For my outside reading this week I decided to read a poem. Finding it hard to let my mind wonder free at all poetry seemed like a good chioce. I searched a few different poetry cites mostly looking at "Poem of the Month." I finally came across a poem I really liked. I also found it significant to our new and busy lives. It's call "Barking" by Jim Harrison. The poem talks about how night and day life was and how fast it went by. How he was "On a short chain" (11) but "Now there's no chain at all" (12). This is significant to me today because I can see my life going into high gear and the days are already sliding by at break neck speed. I think they are for a lot of us. The poem talks about how life went into this mode and got away from the one living it. I recently turned 16. Unlike most kids I wasn't very happy about it. I didn't want to watch my childhood go, I didn't feel like I had lived enough of it, like it had slipped by. Now that the bindings of childhood are gone, I am becoming an individual. There are no chains on me now. They've began releasing from all of us. We're growing and up and becoming independant. I take the main theme of this poem is to live your life because it goes by fast. I'm living my own life that way as we speak. I think you, dear reader, should read this poem and see how it strikes you. Maybe you'll see it like I do and it'll help you live a happier life. Maybe not. I love poems about life, and this is a good example of that.
Harrison, Jim. "Barking". Poetry. Poetry Foundation. 18 Sept 2008. http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0908/poem_182141.html
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5 comments:
Hi Justin, so I'm replying to your blog...
Just off the top of my head I think that turning 16 should be taken positively, sure you're growing farther away from being a child, but just cus you can drive doesn't mean you AREN'T a child, i mean this not in a bad or mocking way at all, simply that if you look at it in the LEGAL WAY, you still have 2 years until you are an adult, so you can still be the child that you want to be.
About the poem...
when Jim says that he was "a dog on a short chain but now there's no chain"(11-12) I think that he's being liberated by his growing age seeing as though a dog without a chain could run free. The mention of spring could be referring to the blooming flowers and NEW LIFE that erupts in springtime, again justifying his liberation and the beginning of something new--a fresh start.
I think when he says "age swept past me but i caught up"(5-6) would signify that we can linger on wanting to still be children for a while, and manage to transition into adulthood once we've made amends with the fact that we ARE indeed growing.
I agree with both Justin and Rosie. I agree with Justin on my feelings about growing up, but agree more with Rosie's interpretation of the poem. I agree with Justin that I want to hold on to my childhood as long as possible. Unlike many high schoolers, I would love to remain a child. I was so carefree and just loving life, but am now held down by mountains of homework, working, and different reponsibilities. I agree with Rosie and Jim, the author, about being liberated as you grow older. As a high schooler, I have much more freedom than I did in elementry school. I am able to go places on my own, use the oven unsupervised, and much more. My life is flying past me, but I am trying my hardest to manage my responsibilities and still have time to let the kid in me out.
I think you all bring up good points, life whizs by you and if you don't grab on you'll miss it. You guys talk about how you are balancing childhood with the new responsabilites you have to take on. I know how that feels, but I think if you read the poem again you notice the author sounds regretful about not take full advantage of his life and by focusing on how your childhood is slipping you're doing exactly what he's telling you not to. When you dwell on the past or what you're losing you miss the new chances that come because you can't be bothered with what's going on in the present. The author is encouraging you to grasp the new things that come along and that's the way you live to the fullest. The past is staying in the past, so live it up now because that's all we have.
I think that Justin chose a very relevant poem here, and I would be surprised if it did not pertain to most people in this class. I, too, am reluctant to watch the carefreeness of childhood and go into the harsh responsibility of taking care of myself. I think that a good solution to this problem is to embrace the theme we learned by watching "The Dead Poet's Society" in 8th grade, carpe diem. It means "seize the day". This is becoming increasingly harder to do because nowadays teenagers schedules are chock full of stuff. You get up early from school, spend a good part of your day there, and then go to a school related activity, do your 4 hours of homework (2 of which is L.A.) and maybe have an hour to yourself or to hang out with friends, if your lucky. I personally believe that teenagers should be allowed more free time so they really can seize the day, and not feel like their life is rushing by.
I completly agree with you Justin. Life nowadays seem to go by much faster than they did when i was 5 or even over the summer. As i have an increasing number of activites on my to do list ( life gaurding, cross country, kung fu, school and band) i feel like i have less and less free time for myself. I believe that the complete opposite is true about the dog chain. i think that as we grow older we have more "freedom" but with that comes an excessive amount of responsibilties. The responsibilities out weigh the freedoms by a large amount. Therefore as we get older we have shorter and shorter chains with less room to move. A song that reminds me about this poem is "Life In the Fast Lane" by the eagles. The song talks about much of the same ideas but the responsibilities overwhelmed the main people and they turned to less preferable methods. Finally one of my favorite proverbs also backs up your statement, stop to smell the roses.
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