Notes on: “Spring is like a perhaps hand” by e.e. cummings The poem compares Spring with a "perhaps hand". The "perhaps hand" alludes to unexpectedness, a random appearance out of "Nowhere". The appearance is not sudden though, it is subtle just like a hand opening and flowers flowering in the Spring. The appearance represents a change in the world that isn't readily noticed, even though we constantly are seeing the world, but is noticed when the process is complete. The poem also addresses the power Spring has to change our world, but the fragility in the way it does it's work, "without breaking anything". Repetition of the word "carefully" is used to emphasize Spring's subtlety and beauty in the way it allows for new life. The poem itself also uses a lot of repetition in the way that in the second stanza it restates a lot of what it said in the first stanza. There is some symbolism in the perhaps hand as it represents both power, like a fist, and beauty, as in a dance. The symbolism of Spring as a hand may also allude to the fact that hands are commonly used for greeting, similarly, Spring “greets” the year.

Notes on: “Elegy for the Giant Tortoises” by Margaret Atwood This poem laments the gradual passing into extinction of giant tortoises. The poem is a call to action, a call for personal empathy and commitment—a challenge to us to prevent this plodding, lumbering path towards extinction. Turtles and tortoises must remain living members of our natural world, not just destroyed symbols of that world. The imagery she chooses, “plodding,” “small heads pondering/ from side to side” and their “useless armour” makes us see the giant tortoises as they head to some unkanown destination, which in this case, unfortunately, turns out to be a museum. On first seeing the “square glass altars” you have the feeling that these magnificent animals are going to being honored, as they should be, but you quickly realize that these ”altars” are really nothing but museum displays. We put them on pedestals, like holy symbols when they’re dead, but they are no longer symbols of living animals. They are dead, and thus, “obsolete,” a brittle, relic of a past that we used to claim was holy but one we are steadily destroying through our attempts to conquer nature

Notes on: “Ode to My Socks” by Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda is trying to get you to look at something you might normally see as mundane with a careful eye. First, he brings to attention the way the socks were finely crafted and how aesthetically pleasing they were. In fact, they are so beautiful, he finds them worthy of display; but they are not made for that purpose and are in fact more beautiful because he can use them rather than set them on a pedestal and forget about them.