Blog 2/18/15

The first poem I looked at from the packet was Peter Markus's When It Rains It Rains A River. Immediately, the wording of the poem struck me as unusual. There is something motivational but poetic about the way it was written, as if it was a commander giving a speech before battle. "Other boys when it rains, they run inside to be with their mothers, but us brothers, when it rains, we run outside to be with ourselves. Outside, in the rain, the dirt beneath us turns to mud. Us brothers, we love mud." The story then transitions into something like a Native American creation myth. "We eat until our bellies are big with mud. We take what is left of the mud and we make girl." I believe I have read a few different creation stories involving sculpting humans out of mud.

 The Singing Fish continues where the previous poem left off, once again highlighting the mysterious "girl". The "us brothers" make an appearance as well, and at this point the significance of either is unknown to me. He has more of a Walt Whitman type approach on this one, comparing himself and his "brothers" to stick figure fish. "oh yes, these fish, they are us." I now have a hunch that Markus is writing from the perspective of a toddler. There is a childlike curiosity to his writing.