Ode to Wine- Pablo Neruda
Summary: This poem is about a woman that Neruda thought is beautiful. In my opinion, this is really a comparison of the beauty of wine to the beauty of a woman,
Shifts: There is a shift in the poem when Neruda stops describing wine, and starts comparing the woman to the wine.
Title: The title is “Ode to Wine’, but I think its really an ode to a woman.
Theme: The theme is about beauty being abundant in everything.
Imagery: The whole poem is an extended metaphor, comparing a woman to a bottle of wine. “Wine stirs the spring” This is an example of personification because wine cannot stir. “& your navel is a chaste seal stamped on the vessel of your belly.” This is a metaphor comparing the woman’s belly button to the label on a bottle of wine.
Conflict: I don’t think there are any conflicts.
Connotation: I also didn’t find any connotations.
The movie that we watched in class, called “Il Postino” (The Postman) is about a poor man living in Italy, who gets a job delivering mail to a famous poet, Pablo Neruda, during his exile. The postman, Mario, is very excited to meet the poet, and though the Neruda and Mario are rigged with eachother in beginning, their relationship grows into a beautiful friendship. In the beginning of the movie, it was very slow, quiet, not much excitement. It was important however, because it set up Mario’s situation, letting the audience know what his life was like and what his father thought of him. Overall, I think the movie was pleasant, I think the general theme was that you can do whatever you want if you set your mind to it. I really enjoyed seeing the characters saying that they couldn’t do something, or thought something was evil, but ended up doing it anyway without even knowing it. The only thing I disliked was how Neruda totally forgot about Mario at the end of the movie, and didn’t come back until Mario died.
During the movie, one can observe a lot of details about social class during this time. One of the major conflicts in the movie was the man running for governor. During the movie, we see that people who could read and write had a major influence, and illiterate people in the city followed whatever literate people said, instead of thinking for themselves. Mario knew the candidate wouldn’t give any of the things that he was promising, but never voiced his opinion until he started talking to Neruda, who is literate and a big influence on people even today. I think the theme that describes this best is voice your own opinion and not the opinions of others. An example would be when Mario tells the candidate that if he becomes governor, “all of the work will halt”, and that everyone knew it. After he said that, everyone in the restaurant grunted in unison, agreeing to what Mario had said. No one had done it before, even though they all know it was the truth.
There are many forms of love in the movie also. The one that is most evident is the love between Mario and Beatrice. At first, Mario has nothing but pure lust for Beatrice, and interprets it as love. However, as time went on and they get to know eachother the two fall deeply in love. Mario depended completely on Neruda’s poetry to win Beatrice over, and it worked. So I think a theme suitable for this is that words are powerful enough to provoke love. Some evidence of this is that when Beatrice’s mother found out about the poem, she immediately chastised Beatrice, thinking that she had let Mario see her naked, because of his eloquence with words.
Poetry is heavily featured in the movie; and there are many things to say about what the movie says about poetry, but I think the largest message was that everyone doesn’t understand poetry. Mario, for instance, didn’t think he could be a poet because he was a simple man, whose father was a fisherman and his father’s father and so on. Neruda, however, showed Mario that anyone could be anything if they put their mind to it. One example is the metaphors that Mario makes throughout the movie, even though he insists that he can’t. Even Beatrice’s mother makes metaphors while she claims that poetry is evil and wrong. Everyone is a poet in some way, and everything that someone says can be interpreted as poetry. People don’t realize that the little things they say can affect and inspire people in different ways. That is what I think poetry is, and in the movie, it seems like the people in the town thought poetry was supposed to be pretty and it had to rhyme and it you had to understand it. I think a theme to describe this is that no one can totally understand the meaning behind a poem, unless you wrote it. Because everyone can get a different feeling or meaning from a poem. I think the scene from the movie that best fits this theme is when Mario asks Neruda to explain one of his poems, but he tells him that he can’t because then it would lose its meaning.
My Greatest Fear
My greatest fear is not of flying,
spiders or darkness,
or even dying.
Darkness is undaunting,
but I am not afraid,
not even of the Sun,
when I have no shade.
I laugh in the face of danger,
I roar at mighty beasts
and though I’m not afraid of these things,
there is one,
that terrifies me.
My greatest fear
is of the greatest evils,
that dwell on the Earth.
Its capable of unbelievable deeds,
whose scheming has no dearth.
Every day it wakes to kill,
just the thought leaves me with a deathly chill.
Not beast, nor disease
or even the government's mighty hand.
My greatest fear,
Is of the minds of man.
Pablo Neruda is a famous poet, and is well known for the odes he writes. It makes anything, seem beautiful. His works have inspired this original poem I wrote, titled “Ode to My Pen”
Ode to My Pen
Taken for granted,
this scepter of words,
giving unbelievable power to everyday nerds.
The scratching on paper,
As ink flows from the tip
Even though it may smudge and drip.
It aids in me writing eloquent essays,
auspicious speeches, aesthetic poetry,
and poignant stories, worthy of praise.
Leaving a reminder of words past
on my little digit.
Write a reminder on my forearm,
sketch art on my friend.
This is an ode,
To my ink pen.
This is another assignment we were given in class; choose a picture and write a poem about it. The catch, write it in ten minutes. The picture I choose was of a blindfolded girl, reaching out in front of her. The original poem I wrote was about being blinded by peer pressure, but still choosing to do the right thing.
Do the Right Thing
Her vision is clouded,
She cannot see,
Her friends tell her,
“I’m doing it, come do it with me.”
The loud noises,
Laughing, yelling, crying
It’s all so confusing.
Still she must reach through it all,
But is she really trying?
Do the right thing,
Isn’t as easy as it seems,
But you can’t wait for an angel
Or the tunnel light that gleams.
Don’t ask for help
Take of the blindfold,
And do the right thing.
In class we were given a partner to interview, to find out a life changing event that they have experienced. The assignment itself was a bit life changing, by opening up to someone you hardly knew or trusted. This is the original poem I wrote about my partner, who is (unfortunately) allergic to apples.
Just One Bite
It snickers as it slithers,
landing like a stone
in the pit of your gut.
Its so sweet, so juicy, so delicious-
but-
The danger,
that follows after just one bite,
fighting for survival with all of your might.
You want to scream,
but your tongue has grown,
you want to breathe,
but your throat is closed.
Just one bite,
of the forbidden fruit,
the fruit that is held in the witch’s hand.
Just one bite,
and the poison seeps.
Just one bite,
and the sleeping beauty sleeps.
This poem, entitled ‘Hunting Horns’ by Apollinaire, is about his love that he shares with a woman. I think that the woman he loves may be engaged to another man, (Thomas de Quincy) and one of the lovers poisoned him so that they could be together.
Hunting Horns
Our past is as noble and as tragic
As the mask of a tyrant
No tale of danger or of magic
Nothing so insignificant
Describes the pathos of our love
And Thomas de Quincy drinking his
Sweet and chaste and poisoned glass
Dreaming went to see his Ann
Let us since all passes pass
I shall look back only too often
Memories are hunting horns
Whose sound dies among the wind.
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