Essay 2

Essay #2

LIFE & DEATH

Tim Seibles is an amazing poet and teacher who have received accolades such as an Open Voice Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He has several works; Hurdy-Gurdy is the one I will be discussing in this essay. In this work, the author overriding theme is dealing with lifewhat we want, what we got, and what we must be willing to pursuit at any cost. The format the author uses is to split this book into 3 different sections: Meep, Appetite, and Rain. In this paper, I will describe in detail each section of the book.

MEEP

The introduction into Hurdy-Gurdy described his current situation along with his childhood hopes and dreams. The poem Trying for Fire is the perfect lead in. The narrator watches a dog get hit by a car and take his last breath of air. He describes his present life style along with his plan as a child to play professional football against Green Bay. The narrator explains how he doesn’t examine life the same as when he was a child. As an adult he knows the world to be a hard and cruel place to exist. It would be difficult from him to change the world as significantly as those who have created fire.

In the poem Meep the narrator is describing his experience of life through commercial and cartoon characters. The narrator would support the character that was treated differently. For example, Trix, a type of cereal, involved a rabbit in the commercial that would attempt to eat the fruity cereal but always kids would never share with the rabbit. Another example given in this poem was the coyote chasing a Road-Runner’s that says “Meep Meep.” Again the author favored the opposite campaign that wasn’t able to catch the bird to eat. This goes to illustrate the narrator’s constant determination.

The poem Soon is about the author describing death. He goes into great detail about how all of us would be underground and the earth won’t...