Country filled cotton.

Cottonmouth Country

Louise Glück

Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.

And there were other signs

That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us

By land:  among the pines

An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss

Reared in the polluted air.

Birth, not death, is the hard loss.

I know.  I also left a skin there.

      Cottonmouth Country is amongst many poems that I initially just do not get. Such as, "hatteras" had no meaning to me what so ever until I looked it up that it had to do with the exact sentence- fishing. There are two deep aspects of this poem, its purely birth and death. "Death wooed us, by water, wooed us by land..." The overall idea that death is completely unsurpassing, it calls out to the depths of the sea to the parched land, no matter what they hear it calling them (almost as if by name).

     I see the cottonmouth being a symbol for frustaration, and almost a haunting. I say that because this obviously ceases to be a very "happy" poem but it's telling something beyond just the birth and death and it does so by using the cottonmouth. The cottonmouth is the pivotal time in the poem where the audience is able to understand what is ACTUALLY going on, like me, many readers will not understand the poem until the meaning behind the title is revealed. The title of the poem "Cottonmouth Country", the author using country after cottonmouth could mean that the symbolic meaning behind the cottonmouth is so vacant and widespread sometimes we feel as if we are actually living in it.

     Backing away from the writing and just simply putting it into words for each ones individualized self is where a true meaning comes from poetry, and thank goodness for that! Because if there was a specific way to look at poetry, well... I would surely fail.

Looking back from the beginning.

Good ol' introduction to poetry!!!!

Well I decided to go through this poem again (to be honest) because intellectually I'm quite brain fried from working on the independent reading assignment.
This poem is of huge significance to our class because we did EXACTLY what the poem says that people do when they begin to read poetry, they simply try to beat the sense out of it. Trying to make sense of words that seem to not make sense is a hard task to do, but I firmly believe that our class has done a good job of trying to move forward from the difficult task of beating out the sense.
Poetry is meant to  be enjoyable whether it may be a happy poem or sad poem - that doesn't lack the enjoyment out of it.
If I can be completely honest? Poetry has significantly grown on me. Once I learned to let go of trying to make sense of the "un" sensable (lol) I was able to actually enjoy the strange and different way that poetry enables us to think.

HumanCoverings.

The Book

Miller Williams

I held it in my hands while he told the story.

He had found it in a fallen bunker,

a book for notes with all the pages blank.

He took it to keep for a sketchbook and diary.

He learned years later, when he showed the book

to an old bookbinder, who paled, and stepped back

a long step and told him what he held,

what he had laid the days of his life in.

It’s bound, the binder said, in human skin.

I stood turning it over in my hands,

turning it in my head.  Human skin.

What child did this skin fit?  What man, what woman?

Dragged still full of its flesh from what dream?

Who took it off the meat?  Some other one

who stayed alive by knowing how to do this?

I stared at the changing book and a horror grew,

I stared and a horror grew, which was, which is,

how beautiful it was until I knew.

Fortunately near the end of the poem the realization that the author isn't talking about an actual book made from human skin  was very helpful in trying to figure out what this poem is saying.
"I held it in my hands while he told the story..." The significance of this beginning is in the simplicity of it, automatically the author has the reader glued in on guessing what the story may be about and what the end of it will conclude.
As the poem furthers in stanza 4 the drama of the poem enfolds, the book that he held was of human skin. He wondered who's could it be a child? A man? A woman? But prior the knowledge he had recieved the book had been a thing of beauty that he could look at.
The authors structure with the poem has an emphasis for dramatic elements, he places the spaces where they are to dramatize the piece. Williams also consistently is asking questions of why? how? and who?
Which really puts it on the reader themselves to answer for him, although there may not even be a sufficient answer to the question.

Again, the book is not of ACTUAL human skin, that would be quite horrifying- but rather the book is his life. The life that he is looking at could give him disgust and horror because he refused to do anything of real merit. The book was "found in a fallen bunker", it had been mistreated and forgotten, until the realization of someone else brought about the idea unto the person whos life is written on those pages.
The book is a symbol of cruelty, being that the person who is holding the book finds its past to be horrifying, which could also be a metaphor for someones life.

What the poem chooses to focus on isn't the content of the book, but rather the cover of it. The cover which binds this book is the importance.