Poetry is the art of expressing oneself and allowing their feelings to flood onto a piece of paper. However, the way that reader chooses to interpret and recite a certain poem is entirely determined by personal preference. Reciting a poem, though not easy, rather meticulous, is a journey all in itself that presents struggles as well as surprises. In the poem, I Close My Eyes by David Ignatow, appears easy and empty at first but with research and time, each word has a meaning of its own.Often times, choosing a poem is a struggle for me because I am an extremely literal person rather than being abstract, but through time and preparation, the recitation of Ignatow’s poem has been perfected through the journey I have taken. At first, I felt as if the meaning was missing in Ignatow’s poem and was struggling to come to a conclusion on the hidden meaning in the text.
Ignatow was born in the hectic city of Brooklyn, New York, directly outside of the financial capital, New York City.Ignatow was the son of two Russian immigrants and as he grew up, he watched his parents struggle to get by in life. As Ignatow grew up, he acquired many jobs at once for the good of his family. Low class jobs of a shoe salesman, vegetable clerk, and an apprentice in his father’s bindery all helped contribute the normal city life for an immigrant family. He was doing all of this out of the goodness of his heart even though it was expected of him.
In the poem, Ignatow talks about how he keeps and order and does everything because it what is expected of a human being of his kind.What Ignatow is doing is considered the “good” nature that is expected of all but merely done by few. The main focus of Ignatow’s poems was on the life of urban workers and the struggles they faced. In the poem, there are certain key phrases that stand out and cause the reader to question a certain phrase’s importance and how the poem’s meaning would be affected if it were nonexistent. For example, in my poem, the line “I do all thing required of me to make me a citizen of sterling worth” is showing the speaker’s efforts to strive for a normal life where he is respected.
The speaker does all that is asked of him “for goodness sake” in order to have, or at least attempt, a normal life of an ordinary citizen. Another phrase in the poem is when the speaker ends a phrase “…to give my family a sense of order. ” This phrase is significant because it expresses the speaker’s desire to have a structured life where it is not hectic and filled with details out of the ordinary like not having a job or having an unbalanced checking account.Another phrase is in the first stanza is the last line where the speaker says, “as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow. ” This is yet another example of the speaker trying to express that he does everything correctly and for the sake of being good. The underlying question in the poem is seen in the last line of the last stanza where the speaker reads out, “Why can’t I live forever? ” This question is one that connects all of the speaker’s do good deeds and he comes to a conclusion that there is no reason he should not be able to live forever.
The speaker has done what has been told of him his whole life by doing everything by the book, and he finds that in fact, there is no reward at the end of life. Also, at the end where he states “I obey traffic signals. I am cordial to strangers. I answer my mail promptly. I keep a balanced checking account.
” I decided to recite this with a sort of anger which increased at each statement. I believe that the speaker is saying these statements to stress the fact that everything he does is good and it is time that he be rewarded for the being a model citizen.This poem was very interesting after sitting down with it for a while. The poem describes my thought on life exactly in that I do hope that there will be a reward for doing things the right way as I do them.
There is room for mistakes but this poem has truly opened my mind to the future. Being able to recite this poem on the spot at any given time might help turn a bad situation that may be upsetting into a new positive outlook on a certain endeavor.
