Our group consisting of Shelby Stouffe and Danny Hayes decided to review or interpret the poem #668 "Nature' is what we see" The complexity that arises in dealing with Dickinson's poetry is partially due to the indeterminacy, uncertainty, and mystery that shroud her seemingly simple poetry. Most of her poetry is about nature.  Something so simple to see and understand is happening that we wonder, what is the inner lying meaning?  This poems talks deeply about our  ignorance to the simplicity of nature and to the beautiful things  found in nature. "-So impotent Our Wisdom is  -To her Simplicity"  (Dickinson 11-12) We believe that this means that the human race is smart and intellectual but when it comes to nature we are dumb and ignorant to her simplicity. This poem also talks about the beautiful things in life that we may take for granted.  We see nature everyday and since we know it will always be there we never really stop and look at it.  We know that it will be there tomorrow so sometimes I feel people don’t really find it to be something they will really miss.  Emily Dickinson was a poet that had the ability to see everything in its natural and truest beauty.  She could look past all the bad in the world that was going on and look at the raw beauty of nature since she could not find it within people.  She was not really a people person and she also thought that the people that were high in society saw her as a nobody hence the poem by her I Am Nobody Who Are You?  For someone to be able to look past all the bad and straight into the good really has a good clean head on their shoulders.  They know how to take in life as it comes and can see the true nature of someone.  Emily might have been able to see the beauty but the best part was was that she could transfer her thoughts from inside her mind onto paper and interpret what she saw and felt through words.  This is what I think truly made her famous or her poems so well known because they all had meaning to not only her but those around her.  They interpreted feelings that maybe a lot of people were feeling and made it more known by others.  She definitely had a strong will and determination because no matter what she never gave up on her writing or what she believed in.  I think that is something really special.

"The Hill—the Afternoon—Squirrel—Eclipse— the Bumble bee—Nay—Nature is Heaven—Nature is what we hear—The Bobolink—the Sea—Thunder—the Cricket—Nay—Nature is Harmony—"


http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nature-is-what-we-see/

Emily Dickinson Poem

The Emily Dickinson poem that we read for this journal was "I heard a fly buzz when I died".  The speaker says that she heard a fly buzz as she lay on her deathbed. The room was as still as the air between “the Heaves” of a storm. The eyes around her had cried themselves out, and the breaths were firming themselves for “that last Onset,” the moment when, metaphorically, “the King / Be witnessed—in the Room—.” The speaker made a will and “Signed away / What portion of me be / Assignable—” and at that moment, she heard the fly. It interposed itself “With blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—” between the speaker and the light; “the Windows failed”; and then she died (“I could not see to see—”). This poem can be sung to the tune of "Amazing Grace" and this is a pattern in most of her literary.

Dickinson's Writing Style

Emily Dickinson used her own style of writing.  She does not really fit into the modernism period that was going on at the time.  Dickinson fit into the Transcendentalist movement more than anything..  She isolated herself to try and figure out the meaning of life and why she was here on Earth. She did not really use a rhyming scheme, she just wrote what she was thinking about and it just happened to turn into poetry. Dickinson basically cut her self of from society because of how sick of it she was.  Dickson locker herself in her house and I am pretty sure  that she did not leave her house for many years.  Can you imagine how clean her house must have been? Anyway I believe that this is why she was able to write about whatever she wanted to. I think that her poem "A Bird Came Down" is a scene she may have witnessed looking out her window while she was writing.  I do not think that being kept up in your house is the best way to experience life, but I also can see how she would find inspiration from such a scene.  A bird is just such a peculiar thing and I think that Dickinson saw the same thing.


"He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head"(Dickinson Stanza 3)

This is the third stanza of the poem "A Bird Came Down" and reiterates what I said about the interesting thing of a bird. A bird is just so interesting in how it hops around, moving its head quickly, and looking for something to eat.  This poem does not follow a more difficult rhyme scheme.  Only some lines rhyme with each other. Unless I am not able to rhyme words together,  this poem follows an A B C B D E F E G H I G J K L M N O P Q rhyme scheme.  Only the first two stanzas appear to have a rhyming pattern at all and this is very weird for poetry.  When I think of poetry, I think of every other line rhyming with each other.  I know  that this is not true for all poetry.  Another thing I do not understand is or who considers this good poetry.  Seems to me that this poem is just about a bird walking around eating bugs.  It is possible that I am looking to far into taking this poem literally but that is just what it seems to me.  I do not understand what makes some of these authors worthy of being famous.  I hope one day to be able to open up and understand these author's writing better.

