Recent Changes

The Shark
Oh hi Mr Webster sorry I wrote this on Maya's computer and didn't realize I was still on her account. Sorry.

The Shark
Unsuccessful poem
Ella Nugent

The Shark
by Lord Alfred Douglas

A treacherous monster is the Shark
He never makes the least remark.

And when he sees you on the sand,
He doesn't seem to want to land.

He watches you take off your clothes,
And not the least excitement shows.

His eyes do not grow bright or roll,
He has astonishing self-control.

He waits till you are quite undressed,
And seems to take no interest.

And when towards the sea you leap,
He looks as if he were asleep.

But when you once get in his range,
His whole demeanour seems to change.

He throws his body right about,
And his true character comes out.

It's no use crying or appealing,
He seems to lose all decent feeling.

After this warning you will wish
To keep clear of this treacherous fish.

His back is black, his stomach white,
He has a very dangerous bite.

I find this poem, “The Shark”, by Lord Alfred Douglas to be very unsuccessful. For one, there is nothing interesting or different about the structure. It is a bland, repetitious structure of rhyming couplets with similar syllable counts in each line. Usually, one could argue that this supports the poem and gives it rhythm, but in this specific case, the structure only reflects on the dull, monotonous tone of the poem. There is no change in the way the poem is told, the same way the reader feels no change as he/she reads it. Another reflection of this dreary repetition appears in the word choice; Lord Alfred Douglas uses the exact same adjective to describe the shark. Douglas uses the word “treacherous” in the very first line of the poem and again in the second-to-last line to describe the shark. The words Douglas chose are all very simple and relatively easy to understand. This backfires, however, as the poem just washes over the person reading it. The poem gives no opportunity for the reader to infer, ponder what the poet might have meant or even think deeply about the poem, it just states facts about the shark tediously. This poem evokes absolutely no feelings from the reader whatsoever. Considering that this shark is supposedly so “treacherous” and a “monster”, we, the readers, should feel afraid as we read the description of this supposed terrible beast. We should feel chills running up and down our spines as we read it, had it been a successful poem. Instead, the easy words run right over the reader and leave them feeling like they hadn’t even read the poem at all.

ps: just a reminder that today you said I could turn in this wiki before midnight for a 50%. Thanks Mr Webster,

Ella Nugent

jose rodriguez
Jamaican Idol
by Terese Svoboda


Walking backward from the sea,
scales shedding, you seek the cave.

This is why the French door admits
only ocean. You stare into the louver

and forget how to get out. Lull
is the word, or loll. The sea returns,

completing your pulse, the waves live,
each breath of yours worship.

i dont like this poem because it talks about being lost in a cave. i dont like to be lost, i always want to know where i am. the poem also uses some words i do not understand like lull, louver and loll. i also dont know why did the author wrote the french door. this poem is bad because i dont know what it is talking about, so the context is very poor. the form is also bad because the poem isnt explained well, so i dont know if the character is inside the cave or in the sea looking for the cave. i dont like the poem

BRIAN
Home is so Sad
by Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

I don't like this poem, because i don't share the emotion with this poem. This poem has a feeling that lonely and sad but my home is not sad maybe because of my family live in there. Me and my family are very united, so that makes my house good place to live, and chill. So this poem is on opposite side on my live. If there is a family who lives in this lonely house i could share the feeling with this poem but nobody lives in there so i cannot share the feeling. But if i'm in bad mood, or sad and i read this poem, i can share the feeling. So it depends on who reads this poem. And the poem shows really good atmosphere in that house, but those are not fully described, so the readers need to think, and imagine the house.

The shout
The Shout
By: Simon Armitage

We went out
into the school yard together, me and the boy
whose name and face

I don't remember. We were testing the range
of the human voice:
he had to shout for all he was worth,

I had to raise an arm
from across the divide to signal back
that the sound had carried.

He called from over the park—I lifted an arm.
Out of bounds,
he yelled from the end of the road,

from the foot of the hill,
from beyond the look-out post of Fretwell's Farm—
I lifted an arm.

