Poetry Blog #2

I really enjoyed the two poems used for this blog, especially in the context of recent events. While the first poem may seem trivial because it focuses primarily on the importance of the relationship between the speaker and presumably his mistress, the second definitely reinforces the core message of the first: carpe diem. Carpe diem is a Latin phrase that should have meaning for everyone. It basically means that one must live every day as if they were living their last day on earth. Mark Strand notes this in his approach to poetry, "[Words] importance, at least for me, their only reader, was exhausted by the time they were written." By the time the author was able to get his words onto the page, their meaning was fleeting and they now lacked significance. MacLeish's poem enlightened me that the meaning of carpe diem cannot solely be applied to one particular day, it must be applied over a lifetime, "But at my back I always hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near." However, despite the archaic language and traditional format of "To His Coy Mistress," I was still able to glean the importance of living life now instead of waiting for better things to come like the mistress hoped to maintain her "long-preserved virginity." Yet, this virginity is not solely sexual, it is a virginity from experiencing life. Likewise, I believe that the messages contained in the two poems may be lost in the flurry of everyday life but poetry, as discussed by Strand, must be written in the moment or the feeling may otherwise be lost. For myself, I hope to embrace this notion of life and during this brief period of my life, I am fairly certain that I am starting to ignore things that are unimportant and focusing my attention on things that make me happy instead of pleasing others. 

"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell

http://www.bonzasheila.com/poetrylyrics/tohiscoymistress.html