"A bird came down the walk: A
He did not know I saw; B
He bit an angle-worm in halves C
And ate the fellow, raw. B

And then he drank a dew D
From a convenient grass, E
And then hopped sidewise to the wall F
To let a beetle pass. E

He glanced with rapid eyes G
That hurried all abroad,-- H
They looked like frightened beads, I thought; I
He stirred his velvet head G

Like one in danger; cautious, J
I offered him a crumb, K
And he unrolled his feathers L
And rowed him softer home M

Than oars divide the ocean, N
Too silver for a seam, O
Or butterflies, off banks of noon, P
Leap, splashless, as they swim."  Q

Dickinson, Emily. "Emily Dickinson." PoemHunter. 14 May 2001. Web. 12 Mar. 2012 

Whitman's Writing Style

Walt Whitman is considered a "tweener" because he falls in between the Realism and the Modernism periods of writing.  Walt Whitman shows characteristics and tendencies of both writing styles in many pieces of his work.The Realism period is about being literal or real. The pieces of works and there perspective authors that fall into this genre are not writing about wizards fighting dragons.  These authors are writing about things that happened or realistically could. Walt Whitman's poem "Cavalry Crossing a Ford" is literally about Union soldiers crossing a ford riding their horses as the "guidon flags flutter gaily in the wind"(Whitman, "Cavalry Crossing a Ford"). Even the title of this poem fits into the realism period. "Calvary Crossing a Ford" is just a very plain and generic title.  It tells us what is happening in the story and it gives the reader an idea of what the poem is going to be about. Being a writer of the Realism would be difficult I think.  The author can only let their imagination go so far before they have to wrangle it back in to keep in under control.  The author has to remain somewhat factual as well as making the story interesting for the readers. The other genre that Whitman fell into during this period was modernism.  Modernism writers are big on individualism and industry.  I believe that Walt Whitman has a piece of work that fits the individualism part of Modernism very well that I found in our book.  "I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you"(Whitman 2).  If this is not being an individual then the grass is not green and the sky is not blue.  "I celebrate myself"(Whitman 2).  I think that this quote is very arrogant.  I believe that I can be very arrogant at times but not this severe, or so I hope.  I am not sure that it is a bad thing for Walt to be a tad cocky but there is a line.  Although I am not sure I can fully blame Whitman because this is just one of the few genres of writing he fell into.  I think that it would be difficult for an author to go from one genre to another like that. The Modernism period would not be as difficult to write during in my opinion. The person may be alive during what is happening so the piece of work is almost a rewritten news report.  The rewritten part comes from making it more enjoyable for the reader to read because it would still have to keep the reader engaged. It is possible that his beliefs and ideals changed and he wanted to write what he thought, but no matter what happened, Walt Whitman is a "tweener" because he falls into the two categories of being a Modernism writer and a Realism writer. Like many other famous authors, including Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman was an influential writer in more that one genre.


"Cavalry Crossing A Ford by Walt Whitman." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry  Search Engine. Web. 11 Feb. 2012.


Whitman, Walt. "from song of Myself." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.

Emily Dickinson "A Bird Came Down"

"A Bird Came Down" by Emily Dickinson, is a poem that I believe to be focused towards the nature side of Thoreau and Emerson. I know that the remaining few pieces of work we are to read are based on Realism writing and the Realism period but I do not see it this way. I do not get the sense of Mark Twain or Henry James in this poem.  The style of writing is just so much different.  They focused on the period after the Civil War and wrote accurate ficticious material concerning American life(Campbell).  There really is no other point of origin for this story because it is just about a bird walking around eating worms and watching beetles.  The description of the bird is given to us and even though a person may seem certain birds to be ugly or undesirable, Emily Dickinson makes the bird seem beautiful.

"He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head"(Dickinson Stanza 3)

The third stanza shows the qualities of the bird and certain characteristics about him. He almost seems to be nervous or frightened as Dickinson says.  His "velvet head" gives him a quality of beauty and makes the reader imagine something smooth and soft.  "If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again, --if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk"(Thoreau "Ideas.."). This was said by Thoreau and this shows how fond he is of nature.  He thinks that if you can leave the rest of your life behind to go for a walk then you should.  Emerson followed the same line of thinking. "In the instant you leave far behind all human relations, wife, mother and child, and live only with the savages—-water, air, light, carbon, lime, and granite. Nature grows over me. Frogs pipe; waters far off tinkle; dry leaves hiss; grass bends and rustles, and I have died out of the human world and come to feel a strange, cold, aqueous, terraqueous, aerial, ethereal sympathy and existence"(Emerson "Ideas.."). This poem is describing what Thoreau and Emerson love to do.  The narrator is just watching this bird in his natural environment.  The narrator is observing the bird and enjoying nature.  They do not disturb the bird, other than when to offer him bread crumbs. This is what nature is all about.  Watching and listening to the amazing sights and sounds that nature has to offer.  No matter where you live there is some nature to enjoy. I know that this is what Emerson and Thoreau believed because of the research I have had to accomplish for this project.

