Sunday, January 5, 2014
"l(a" by ee cummings
“l(a” by ee cummings
Please respond with YOUR reaction to this poem. DO NOT look up anything about it. Don’t read about it. Don’t Google it. Don’t ask other people what they think it means (obviously, we will discuss in in the next class). Respond with honesty. Try to respond without reading other students’ responses.
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
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I get it now!!! At first I was very confused, but all I had to do was look at it the right way. This is a very good poem and requires the reader to truly think outside the box.
ReplyDeleteA few different words can be extracted form this poem. It is very clever!
ReplyDeleteAfter a long time of trying to depict the poems meaning, I finally understand it!! It has a lot of meaning and is very fun to try and figure out.
ReplyDeleteI think I have it, I just don't understand the center. I am not sure whether this is just a typo or not, but some of the lines have an extra spacing and I feel like I am missing something.
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely no typos. The structure is key to the understanding.
DeleteThat was actually very easy! It really is cool to see a poem like this because it's out of the ordinary.
ReplyDeleteConfusing at first, but now I get it! Very clever and unique form of poetry!
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to understand the meaning at first glance, but I found the poem quite simple when looked at differently. Ah-ha moments are the best!
ReplyDeleteEXTREMELY CONFUSING WHILE READING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!! It felt like Inception all over again to a whole new level. It was painfully confusing at first, however, after reading it for six times, i think i finally understood it. *fingers crossed*
ReplyDeleteHapreet, the extremely confusing part here is reading your name tag thingy.
DeleteLike how do you even, what?
I got it after a few tries. The parenthesis separate parts of the poem and I guess the separation of words is used for rhythm or just to make it look nice.
ReplyDeleteIt was like a puzzle! You have to find the pattern before you can find the meaning using clues in the form of punctuation and the strange structure. Very unique
ReplyDeleteThis poem is REALLY clever, it gives you the idea of the action AND how it looks... quite interesting...
ReplyDeleteThis poem is almost saddening. Almost. It makes you realize the subtlety of not only the theme of the poem but also of its presence in real life. Mind = Blown
ReplyDeleteI think it's terribly sad!
DeleteUnfortunately, my middle school teachers ALREADY gave a lesson on this poem!!! Even though the joy of figuring it out myself was spoiled, I still had fun rereading it! This continues to be the most unique poem I've ever come across.
ReplyDeleteAt first I was mildly confused. Upon searching deeper, however, the desperate tone of the poem seems to emerge, and clue after clue falls into place. The sheer depth of this poem is truly impressive.
ReplyDelete(By the way, the fact that your background is a picture of flames if extremely fitting.)
Thanks for noticing that detail!
DeleteThat's actually awesome Ms. Prodromo.. I honestly thought it's going to be way harder to figure out.
ReplyDeleteThe layout of the poem is very creative and it adds meaning to the poem. I had already seen this poem in eighth grade and thought it was great. The first time I read it I was confused but after I went over it again it made sense.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest poetry isn't really my cup of tea, but after reading this poem I became more interested. I now realize that poetry can be written in a range of different ways, and the more creative, the better. This poem was very interesting and it really made me think. Hope the next one is just as interesting and thought provoking!
ReplyDeleteI had no idea what I was reading at first glance, but soon was intrigued by the puzzle-like layout of the poem. It took some brain power to discover what is written, but I'm most fascinated with how the form supports the words. The poem displays visually what is stated, a concept I had not been exposed to previously.
ReplyDeleteAt first I did not understand the pome at all and thought it was just a bunch of random letters grouped together. It is when I looked at the punctuation that it finally formed words and made sense. This pome is very interesting in the way the author makes the reader really think and be creative when they read it. The structure of the work also gives the pome great meaning and makes it more fun to read.
ReplyDeleteYou guys can actually discuss devices, purpose, tone and theme, you know. You're not giving anything away by talking specifics...
ReplyDeleteAt first glance it just looked like a bunch of random letters, but after looking at it differently, I understood what it said. I'm not sure the exact meaning but it seems pretty sad.
ReplyDeleteWell, I didn't get it at first but after analyzing the poem and looking at it closely, I figured out what it said. What a clever poem...
ReplyDeleteThat's such a cool poem! The way ee cummings wrote that is way more interesting than actually writing out what it says. It gives the poem a feeling similar to the feeling the poem describes.
ReplyDeleteThe poem seemed really confusing at first because I was overcomplicating everything. After I looked at it at a simpler level it was much easier to figure out. I think writing the poem in the form makes the reader have to explore it more and it makes it more creative. Also, the structure of it showed you what was happening in the poem, which was really appealing.
ReplyDeleteI like this. It is very interesting to figure it out. It also gives the reader a sense of satisfaction once they have figured it out, while also leaving open different interpretations of its real meaning
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read this poem in 8th grade, I was so confused. I didn't understand it until my teacher explained it. I was really fascinated that E.E. Cummings thought to expand the poem vertically to show the falling of the leaf.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read the poem I thought to myself "what the heck is Ms.P trying to make us read!" As I stared at it I finally saw that the letters in the parenthesis actually said something. I love how the poem made me think and enjoyed trying to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteI stared at this poem for a good ten minutes. I am still unable to comprehend it. I am pretty sure it's a code or something, but I am truly confused.
ReplyDeleteTook me a second to get it after I put it on word and bunched all the parts together. I believe this has just been added to my new favorite poems list. The words within are broken apart by the parenthesis.
