Edward

Surprise, surprise, this poem also has a villanelle pattern.  The lines can be expressed as A, B, A (repeated), C, D, E, D (repeated), F.  I feel that this is a very awkward repetition pattern.  In the poem, Edward starts out lying to his mom when she asks him questions.  Then, he says that he killed his father.  The mother asks what punishment or "penance" he will give himself, and he said get on a boat and go far away.  When he does this, he will leave his wife, kids, and mother behind with nothing.  I think this is rude and selfish as he said they will have to beg for want they want.  At the end of the poem, Edward curses his mother because of the advice she gave him.  First of all, when did she give him any advice?  All I thought she was doing was asking questions.  I think Edward is a king because the mother says, "And what will ye do with your towers and your hall."  The towers and hall belong to him.

Lonely Hearts

Again, this poem also expresses the villanelle pattern.  It is broken up into tercets and ends with a quatrain.  The villanelle structure was a good fit because ads are short excerpts just like the tercets in the poem.  I liked this poem mainly because I could understand it but also because of the structure.  Each of the tercets represent an ad in the Personals section of the newspaper where some people look for companionship.  The first tercet describes a male who's searching for a female who likes to travel.  Second, the next tercet references someone who wants anther person who enjoys "music, Shakespeare, and the sun."  Third, the following tercet involves a person who wants an artsy and young bisexual woman.  Fourth, the next tercet describes a Jewish lady with a son who's looking for a "successful, straight, and solvent" person.  Lastly, the fifth tercet describes a librarian who needs a "slim non-smoker" who's under 21.  All of these ads want something different.

Death, be not proud

The pattern of this poem is closely related to the English and Italian sonnet models.  Each quatrain is a sentence, and the poem is divided into three stanzas with a two-line concluding sentence.  If I were to guess which one it is closer to, then I would guess the English model because that model makes the big point at the end.  I believe the speaker of this poem is a man of assured faith with firm conviction that death is not to be feared.  He seems to be pretty confident in his reasoning and not trying to convince himself that death is nothing to be afraid of.  The second to last line states "one short sleep passed, we wake eternally."  Is this a reference to heaven?  We sleep for a short time then end up in heaven.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

This structure is called a villanelle with a complex repetition and rhyming pattern.  Every stanza except the last one has three lines.  The poem ends with a stanza of four lines.

This poem was weird, and I had no idea what it was talking about.  I will give it my best shot anyway.  The "good night" referred to in the poem represents death.  "Wise men" in the poem symbolize that not even the smartest people can know when they will die.  Only God knows when each person will die.  "Good men" and "wild men" also have an important meaning but I do not know what that is just yet.  "Grave men" are the people who either have died or are getting ready to die.

Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead

This poem has a unique structure as it has a random break in the middle of the poem.  This break could be just a misprint, but it also could mean a major shift in the poem.  The second part is more like an elegy because it talks about the father in a way such that he is getting ready to die.  He states that his father is ready for death because he sees it as a new journey and an opportunity to "see fresh worlds."  He expects to see his son again and welcome him like one would think would happen in heaven.  On the other hand, the speaker is definitely not ready for death unlike his father.  He explains that he could not drop everything and say goodbye to everyone.  Since the father is not dead, I think the son is writing this to elegize his father who is fighting in a war.  He talks about how "one day I'll lift the telephone and be told my father's dead."  The father sees immortality as something that exists because we just continue living traveling through different worlds.  The son sees immortality as irrational because once we die here on earth, life stops.