Personal Helicon

Helicon:

• Helicon (planet), fictional planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series
• Helicon is the name of the home planet of Hari Seldon, discoverer and developer of psychohistory. Helicon was small in population and not particularly rich in resources, and tended to be bullied by its more powerful neighbors. 
• Perhaps this is why he resorts to wells? Maybe he feels no one else accepts him or is like him, but the wells see him for who he is and he knows the wells for the beauty they hold. 

• Helicon (musical instrument), brass musical instrument
• This could go along with his voice echoing back with new music when he yells down into the wells.

• Helicon (river), a river from Greek mythology   
• There is also a river called Helikon [in Pieria]. After a course of seventy-five stades the stream hereupon disappears under the earth. After a gap of about twenty-two stades the water rises again, and under the name of Baphyras instead of Helikon flows into the sea as a navigable river. The people of Dion (Dium) say that at first this River flowed on land throughout its course. But, they go on to say, the women who killed Orpheus wished to wash off in it the blood-stains, and thereat the River sank underground, so as not to lend its waters to cleanse manslaughter.
• Maybe this could go along with the reference to Narcissus in the last stanza.

Well I really didn't like this poem at first, but after reading it a few times I liked it more. The first stanza is a quatrain that sort of epitomizes that passion or fascination we all have as children. Each child finds in their own sense a thing they believe will be the most interesting thing in their entire life, for the rest of their life. The author's was wells. "They could not keep me from wells" says the author in his very first line. Many times I think adults should still feel this way. If you have a passion or a drive then there should be nothing to stop you from getting it. When we are children we do things because we want to even when others say we shouldn't. I never knew why we lost this when we became adults. The second stanza, another quatrain, is just adding in detail his passion for the wells he came across. He distinctly recalls one well, just like each person who has grown from their childhood passions remembers distinctly some things that caught their attention. It shows what a fascinating thing the mind can be. He remembers the smell, the sounds, what he saw. Maybe it was ten, or twenty, or thirty years ago, but he remembers it all. It is still right there. The third stanza is another quatrain and it is another recollection of the wells he found as a kid. Perhaps adding more detail to show why he found them so interesting or why he could never be taken from them. The white face he sees is himself. Maybe the things we are fascinated with are things that we feels reflect us in some aspect. Perhaps people saw the author as an everyday commodity, but in reality he takes much more engineering to create and his character goes deeper than what people get to see. Maybe the author hides himself from others. There is that three foot bit that stands above ground for everyone to see, but there is another twenty feet that no one gets to see.  The fourth stanza is a quatrain and it talks about the new voice he hears when he is with the well. No person can echo his voice back with "music" in it like the well does. He loves the well because the well can let him hear a new voice inside himself. It renews his passion. It seems like he loses himself in the reflection of the well and the rat at the bottom snaps him back to reality. The last stanza is another quatrain that connects all stanzas. He talks of watching himself in previous stanzas and in the last he makes an allusion to Narcissus. He then talks about how adults would never do as he does, but what he does makes him see himself. He gets to be himself with the wells and that is also explained in previous stanzas. I ended up liking this poem a lot in the end. It is probably one of my favorites.

Song of the Powers

I really liked this poem because it is all about a self serving happiness. The rock is happy because it gets to "crush the scissors" and it thinks it is the all ruling power. The scissors think the same thing. They cut the paper and the paper thinks it's the best because it covers the rock. In the end they all end up losing in one way or another. None rule all because each one can be crushed by another. I just don't get the very end part because it says "They all end alone. As you will, you will." and I thought at first it meant that we will literally end up by ourselves, but then I thought it meant that no matter how much better you think you are than someone, there will always be someone better. We can't be good at everything, but we can do lots of things well. There will always be some sort of leveler in our lives. Something that tells us we are still human and we are above no one. I liked the set up of the poem. The rock comes first because we always think that a rock is the most powerful, then the paper comes next because it is the thing that beats the rock. Then comes the scissors that beat the paper, that beat the rock. It's like a climb down the ladder. The last stanza tells us what we should watch out for and how the whole winning thing works. None is better than another. You have the same chance of winning as you do losing with every potion you may choose. Overall, I liked the poem a lot. I think it's a great life lesson.

Untitled

This poem really interested me because of my gross natural curiosity. When I first read it, I thought of The Road when the boy and the man find the people in the cellar of the house. "Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it." made me think that when you have something you should do with it what you can. This man's heart is keeping him alive. It not only allows him to "love" but it also nourishes his body. When he claims it is "bitter" but he still enjoys it, it makes me think that even though our hearts may not be the purest or sweetest things in the world, they are still ours and there are still things we can enjoy and love about them. No one has a "heart of gold" because we all hate things we shouldn't and judge people before we know them and have biases, but in the end we know that it is still our own heart. The only thing I could think to compare it to would be a child who is misbehaving, and even though the parents are still upset, they love the child. They cannot help, but love the child. They know there is better within the child and hope the "better" will show itself one day, but it is still there child. They still love it and want to help it. They may have wanted a window seat, but they aren't complaining about the isle. The natural human can hate and be cruel and rude and dishonest and at the end of the day they still very much "like" their heart because it is theirs. It is all they have. It is their own and no one else has a heart like it. The author has one short line which engages the reader because it is like a cliff hanger. It makes them want to know more about "In the desert". The short line is followed by two or three longer lines adding detail to the short line. So the short line is the hook and the longer lines are like the door shutting behind you. There really is no way to back out of it at that point because you've been trapped by your interest in the next line. All in all, I really enjoyed this poem a lot. I thought it was extremely interestingly written and it has a very interesting theme.