ReplyDeleteThis poem has two totally opposite sides to it. The first being the cheerful, fun side that you can gain from trying to figure how to read the poem, then basking in the glory of your "oh damn I got it now" moment. The second however, being the darker, and more melancholy aspect you can retrieve from interpreting the poem. The structure of it contributes to the sadder tone by provide imagery of the loneliness.
ReplyDeleteme likesies this poem many much
At first, I could not even figure out HOW to read the poem. After writing it out horizontally, I could understand it easier. The feeling of the poem is depressing or abandoned yet the form of the poem made it interesting and almost "fun".
ReplyDeleteI figured this out really fast. When I first read this, I felt mislead by Ms. Prodromo becasue she said that this poem is all confusing becasue the letters and punctuation are all in wierd places. I was very underwhelmed due to the lack of work required to decipher this piece even though Ms. Prodromo claimed it would be very difficult. That was my reaction.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I found the poem's deeper meaning intriguing yet depressing.
DeleteThats so sad. Took me a while but that's very depressing.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought how is anybody supposed to read this. The author must be crazy like Ms. P and wants to challenge their readers to where they go insane. I thought the author had made the poem into a giant word jumble because of Ms. Prodromo's interesting choices of stories in the past. I sat on my bed for an hour trying to unscramble words that did not make any sense. Then I looked at the poem as a math problem and wrote everything and put it all in a line with all the parentheses still the way they were. Then put everything on the outside of the parentheses in order to figure it out. Finally I understood what it says. The feeling of this poem is depressing or sad. It wouldn't be if you had an imagination and pictured little mystical creatures on the leaf riding it as if it were a snowboard.
ReplyDeleteComplicated enough Ms. P?
That's my girl!
DeleteI found the structure of the poem very interesting since it seems to represent the actions of a single falling leaf that represents l---liness and has a different meaning out of such simple words and letters.
ReplyDeleteI read this poem in 8th grade i think. When i first read it i had no idea what i was reading and I thought it was random letters. After i thought about it, I figured out that it says a leaf falls loneliness. I think it's a clever way to write a poem and I thought it was interesting. Even though it's so short, you can still feel the sadness of it.
ReplyDeleteThis was super confusing to me at first! I had to read it many times before I got it.
ReplyDeleteI love how the author arranges this, it is very creative and makes the reader really think. The structure its written in goes along with the sad tone of the poem because all the words are broken up into lonely fragments of a word.
It intrigues me that the form of this poem is just as important as the words, and that it seems to have hidden components. For instance, when I first read it I read the letters in columns instead of rows, and I noticed that the last four letters in the first column (or the first letter of the last four rows, whichever you prefer) spell 'soli'. In Latin soli means 'only' or sometimes 'alone'. I didn't understand what significance that had until I put the poem together but now I see that it contributes to the overall theme of solitude that the poem conveys. The placement of each letter was careful and also gave something to the theme. I also liked how the form of the letters gave the illusion of action because it looks like the pattern of a falling leaf.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought that the title made no sense and the poem was only syllables. Then I put the syllables together and realized that it made up words. I also thought that the form of the poem was on purpose to show a falling motion with the words and since a word is within a word, it is stated out loud. I think the poem should be read as "A leaf falls in loneliness" because the words "a leaf falls" is actually in the word "loneliness". Also the simple diction emphasizes the solitude of what is going on in the poem. I think the author is effortlessly aware he captures a single action which has no shift. When reanalyzed, the title is a small preview of the actual poem but it is so brief that it does not give any clues about the context. The theme of this poem is loneliness because it focuses so much on an action that is often disregarded.
ReplyDelete-Samaria
I really enjoyed this poem, both the way it was written and what it was about. This poem is very powerful with only a few words. The way the words fall down the page is similar to how the leaf falls to the ground. If you were to read only the words in the parentheses, it's not much of a poem, but with the word "loneliness" to describe it, you almost feel sympathy for the leaf. Also sorry if this posts twice, it deleted the first time!
ReplyDeleteStaring at it at first glance, I was very confused. I can now see at least some meaning in the poem and I believe there is more that I have yet to see. I can see Loneliness is symbolized in a leaf falling because the leaf breaks away from a tree with other leaves to fall on the ground to be left alone and dead. I believe the form will be important but I cannot tell what it is.
ReplyDeleteAt first I was really confused and did not understand the poem. After looking at it for a while, I figured it out. The poem is very interesting and it creates a challenge for readers.
ReplyDeleteThis is a concrete poem that conveys the mood and movement of a falling leaf. The brief "lines" of the poem represent the sweeping motion of a leaf as it falls, and the occasional space between lines may represent the slowing down of the leaf in between sweeps. The last line is the longest because it's the settling of the leaf. Unlike most poems, l(a captures a single moment and a single feeling; there's no transition from one state to another. In that way, it's almost more like a haiku or even a painting.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what this "poem" means (if you can even call it that!) Poems normally have boring, philisolophically confusing words that are supposed to mask deep expression. This is just a whole bunch of random letters with probably unintentionally jacked up spacing (the computer sometimes has a mind of it's own[you never quite know with those things! =// #etchasketchhhhh ]) The lack of words would usually make a poem more simple, but in this case, it makes it a whole mother effing lot complicated! Oh well, considering I'm not about that poet life, I think I'll alright (;
ReplyDeleteWrite it out horizontally!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletewhen a leaf falls, it falls in loneliness hence the reason the sentence is in the word.
ReplyDeleteleaf falls is sad
ReplyDeleteI just read this
ReplyDelete