He left town, went to be twenty years dead
with a gunshot hole
in the roof of his mouth, in Western Australia.

Boy with the name and face I don't remember,
you can stop shouting now, I can still hear you

For this poem a simple word choice is used, and it is not hard to understand, but it has no meaning; no emotion added to it. The poem tells the story of two boys trying to test the range of the human voice. The author tells their story, as they got farther away from each other. He then tells us that this boy dies, and that he can stop shouting because he is still heard. I can’t see how the author’s thoughts or feelings are put into the poem. Without emotions or feeling the poem has no sense; there is no point in writing it. I feel like this poem is just telling a story; the reader is not left with anything, when it finishes. There are no metaphors or similes to get a “deeper” point across. It has no message, no theme, not even an intended audience. Simon Armitage is just telling an event of his past, and it’s not even a very interesting one.

What the Living Do
What the Living Do
by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.


“What the Living Do,” by Marie Howe, is a very bad poem. First, it lacks any kind of pattern or structure. It looks like a bunch of run on sentences put together. There is no rhythm, or musicality. The words aren’t chosen carefully. There is no rich word choice. The poem is very boring. It had very long sentences and it doesn’t really catch my attention. There is no feeling. The author didn’t add her feelings in the poem. I can’t relate to this and there is nothing that actually grabs my attention.

nicole solano
1. A filament, light as breath, at the base of a feather;
supple and strong, it extends beside the shaft
and will not be bent back. 

2. The whisker of a cat, vibrissa,
resonating with the slightest brush against a fence 
as its feline owner slips silent toward home or prey.

3. A sharp, curved hook at the tip of a quill,
evil and stubborn, designed to tear those foolish enough
to try pulling it out.

4. Bristle, stubble, 
the tough stalks of grass or wheat after the field has been mown;
any man's chin in the languid morning.

5. Barbiturate, downer, reds, a big sleep.
Marilyn's lover and escape; 
a lying promise of peace.

6. White linen binding a face, 
covering a lady's forehead, cheeks, chin, throat;
the soft cloth traces the line of smooth, hidden skin.

7. Darting fish, tiger-striped, 
or stamping horse, skittish and wild, nostrils wide;
creatures like quicksilver, gone with the flick of a tail.

8. Sharp, stabbing, pointed arrow,
fletched with bristling stiff feathers cut close to the shaft,
metal-tipped, true-flying, sure of hitting its mark.

9. A phrase, insinuating or blunt;
a jab, a cut, an insult, wit with a sting;
words from a wicked tongue.

10. A woman standing before you, hands on hips,
chin raised,
daring you to go further.



The interpretation of wether a poem is good or bad is left to the reader.An unsuccessful poem is the one that has no relation in form and content,meaning they don't tie in together.The form of the poem has no rhythm and no rhyme.The poem has no rhythm, it is inconsistent and has no musicality or flow.The content of this poem has no real meaning.The content and the form don't relate to each other because the author is describing or defining words and settings all throughout the poem and the form lacks rhythm and musicality. All throughout the poem all we are basically reading is definitions.It's like a copy of a dictionary.This poem isn't supplying anything deep,or symbolism to the reader.Poems are suppose to give a bigger meaning to something hidden, and this poem is basically telling us the literal view of everything.It is hard to understand what the poem is trying to say, because the different verses don't tie in with each other.

Paula Prada
This poem is very poor in both senses the context and the form. The context itself is very boring. It doesn’t have a specific character. The main point of the poem is the flowers, there is neither character nor object I can relate too when I read the poem. The story’s plot is basically about the narrator that contemplates all the flowers, and the colors, and the blooming of the flowers. I find it completely not inspirational… Also, the form of the poem is structured in a very casual way. There is no specific pattern with the syllables. The poem has neither rhythm nor rhyme and is very straightforward. It has no metaphors or similes that make the poem interesting. What makes the poem so boring is the lack of rhythm, and rhyme, and literary figures that make the poem interesting. Also that there is no link between the author and I.

