sample poems and analysis

Then I Saw What The Calling Was-Analysis
by Lauren Phipps

“Then I Saw What The Calling Was” illustrates Rukseyser’s desire to be a poet as opposed to what others may have wanted her to be. Other people may have been pressuring her to be something that she was not; she wanted to become a poet. Her name is being called in the poem, but she realizes that it is not for her. Her true calling was with beautiful orchards, trees, and slopes, not the typical New York landscape. “All the voices of the wood called ‘Muriel’/ but it was soon solved; it was nothing, it was not for me”. In these lines, Rukeyser hears her supposed destiny, but it turns out to be someone else’s life. Also, this shows her desire to live somewhere other than New York City, such as in the country, without the large skyscrapers and with open fields. The poet is trying to be led into a world and life that is not hers, so she ignores “the call” and finds her own world and her own life that is what she wants. There have been times in most people’s life, in which people have tried to turn us into someone we are not, for all those people; this poem is close to home.

Then I Saw What The Calling Was

by Muriel Rukeyser

All the voices of the wood called “Muriel!”
but it was soon solved;  it was nothing, it was not for me.
The words were a little like Mortal and More and Endure
And a world like Real , a sound like Health or Hell.
Then I saw what the calling was  :  it was the road I traveled,
                           the clear
time and these colors of orchards, gold behind gold and the full
shadow begin each tree and behind each slope.  Not to me
the calling, but to anyone and at last I saw  :  where
the road lay through sunlight and many voices and the marvel
orchards, not for me, not for me, not for me.
I cam into my clear being;  uncalled, alive, and sure.
Nothing was speaking to me, but I offered and all was well.

And I arrived at the powerful green hill.

Seventh Avenue- Analysis
by Lauren Phipps

Muriel Rukeyser compares loneliness and imperfection to a dark street at 2 o’clock in “Seventh Avenue”. 2 o’clock is “the cripples’ hour”, when disabled people, older people, and fat people come and walk the street. They travel into the drugstore, the bar, and by the newspaper stand. This poem shows the loneliness felt by the author in an extended metaphor. The people walking on this dark street are the “outsiders”- people who may simply walk by you and not keep you company. Despite the fact that there are people walking the street, it is still dark. These people are not like the rest of the world, so they are supposed to be left in the dark. They do not belong with the rest of the world. They are not like everyone else, so they are not accepted and are lonely. Rukeyser may view herself as one of these people, the “crippled”. Also, Rukeyser is showing that the society we live in is not perfect, and not always as excited and happy as we should be. The cripples symbolize the imperfection of this world. A more colorful, or more perfect world is wanted. “Two o’clock on a black street instead/of wounds, mysteries, fables, kings/in a kingdom of cripples.” These lines show what she is really seeing, as opposed to what she would like to see in her life. While it may appear that Rukeyser is simply discussing a dark and lonely street, by looking closer, we can truly experience the emotions she was feeling at the time and what she desires out of this world.

Seventh Avenue

This is the cripple’s hour on Seventh Avenue
when they emerge, the two o’clock night-walkers,
the cane, the crutch, and the black suit.
Oblique early mirages send the eyes:
night dramatized in puddles, the animal glare
that makes indignity, makes the brute.
Not enough effort in the sky for morning.
No color, pantomime of blackness, landscape
where the third layer black is always phantom

Here comes the fat man, the attractive dog-chested
 legless—and the wounded infirm king
with nobody to use him as a saint. 

Now they parade in the dark, the cripples’ hour
to the drugstore, the bar, the newspaper-stand,
past kissing shadows on a window-shade to
colors of alcohol, reflectors, light.
Wishing for trial to prove their innocence
with one straight simple look: 

the look to set this avenue in its colors—
two o’clock on a black street instead of
wounds, mysteries, fables, kings
in a kingdom of cripples.