED03&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 29, 2012).


Dickinson, Emily. "58. "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me." Part Two: Nature. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems." 58. "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me." Part Two: Nature. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems. Bartleby. Web. 27 Mar. 2012. .