Telling The Bees
By:Deborah Digges

It fell to me to tell the bees,
though I had wanted another duty—
to be the scribbler at his death,
there chart the third day's quickening.
But fate said no, it falls to you
to tell the bees, the middle daughter.
So it was written at your birth.
I wanted to keep the fire, working
the constant arranging and shifting
of the coals blown flaring,
my cheeks flushed red,
my bed laid down before the fire,
myself anonymous among the strangers
there who'd come and go.
But destiny said no. It falls
to you to tell the bees, it said.
I wanted to be the one to wash his linens,
boiling the death-soiled sheets,
using the waters for my tea.
I might have been the one to seal
his solitude with mud and thatch and string,
the webs he parted every morning,
the hounds' hair combed from brushes,
the dust swept into piles with sparrows' feathers.
Who makes the laws that live
inside the brick and mortar of a name,
selects the seeds, garden or wild,
brings forth the foliage grown up around it
through drought or blight or blossom,
the honey darkening in the bitter years,
the combs like funeral lace or wedding veils
steeped in oak gall and rainwater,
sequined of rent wings.
And so arrayed I set out, this once
obedient, toward the hives' domed skeps
on evening's hill, five tombs alight.
I thought I heard the thrash and moaning
of confinement, beyond the century,
a calling across dreams,
as if asked to make haste just out of sleep.
I knelt and waited.
The voice that found me gave the news.
Up flew the bees toward his orchards.

Lindsey Pent
Leviathan

By George Oppen

Truth also is the pursuit of it:
Like happiness, and it will not stand.

Even the verse begins to eat away
In the acid. Pursuit, pursuit;

A wind moves a little,
Moving in a circle, very cold.

How shall we say?
In ordinary discourse—

We must talk now. I am no longer sure of the words,
The clockwork of the world. What is inexplicable

Is the 'preponderance of objects,' The sky lights
Daily with that predominance

And we have become the present.

We must talk now. Fear
Is fear. But we abandon one another.



“Leviathan” is a short poem that even though it is short it is also quite confusing. Aside from being confusing and hard to understand there are other things that make this poem unsuccessful. One thing that makes the poem unsuccessful is that the subject of the poem is unclear. Another thing that makes in unsuccessful is that because the subject of the poem is unclear it is impossible to discover the meaning and the themes that the poem is trying to express. A poem without a theme cannot be successful because there is no feeling or significance behind it. Something that also makes the poem unsuccessful is the randomness of the different stanzas makes the poem hard to follow. It also makes it hard to find the specific theme since there are several possible themes in each stanza and there aren’t one or two solid themes, and that makes it unsuccessful. The word choice is another thing that makes in not successful. The selections of words in each stanza don’t make sense in the overall poem. Each stanza might make sense in of itself but in the overall poem the different themes in the different stanzas only makes the poem confusing. “Leviathan” has some cute parts to it. But all in all it is an unsuccessful poem.

What is Liquid?
What is Liquid?
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

All that doth flow we cannot liquid name
Or else would fire and water be the same;
But that is liquid which is moist and wet
Fire that property can never get.
Then 'tis not cold that doth the fire put out
But 'tis the wet that makes it die, no doubt.


An unsuccessful poem is one that has forced rhymes, lack of rhythm and poor expression. 'What is Liquid' by Margaret Cavendish sums up all these characteristics into a completely unsuccessful poem. First of all, it's content is ridiculous; translated to modern English, the first verses would say: "You can't call everything that flows liquid, Or fire would have to be a liquid too; but liquid is wet and you ca't get fire wet!". This poem has no meaning whatsoever, and it's message is unclear. It uses poor expression, no fancy words, no flow, no musicality, there is nothing special to this poem. It's lack of musicality and flow makes it a drag just to read it. It uses the form to accentuate the content, both are boring and forced. The form simply emphasizes the emptiness of the poem. Cavendish uses an extremely forced rhyme, which makes the poem sound forced and repetitive. It seems as if the poem is based on the rhyme, not the rhyme on the poem, which is the way it should be. This poem is an utter cockamamie.