Dust of Snow

The passage I chose was from Robert Frost's "Dust of Snow." Mason, David. "Dust of Snow." Western Wind. Edited. Emily Barosse. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2006.

"The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued." (Frost 121-122)

This haiku, written by Robert Frost in 1923 seems to mean how nature and life go on.I think the speaker in the poem is most likely Frost himself because many of his poems reflect his own experiences. I think that when the snow fell down on the speaker, it made him realize that nature never stops and it will keep cycling, no matter how angry or upset someone is, because their problems are extremely small in the grand scheme of life and nature. I think the speaker realized this and it made him feel better knowing how small his troubles really are. The tone of this piece, although the speaker is irritated, is very soft, and calm. His diction makes the tone soothing with phrases like,"...dust of snow " and "...change of mood." (Frost 121-122) On the flip side, the diction can also be representative of something more sad and disturbing. Words like dust remind the reader of what it really is, which is dead skin. It could also remind the reader of the saying, " Dust to Dust," which is used in burying the dead. The fact that it was snow which shook down on the speaker, stirs images of a cold winter depression. The imagery created in this poem is one of death and sadness.

1. Olds, Sharon. "Sex Without Love." Thinking and Writing About Literature. 'Ed'. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2001. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sex-without-love/

2. In “Sex Without Love” by Sharon Olds, the speaker is trying to understand how any human could have sex with someone they’re not in love with. This poem was written in 1984, and I think that the genre is Love.

3. I like this poem because of the question the poet poses to the reader which, as I stated above, is how someone can sleep around and not feel love for the one they’re sleeping with. I also like how at the end of the poem, Olds states that the“…truth…” of why people sleep around, “…is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time.” (Olds 838) Olds begins the poem with flowery imagery about love, but quickly compares sex to “…wet as the children at birth whose mothers are going to give them away.” (Olds 838)

4. “Sex Without Love” by Sharon Olds has some similarities to “Qunicinera” by Judith Ortiz Cofer. One of the most obvious similarities I noticed about these two poems, was how they both represented something natural and expected, but are portrayed in a way that made it sound dirty and unnatural. In “Sex Without Love”, the speaker uses the words “red”, “steak”, and “wet” and compares these words to a newborn child. The imagery is grotesque because it makes the reader look at sex as if it were repulsive. The speaker in “Quncinera” does almost exactly the same thing, with words like, “nailed”, “poison”, “blood”, and “…skin stretched tight over my bones.” ( Cofer 284) Cofer uses going through adolescence seem painful and dreadful.