Campbell, Donna M. "Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890." Literary Movements. Dept. of English, Washington State University. Web. March 12 2012.

Dickinson, Emily. "Emily Dickinson." PoemHunter. 14 May 2001. Web. 12 Mar. 2012


"Ideas--Philosophy of Nature." Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 12 Mar. 2012

Jack London "to build a fire"

Jack London's  "To build a fire"  is a very sad story. It talks about a man in the Yukon  going to meet some of his friends. He is new to the Yukon and knows the dangers of being out in the cold for too long.  The man begins to build a fire to keep him and his dog warm so that he can protect his ligaments from the harsh winter that the Yukon brings. The man had taken limbs from a spruce tree and had weaken the structural integrity of the tree. He finally gets his fire going and as soon as he takes his moccasins off, a pile of snow from atop the trees falls onto his fire and puts it out.

Henry David Thoreau said something that I believe the man of this story should have heard. "Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes"(Thoreau). If this man had heard this then I think he would have not have died as quickly. The man would have had an extra set of clothes, so when he got wet he would have been able to change into a set of clothes that were dry.  

I think that this short story leans more towards the natural side of Emerson  and Thoreau. This story is very  descriptive of the winter and of the Yukon. Emerson  and  Thoreau valued nature throughout their lives as well as many other things.  "Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood"("EMERSON - NATURE--Web Text.").  

"EMERSON - NATURE--Web Text." Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 11 Feb. 2012.

Thoreau. BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 09 Mar. 2012. 

Edwin Robinson "Miniver Cheevy"

"Miniver Cheevy" by Edwin Robinson is difficult for me to find it fitting in a distinct period. This poem is  about the narrator, Miniver, being upset and angry about when he was born.  Miniver wishes he had born long ago. "Miniver loved the days of old;When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;The vision of a warrior bold;Would set him dancing"(Robinson). Miniver wishes that he could have been born in the olden days where he could have experienced Thebes and Camelot.  Miniver also loved the Medici.  The Medici was an old Italian family who lived in Florence, Italy and they were a powerhouse. He loathes for war and battle, not khaki suits(Robinson). This poem is not as easy to recognize as being realism writing but it is in someways. One characteristic of the realism  period is an objective narrator. The narrator of this poem hates himself for being born in the modern age when  he wishes he could have been born in the medieval era. His objective is to love the life that he does not and can not have and to loathe the one he has. 


Robinson, Edwin. ""Miniver Cheevy" by E.A. Robinson." The Poem Tree: An Online Poetry Anthology. Web. 07 Mar. 2012. 

"The Darling" Anton Chekhov

"The Darling" by Anton Chekhov shows many characteristics of the realism period as well as the transcendentalist movement.  The description of nature shows the transcendentalist side of the short story. "It was hot, the flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in the air" (Chekhov). This quote from the short story gives the reader a sense of the weather and the scenery because of how descriptive it is. As for the realism side of this short story is shows important changes and how it effects the climax. I am not able to tell the climax of this story because I believe that two occur.  Olenka is the main character and protagonist of this short story and in the story she loses two of her lovers both being her husband. I know this is a characteristic of the realism period thanks to Josh Rahn."Changes in mood, in perceptions, in opinions and ideas constitute turning points or climaxes"(Rahn, "Realism"). These events would change Olenka's mood and ideas drastically. Olenka fell into a short depression after the death of her Kukin, lasting only three months. After the death of her second husband, Vasily Pustovalov, the depression is much greater with her only accompaniment being her cat(Chekhov). I am irritated though by the fact that she can not really make up her mind on anything. While married to Kukin, she adores the theatre but when she is married to Vasily she detests it. I am not sure what would change her mind so drastically about something other than it reminding her of her deceased Kukin. This is also part of the realism movement, changes in opinions and ideas. The recognition of both the realism period and transcendetalist movements are important to this story because it deals with both nature and changes in mood and ideas which change the climax.  Even though it was difficult to identify the climax, I still believe both deaths to be climaxes of this short story.




Chekhov, Anton. "Short Stories: The Darling by Anton Chekhov." East of the Web. Web. 06 Mar. 2012.


Rahn, Josh. "Realism." - Literature Periods & Movements. Web. 06 Mar. 2012.