Against the Gutter's Curb

Advice from the Experts
Bill Knott

I lay down in the empty street and parked
My feet against the gutter's curb while from
The building above a bunch of gawkers perched
Along its ledges urged me don't, don't jump.
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I had to read this poem twice, three times even, because the poem is so short and has so much meaning packed into four lines. The poem toys with the reader's sense of perspective, and it takes a little while for the abnormal perspective to sink in. When I first read this poem, I assumed that the speaker was jumping from the top of a building. When I read it another time, however, I realized that the speaker was merely laying on the ground and putting his/her feet against the curb. The "gawkers perched/Along its ledges" are only birds looking down from the tops of buildings, staring at the speaker lying on the ground.

I've Changed a Lot

Nights
Kevin Hart

There’s nothing that I really want:
The stars tonight are rich and cold
Above my house that vaguely broods
Upon a path soon lost in dark.

My dinner plate is chipped all round
(It tells me that I’ve changed a lot);
My glass is cracked all down one side
(It shows there is a path for me).

My hands—I rest my head on them.
My eyes—I rest my mind on them.
There’s nothing that I really need
Before I set out on that path.
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I like how the speaker in this poem talks about how the plate and glass represent his/her life in the second stanza. The dinner plate being chipped is directly related to his/her life in that the chips symbolize maybe the trouble-spots in his/her life or the parts of his/her life he/she most regrets. When the speaker says, "My glass is cracked all down one side / (It shows there is a path for me)," I feel as if the speaker is looking at the long and jagged path down the side of the glass and wondering if the path will be easy or difficult.

Out of Her Element

On a Cape May Warbler Who Flew Against My Window
Eamon Grennan

She's stopped in her southern tracks
Brought haply to this hard knock
When she shoots from the tall spruce
And snaps her neck on the glass.

From the fall grass I gather her
And give her to my silent children
Who give her a decent burial
Under the dogwood in the garden.

They lay their gifs in the grave:
Matches, a clothes-peg, a coin;
Fire paper for her, sprinkle her
With water, fold earth over her.

She is out of her element forever
Who was air's high-spirited daughter;
What guardian wings can I conjure
Over my own young, their migrations?

The children retreat indoors.
Shadows flicker in the tall spruce.
Small birds flicker like shadows —
Ghosts come nest in my branches.
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I loved the imagery in this poem. I liked how, in the first stanza, the poet wrote about the bird's untimely end. The bird seems to represent and symbolize the speaker's life; how the bird died so suddenly, and how the speaker's young life, a life without the restraints of children or responsibilities, died all too soon.