Interview by Dorothy Parker

Poetry

Write-Up #1: Interview by Dorothy Parker

In the poem, Interview, Dorothy Parker discusses the controversial topic of men. Parker depends on rhymes as the major style in her poem. Most of Parker’s poems are short but contain meaningful information. These poems invoke deep thoughts among the readers as they often contain an inner meaning. The themes in her poem, Interview are mainly male centered and thus has brought about significant conflicts with different critics. Parker, however, takes a different aspect in analyzing topics that leave the readers understanding the topic better.

In ‘Interview’, she was discussing on the ideal woman. When she says, “their candle gives a single light,” it is meant to show that women are simple but also that they appear to be that way to unsuspecting men. The choice of the title Interview made it seemed like the ideal women were trying to get secretarial jobs. The pretty girl who does not intimidate men however gets the job. When she says” They never sanction the impure, nor recognize an overture”. Women who see no evil nor speak about it make the best women or in Parker’s terms, the ideal woman.

The flow of the poem is rather fast and one may not be able to decipher the rhymes immediately. Within the poem, there are instances where Parker seems to have experienced the same situations before as she says, “So far, I’ve had no complaints.” When she writes this, it seems as if she played the role before writing about it. Another major theme in the “Interview” is that of relationships. Dorothy Parker outlines some redundant behavior among women that are found to be attractive to men. These are the kinds of ladies that “would shudder at a wicked word, not keep awake till three and would definitely not read erotic poetry”

According to Parker, these qualities seem to make them attractive. Using a sarcastic tone, Parker then goes on to openly detest and loathe these types of women. Conversely, Parker praises her own character, and proudly shows off her values. This preoccupation with her intelligence and uprightness as a woman, which was scoffed at in the early century, displays an issue that existed in the early 1990sand continued into the 20^th. Apart from being self-condemning, Parker’s poem is also entertaining. She addresses the absurdity within the human social activities, and the naivety of her own self. Parkers possess simplicity of diction, clarity, and presentation, which is constant throughout her poem. She also has a strong tone and very humorous observations.

Write-Up #2: Aimless love- Billy Collins

Billy Collins is famed for conversational poems that border on humor and profanity while at the same time, relating to everyday life. Bill Collins presents his poems in a manner that is intimate and poignant. In his poem, “Aimless Love”, Collins applies imagery and allusion, which is discretely described to show his gratefulness for the “Aimless Love.” This is, in reality, a love for the things that he stumbles upon. The present acts are collected by Collins and are compared to the scantily describe details of a romantic relationship. This relationship implies the future and the past occurrences as well as the present.

Through this method, Bill Collins pits the present findings, past events and the future of the relationship into the mentality of the narrator. The narrator is fascinated by the world around him as it appears to him to be more important and meaningful. Collins exposes the self-indulgence works of literature and the loving relationships within the narrator’s perspective.

Bill Collins is also innovative in creating a very sharp narrator in the poem “Aimless Love”. The narrator uses concise imagery for example in the lines “I walked along the lakeshore…I fell in love with a wren…and later in the day with a mouse…” The author displays the narrator’s adoration for various aspects of the things that he meets on his way. He uses clarity and concise language. He also uses repetitive contrasting imagery to reinforce the love he has for the things around him.

Later on in the poem, Collins contradicts the word of his narrator. While his narrator thinks that “aimless love is the best kind of love, Collins thinks that the wren, the seamstress and the mouse carry less weight than the conventional love. To create the right sound effect, Collins repeats some sounds and words, stressing them more than others do. For instance, in the word fell is repeated severally, especially in the first and second stanza where they occur at the same position. The sound I is yet another word stressed in most of the stanzas, the same as the word ‘without,’ which has been stressed in the same stanza severally. Additionally, he uses onomatopoeia, where he uses phrases such as slum on the door. He goes further to use alliteration in the poem, where the consonants ‘th’ are repeated all over the stanzas, almost in every line. This gives further stressing of the sound effects, showing the exact things he fell in love with.