This poem by Billy Collins “Building with Its Face Blown Off” made me think about many things. It also made me experience a lot of pain. This poem can relate to a lot of situations such as War, Fights, disasters that can happen to anyone, and much more. In this poem I will talk about how much pain people were experiencing. First seven stanzas made me think of war something like WWII because boomed out city, house were revealed, people had to lose everything. A lot of emotions writer were experiencing during this poem. Rest of the poem made me think about 9/11 because people who saw everything that day were like characters on stage it was so hard for everyone to believe that something like terrorist attach can happen to New York City. This poem in my opinion is very powerful because it stops you and lets you experience the pain, tone, language, emotions, and even lets see the picture. In my mins after reading this poem for about twenty times I have this black and white image with destroyed houses and people walking in chains. Everything around them is dead. People are suffering, but to survive they have to play a role they have to do what soldiers are telling them to in order to stay alive. People who are in chains lost everything the only hope they have is the sky G_D that represents bridge in this poem also known as hope and strength, and if people will be able to get through the bridge they will eat “bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.” Everything I read this poem it added more and more into my picture because the beauty of poetry no matter how many times you read the same sentence it will still give you bigger imagination, bigger picture, and better understanding. I selected this poem because I thought that in my opinion when you fist read this poem it divides into two parts such as WWII and 9/11, but if you draw a picture imagine being there with those people I believe many will agree that they will have the same picture and I did.
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Introduction to Poetry:
Envisioning Poetry
ENG 2003, section 1248
Prof Jody R. Rosen
Spring 2012
W 6:00-8:30
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It was more than interesting to read his/her response to the poem âBuilding with Its Face Blown Offâ. He/She first analyses the poem and then overlays it to his/her personal experiences. He/she found the fragments of World War II from the description that poem gives at the first seven stanzas. Then, the devastated scene in the poem leads him/her to his/her memory of 9/11. The terrifying snapshots of 9/11 in his/her mind overwrapped with the scene in the poem and make him/her to think about the value of peace. This is great response to a poem and it really helpful to understand it.
The first thing I noticed in this review is how drsvetic gives us her (his) point of view and interpretation of the poem, while describing both the scenes and the images that the poem conveys. I like how drsvetic made his (her) point across using examples from the poem and explaining what they mean. I agree in the fact that to understand this poem you will have to read it a few times, and every time is like a new experience because it gives you a new idea or paralleled interpretation. Another interesting point in this review was the idea that this poem looks like a description to the 911 attacks in NYC and World War II, this shows how a poem can convey an idea to a person depending on where that person lives; example: a person from Haiti could see this as a description to past earthquakes.
What a great observation to bring to the reading, that we see in the poem what our experience tells us. We need to both draw on our experience and resist it as we read, and that’s a tension we’ll need to explore this semester.
i agree with the blogger… this poem does bring back alot of dark and negative memories, 9/11 in particular….I like how drsvetic made her point, by using examples from the poem and explaining their philosophical meaning. I agree in the fact that to understand this poem you will have to read it a few times, because when i read it the first time.. there was nothing i understood… but by reading each time a new found knowledge came. the past that i think interested me was her description of the war, i found the fragments of World War II from the description that poem gives at the first seven stanzas, very interesting !
These are some great comments on drsvetic’s insightful post. Drsvetic, what connection can you make to another poem that we haven’t discussed in class, since the assignment asks for you to use material we haven’t discussed? I can think of several that would connect to some of the war themes expressed–look in Chapter 4, for example.
Although you have made some very interesting points, my interpretation of the poem âBuilding with itâs Face Blown Offâ is much Different. Different in the sense that although the writer speaks much about the people affected by the âbombed-out cityâ, he has spent a great deal of time describing the buildings affected by this outcome as he personifies the images of these buildings; hence the title of the poem âBuilding with Its Face Blown Offâ. The writer has personified the poem to the extent that he has given the buildings damaged by the explosion human like qualities as he uses the word âfaceâ to describe the state of the buildings. He continues to use this throughout the poem as he continues to refer to the building as âitâsâ as stated in the third stanza, âwearing only itâs stripes pajamas.â