Ben Nikpour - Week 6: "Gold" by Donald Hall

    This week I read the poem “Gold” by Donald Hall. When I first read Hall’s work, I begin by assessing the title to later attempt to understand its relationship to the poem. The poem’s title, “Gold,” makes me think of something precious and valuable and has a positive connotation. After reading the poem, I can see why it is representative of the meaning. 

    The poem describes a memory from Donald Hall’s life. Researching Hall, I learned that his wife passed away from leukemia. To me, it is clear that the memory is one shared with his wife. This memory is about a simple time lying in a bed next to what I believe to be his wife in a golden room. He uses this poem to reminisce about his wife and pay tribute to their beautiful and precious life together. 

    Throughout the poem, Hall uses an immense amount of imagery to convey his ideas, like when he writes in the first stanza, “Pale gold of the walls, gold of the centers of daisies, yellow roses pressing from a clear bowl.” As shown through this quote starts off the poem by painting a picture in our heads of what the scenery was like. By using bright colors like gold and yellow combined with beautiful flowers, daisies, and roses, the reader is brought to a place of joy, believing this to be a delightful memory. 

    I have found that the poet has a very distinct voice, but what I found interesting is that this poem is quite different from some of the others he has written. Many of the other pieces I have read from Hall have been very depressing, grey stories, while this is a very positive, golden story. However, I noticed similarities in the written content as many of his include elements of nature, bodies, death, and memories. 

    Overall, I really enjoyed this piece by Hall. It is actually my favorite of his that I have read so far. I like the change in mood present through this, especially right after reading a few of his other, more somber poems.

"Gold" by Donald Hall

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jack Yesner Week 10 - The Imposter Syndrome

Image
  The end of the first semester of senior year is quickly approaching. This semester has been the root cause of my stress for the past few months, and I am glad it is nearly over. I tell myself that next semester will be less stressful because college applications are complete and schoolwork will be more relaxed, and I hope I am buying into it. But in reality, I know that I have told myself the future won’t be strenuous multiple times, and I end up regretting my past reassurances.  Throughout my life, I have strived for perfection. I could never start an assignment without a clear plan of what the finished product will look like, I had to rehearse anything spoken, and I never settled for less than 100% effort. But as I am approaching my final semester of school, I am starting to recognize that this is abnormal behavior.  I unfortunately believe that I have developed some form of the Imposter Syndrome. The Imposter Syndrome, which is also known as perceived fraudulen...
Read more

Leah Nagle - Week 4 - College is Stressing Me Out

Image
I feel like the second we started this school year, everyone (including myself) started freaking out about college. It’s funny to me that everyone talks about how stressful junior year is and how senior year is super chill, because that has definitely not been my experience. For me, in junior year, college was only a distant thought and my workload was manageable, but now, in senior year, I am so incredibly stressed with school, the SAT, and college applications.  Although I know that I am up to date with my college application work, it always feels like I’m behind because I’ll hear from a friend that they’re ahead of me. It makes me so stressed and I hate it, so I try to not compare myself to others, but it’s hard, ya know? There really is so much that goes into college applications that I didn’t even realize until now and that stresses me out.  On top of the actual work that has to be done in order to apply to college, another thing that’s stressful about the process is deci...
Read more

Rosalie Weiss- Week 1- “The Hermit Crab” by Mary Oliver

Image
The Hermit Crab is a poem by Mary Oliver in which she reflects on an encounter she had with a hermit crab and the observations she made while watching it find a new home.  I believe that the ocean, which Oliver describes as always “shouting and hissing toward the future,” every wave “leaving the shore littered” with “ornaments of death,” is a symbol for time. (lines 19-25) The hermit crab fights against the ocean by making a home out of the old shells it had discarded. This “rebellion” is also a way of fighting against time, “connecting everything, the past to the future.” (lines 29-33) I interpret this part of the poem to be a metaphor for remembering and learning from our past, as by holding on to our memories, we are effectively rebelling against time and its efforts to wash the past away.   In the first stanza of poem, Oliver writes, “Once I looked inside the darkness of a shell folded like a pastry and there was a fancy face.” (lines 1-4) Upon reading this, I thought...
Read more