BLAKE WEEK TWO REVIEW: Jennifer Sullivan
After reading this poem in the tutorial I refrained from putting my hand up and having a dig at the meaning because I think it is good to listen to other people's ideas sometimes and see if I'm heading in the right direction (well especially if I have no clue about the poem). The way I see it, the less a person talks, the less BS comes out of their mouth. Pretty true. The world has enough BS floating around, it doesn't need to smell mine.
This is me when I talk too much. Stinking up tha joint.
I like how Jen started her post with an image of what is suppose to be the poison apple. It is a great opener as it gives us insight into the post and immediately interests the "participant" (thanks Megan Heyward for that classy use of diction).
Jen immediately gets stuck in and tells us her version of what is going on in the poem. She is pretty spot on too. I like how she noted how Blake used natural images to describe how the anger and wrath grew inside the person with watering and sun. It is pretty clever use of description and it is good that Jen picked up on it.
Jen then went onto to relate the poem to her life and our lives and discussed how there will inevitably be someone in our lives that we don't rate so highly and wouldn't mind them eating the "apple of our private wrath." It is true. As much as we like to befriend everyone, it isn't logical. We are all designed to get along with some people and to clash with others. It is whether we become the BIGGER person (like the first two lines of the poem) and end our wrath early. This is what makes us better people. Or something along those lines. It is this behaviour that does not allow "satan" to creep into our lives and tapdance throughout our conscience. Well that is what Blake was talking about. Productive activity keeps Satan away (ummm read the preface to the text lol).
Nah cuz, nobody cares for your little wink.
We are too busy working productively.
So Cram It!
I also agree with Jen that the first two lines are very important to the whole poem. If there is any advice to be taken from this poem it is from the first two lines. "I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end." Basically let it go. Get on with life. Cheer up and chin up. I know sometimes it is not that easy however. I think that Blake was also saying something else in these two lines. I think he was suggesting that it is indeed easier to forgive a friend for a wrong-doing than it is to forgive an enemy. Does that make sense? Like if I had a run-in with a mate, it would be over in a few minutes/hours. If it was an enemy however, and it has happened to me once in the past, well I created this big-arse poison tree with big-arse poison apples. I guess I have to tell the story now. The story is below.
"When I started Year 7 there was this guy in Year 9 who assaulted my sister and scarred her for life. My father inturn gave him a tail-whooping and since then this guy hated my family. All throughout highschool he picked on my twin brother and i and got all his mates to join in and bully us. We were younger and smaller and pretty much had nothing on them. They made highschool pretty bogus for us sometimes. So the years rolled by, the treatment continued. He graduated from Year 12 and I was still in year 10 so i didn't really see him after that. Until one day last year when I saw him at my local gym. I was with my twin brother. The guy walked in and saw us. He didn't come over. I looked at him but I was trying to take Blake's advice in the first two lines and let it go. My twin brother however wasn't so forgiving. My twin brother walked up to him and obviously used a few choice words. The guy inturn said 'Lets take this outside.' To which my twin brother stepped up to the plate. I saw them leaving the gym together and I knew they weren't going outside for a smoke. So i ran out after them and found the guy with his hands around my brothers throat and had him pinned against the wall. Well I wasn't going to cop this anymore. I was no longer the little scrawny seventh grader who couldn't hold his own. It was time for retribution. My poison apple came out and it was time to cram it right up this guys tailpipe. Lets just say the guy laid on the bonnet of his car in the carpark for an hour licking his wounds and took the whole week off work after that day (it was a Monday). This is a pretty close example to what Blake was talking about in this poem."
Don't touch my sister and brother biatch!
Okay back to the poem. I noticed in the footnotes that the poem "The Poison Tree" was once called "Christian Forbearance." I looked up the meaning of Forbearance and it means "tolerance and restraint in the face of provocation." This makes sense when you look at the poem. I look at Forbearance as meaning "postponement." The person in the poem postponed forgiving their foe. They dwelled on it. It grew. It was watered by tears of fear and sunned with deceitful smiles. So the person never showed his/her enemy that they were angry and annoyed. They hid their wrath with deceitful smiles. Then the foe came back into their life and once again tried to wrong the person. So this time the Cobra struck and the foe paid the price. The last line is important as the person is glad that the foe is paying the price for their continual wrong-doings.
There are several messages in this poem. (1) Get over things early and avoid messy situations. (2) If you let things fester then they will get larger and more spiteful. (3) I think it was also a warning to the foe that if you push your luck once too often your gonna cop a bad batch of apples.
Cheers Jen. You did a great job.
Tucks signing off.